Chapter 137: The Fifth room

Ishiki stood in front of the fifth room and gulped dryly. He was feeling a faint weight… and a feeling that he will find something here.

He moved closer to the gate and looked that it had an actual handle rather than iron rings like the other gates.

Ishiki grasped the handle and then pulled.

Nothing happened.

’Huh? What?’

With another breath he pushed the door inwards, but still it didn’t move. It was as if the door was struck or locked from inside.

’Damn it… how do i open it.’

He tried again, putting more force into it, feeling the wound in his side protest with sharp pain.

He tried a lot of things but the door didn’t even bulge. As if the two doors were sealed shut with some weird trick or something.

Maybe even a skill, that was not out of the question.

At the end, he was left with no choice but to use other ways to open the door. He took a few steps back and summoned [Aether Blade] into his hands.

’Sorry for barging in, but there is no choice.’ he casually thought before activating [Ghost Blade] and then adjusted his stance to minimize the strain on his healing ribs and made an accurate diagonal slash.

The invisible blade wielded by the ghost cut through space itself and passed through the door in a precise cut.

Ishiki coughed and winced as he straightened himself and dismissed the bladeless tachi. The vestige dissolved into motes of light within seconds.

He stepped forward and pushed half of the door forward… the diagonal piece of the door frame fell inside the room making thick clouds of dust rise in air.

The crash echoed through the entire cathedral multiple times like ripples in still water.

The dust particles moved in the crimson streaks of light making the scene very ominous and ancient.

Ishiki looked at the door fell and an amused thought formed inside his head. ’I feel like a historian. Haha, I got an extinct job.’

The darkness beyond the gates was absolute and very strange… even the few crimson streaks of moonlight were not able to pass through. With caution, Ishiki stepped over the fallen door and into the darkness beyond.

He reached for the lighter in his pocket and flicked it on. The small flame cast dancing shadows that made the darkness beyond the doorway seem even deeper by comparison.

There had been lamps in the other rooms, that were mounted on walls just besides the gates or sitting on desks. But as Ishiki stepped into the fifth room, holding the lighter up to illuminate his surroundings, he couldn’t find one in the usual places.

The room was vast—easily three times the size of any of the others. The ceiling soared overhead, lost in shadows the small flame couldn’t penetrate. Furniture loomed out of the darkness as he moved deeper: a massive desk, chairs that looked more like thrones.

The area were he was standing was just the foyer… there was a shelf with 100’s of books on one side of the wall and it covered the whole wall.

’Damn… this place is so luxurious.’

There was an adjacent room on the other side, but Ishiki was first interested in finding a goddamned lamp in this big palace like room.

He moved towards the chairs and upon getting closer he realized that they were couch with a glass table at the center. And on the glass table was situated a very similar pot.

It was the obsidian pot that Filch had brought yesterday. Ishiki examined the pot and found it had the identical crimson petaled flower.

Leaving the ceremonies, Ishiki quickly reached the bedroom door and pushed it open in hopes of finding a lamp.

And fortunately he did… there were two lamps on both sides of the door. Heaving a sigh, Ishiki lit both of them and let the golden glow fill the dark room.

As the shadows retreated and the room came into view… Ishiki saw a bed, a very large bed.

It was a massive four-poster affair with posts carved into shapes that might have been angels or something similar. White silk curtains hung around it, creating a serene space inside.

’Ok… this place seems to belong to the pope or someone of that status.’ Ishiki concluded and then his eyes caught something that he has been looking for.

Besides the bed… there was a table adorned with various things and among them there was a candelabra that could provide better illumination than—

Suddenly, Ishiki felt as if the cloth of the table moved.

He froze for a second… ’Must have been the wind.’

Letting out a foul breath he slowly moved towards the table to pick up the candelabra and suddenly he remembered something.

’Wind? This place is closed from all sides… where would wind come from.’ As he realized that Ishiki felt a shudder run down his spine as he gritted his teeth and jumped back instinctively.

Just the next moment… a skeletal hand shot from the bed, tearing apart the white cloth.

As the white curtain fell, it revealed a skeleton laying on the bed positioned in a way as if sleeping peacefully. It even wore a purple robe with golden embroideries that reflected the orange light.

And as Ishiki watched, paralyzed by equal parts fear and fascination, the skeleton raised its hand.

Slowly.

’Holy shit!’

The skeleton first sat down on the bed and then sat up, looking at Ishiki with its hollow sockets.

Naturally, Ishiki was not there anymore… he was already running out the room…

Never in his dreams did he thought that he would something like this here, it was beyond creepy.

But as soon as Ishiki set foot outside the bedroom… he felt his heart do a back flip.

The gate… the gate that he had cut was repaired and the whole place was once again plunged into unfathomable darkness broken only by the glow that came out from the open door of the bed room.

Gasping Ishiki maintained distance and turned around to see the skeleton step out of the bed room as well.

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