Chapter 197: Unknown Chamber

’Ugh… it hurts! ’

Ishiki slowly opened his eyes slowly, embracing the throbbing agony all over his body.

He had used [Sorrow’s Edge] at the last moment. The purple flames that could make anything disappear did their work and ate one of the standing pillars just before the blood circle could complete.

He didn’t remember anything that happened after that.

He tried to move and immediately regretted it. Fresh agony exploded through his ribs that were definitely broken. His left shoulder felt wrong, dislocated or fractured, he couldn’t tell.

His face was a mass of swelling and split skin where Filch’s marble-enhanced fists had connected.

Images flashed through his mind… and they did nothing to ease his pain.

Nina’s face as she looked at him with wide eyes, that were filled with terror and betrayal.

Sorrow’s Edge piercing through her chest and her body going limp.

It made his stomach act weirdly. He bent to his side and threw up a mouthful of blood.

“Why,” Ishiki whispered, and his voice came out as a croak. As if he’d been screaming for hours without water. “Why did it had to be like this?”

He saw around and found out that he was surrounded by nothing but darkness. For several long seconds, he simply existed in that darkness, unable think of where he was or how he had gotten there.

Ishiki forced himself to focus past everything for now. To assess his situation… he didn’t mind if he was dead and this was the afterlife. But he was sure that he was alive.

He was too stubborn to just die like that after all.

The first thing he tried to do was activate Ghost blade… but he couldn’t because his mental state was not stable. It made him feel vulnerable.

Suddenly he heard a sound of stone scrapping on stone near him. His eyes went wide and the hair his entire body stood to their ends.

He felt a shiver run from his feet to his head.

Ishiki instinctively summoned [Sorrow’s Edge]. The Jian manifested itself into his grip, and the purple flames of the blade lit up the entire space.

It wasn’t a big place and was entirely dark with not even a single ray of light. It was like a secret and closed chamber.

Thankfully he was not crushed under the rubble, which was the most probable outcome.

It was a circular chamber, perhaps fifteen meters in diameter, with walls that curved up to meet a ceiling somewhere above him.

Ishiki turned around and saw a tunnel like opening that went upwards, which was completely sealed. Filled from floor to ceiling with the Cathedral’s broken remains.

The rubble was packed so tightly that not even a streak of light could penetrate through. Only a few scarce streams of water flowed from between the debris.

Ishiki’s hands pressed against the cold stone floor as he forced himself to stand up. Every movement sent fresh streaks of agony through his damaged body, but he gritted his teeth and pushed through it.

He needed to see and understand where the collapse had deposited him.

The chamber resolved in clearer detail as the purple flames rose.

The chamber was made up of stone walls, ancient beyond measure. They were not the same golden marble of the Cathedral proper. But instead they were made up of the obsidian material that Ishiki had seen so many times.

The floor was covered in symbols. Hundreds of them, carved directly into the stone with meticulous precision.

There were circles within circles, weird patterns that sent numbing pain through his head. There were script in languages that were not seen before. They covered every square centimeter of available space.

And all of them were stained.

Not with dust or age, though both were present. But with golden blood. Golden streaks and splatters that had long since dried into permanent discoloration.

The symbols had been drawn first, then… baptized. That was the only word that fit. Someone had poured blood across these carvings… coating them until the liquid pooled in the carved grooves and ran in thin rivers across the floor.

How much blood would that take?

Ishiki’s stomach turned at the implication.

But the floor, horrifying as it was, paled in comparison to what waited at the chamber’s center.

The first thing that Ishiki saw were massive chains. Each link was as thick as his torso. They extended from the walls at regular intervals. Five attachment points forming a perfect pentagon around the chamber’s middle, where another chain came down from the top.

The metal was black with age and corrosion, but it still stood strong. And they led to…

A figure.

Ishiki’s eyes had identified it immediately, but his mind had refused to process what his eyes were telling him. Now, forcing himself to look properly, to truly see what shared this tomb with him, he felt bile rise in his throat.

It had been human once.

That much was evident from the basic shape. It had two arms, two legs, a torso and a head. But whatever humanity had once inhabited this form had long since fled, leaving behind something that looked like a parody of life drawn by someone who only understood flesh and bone in the abstract.

The figure was, held by the chains that pierced through its body at five points. Two of them impaled his wrists, other two held his ankles.

Then one of them had impaled his chest… and the one that came from the top bound his neck with a collar.

And it was… broken.

That was the only word that fit. The figure looked as if it had been shattered like porcelain, then poorly glued back together by someone with no understanding of anatomy.

Cracks spider-webbed across every visible surface, deep fissures had split his skin, muscle and bone into countless fragments that somehow still held together.

The flesh had turned a mottled gray-gold color, as if the being had been beautiful once but had spent centuries decomposing without ever dying.

In places, the skin had split entirely, revealing muscle tissue beneath that had almost turned to stone like texture. In other places, bone showed through completely revealing his internal organs… there was yellow pus flowing out and there were something squirming inside.

Then suddenly the figure turned its head towards Ishiki and his ominous red eyes locked onto the newcomer with murderous intent.

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