Chapter 89: An Unexpected Guest

The silence that followed Seth’s words was heavier than the swamp air.

Thomas stood amid the wreckage left by the Swamp Thallophyte. Torn moss, shattered roots and patches of darkened earth surrounded the group. The purple light of Julian’s Tomb of Neher had faded, leaving only the strange pressure of the marsh and the laboured breathing of those who had survived the battle.

Ryan was still struggling to sit upright. Mina remained close to Lina, whose consciousness had yet to return. Julian stood with one hand braced against his knee, his breathing controlled but uneven. None of them was in a condition to fight again.

And the Church knew it.

Deacon Eider stood a short distance away, his expression hard. Seth was beside him, watching Thomas as though the decision had already been made and all that remained was carrying it out.

"Ah, so death it is," Seth had said.

Thomas didn’t answer immediately.

He looked at the two men, then briefly at his companions. He could feel the strain running through his body. His core had taken a beating, and Full Body Gaseous Mode had pushed it close to its limit. The adaptation he’d gained from the Swamp Thallophyte was valuable, but it wasn’t going to make the consequences of another fight disappear.

He could attempt to fight. He could also fail.

That was the part he refused to ignore.

His gaze shifted past the deacons, towards the trees lining the clearing.

Thomas had been aware of the presence for longer than he cared to admit. At first, he had treated it as a possibility rather than a certainty. The battlefield had been crowded with hostile mana, the beast’s strange energy, and the residue left behind by the group’s techniques. It would have been easy to mistake one presence for another.

But the feeling had remained.

Even while fighting the Swamp Thallophyte, even when the creature’s attacks had forced him to focus on survival, that faint awareness had lingered at the edge of his perception. It hadn’t approached. It hadn’t interfered. It had simply watched.

Now that the battle was over and the Church had shown its hand, Thomas had decided there was no reason to keep pretending he hadn’t noticed.

He didn’t know exactly how long Voss had been there. He didn’t know what she had witnessed, or why she had chosen to remain hidden until this moment. But he knew one thing: if she had wanted to leave him to the Church, she would not have stayed within reach.

That was enough for him to call her out.

"You can come out now, Apostle."

The words were quiet, but they carried through the stillness.

For a moment, nothing happened. The leaves barely moved. Eider’s eyes narrowed, while Seth’s attention flickered towards the trees.

Then a woman’s voice rang out from somewhere behind them.

"How did you know I was here?"

Thomas didn’t turn.

"I’ve known for quite some time."

A faint pause followed.

"You finally figured it out."

"Yeah, I have."

Thomas glanced at the deacons again. His expression held none of the alarm that had been there a moment earlier.

"Now, are you going to help me or what?"

"Will you say please?"

He stared ahead.

The timing was almost absurd. They were standing in front of two Church deacons who had just threatened to kill him, his friends were barely standing, and the person he’d called out was apparently more interested in manners.

Thomas let out a small breath.

"Please."

"Okay."

A figure stepped from behind one of the trees behind Thomas and the others.

Instructor Voss emerged without haste. She moved into the clearing as though she had merely been taking a quiet walk and had happened upon an inconvenient gathering. There was no visible urgency in her movements. Her eyes passed over the injured students, paused briefly on Thomas, and then settled on the Church representatives.

Thomas had expected her to be there. Seeing her step into the open only confirmed what he had already suspected.

Voss stopped a little behind him.

"You’re looking worse than I expected," she remarked.

"Nice to see you too, Instructor."

"I didn’t say you looked bad. I said you looked worse than I expected."

"That makes me feel much better."

Her gaze moved over the battlefield. The dead Swamp Thallophyte lay in pieces, its enormous body split open by the combined efforts of the group. She seemed to take in the damage, the exhausted students and the traces of Julian’s rune spell in a single glance.

"You’ve been busy."

"We had a disagreement with the local wildlife."

"Clearly."

The brief exchange did little to ease the tension. If anything, the deacons seemed more alert now that Voss had revealed herself.

