Arcanist In Another World-Chapter 58: Coffin

Valens stared at the mental image of the door in his mind, looming high over the Resonance with a unique set of frequencies that felt strangely familiar. It stretched across what had been a dark emptiness before like a boundary placed in the depths of his core by unseen hands.

Fashioned from an alien alloy, it had a metallic hue, with edges battered as though worn by time. The sigil embedded on its dark metal surface wasn’t made with ink or paint; it was wrought, etched deep into the alloy itself, as if it had grown rather than been carved.

A great circular array, sprawling outward like veins from a heart, dominated the surface. At its center, a large, smooth sphere pulsed with a Resonance that tickled the edge of Valens’s senses.

Void Sphere.

It was surrounded by concentric rings, five of them, each etched with runes that blurred the moment he laid his eyes upon them, covered by fog that came out of nowhere. The same thing happened when he tried to see through the other runes. It was as though something, or someone, didn’t want him to see them yet.

Around the center, eight smaller orbs sat in a perfect ring, evenly spaced like planets caught in orbit. Each was slightly different — some were scarred, some were smooth, and others were latticed with fine cracks. They were connected to the center by a labyrinth of silvery filaments, tangled and intricate as nerve work. Some of the threads curved inward like hooks, others spiraled outward into meaningless loops.

Not random, no. Deliberate.

This design has seen magic before.

But now, save for the Void Sphere, it was dead.

The lines remained mute against his touch, flickering vainly without any frequencies.

Valens squinted, heart thumping in his chest. What he saw then made his breath still. There, in his own chest cavity, was an ancient door with a sigil that hummed not with a singular tone, but with a choir of frequencies —multiple layers of a Resonance so complex that it distorted his perception.

He could feel gravitational pull, a whisper tugging at the edge of his mind, beckoning him from beyond the door. Almost intuitively, he sent a pair of Lifesurges into the sigil, watched as the lifemana threads wormed their way across his body. When they touched the door's surface, the Resonance changed.

Shivers ran down his spine as a deep yearning settled over his heart. The Lifesurges slithered slowly up from the edges of the door, through the intricate pattern, and into the nerve-like design. The lines lit up joyfully and began to hum with frequencies, with tunes that carried Valens’s own touch.

Lights spilled into the darkness, cleaving it away. Something clicked from within the door, followed by a creak as it shifted. Moved. Valens heard it deep in his mind. Heard it well before a painful recognition crushed into his thoughts.

It wouldn’t be enough.

He had little mana left after his encounter with that Terror, but even if his mana pool had been full of gurgling waves, it wouldn’t be enough for it all. There were too many lines, and he only managed to light up a quarter of a single sphere, out of eight in total.

I’ll try once more when my mana is full.

He sighed as he let the surges and the Lifeward dissipate into waves of lifemana, washing off the fatigue around his body. In a moment, he was back in the passage, with Garran by his side, the captain and Dain trudging ahead.

“Damn healers…” he heard Garran mumble. “A little flush of magic, then you’re good to go. You can’t blame a man for being jealous, eh, Val?”

Valens blinked at him. “Eh,” he muttered. “I guess you can’t.”

The Templar laughed.

…….

They came across more Shriekers on the way. Dozens of them swarming over their little group, hissing, shrieking, stabbing with nails sharper than daggers. Shadows growing larger still. Whispers reverberating through their forms, fleeting away as a man ripped their bodies apart.

Captain Edric was an angry flame, a burning sun that set their ranks ablaze, tearing through them as though they were wisps of smoke, spitting black acid that burned little holes across the tiles. He reached out with a blind hand, caught a Shrieker by the nape of its neck, caught it tight and slammed it down over the ground, strangled it hard till he choked the life out of the Damned.

Then he was up with eyes searching, seeking for another one to come at him, growled through his teeth when a pair of angry Shriekers answered his search. Golden lights washed off his armor as he made for them and muted both of the creatures’ frequencies before they had any time to respond.

Garran and Dain moved in to help him, mostly covering his back since the captain hardly seemed like he would be asking for any help soon.

And Valens was… busy checking the carvings over the walls, or what little he could see underneath the black liquid oozing from the cracks. There were some attempts from the creatures on his life, but they were answered by the quick work of the Templars, who didn’t leave much room against the attacks.

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Good. My mana is almost fully recovered.

Valens breathed in the stench of the poisonous air, Inferno’s spell formula waiting at the ready in his mind. The depictions of the mountain and the sea had changed since they came across that Fiend, and were now more obscure and haunting than before. The biggest change, however, was the sudden disappearance of the children.

There were still groups of women weeping toward the mountain, but the children were nowhere to be seen.

In other murals, cracks had opened around the mountain, joining in a single line that carved a giant patch from across its surface. Looked like a giant eyelid that covered most of the mountain. Slowly, it opened, and on its edges were tears dripping like rocks down the sea. Giant waves rose from its depths and swallowed the women whole in the last mural.

So this Weeping Horror ate them all, huh? What a messed-up world this is.

By the time Valens finished deciphering all the murals, the Templars had stopped a few paces ahead, staring at a giant door that shimmered with a reddish hue.

Great. Another door. There’s always a door in this world.

He sighed.

