Chapter 324: Cleric [2]
Evelyn stood frozen, her breath caught in her throat as she stared at the statue standing before her. Its lifeless eyes seemed to bore into her soul, their blurred gaze filled with emptiness.
As she stepped closer, the faint cracks along its nose became more pronounced, and the black streaks that lined its cheeks seeped into the statue's face, highlighting its sorrow.
The air around her grew colder and the silence felt deafening.
Despite the situation she was in, Evelyn was able to remain calm.
As the darkness embraced the two of them, Evelyn extended her hand, a purple magic circle floating on top of it as it started to rotate.
"I've once met with a Cleric."
In the silence, she started to speak while the statue stood still, silently staring at her without moving at all.
Could it even move?
"There was this 'person' that I knew that started to become different. His entire personality just did a one-eighty all of a sudden. At first, I had been told that this was something that young males go through. Puberty as they said. But..."
The circle spun with increasing speed, the runes atop it blurring as the color deepened into a darker shade.
"....Could a young man in puberty really change so much? Almost as if he was an entirely different person. Not only that... but so many times as that?"
Evelyn scoffed.
"I may have been young, but I wasn't stupid. There was something fundamentally wrong with 'him'. I thought he was sick, but he wasn't."
The magic circle whirled at an even more frantic pace, lightning crackling around it, with bolts of electricity orbiting the circle in erratic bursts.
Such action caused the surrounding darkness to shake, the area surrounding the magic circle fluctuating slightly.
In spite of all of what was happening around her, Evelyn's expression remained even, tightening as her jaw clenched.
"...He was possessed."
She spat through her clenched teeth.
"At least, that was what I thought. He'd change back each time, return back to his usual self. That's what made it hard to tell, and what made others dismiss this possibility. But I still believed it. And for that reason, I asked the Cleric to teach me something."
Evelyn could still recall that day.
She had only been about fifteen years old. It was about the time when she was first allowed to start practicing her mana.
Seeing the Cleric-a tall man in dark robes marked with a red cross in the center-leaving the Evenus residence while shaking his head and insisting he wasn't possessed, Evelyn desperately begged him to teach her something.
To teach her in the off-change he turned again.
At first, the Cleric was hesitant, saying things like, 'You're too young', 'He's not possessed,' There's no point,' 'You're wasting your time,' and so on. But she persisted, and in the end, in the name of the Verlice household, he taught her something.
It was a single spell meant for self-defense, but it was enough.
Sparks erupted from the magic circle floating in Evelyn's hand, crackling with unstable energy. As she felt the power draining from her body, she directed her trembling hand toward the statue.
But as she did, the statue finally showed signs of moving.
Cr Crack!
A sharp crack echoed through the air as a fine line formed around its neck.
Evelyn froze, her breath hitching as the statue began to rumble. Instinctively, she reached out to press her hand against it, but before she could make contact, the statue's head jerked, snapping around 180 degrees with a sickening crunch.
Crack!
Where the old face had been, a new one now stared back at her-a face she recognized all too well.
Evelyn's hand hovered in midair, her heart pounding as a cold dread seized her.
"...!"
Before Evelyn could react, another sharp crack split the air. The statue's head jerked ninety degrees, revealing yet another face beneath the fractured surface.
Sealed into the stone, staring blankly back at her, was Aoife's face. The lifeless eyes and the cold, rigid expression sent a wave of horror crashing over Evelyn, her breath pausing.
Flick!
The statue's head flicked again.
A new face appeared.
Josephine.
Flick!
It flicked once more.
Each time, a new face appeared.
Flick! Flick!
In rapid succession, the statue's head jerked and twisted, its neck contorting with horrifying
speed.
Each flick revealed a new face, more and more familiar to Evelyn.
Evelyn stood rooted to the spot, her mind racing and her body tense as the nightmarish display unfolded before her.
The more she looked, the more she realized something.
'... They all belong to people from the our Empire and Aurora Empire.'
She could hardly see a figure from the other two Empires. Was this a coincidence? A scheme
orchestrated by the other Empires...?
'No, that might not be it.'
Evelyn's thoughts ran wild. It then soon hit her.
'Right, it's that...'
There was only one possible explanation for all of this, and it dawned on her rather quickly.
The Angel...
It targeted those who had the weakest minds.
And in this case, the ones who had the weakest mind were obvious. It was those who came back from the strange cult incident a while back. Their Empire, and the Aurora Empire. While many did not show it, and the Empires tried to help everyone who was involved, the lasting damages from the incident were still lingering fresh in the minds of many. Dying multiple times wasn't something that just anyone could take.
