Chapter 353: The Church

The Astral Church headquarters stood in the center of Nexus City, and after everything Kai had seen since arriving, he still wasn’t prepared for it.

The complex stretched across several city blocks, with white towers rising high into the sky and bridges connecting them far above the streets. Enormous windows caught the morning sunlight, and ancient stone had been built directly into the modern walls.

So that some sections looked hundreds of years old while others looked like they had been finished yesterday.

Above the main entrance, a gigantic silver emblem of the Astral Church floated in the air and slowly turned.

Hunters, priests, healers, researchers, and ordinary civilians streamed in and out beneath it, and Kai even spotted a pair of government officials climbing the steps with their briefcases.

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs. "This is the headquarters?"

Gabriel smiled. "One of them."

"One?"

"The Astral Church operates across the continent." She gestured toward the towers around them. "This is simply the largest one."

Lily stared up at the building with wide eyes. "How large is the entire organization?"

Gabriel thought about it. "Large enough that I’ve stopped counting."

Sera laughed. "That’s not an answer."

"It’s the honest one." Gabriel started up the steps. "Come on. You haven’t even seen the interesting parts yet."

The main hall was even bigger than the outside suggested. Balconies ringed the open space for several floors above them, and people moved through it in every direction. A team of healers hurried past with medical equipment, a group of Hunters stood talking with Church officials, and near the far wall, dozens of researchers were leaning over fragments of ancient stone beneath a floating relic projection.

Kai looked around slowly. "This isn’t just a church."

"No," Gabriel said. "It hasn’t been just a place of worship for a very long time." She led them across the hall as she spoke. "The Church provides healing, disaster relief, Hunter support, relic research, historical preservation, education, civilian protection, and information sharing."

Lily raised her hand. "Information sharing?"

Gabriel laughed. "You don’t need to raise your hand."

Lily lowered it. "Right."

"After the awakening, all of those responsibilities became far more important," Gabriel continued.

Kai watched the Hunters speaking with officials. "So this is where Nexus Hunters come for support?"

"Among other things." Gabriel turned down a wide corridor. "Equipment repairs, mission records, monster intelligence, relic identification, emergency supplies." She stopped in front of a large door. "And this."

The door opened, and Kai forgot whatever he had been about to say.

Shelves stretched so far into the distance that he couldn’t see where they ended, but the books were only the beginning. Floating screens displayed old maps, ancient tablets sat behind protective barriers, and crystal fragments hovered inside glowing containment fields. There were weapons in glass cases so old that Kai couldn’t even guess what they had been used for.

Lily walked forward as if she was afraid the room would disappear if she moved too fast. "This..."

"The Historical Archive," Gabriel said.

Lily looked like someone had just handed her the keys to heaven. "How many records?"

"Millions."

Lily stopped walking. "Millions?"

"Written records, maps, tablets, expedition reports, monster studies, religious texts, old languages, and records recovered from civilizations that no longer exist."

Kai looked deeper into the archive. "How old?"

Gabriel’s smile faded slightly. "Some of them predate Nexus."

He turned toward her. "By how much?"

"We don’t know."

That caught his attention. Gabriel walked toward one of the protected displays, where a broken stone tablet rested under glass, covered in writing unlike anything Kai had ever seen.

"We can date the material," Gabriel said. "Sometimes we can tell when a structure was built, or which civilization made a certain object." She rested her hand on the edge of the case. "But sometimes we find something that doesn’t belong to any civilization we know."

Lily stepped closer. "Meaning?"

"Meaning we don’t know who made it."

Lily’s eyes lit up. "Can I..."

"No," Gabriel said.

Lily sighed. "I didn’t even finish."

"You were going to ask if you could examine it."

"...Yes."

Gabriel laughed. "Later."

Sera leaned toward Kai. "She’s going to disappear into this archive if we let her."

"Probably," Kai said.

"I heard that," Lily said without turning around, already bent over another display.

"I know."

Past the Historical Archive, the next section felt completely different. There were fewer people, the walls were reinforced, and several of the doors required identification before they would open. In the center of the room stood a massive circular structure covered in glowing symbols.

"What is this?" Kai asked.

"The Disaster Archive," Gabriel said. "This is where we record every major Disaster we can find."

Kai’s expression hardened. "So you’ve found records of earlier Disasters."

"Yes."

He stepped closer to the structure. "How many?"

Gabriel took a moment before she answered. "Enough."

"That’s not reassuring."

"It wasn’t meant to be." She walked around the edge of the symbols. "Some records are incomplete, and others were damaged. A few were destroyed on purpose."

"On purpose? Why?"

Gabriel looked at him. "That’s one of the questions we’re still trying to answer."

Kai looked at the rows of sealed records around them, and he realized that the Church’s real power had never come from its people. It came from what it knew. For centuries, it had been collecting relics, history, and records of Disasters, gathering the world one piece at a time, and compared to that, Mythal had almost nothing.

He slowly let out a breath. "We’re behind."

"In some areas," Gabriel said.

"Most areas."

She smiled faintly. "Probably."

Sera looked around the archive. "But Mythal has something Nexus doesn’t."

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "What?"

Sera smiled. "Kai."

Kai gave her a flat look. "That’s not an advantage."

