Chapter 159: A Glimpse of the Abyss

Before she could fall to the floor, a figure appeared beside her in a fraction of a second and caught her.

One moment, Evelyn had been standing up on the gallery, and the next, she was at the centre of the formation, catching Melissa by the shoulders just as her knees gave way. The black light still writhed around them both, cold and oppressive, yet Evelyn didn’t so much as flinch. She lowered the girl gently to the floor and pressed two fingers against her neck, her face grim.

Then, as suddenly as it had spread, the black light began to slither back across the stone, drawing itself towards Melissa’s left wrist until not even a trace of it remained in the hall.

The suffocating weight lifted at once, and those at the front who had been struggling to breathe drew in great gasps of air. Yet the mark itself didn’t fade. Its dark lines pulsed faintly against her pale skin, as if it were alive... and then they began to shift. Slowly, the lines curved and joined together until they formed the shape of a ring, and for a single moment, it glowed brighter than the sun. Then, in complete contrast to that light, dark thorns crept out from its edges and wound around it, tighter and tighter, until they had eclipsed the ring entirely.

Evelyn’s eyes never left the mark for a moment as the black energy settled into it, leaving behind nothing but the thorns.

She could already tell that it was the mark of a saint. Whenever a god chose a saint, a mark manifested upon their body, just as it had on Melissa. Yet however much she searched her memories, Evelyn couldn’t trace it back to any of the Churches. At present, only two of them had a saint-level figure among their ranks... one belonged to the Life God Church, and the other to the Radiant Sun Church.

When Evelyn had sensed that vast holy light filling the hall, she had believed that another saintess was about to emerge. But in the blink of an eye, everything had turned on its head. The mark on Melissa’s wrist belonged to none of the Churches she knew... and now, it was buried beneath a powerful dark curse.

Is it an Anci-?

Her thoughts drifted towards the incomplete records she had once read at the Adventurer’s Guild Main Branch.

"G-Guild Master... it hurts..."

Melissa’s weak voice broke through her thoughts. Her face had turned even paler than before.

Evelyn’s hand rose to cover her own mouth.

"It’s okay... I won’t let anything happen to you," Evelyn said softly, before she looked up towards Marcus.

Marcus gave a single nod, and his voice rolled across the hall. Thousands of frightened faces turned up towards the gallery at once.

"The ceremony will resume shortly," he said. "There is no immediate danger. Stay where you are, and let the knights do their work."

Black Raven Knights were already moving through the crowd, forming a loose ring around the formation and gently pushing back anyone who had drifted too close. Down beside the crystal, the grey-haired official stood frozen with his ledger still open in his hands, staring at the girl on the floor as though he still couldn’t make sense of what had happened.

Ethan had already started moving before Marcus finished speaking. He had told the Ashwood family to return to the guest house, and before anyone could stop him, he slipped through the crowd towards the formation, his mind racing through memories that flashed past in a matter of seconds. At the same time, Elena descended from the gallery and landed before Evelyn, having already sent Aisha, Sarah and Amelia back ahead of them.

Only now did Ethan understand why he had never seen Melissa at the Adventurer’s Guild in his previous life, and why her name had kept tugging at the back of his mind ever since he met her.

He had heard her name only once or twice back then. Everyone who knew of her called her the Forsaken Saintess, and only a handful of people in the upper echelons of the Empire had ever known her real name. Most of the information about her had been concealed by the Churches and the Empire itself... all because of the sudden emergence of a saint’s mark that belonged to no known god, and the ancient curse she bore along with it. Ethan hadn’t known much more than that. Back then, he had been at Ravenhold, training, and he only vaguely remembered the saint of the Radiant Sun Church visiting his father, Adrian, around that time.

The rest, he could only guess. Marcus and Evelyn must have been involved, along with the inquisitors from the Churches.

He also remembered hearing that every Church had done its utmost to find a cure for her curse. Yet no matter what they tried, nothing worked, and in the end, the curse claimed her life. Rumours of her death spread long before the Churches finally announced it publicly. Ethan’s thoughts reeled as another memory fell into place. Now he finally understood why Evelyn used to visit the Holy Kingdom of the Sun God from time to time... and why she always looked different whenever she came back.

Ethan pushed the thoughts away for now as he arrived before Evelyn and Elena.

Melissa’s eyes drifted towards him, and despite the pain etched across her face, she managed a faint smile.

Ethan closed his eyes as a pang of guilt gripped his heart. Only moments earlier, he had wished that she would awaken something good, so that she could finally fulfill her dream. And she had... she had awakened one of the most powerful cores and talents anyone had seen in years. Yet now, she would have to live a life of pain and suffering until fate itself claimed her. He had only known her for the past few months, yet every time he visited the guild, she had greeted him warmly, like an old friend.

"We should take her away from here," Elena said.

Evelyn nodded.

Elena raised her hand, and Melissa’s body gently lifted from the floor, cradled by her magic so carefully that she wouldn’t feel any more pain. Together, they moved through the crowd as it parted before them, and Ethan followed close behind.