At least this one is open.

……

The moment Edric stepped inside through the door, the inner flame stirred anxiously in his heart, the Umbral in the pommel of his sword went silent, and the hair across his arms, protected by the Blessed Father’s armor, stood at their ends as if he was touched by something his mind couldn’t perceive.

He trudged on, one step at a time, glowing light from the armor illuminating the stretch beyond. It was dark here and the air was close, but the light showed him they were in a giant hall with columns rising all around him. Rising like dark slabs of marble from the very foundation of the place, reaching toward the ceiling shrouded in a cloud of fog.

Red lines were scratched over the ground, the blood with which they were drawn already dried out, forming circles upon circles that crossed one another into a sprawling mess, all reeking with the touch of the Damned, still fresh by how the stench of it stabbed at his nose.

Edric gestured silently to Garran and Dain, and lastly to the Healer. He watched him through the visor of the helmet until he was standing in the middle of their group. He shouldn’t have brought him here. Should’ve shut him down the moment he saw that eager look in his eyes. He knew the kid was ill-equipped as it was, and they hadn’t a clue what they might be facing in the mountain.

But then, he’d seen the glint in those eyes, had he not? The inner flame flared alive at that exact moment the Healer handled the wicked shadow that took hold of that poor girl’s soul. That couldn’t have been a lie. That was a sign, a tell for him to pay attention, not to treat him as though he were a senseless fool too arrogant to think he could brave a Wailborn’s evil.

And he did brave it. He burnt the shadow out of that girl’s body.

It didn’t matter. It shouldn’t have mattered. His job was simple. Find monsters and kill them. Don’t ask any questions. That was what his Father told him when the Church saw him fit for the Divine Path of the Blessed Father. He was damned proud when he learned that he could follow the steps of the man he admired all his life, that he could share the same glory he so dearly wished to taste.

He didn’t know back then, and was too stubborn to listen.

Mistake upon mistake.

His Father had been right. This life ate away at one’s mind, and forced him to see shadows everywhere he looked.

A look over his shoulder.

Garran and Dain were there.

Right.

He had his boys depending on him.

At least he wasn’t alone.

You have to learn to cherish the little things, Edric reminded himself as he gazed across the bloody circles, up along the marble columns, searching for anything that could give him something to work with. Could be a body or two. Could be something else. Anything would do as long as he could find out the reason why they were under a Terror’s influence here.

Whoever did this didn’t want to disturb the pit town, nor did they want to use their bodies. But discretion couldn’t have been a priority for this practice, either. They should’ve at least expected an accident like that to happen even if they managed to hide it from the Sun’s Church.

The Terror's presence wasn’t entirely present, though. That was a good sign. With the boundaries still active, a summoning of that magnitude would’ve disturbed the peace of the whole Haven’s Reach.

But if it's just a part of it... Now that's a different story.

A thick shroud of fog ahead. Pulling at his soul, pressing upon the inner flame like a heavy blanket. His skin crawled. He looked over his shoulder to see how Garran and Dain were dealing with it. There was a stiffness to their motions, a certain weight as though they were laboring with each step.

And if even as Templars they felt it, then the Healer should—

The young man was trudging on in the middle of their group as if he were out for a midday stroll, eyes calm and face relaxed as ever. He seemed to be staring skyward, somewhere beyond the thick veil of fog as if there was something there.

Garran may be right. This kid has an awful lot of similarities with Lenora.

He hated every second he had to spend with that woman by his side even if he knew the insanity that plagued her soul wasn’t her fault. Everyone hated it. Templars may deal in dark business of killing, but a Hexmender’s job was to clean what was unseen, what was rooted deep within one’s soul, and that came with certain risks.

There hadn’t been a time when a Hexmender lived a long life. They all went insane before they could see the end of their days. It had never happened in the blink of an eye. No, the process was slow and painful. Bit by bit, they lost what made them human and disappeared into the echoes of the shadows they had purified.

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But I'm not sure if even Lenora could've handled the pressure of a Terror before her First Trial. There's something strange about this young man. Something that I couldn't quite wrap my head around.

Edric shook the thoughts out of his mind and peered into the fog once again. He could feel the outside influence growing stronger over his body at every step he took toward them.

I need more light.

The holy lights gleaming over the armor’s surface expanded outward as Edric focused on the Magical Artifact, and his perception expanded with it. He saw the fog clinging to the heels of the marble pillars ahead, streaking upward along their surfaces. Dozens of them in total, dark liquid dripping down their faces.

Edric commanded the group to stop with a fist, and he opened his visor as he slowly raised his gaze, the armor's glow chasing away the veil of fog above.

There you are.

Up high over the hall, held aloft by the pillars from all around, hung a coffin. Upright. Impossibly large. Its surface was forged from obsidian glass, riddled with circles that pulsed faintly in red, like veins filled with slow, burning blood, converging around a monstrous shape strapped across its surface. The Fiend was stabbed through the chest with a piece of shard as big as the creature was tall. It was barely alive.

A Cursed Riftshard… An Ancient one.

Edric scowled at the sight of it, but before he could do anything, the lid of the coffin shifted with a low, grinding click.

And then, the fog surrounding it began to move.

.....