"It is when you’re him."

Lily nodded. "She’s right."

Kai sighed. "You’re both making this worse."

Gabriel laughed. "Don’t worry. I agree with them."

Deeper inside the headquarters, Gabriel brought them into a chamber lined with sealed vaults. Layers of defensive formations covered the walls, and several security barriers shimmered in front of each door.

"Relic Vault?" Kai asked.

Gabriel nodded. "The Church’s restricted collection."

Lily was already stepping forward. "How many?"

"Enough that I knew you were about to ask."

"How many?"

Gabriel smiled. "Thousands."

Lily’s mouth opened, and Sera put a hand on her shoulder before a word could come out. "Don’t."

"But..."

"Later."

Lily stepped back with the look of someone being dragged away from a buffet.

Kai studied the vault doors. "How dangerous are they?"

Gabriel’s expression turned serious. "Some are harmless." She pointed toward one sealed door, then another, and another. "Some can alter space. Some can influence the mind. Some can affect mana." Her hand stopped on the deepest section of the chamber. "And some, we don’t know what they do."

"Then why keep them?"

"Because destroying something we don’t understand can be more dangerous than preserving it."

Kai nodded. That made sense.

The next area was the busiest one yet. Church instructors ran Hunters through training drills, healers treated the injured, researchers sorted monster materials, and mission officers coordinated expeditions over long tables covered in maps.

"This is the Hunter support division," Kai said.

Gabriel nodded. "Before the awakening, most of these people weren’t Hunters at all. Now they need training, equipment, medical care, missions, and somewhere to return to." She smiled. "The Church helps give them that."

Kai watched a young Hunter take a repaired sword from an equipment specialist, turning it over in his hands as if he couldn’t believe it was his again. A few steps away, a healer was wrapping another Hunter’s arm.

It reminded Kai of Mythal, except that Mythal had built its systems because it had no other choice, while the Church had been doing this long before the awakening ever began.

He turned to Gabriel. "You’ve been sharing this."

She knew exactly what he meant. "Some of it."

"With the other cities."

"Yes."

Kai glanced back toward the archive. "You could have kept all of it for Nexus."

Gabriel was quiet for a moment before she smiled. "Knowledge that saves lives isn’t something I believe should belong to one city."

There was no hesitation in her voice, and Kai could tell she meant every word.

Gabriel kept walking. "That’s also why I changed the name."

Kai frowned. "The name?"

"Suno City."

Lily looked over. "It used to be called Suno City?"

Gabriel nodded and looked through the tall windows toward the city outside. "When the awakening began, I realized the old name belonged to the old city. Nexus is supposed to be something different."

"A connection," Lily said.

"Exactly. That’s what I’ve been trying to build."

Kai looked out at the skyline. "And how is that going?"

Gabriel sighed. "Slowly."

Sera raised an eyebrow. "That bad?"

"Not bad." Gabriel searched for the right word. "Complicated."

Lily understood right away. "The other cities don’t trust Nexus."

"Not all of them."

"Because you’re the largest and strongest city on the continent," Lily said, counting on her fingers. "You have the most Hunters, the most resources, the most relic researchers, the strongest Church presence, and the biggest military. From their side, working with Nexus could make them dependent on you, and sharing information could just give you another advantage. Some of them probably think you want political control."

Gabriel sighed. "Yes, to all of it."

"I understand why they’d be suspicious," Lily said.

"So do I." For the first time since the tour began, Gabriel looked tired. "But that doesn’t mean I can stop trying."

Kai watched her. "You’ve been doing this for eight months?"

"Since the awakening, pretty much without stopping." She looked out at the city again. "I’ve sent people to other cities. I’ve offered records, researchers, medical support, and relic information. Sometimes they accept." Her expression grew more complicated. "Sometimes they don’t."

Kai didn’t answer right away. Mythal had been isolated too, not because it wanted to be, but because every city had been fighting to survive, and once survival turned into competition, cooperation became almost impossible.

"But I have to keep trying," Gabriel said.

"Why?"

She answered without hesitation. "Because the next Disaster won’t care which city we belong to."

For a few seconds, nobody said anything.

Gabriel looked back at him. "If one city survives while another falls, sooner or later that Disaster reaches the next city."

Kai nodded slowly. "You’re thinking beyond individual cities."

"I’m trying to."

Kai smiled. "Well, when they see you guys get through the Calamity, maybe they’ll have a change of heart."

Gabriel’s eyes softened. "I hope so."

Sera crossed her arms. "You really think surviving it will change their minds?"

"I think it will make them look at us differently," Gabriel said. "Whether that becomes trust is another matter."

That was fair, Kai thought. The Church had knowledge, Nexus had resources, and Mythal had survived things nobody expected it to survive, and all three were starting to collide.

He looked back toward the Disaster Archive, because one thing still didn’t fit. If Nexus had this much knowledge, how had it never found Aegis? Or had it found Aegis a long time ago, and simply never gone back until now?

And if so, why now?

Kai turned to Gabriel. "There’s something I want to ask."

"Go ahead."

"The Calamity." Gabriel’s smile disappeared, and Kai kept going. "You’ve been gathering information, building defenses, preparing for it."

"Yes."

He held her gaze. "Is the Calamity close for you guys?"