———

The Guest House

Elena laid Melissa down on a bed in one of the rooms at the far end of the upper floor, well away from the windows that faced the street. Evelyn closed the door behind them and raised an aura barrier with a flick of her fingers, sealing the room from any curious ears. Ethan stood by the foot of the bed and watched.

Melissa looked nothing like the girl who had rushed over to congratulate the Ashwood sisters only an hour ago. Her face had grown even paler, and her lips had taken on a faint bluish tinge. Her breathing came shallow and uneven, and every few moments her body shuddered, as though something inside her was clawing its way out. The mark on her wrist hadn’t changed. It simply sat there, black and pulsing, and every time it pulsed, Melissa’s brows creased in pain.

Evelyn quickly brought out a high-tier healing potion and helped Melissa drink it. A faint radiance returned to her face, and her breathing seemed to steady briefly... but within a few minutes, her complexion began to worsen once again. Evelyn didn’t give up. She brought out one elixir after another, each more precious than the last, yet the outcome remained the same. Every bit of strength they restored was swallowed by the curse within minutes. In the end, Melissa slowly lost consciousness.

By then, Elena and Evelyn had both realised that it was an ancient curse. What they couldn’t understand was why it had manifested on a saintess at all. A god would never allow the saint who conveyed their will upon the world to suffer under a curse... and on top of that, the mark itself was completely unknown to them. It made no sense to either of them.

"I want to try something."

Ethan’s voice cut through their thoughts.

Ever since they had arrived, he had been thinking about what he could do. While Evelyn was busy giving Melissa the potions, he had quietly searched through the War Merit Store, yet he couldn’t find anything that could treat an ancient curse. In the end, only one option remained... the Unknown Energy. He didn’t know whether it would work, but he had already decided to try anyway. He imbued his hands with the Unknown Energy and stepped towards the bed.

"Ethan—"

Evelyn and Elena both stopped short the moment they sensed what he was planning to do.

"Ethan, are you sure it will work?" Evelyn asked.

Ethan sensed a faint trace of concern in her voice, something he had rarely seen from her before... and he realised that there was something more between Melissa and Evelyn than the relationship of a Guild Master and her clerk.

"Let me try..."

Ethan approached Melissa and, this time, imbued the Unknown Energy into his eyes as well.

Ugh—

A spike of pain shot through his eyes, but he didn’t let it show on his face for more than a second. Unlike during the Beast Tide, the pain was far more bearable, and the bleeding was much lighter. Mythralis’s Blood Essence had strengthened his body at its very foundation.

Both Evelyn and Elena saw the blood trickling from his eyes, yet neither of them could bring themselves to stop him.

Ethan’s vision began to transform as he looked at the mark. The world around him faded into grey, and that grey world slowly expanded as he focused on the mark. It was nothing like the purple mist he had seen within Mythralis. This energy was beyond anything he had witnessed before. An immeasurable mass of dark energy writhed around the mark, stretching as far as his eyes could see, and even looking at it sent a chill down his spine. Goosebumps rose along his arms.

Yet he didn’t stop. Slowly, he brought his hand towards the mark.

At that very moment, the energy within the mark began to churn violently, as if sensing something approaching. And just as Ethan’s hand was about to touch the mark, the Unknown Energy withdrew on its own, retreating back into his body as though to shield him from the danger.

But in the instant before it withdrew, Ethan’s eyes caught something.

Deep within the darkness surrounding the mark, something moved. At first, he thought it was only the black energy churning... until it rose, and he realised it was a head.

A monstrous head so vast that the grey world itself seemed too small to hold it, formed from countless black tendrils and jagged spines that twisted and lashed around it like a storm given shape. Its jaws hung open wide enough to swallow a mountain whole, lined with row upon row of long, needle-like fangs that gleamed a dull, bloody white against the darkness, while beneath it, an endless serpentine body coiled away into the abyss, until it vanished somewhere far beyond the edge of his sight.

And caught within its coils was something else... a fragment of gold.

It was unimaginably vast, far larger even than the monster’s head... a shard of pure golden light, its edges cracked and jagged, as though it had been torn from something far greater. Even now, it shone brighter than anything Ethan had ever seen, yet countless black tendrils had wrapped themselves around it, sinking deep into its cracks like roots splitting stone. Slowly, piece by piece, the darkness was devouring it. Ethan watched a sliver of golden light crumble away and vanish into that monstrous maw, and the radiance of the entire fragment dimmed, ever so slightly.

Even that monster couldn’t consume it all at once. The power held within the fragment was simply too great... so it could only wear it down, little by little.

Then the monster stilled, as though it had felt a gaze upon it... and its colossal head began to turn.

That was all it did. Yet in that instant, a pressure crashed down on Ethan so overwhelming that his mind went completely blank, as though he were nothing more than an ant beneath a falling mountain.

What—