Chapter 58: His Desperate Gamble

¡CRACK!

The sound of Father Marius’s wrist breaking echoed in the secret chamber much louder than his pleas.

“AAAAHHH!” The priest’s scream was choked by a silver mana thread that coiled around his mouth.

Arawn Rivers wasn’t there to hear explanations.

The Exorcist looked at the priest writhing on the floor with boredom and clinical disgust.

“You are mistaken about something fundamental, Marius,” Arawn said, wiping an invisible speck of dust from his robe. “I don’t need to ’understand’, my job isn’t to comprehend heresy but to excise it.”

With a lazy movement of his fingers, the silver threads coming from his hands tightened, tying Marius hand and foot like a pig ready for slaughter.

“Mmmmph! Mmmph!” Marius rolled his eyes, trying to look toward a dark corner of the room.

Arawn followed his gaze. There was nothing there. Only shadows.

“Your ’sponsor’ isn’t here, right?” Arawn’s smile vanished instantly. “Jumped ship.”

He turned to Lucian.

The noble was glued to the wall, pale as wax, watching Arawn’s brutality with bulging eyes.

“Where is Raziel?” Arawn asked, his voice losing all theatrics. Now it was pure ice.

Lucian blinked, coming out of shock.

“In… in the Chapel, he said he was going to make noise to distract the guards while we…”

“Idiot,” Arawn cut in.

“What?”

“It wasn’t a distraction, it was a trade.” Arawn kicked the door open, splintering the wood. “He knew the entity wasn’t with you and knew it would go for him.”

Realization hit Lucian like a punch to the stomach.

“Damn liar!” Lucian shouted, taking off running toward the hallway. “RAZIEL!”

Arawn clicked his tongue, annoyed by the mess, and ran after him.

“Stay close if you don’t want to die, noble. The thing we are hunting just leveled up.”

Approaching the Chapel, the torches on the walls flickered with a sickly violet light.

“It’s here,” Arawn muttered. Ten silver threads sprouted from his fingers, vibrating with a lethal hum. “And it’s feeding.”

They reached the massive oak double doors.

They were bowed outward, as if something had exploded inside.

BOOM!

Arawn didn’t bother opening. He launched a shockwave with his open palm that burst the doors, sending splinters flying like shrapnel.

The pews were pulverized. The stained glass, blown outwards.

And above the profaned altar, Raziel floated six feet off the ground.

No… he wasn’t floating. He was hanging.

A claw made of black, viscous smoke squeezed his neck, keeping him suspended like a ragdoll.

In front of him, the Shadow was no longer a vague silhouette.

It had taken form.

A robe made of liquid darkness, and under the hood, two red orbs that glowed with ancient malice.

“RAZIEL!” Lucian’s scream tore at his throat.

He tried to run forward, driven by pure desperation, but an invisible force stopped him dead.

Arawn had grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and threw him back without looking at him.

“Don’t get in the way!” the Exorcist bellowed.

The Shadow turned its “head” slowly toward them.

“Ah… the Church dog,” the entity’s voice sounded like bones crushing. “You’re late, the boy is already broken.”

Arawn didn’t answer with words. He answered with violence.

“[Exorcism Art: Threads of Judgment – Septuple Cut].”

SHIING! SHIING! SHIING!

Seven lines of silver light crossed the chapel in an instant, straight to decapitate the Shadow.

The entity didn’t even flinch.

It simply raised a free hand. The darkness solidified into a physical barrier.

CLANG!

Arawn’s threads clashed against the black barrier, releasing sparks that burned the floor.

“Thread magic…” the Shadow mocked. “Cheap tricks to bind lesser demons, I am older than your order, boy.”

But Arawn smiled. A shark smile.

“I wasn’t trying to cut you.”

The Shadow looked up.

One of the threads hadn’t gone for the attack. It had gone for the rescue.

The silver thread had cut the smoke claw holding Raziel.

The novice fell to the stone floor with a dry, brutal thud.

THUD!

Raziel didn’t move.

He didn’t even try to cushion the fall.