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.... It haunted them in secret, and through that, the Angel was able to exploit their weakness
and enter their minds.
The realization hit Evelyn quickly.
A lot of things started to make sense to her at that moment as her shoulder jerked and she
thrust her hand forward.
But as she did, the Angel came to life.
The statue's neck stopped on a specific face, its features now locked in a small grin. The darkness around it seemed to pulse and writhe, swallowing the statue whole.
Crack!
With a sudden, piercing crack, the statue vanished, dissolving into the shadows as if countless
dark hands had emerged to drag it back into the darkness.
That was when Evelyn's hand came forward.
Cracka!
In the exact spot, chains made out of lighting bore down, chaining down the empty space
before her.
"....!"
Feeling her attack miss, Evelyn turned around to see the Angel appear, its arms no longer cupped together in a begging motion, but outstretched to grasp her neck.
It only came to a stop the moment that Evelyn's eyes fell on it.
She felt her entire body grow tense as she noticed the Angel's figure starting to fade once
more, the hands reaching out for it and pulling it back into the darkness.
By the time it disappeared, Evelyn felt her heart beating at her throat as the back of her neck
tingled.
"........!"
Her head turned and a hand clasped her throat.
"Uekh!"
Evelyn's pupils constricted.
In a moment of crisis, she propped her hand up and clenched her fist. The lighting chains that
coiled behind her shot in the Angel's direction.
The chains moved quickly.
Before the Angel could even disappear like before, the chains grasped it, coiling around its
arms and body, and sealing its movements.
The darkness that embraced its body started to fade, revealing the entire frame of the statue
as it stared back at her, its tears following down its cheeks.
"Cough!"
Evelyn's lungs were on fire as she coughed once and light returned to her eyes.
When she came to, she realized that she was lying on top of an unfamiliar bed. She looked
around to see that it was the nursery.
'...I'm free.'
Despite being free, she was still tense.
Looking around, she took out her communication device and prepared to message Leon about
the situation when she stopped.
'No, this isn't the right decision.'
Though the Angel was currently sealed within her body, there was no guarantee that it
couldn't see her actions. The Angel had eyes and ears everywhere.
...Not only that, but it was probably going to target her.
"Uekh."
Holding onto her chest, she moved out of the bed and put her clothes on.
At the same time, she put the communication device away.
As things stood, she needed to find a different way to relay the information she found. A way
that wouldn't let the Angel be aware of who was involved.
Only that way would they be able to solve the situation.
***
Following Evelyn's defeat, Aoife came back down to the Plaza, acting like she normally did. At
first glance, she didn't seem to be off, but the more Leon looked at her the more he felt that
something was off.
Aoife... She was abnormally calm.
Too calm.
In a situation such as this, she would've normally shown a little bit of regret.
"Congratulations on your win."
As if noticing his stare, Aoife went to greet him. Leon quickly snapped out of it and answered
her back with a smile.
"Thank you. You were great as well."
"....Thank you."
He couldn't show her that he felt that something was off about her.
For that reason, after a few seconds, he bitterly smiled while scratching the back of his head.
"... Although, I do feel a little bad for Evelyn."
"Ah."
Aoife showed a look of realization before lowering her head.
"I'm sorry, but you know I had to."
"Yeah, you two had a great fight. You've gotten a lot stronger than before."
"I've trained a lot."
"....I can tell."
Leon's nose twitched as he spoke to her. The more he interacted with her, the more he felt his
chest grow heavy. Warning signs continued to ring inside of his mind, telling him that
something was off, and he could only press down on his impulses by showing a fake and restrained expression.
It was only after the two talked for a few more minutes that Aoife excused herself and sat down by herself while taking out the tablet to spectate the other matches.
Leon took his eyes away from her, afraid of arousing any suspicion, and turned to look at
Julien.
He was just about to speak when he stopped.
"This.."
Sitting down with his head raised toward the platforms above, Julien's eyes flickered with
strange colors as he looked absentminded.
He looked out of it.
Almost as if he was in a trance.
'... It's like before.'
He had noticed this before during his fight against the Vice-Chancellor, but this time the
colors that were shifting in his eyes were more prominent. He could see them vividly, and he felt a certain chill while staring into them.
It almost felt as though he was being sucked into them.
By the time Leon recovered, Julien's eyes turned to normal as his head turned to meet Leon's
eyes.
They stared at each other for a brief moment before Julien's lips opened, ".... With the way that you're looking at me, I'd be more worried about you than Caius."
