Chapter 143: The True One

Chapter 143: The True One.

They all stepped out of the narrow cave as it opened up into a colossal Cathedral that loomed over the deep underground of the estate.

The cold draft swept across the cavern floor, carrying a bitter scent that was basically a mix of damp limestone, burnt myrrh, and the faint, unmistakable tang of dried blood. Which was a classic scent of sacrificial sites.

?Murphy adjusted the brim of his fedora, and with a fluid movement, he stepped into the shadow cast by the stone archway. Keeping his breathing shallow, he followed them.

?Before him lay a grand, blasphemous house of worship, a Cathedral carved directly into the bedrock beneath the mansion.

?The architecture was distinctly classical, yet weirdly twisted. Vaulted Gothic arches stretched dozens of feet overhead into the air, disappearing into a ceiling swallowed by pitch-black gloom.

Flanking the central aisle were towering pillars carved with intertwined, featherless wings and skeletal talons reaching upward in desperate prayer. Although it seemed like a church, there wasn’t any statue of an angel nor any demon.

?He looked at the northern end where the altar stood. Behind a vast altar of smooth stone, hung a circular stained-glass window, lit from behind by a dim crimson light. It depicted a giant vulture perched atop a mountain frozen heel. Its hollow eye sockets were staring blankly down at the assembly.

?’Interesting.’ Murphy murmured internally, his gaze lingering on the crimson glow filtering through the glass. ’A secret altar concealed directly beneath a legitimate estate. I knew there would be a church since the last time the Demonic Cult was also built like this. A typical setup for an orthodox noble by day and a cultist by night.’

?As Asterion and his three lieutenants stepped onto the flagstones, their dress shoes clicked loudly against the floor, shattering the eerie silence.

?

"Light the candles! All of them!" Asterion’s voice echoed off as he whipped off his dark coat, throwing it carelessly onto an oak pew, before fastening the grotesque vulture mask tightly over his face.

?The three cultists scurried forward, pulling silver matchboxes from their pockets. One by one, tallow candles along the walls ignited in life with orange flames. Although the sudden illumination couldn’t warm. Anything and only cast long, distorted shadows that flickered like creeping shadows across the benches.

?Murphy carefully raised himself onto a narrow decorative ledge along the high wall, blending into the darkness above their line of sight.

From this vantage point, he watched Asterion pull open a velvet-lined box resting upon the altar. Inside lay an old rusted knife as he brought it toward him.

?"The Detective won’t stop at the financial collapse." Asterion muttered to himself, his voice muffled by the beak of his mask.

Sweat dripped down his neck, staining the silver-embroidered collar of his suit. "He knows too much."

?"Mr. Asterion." One of the cultists nervously interrupted, holding an incense burner that spewed dark grey smoke. "If we initiate the ritual without the full congregation, the spiritual backlash—"

?"Do you think I care about backlash when my neck is already in a noose?! YOU know that I can die any moment if he finds me!" Asterion snarled, turning around and slamming his hand onto the altar. "If he finds this place, none of us survive the night! We need the Deity’s blessing to obscure our tracks and strike back!"

?Asterion took a deep breath, trying to regain his composure as an important figure of the world. Finally, he gripped a lever and pulled it backward. From above a statue descended, which was covered with a black curtain.

With a quick movement, he pulled the curtain away from the statue.

As it cleared up, Murphy’s eyes narrowed as he saw the statue of a gigantic being, which was hung upside down with its legs held by thick iron chains, while being completely devoid of feet.

Its face only had a mouth and hollow eyes carved while opened slightly to look straight up toward its own chain feet, a blasphemous design that symbolized that this deity had turned its back on earthly reality, only to gaze into the cosmic architecture. In one of its hands, the being held a long, hangman’s noose, and the other held a severed, twisted head whose hair dripped downward. Both hands were crossed in an X shape over His chest, and ’His’ own long hair was defying gravity, cascading over His shoulders instead of hanging downward. ℯℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

While the offerings of blood or oil were poured at the base, pooling upward to climb the statue’s spine.

Of course, no one had ever hung Him to kill Him; ’He’ hung Himself so He could finally see the world right-side up.

A sudden chill struck Murphy. Was it truly the original Hanged Man? Although... the way it was presented, it almost seemed like a God or deity who had sacrificed His sanity and Himself for the world.

Asterion lifted the rusted knife and pointed it toward the central emblem on the floor—a carved circle filled with a strange eye shape.

?"Prepare the chant." Asterion commanded coldly. "We summon the gaze of the carrion shadows."

?Up in the darkness, Murphy calmly rested his hand on his revolver, looking down at the four desperate men as if watching a tragedy unfold from the best balcony seat.

?’Calling upon an obscure entity just to handle a detective?’ Murphy thought, a faint, mocking smile tugging at the corner of his lips. ’Asterion... you really are at the end of your rope.’

But soon Murphy’s gaze became cold. Whatever was that Hanged Man, if he ignored it and let them do the ritual, he might even have trouble if the protection thing was actually true.

He quickly moved, but just then, he felt a sudden feeling of violent thoughts. A foreign mad idea invaded his brain. No... it wasn’t Murphy’s lunatic thoughts, which Mo Fei initially thought at that moment.

He looked ahead at the being, which seemed to be looking at the followers.

An illusory, maddening roar echoed directly inside his brain. The upside-down idol seemed to subtly shift, its hollow eyes faintly tracking the movements in the room. Murphy’s vision blurred as illusory, slimy tentacles of spiritual pressure began to sprout from the walls. His skin itched violently, as if hidden maggots were trying to burst out from beneath his flesh.

Murphy clenched his clothes. ’What is that thing... that can’t be God but that... powers...’

He clenched his chest as the breathing turned ragged. He fought down the sudden urge to tear his own eyes out. He could no longer afford to spectate. If he let them complete the ritual, the resulting anti-divination barrier and corrupted blessings would make Asterion untouchable... and possibly, the cosmic corruption would spread its seeds in this zone.

He sprang forward, but before his boots could even clear the shadows, the men’s voice rose with a haunting cadence as they chanted in a language that seemed identical to the language he had been using for his own honorifics.

"The Hanged Sage of the Pit. Praise be to the feet that tread the clouds. Praise be to the Crown that plumbs the deep. Praise to The Witness to the Under-Heavens. Turn the earth, and spill the sky. The world is wrong, and He is the right."