“Now!” shouted Arawn. “Get him out of there!”

Lucian ran on all fours, crawling under the crossfire of magic and darkness until he reached the altar.

He grabbed Raziel by the tunic and pulled him.

His friend’s body was limp. His skin was gray, cold to the touch.

“Raz… Raz, please,” Lucian gasped, dragging him behind a stone pillar that was still standing.

Raziel opened his eyes. Or he tried to.

His vision was a blinking red tunnel.

[SYSTEM ALERT: CRITICAL]

[Health: 4%]

[Status: Soul Drain (Active)]

[Mana Corruption: 35%… 38%… rising.]

“Lu… cian,” his voice was a wet gurgle. Black blood stained his lips.

“Shut up, shut up, I got you,” Lucian sobbed, pressing his hands on Raziel’s chest, trying uselessly to stop a hemorrhage that wasn’t physical.

In the center of the chapel, the battle intensified.

Arawn moved like a dancer, dodging tendrils of darkness that shattered the stone where he had been a second before.

His threads cut, bound, and tore the Shadow’s form, but the entity regenerated instantly.

“Your soul reeks of fear, Exorcist!” roared the Shadow, expanding to fill the vault. “Just like the boy’s!”

The Shadow launched a shockwave of pure malice.

Arawn crossed his arms, creating a shield of threads, but was pushed back, his boots leaving furrows in the stone floor.

“Shit…” Arawn grunted, spitting blood. “It’s an A-Rank. Minimum.”

He glanced sideways at the pillar.

“Lucian! If you have any noble trick up your sleeve, use it! I can’t hold it much longer!”

Lucian looked at Raziel.

His friend was dying.

The light in his eyes was fading.

“I don’t have tricks…” Lucian whispered, trembling.

Then, Raziel’s hand, cold and stained with that black blood, grabbed Lucian’s wrist.

His blue eyes, now opaque, locked onto him with terrifying intensity.

“The… diary,” Raziel whispered with his last breath. “Use it…”

Raziel’s head fell back.

[SYSTEM: CONSCIOUSNESS LOST. INITIATING EMERGENCY HIBERNATION PROTOCOL.]

“Raziel? RAZIEL!”

Lucian shook the limp body.

The Shadow laughed, a sound that made the church foundations vibrate.

“It’s over.”

Arawn was thrown against the wall, stunned.

The Shadow advanced toward the pillar, toward Lucian and Raziel’s body.

Lucian looked up. The terror disappeared, replaced by something cold and hard.

He reached into his robe and took out Elena’s diary.

“Hey!” Lucian shouted, standing up and leaving Raziel’s body protected behind him. “Ugly thing!”

The Shadow stopped, curious.

“You think a book will stop me?”

“No,” said Lucian, and his hands shone.

Not with magic, but with a flint lighter he had taken from his pocket. “But I know you need this for your ritual. I know that without the astral coordinates in here your plan goes to shit.”

He brought the flame close to the old, dry paper.

“One more step and I burn it.”

The Shadow froze.

Silence returned to the chapel, broken only by Lucian’s ragged breathing and the dripping of Arawn’s blood.

“Interesting,” hissed the entity. “You have guts, rich kid.”

The Shadow began to fade, turning into smoke.

“Keep the book and the corpse. Anyway… the seed is already planted in him.”

With a last swirl of darkness, the entity disappeared.

Lucian fell to his knees, extinguishing the flame with trembling fingers.

Arawn limped closer, looking at him with a new and reluctant respect.

“You are crazy,” said the Exorcist.

“He is dying,” Lucian replied, ignoring him and returning to Raziel’s side. “Help me. Now.”

Arawn looked at Raziel’s body. Black veins climbed up his neck like rotten roots.

“I can’t cure that, Lucian. That is spiritual corruption, he needs a high-level Healer. Or a miracle.”

Lucian carried Raziel in his arms.

He weighed less than he should.

“Then we will look for that miracle,” Lucian growled, walking toward the exit. “And woe to anyone who stands in my way.”

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