Toll.
A second bell.
Deeper this time like stone scraping bone.
Lilith flinched as it echoed through the alleys of Quorva. Two hours. Two souls.
Blood, again, for nothing but theater. Sacrament as spectacle.
She clutched the ragged bear tighter.
The stuffing leaked through its stitched eye. It didn't belong to her. She'd found it in the alley beside a knocked-over basin,And she couldn't let go of it.
You came to stop this. To stop what they did to you from ever happening again. But every step drags ghosts behind it.
This isn't just about the girl. Or the fruit. It's about all of them the ones taken, broken, harvested.You mourn them. Every bell is a wound. Every mother's cry is a memory.
You hate that you still feel it. Because if you didn't… maybe it wouldn't hurt so much to keep walking.
A scream tore through the silence.
Not fear. Grief.
Lilith turned the corner and nearly collided with a woman on her knees, clawing through mud and ash near the gutter. Her eyes locked on the bear.
"You—!" the woman rasped, jumped to her feet. "Where did you get that?!" Her hands seized Lilith's cloak. "Where's my daughter?!"
Lilith didn't pull away. Her fingers loosened from the bear.
"I found it… in the alley. I didn't know it was hers."
The woman snatched it like it was the last thread left of her child's soul. She wept into its fur. Lilith lingered longer than she meant to. Long enough to hear the woman whisper, again and again:
"This is my fault. Yours. The cities. The heretics. The priests we weren't faithful enough. They tainted the offering Quorix was supposed to bless her she was supposed to be chosen!"
Her voice cracked on the last word. But there was no blame for the god. Only reverence. Desperate, blind reverence.
Lilith stepped back.
Not even anger at Him…
They'll blame the world before they ever blame a god.
I was like that once, too. When my hands were still clean. When I still believed blood was sanctified so long as it wasn't mine.
The woman sank to her knees again, clutching the bear, rocking back and forth, whispering prayer.
Lilith turned away as her vision blurred.
She didn't need more weight. She had enough.
But the tears still threatened to come.
The trail wasn't subtle. It wasn't meant to be.
She found the first X scratched behind an abandoned vendor stall barely hidden, low to the ground.
The second marked a crooked wall beneath an old mural, once beautiful, now smeared with red. Each X saying this way. Follow. Deeper.
Whether it was truly the shadow walker leaving them or not didn't matter anymore. Something wanted her to keep going and every clue felt like a dare.
Toll.
The third bell.
Quorva's tempo was slowing. Smoke thickened. People moved faster now, not because they were busy but because they were afraid. Afraid they might be next.
The church rose before her like a carcass of something once holy. Scaffolding now surrounded it. Priests and guards worked in silence, scrubbing stone, burying evidence. A few peasants had been dragged in to help, eyes sunken and blank.
She watched from the alley, cloaked in shadow. Waited.
and
Waited longer.
A faint mark the third X had been etched on the side entrance, nearly faded from the elements.
She slipped inside when no one was looking.
The air was wrong.
Not just heavy charged. Like ritual residue still clung to the corners. The pews were overturned, symbols re-carved, and incense relit to mask blood. But she knew what soaked into holy places like this didn't wash out.
She moved along the aisle slowly. A few villagers whispered prayers near the front, eyes shut tight.
Then she saw it.
Beneath a splintered pew, barely visible in the fractured candlelight, was the fourth X.
Drawn in dried blood. A single drop trailed downward, stopping on the edge of a wooden groove.
She knelt. Ran her fingers along the floor.
There a seam.
A hidden hatch, with a tiny inscription etched near the edge.
Not in Virelian. Not even in the gods' tongue. It was old. Cult script.
Her breath caught.
She knew this code.
They only teach this to those trusted with passage below. The loyal. The cruel. The high priests…
And me.
She traced the symbol carefully. Whispered the right command.
The latch clicked.
Stone scraped against stone as the trapdoor opened.
Lilith stared into it.
You don't know what's waiting.
It could be him. It could be worse.
But the girl might be down there. And that's enough.
The trapdoor gave with a creak, cold air spilling out like a breath held too long. Lilith lowered herself down, boots thudding against stone steps slick with moss and time.
Immediately, the world changed.
It reeked of mold and wet iron. A silence too thick to be natural hummed against her ears. No wind. No echo. Only the drip of slow water from somewhere unseen. Her torch caught the walls in flickering orange smooth, ancient, veined with cracks and crawling roots.
But it was the size that struck her.
This wasn't a passage.
It was a city beneath the corpse of another.