Ryan looked from her to Thomas.

"You knew she was here?" he asked, his voice rough.

"More or less."

"Since when?"

"Long enough."

Thomas didn’t elaborate. He could feel the questions gathering, but now wasn’t the time to answer them. Their attention needed to remain on the two deacons.

Mina’s hand tightened around the hilt of her sword. She was tired, but she kept herself between Lina and the strangers. Julian’s gaze moved from Voss to the deacons, quietly assessing what her arrival meant for their chances.

Voss, meanwhile, seemed entirely unconcerned by the attention.

Her casual exchange with Thomas had made the situation feel almost ordinary. That was perhaps the strangest part. She had appeared in the middle of a standoff with the Church and treated it like an interruption to a conversation.

Thomas was not foolish enough to assume that meant she was careless.

The deacons’ reaction told him more than her words had. They had threatened him with death moments earlier. Now, with Voss present, they were choosing their next move more carefully.

At least, they were until Eider spoke.

Eider’s expression had changed. The contempt he had directed at Thomas was no longer quite so effortless. He looked at Voss, measuring her, then shifted his attention to Thomas.

"So this is the help you were waiting for?"

Thomas shrugged.

"Something like that."

Seth’s eyes remained fixed on Voss. "An Apostle."

Voss didn’t acknowledge him. She simply stood beside Thomas, her attention resting on the two deacons as if she were deciding whether they deserved a response.

Thomas noticed the shift in their posture. The Church had arrived expecting to find a group of students exhausted after a difficult battle. They had expected Thomas to be isolated, with no one capable of interfering before they carried out their threat.

Voss had changed that calculation.

But he didn’t mistake her arrival for the end of the danger. The deacons were still here, and neither had retreated.

Eider took a step forward.

"Do you honestly believe the two of you can take us both on?"

Voss finally looked directly at him.

Her expression was not angry. It was worse than that: bored.

"You aren’t even worth my time, you low-level scum."

The insult landed in the clearing.

Eider’s face tightened. The air around him shifted, and the pressure of his mana rolled outward in a sudden wave. Loose leaves and fragments of moss skittered across the ground.

Thomas felt the change immediately. Whatever Eider had been holding back, he was no longer interested in conversation.

"Careful," Seth said, though his voice carried no real warning. His gaze stayed on Voss. "You may find that underestimating the Church is a costly mistake."

Voss tilted her head slightly.

"Is that what you tell yourselves?"

Eider moved.

There was no further declaration, no warning that he was about to attack. One moment he stood several paces away; the next, he had launched himself towards Voss, mana gathering around his striking arm.

Thomas’s body tensed.

He was ready to move, but Voss didn’t step aside. She remained where she was, watching Eider close the distance.

At the same instant, Seth raised one hand.

His fingers spread, and the mana around him began to gather in a different pattern. It didn’t surge outward like Eider’s. Instead, it drew inward, tightening around his raised palm. A low chant left his lips, each word unfamiliar to Thomas.

The sound seemed to press against the clearing.

Thomas’s eyes narrowed. Seth wasn’t simply preparing to support Eider. Whatever he was casting, he had begun it at the same moment the other deacon attacked. They were coordinating.

"Julian," Thomas said, without taking his eyes off them.

"I see it."

"Get the others ready to move."

Julian straightened despite his exhaustion. Mina shifted closer to Lina, while Ryan forced himself to his feet. None of them had recovered enough to join a prolonged fight, but they understood that standing still could be worse.

Voss raised one hand.

Eider was almost upon her.

The deacon’s attack cut through the air with enough force to scatter the loose debris at their feet. Voss’s clothing stirred in the pressure, but her expression didn’t change.

Seth’s chant grew louder.

The mana gathered around his palm began to form a distinct shape, its edges flickering in the air. Thomas couldn’t identify the spell from the words alone. He focused on the movement of the energy, trying to understand what Seth intended before it was completed.

There wasn’t enough time.

Eider’s strike reached Voss.

And Voss finally moved.