They had landed hard, thrown onto a cold, uneven floor that buckled and pulsed beneath them. Clarice's blood was spreading, dark and shocking against the faint, sickly green luminescence of the stone.
As Linia frantically applied a makeshift tourniquet to the stump of Clarice's leg, Kane pushed himself upright, his gaze drawn by the immediate, horrific threat: the entire space, the cavernous, distorted cavity, was contracting and expanding in slow, terrifying cycles, like a gargantuan, dying heart. The walls breathed—thick, rough surfaces oozing a cold, metallic dampness.
He was ready to fight the architecture, but the entity had another greeting.
From the unseen heights of the vaulted ceiling, a wet, heavy plume of debris fell. It was not stone or dust. It was a deluge of skin husks—thousands of them. They cascaded down, slapping against the floor with soft, deflated sounds, piling up in gruesome mounds.
Kane, Missy, Clarice, and Linia's mouths dropped open in silent, collective horror.
The sheer volume of bodies was impossible. Kane realized the number of people this cathedral had killed—not over days, but perhaps over years—was in the thousands. He saw the terrifyingly familiar, leathery masks of Norman, Ben, and Emma scattered among the piles, the faces of their recent companions reduced to meaningless, discarded leather.
"Just how many souls has this thing devoured?" Linia whispered, her voice strained, her hands still stained with Clarice's fresh blood.
The question was answered by a fresh wave of terror. The mountain of husks began to stir.
With a sickening, sliding sound of dry leather rubbing against itself, all the husks started to merge. Each skin bag reached out, the emptied sleeves and pant legs attaching themselves one to another, stitching together with wet, interior connections. The grotesque mass writhed, folding in on itself, skin sliding over skin, the faces stretching and distorting as they became integrated into a single, horrifying structure.
When the fusion was complete, a towering, humanoid monster stood before them. It was a colossal, uneven creature—a golem built entirely from flayed, desiccated human skin, its form constantly rippling and shifting, betraying the thousands of identities trapped within its gruesome composition.
Kane and Linia immediately summoned their weapons. Kane looked quickly at Missy, who was kneeling near the grievously wounded Clarice.
"Take care of Clarice!" Kane shouted.
Missy, without a word, simply nodded, her masked face unreadable. Her hand moved, and from the strange, shadowed interior of her mouth, she produced her weapons: a polished sword and a small, mirrored shield.
Linia stepped up beside Kane, her own divine focus returning, ready to confront the ultimate terror. "Shall we start?"
Kane gave a short, sharp nod. The [Sleeper Killer] materialized in his hand, morphing into the form of a wicked, silver sword. He activated his transformation, the dark shadows briefly coiling around him before settling.
He charged forward toward the grotesque creature. Activating his vision, he saw the monster was not what it seemed. The monstrous body was only animated by mind with multiple husks attached. There was no soul in the traditional sense—just a fragmented, malignant consciousness fused to the walls.
Kane immediately switched his attack strategy to Mind attacks.
The colossal creature looked down, raising one of its mismatched, skin-stitched arms to crush him. But before the blow could fall, it shuddered.
Linia had moved. She stood with the scyth clutched in her hand, her eyes closed, activating her true ability. The creature suddenly stopped, caught in an immediate trance—Linia had successfully put the creature in dreams, trapping its vast, fragmented mind in a loop of its own making.
Kane seized the moment, raining attacks down on the husks. The creature's skin-body writhed and contorted under the mental assault. The husks rippled, trying to break the dream-hold.
Then, the monster's defense activated.
With a sickening hiss, it released a cloud of black-colored smoke. The odor was pungent—chemical, thick, and carrying the sickening sweetness of rot. Kane felt his throat constrict instantly, but he pressed his attack, knowing the trance wouldn't last.
He attacked non-stop. Each cut Kane inflicted with the mental-sword was covered up by another husk that peeled off the main body and reattached itself instantly. Meanwhile, the monster's movements were sluggish, its attacks predictable, thanks to being paralyzed by the trance due to Linia.
After tearing through the creature's stomach-area, Kane moved to strike its leg. Suddenly, the leg, acting autonomously despite the trance, moved and kicked him.
Kane was thrown across the cavity, crashing down against the warped floor. The kick was a sign: the trance was breaking.
He scrambled to look back at Linia. To his shock, she was no longer standing. She was lying down, writhing, her body contorting with some sort of disease.
'When did she get infected?' he thought, his blood running cold. He looked immediately toward the cloud of black smoke that now enveloped her. He came to the grim realization that the black smoke was the pathogen, the weaponized disease of the cathedral-entity.
'Why didn't I get infected?'
Then, memory surfaced: the useless trinket, the relic of the divine war. The Demoness figurine in his pocket provided protection from disease.
"Well, it seems picking it up was the right choice," he muttered, the irony brutal.
Suddenly, the massive, uneven monster started to run towards Linia, breaking entirely out of the trance, its intent clear: to crush her and eliminate the mental threat.
Kane immediately rushed forward. He reached Linia just as the colossal, fleshy foot was about to descend. He scooped her contorted body up and dove, dropping her a large distance away, near Missy and the helpless Clarice.
'Missy can't defend both of them and herself. I need to defend her,' Kane thought, placing himself between the three helpless figures and the monstrosity.
The monster wriggled and turned its grotesque, stitched face toward him with blind rage.
Kane launched himself forward, but the creature had learned. With a speed that defied its size, the monster suddenly dispersed into multiple husks in multiple directions. The husks immediately formed into razor-sharp, leather-like swords and surrounded him, attacking from every vector.
Kane tried to battle the swarm, but the sheer number of attacks was overwhelming. The flesh-blades created multiple, deep cuts. Some stabbed his sides, stomach, and legs.
Within moments, Kane was standing, riddled with all sorts of human blades inserted in him, bleeding profusely, his clothes shredded and soaked in his own blood.
As the remaining husks gathered, they formed a single, final, huge sword made of packed skin, pointing straight at his heart. Kane tried to move, but all the husks that had pierced him had attached themselves to the surface of his skin, effectively fusing him to the floor.
'Crap... I... am... stuck,' he thought, the thought slow and heavy with terminal despair.
As the giant, leather sword began its final descent, a small, desperate shadow shot forward.
Linia jumped in between.
The colossal sword of compressed flesh pierced her heart, stopping the projectile from reaching Kane. Blood—thick, rich, mortal blood—gushed from her lips.
Kane was shocked to see Linia sacrifice herself to protect him. Her eyes, filled with the dying light of the exiled goddess, fixed on him.
She whispered, the words bubbling up with her breaths of her life: "Just... Don't... die. You... are... precious... to... me."
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I have started to writing a new Fanfic Shadow Slave:Alista Tudor,Kindly give a review and comments for this chapter and the New Fanfic