Arched tunnels branched out in every direction. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. All carved with chilling precision. Pillars marked with old Virelian glyphs dead laws no longer upheld. A library. A prison. A labyrinth.
The gods didn't bury their sins. They built shrines over them.
She walked slowly, hand brushing against the cold stone as she moved.
Etchings lined the walls. Thousands. Some in elegant script. Others clawed in with jagged desperation.
"To know the gods is to invite judgment. Their power is not divine it is law."
"I was chosen. I obeyed. They took my name."
"Ten became seven. Seven became five. One will remain."
Her fingertips paused on the last one. The words looked newer. Maybe even from this decade.
Rooms opened to her sides holding cells filled with chains, rusted tools, and shredded robes that might've once belonged to priests. The scent of dried blood still lingered, soaked deep into stone and wood. In one chamber, the bars had been melted from the inside.
Further down, the corridor shifted widening into an archive long forgotten. Collapsed shelves leaned at odd angles. Scrolls half-burned. Tomes blackened by fire, yet still clinging to their truths. She bent and picked one up the cover flaked in her hands, but a few words inside were legible:
"Law is not morality. Law is will made rule."
She let it fall.
Above one shattered archway, a message had been carved with agonizing care:
"Laws only bind those who believe in them."
The letters trembled. As if the writer's hands were shaking or breaking as they carved it.
Lilith stared at it for a long time.
And then came the sound.
Footsteps.
Not from behind.
Ahead.
Slow. Unhurried. Deliberate.
She extinguished her light.
Her eyes adjusted quickly. Years in the cult taught her how to see in dark places.
The figure emerged from the far corridor, framed in the dim glow of a dying glyph. Cloaked. Masked. No emblem. No color. No voice.
Only purpose.
Lilith said nothing. She backed a step, finding her stance.
The figure matched her, lowering into a ready position.
They both knew what this place was and what it could become if either of them used Soel.
Not a chamber.
A coffin.
So they fought as mortals.
And it was brutal.
The masked figure struck first.
No warning just motion. A clean, slicing arc aimed for Lilith's ribs. Swift. Surgical.
She twisted sideways, absorbed the blow on her forearm, and pivoted low. Her leg snapped out for a sweeping hook meant to take their footing clean out from under them.
Blocked. Countered. Reversed.
In one seamless motion, the masked figure dipped beneath her follow-up and spun, a sharp palm strike landing hard against her ribs. The force sent her stumbling into a cracked stone pillar. She grunted but didn't pause.
She pushed off the wall, feet launching upward in a spiraling kick toward their head.
Missed by inches.
Midair, she twisted caught their wrist. They crashed together.
Grappled.
Elbow met jaw. Knee hammered thigh. Their movements tangled like dancers only every step meant injury. The floor beneath them fractured with each shift in weight. Stone screamed beneath bare heels.
Lilith snarled, shifted her hips, and slammed them into a broken column.
A shockwave of dust exploded upward then swallowed them both.
From within the haze came fists.
Blurs of motion. Grunts. Gasps.
Instinct sharpened to blades.
A jab to Lilith's face ducked. She trapped the arm, twisted it hard going for the dislocation. The masked figure flipped through the hold, landed weightlessly, and spun. A heel sliced for her temple.
Blocked. Barely.
Lilith's hands flowed like water but hit like iron.
A spearhand to the throat. A jab to the solar plexus. A brutal palm to the chin.
The figure stumbled but did not fall.
Then a glint of steel.
A hidden blade flashed from their sleeve.
Lilith pivoted too late. The edge skimmed her side, hot with blood. She gritted her teeth, drove her elbow into their ribs—felt something crack.
They split apart. Breathing hard.
Both wounded. Both ready.
Eyes locked..
Only silence,
Still equal.
Still ready.
And then crack.
A thunderous rumble rolled through the ground. A few stones tumbled from the ceiling. The old supports above them groaned.
They both looked up.
Crack.
Crack.
The ceiling split.
Lilith and the figure broke off at the same time, darting into opposite tunnels as the ceiling collapsed behind them. Stone and roots poured down in a deafening roar. Dust filled the space. A massive slab missed her leg by a breath as she dove forward, scraping elbows and palms on jagged ground.
She didn't stop running.
Not until the sounds faded. Not until she could breathe again.
But just as silence returned
Footsteps.
Not hurried.
Just walking.
From somewhere deeper in the tunnel.
A low laugh followed by humming not loud.
Soft. Warm.
Like whoever it was had been waiting for this moment all along
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and be very attentive you don't want to miss any clues that might be inportant later. thank you.