2025-09-21 00:21:17
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 110: The Obelisk Awakens
The Prophet's knife was not cold. It was a needle of burning fever, a hypodermic injecting a concentrated dose of the Crimson Agony directly into Amelia's veins. The pain was instant and total, a fire igniting in her blood. It was not the quick, clean agony of a wound; it was a vile, creeping filth, a billion microscopic slivers of glass cutting through her, each one carrying the scream of the plague's victims.She dropped to her knees, the stone floor of the Silent Cathedral cold against her skin, a futile counterpoint to the hellfire that seethed within. The cult's chant, a low, thrall-like hum, swelled to a victorious crescendo. Silas's face, over her, a rapturous victory mask. This was the fulfillment of his prophecy. The Curse-Bringer, dead at the hands of her own curse.Ethan, bound to the pillar now, screamed out her name, his shout blurred with a despair greater than any physical pain.Amelia's world closed to the field of her own body. She experienced the genetically crafted
Chapter 109. Trial by Infection
The test hung before them, a gauntlet thrown not just at the feet of the Prophet, but at the very pillars of his religion. For an eternity of a moment, the only sound in the underground temple was the wild thudding of Amelia's own heart and the slow, terrible drip of the blood of the children. And then the Prophet shocked her. He laughed.It was not a loud, triumphal cry, but a low, ominous laugh of true pleasure which sounded eerily behind the black mask. The cultists, who had braced themselves for violence, relaxed, their posture shifting to one of anticipation. They recognized that tone. This was not the introduction to death; it was the beginning of a lesson.A heretic doesn't die like a warrior," stated the Prophet, his tone smooth and patronizing. "A heretic's lies must be uncovered, so that everyone will know the truth. You claim your power is more than the holy purification. You claim you can repair that which we have in reverence. Let it be.".He motioned with a gloved hand.
Chapter 108. Into the Cult's Temple
The entrance was not a grand arch, but an open wound. The great cathedral, once the city's spiritual center, had been a skeletal hull, its spire a broken finger against the plague-green sky. The Cult hadn't rebuilt it; they'd incubated in its decay. Amelia didn't navigate by eyesight, but by intuition—a slight pull, a resonance of wrongness that guided her to a fissure in the foundation stones, hidden behind a drop of dead ivy.The breath that exhaled from it was warm and was perfumed with something that brought her gorge up: a sickly mix of consecrated incense and the subtle tang of rotting meat.This was it. The source. The diseased heart of the city.She stepped inside, the darkness swallowing her whole. Nothing except the sound of her own heartbeat and the rasp of her boots on stairs leading down that were worn smooth by centuries of pilgrims, now defiled by a different kind of devotion. Then, after a pause, an orange light below, and with it, the sound.It was the chant. The ide
Chapter 107. Sophia's Plea
The river mill was a grave waiting for its second victim. Ethan's breathing had fallen into a weak, shallow rhythm under Amelia's tireless ministrations. The elemental forces within her—the searing Purge and the calming Restore—flowed into him in a constant, draining cycle. She was a dam against a raging infection, and the effort was etching new lines of weariness around her eyes.The outside world, the agony of the city, had dwindled to these four walls of this damp, cold room. Sophia sat on a heap of sacking in the corner. The serum had saved her life but not her strength. She was gaunt, her skin holding the waxy pallor, and every cough from her own injured lungs a reminder of how close they all danced along the edge. She registered the tremble of Amelia's hands, the perspiration on her forehead despite the chill.She registered the complete concentration, the single-minded devotion to the man on the floor.She was quiet for a day and a night. She tended to their meager supplies, bo
Chapter 106. The Carving of Choice
The world contracted to the four damp walls of the river mill and the ragged rasp of Ethan's breathing. Amelia had dragged him here, half-drowned and bleeding, after she broke free of the catacombs. The gash in his head was deep, but it was the fever that frightened her. It had taken hold with a malignant swiftness, the Cult's refined plague toxin working with an effectiveness she had never seen. His skin was already warm to her touch, a macabre flush spreading from the wound.She had done what she could. She'd cleaned the wound with the last of their clean water, applied a poultice of yarrow to it, and succeeded in getting a few drops of the precious serum past his dry lips. But it was like trying to hold back a tidal wave with a broom. The Blight was in his blood, a fire that burned in his veins.Exhaustion finally made its claim. She rested her head against the chill stone wall, her head nodding forward, and fell into a sleep that was not repose, but a plunge into a lower ring of
Chapter 105: Ethan's Capture
The press, a rickety, hand-cranked relic that Ethan Ward had laboriously restored, creaked to a stop. The last page of his tale, still damp with ink, lay on top of its pile of siblings. No ordinary tale was this; it was a blockbuster. He had titled it simply: "The Architects of Agony: How a Shadow Cult Engineered Atheria's Plague."For months, he had worked on it. Grainy daguerreotypes of cult symbols carved into sewer walls. Shipping manifests for chemical precursors identical to the toxins in plague-bombs. The confession of a broken, dying man who'd served as a courier for the Septic Sage before his conscience—or his lungs—gave out. Ethan had made the connections the City Watch would not make, a line from the grisly sermons of the Prophet to the cold, calculating logistics of the Factotum, and onward to the bioweaponry of the Septic Sage. He named names. He pointed fingers. It was true, naked and undeniable.He did not feel a sense of triumph, but a cold, hard conviction. This would
You may also like
The Omnipotent God's Heir
WestReversed27.9K viewsThe Tycoon Game System
Dee Hwang 21.4K viewsRise Of The Powerful Husband
Dark Crafter24.0K viewsSkythunder System
Scoco20.5K viewsAlice's Adventures in ActivatedLand
Rebecca Rodriguez2.1K viewsDark knight: Game on
DkGoManga3.8K viewsBecome a Super Rich With Destiny Changer System
BOSSSESamaaaa30.7K viewsINFINITE LEVELING: GOD-KIND SYSTEM
Anakin Detour11.3K views