Chapter 390: Blood.

Bodies moved together in close formation but Nero managed to skip into the flow. As he had thought, the presence of the Templars was suffocating. Each and every one of them was a paragon of strength, faith and hope. Hope to all of mankind.

Hundreds of them were within the Red House, all moving in the same direction, drawn toward the same destination.

The descent toward the cathedral was gradual, the corridors widening as they approached. The sound of the bells grew clearer and louder, more defined with each thunderous toll settling deeper into the bones.

By the time the entrance came into view, the flow had slowed.

The doors were open. Massive doors of Darksteel crafted by the Great Artisans of the Ironherd thousands upon thousands of years ago.

They were ancient and mighty, and beyond them was the even more grand interior of the cathedral.

Nero followed the flow of Templars into the Cathedral. Besides the steam of Templars, there was also another larger, much more disorganized stream of bodies.

He could practically smell the unease and inexperience wafting off of them.

Those were the Templar Candidates. That was where he belonged.

With the nimbleness of a worm, he managed to transition between the two streams without mess, integrating himself seamlessly.

Syncing his pace, Nero let out a deep sigh of relief. after some time, he stopped, same with the stream of bodies around him.

The cathedral had been emptied out. Every pew and obstruction was gone.

What remained was a vast, hollow chamber filled entirely with bodies.

The space was incredibly large. Almost impossibly so. And yet, the Candidates were packed shoulder to shoulder, stretching from one end to the other, a shifting mass of bodies draped in armor. The scale of the tension in the air pressed in, suffocating every soul in its sheer density.

Above, the ceiling vanished into darkness.

And around them were the Templars that had gone from a flowing stream into enormous walls that surrounded the Candidates to form walls.

Perfect lines of red steel encircling the entire chamber, enclosing it completely. Their presence turned the cathedral into something else entirely.

Nero happened to glance back just as the enormous doors shut with a deep rumble.

The inside of the Cathedral, despite the amount of people within, was chilly.

It was so cold, his breath frosted before him. There was no doubt in his mind that there was sorcery at work here.

Nero huffed heavily. The crowd around him shifted and turned. Every single one of them was just like him.

They were all the same age too, so that made it much easier to relate. He could quite literally tell what was in their minds just by glancing at the faces and seeing those contorted frightful expressions filled with the dark light of hope.

A truly nauseating sight.

Now, whatever lay behind them no longer mattered.

He moved deeper into the crowd, finding space where he could, enough to stand without being pressed on all sides.

The bells had stopped.

Then there was a heavy silence that followed immediately.

Total silence.

It spread through the cathedral in an instant, cutting through everything and leaving nothing behind.

Every head turned forward.

Nero’s gaze followed.

At the far end of the cathedral, elevated slightly above the rest, stood a single figure.

A still figure wrapped entirely in crimson.

The Red Mother.

Behind her, lurking in the shadows were the grand figures of Commander Strut and the ten captains. But despite the darkness, Nero could see their forms very clearly.

He could see that armor, that form he loathed even in the depths of his nightmares.

“Orpheus…” Nero’s hatred manifested as a stifled whisper.

All the other captains were there as well. Slinking off to both sides of the altar at the front of the hall we’re all the Sergeants and Brothers…

Then came the regular members of the Templars order that surrounded the rest of the hall.

The Red Mother seemed smaller and frailer than he had expected.

The robes hung from her frame rather than resting on it, layers of deep red fabric that swallowed her form completely. A veil covered her face, thick enough to hide any feature beneath it.

And yet, despite that, he could sense a formless presence that seized his breath every time his gave fell onto her. It was terrifying.

Like staring into the eyes of a powerful eldritch abomination. It was like staring at an archaic piece of something frozen still in time. There was a bit of reverence, but also fear.

How had something, or in this case, someone, managed to exist for so long? He had no idea.

Nero felt the presence settle against the world around without understanding why.

Regardless, he didn’t look away.

No one did.

The silence held.

And then…

The bells began to ring again before anyone was ready for them.

They rolled through the cathedral in slow, measured tolls, deep enough to settle into bone rather than echo through air. Each strike lingered longer than it should have, as though the sound refused to fade, layering over itself until it felt like swimming through mud.

By the time the final note faded, no one in the cathedral remained untouched by it.

Two hundred thousand candidates stood within the hollowed interior, packed tightly across the vast expanse where the wooden pews once stood. The space had been stripped bare for this purpose.

No one spoke.

Even the nobles held their tongues.

When the Red Mother raised her hand, the shift was immediate. It was not a visible, neither was it dramatic. But every candidate, every soul in the grand hall felt it. Their attention narrowed and their breaths steadied. The air itself seemed to still.

Then she spoke.

“A prayer to the grey clouds that the grey crows do not consume us even in our rot…”

Her voice was quiet. Thin, even. Carried not by volume, but by certainty, reaching every ear without strain.

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