Chapter 284: There’s No Such Thing as a Greater Good When a Greater Evil Exists

Sheeby started whimpering while staring at the giant serpent statue in the middle of the room. Everyone turned around to see what was making her so upset. Lidia was the first to run up and begin petting her to calm her down.

"What’s wrong girl? Is the statue really scary?"

"Be careful getting close to it. Last time we read the text off the statue, Lidia was impaled."

Sheeby kept whimpering and covering her face with her wing. Lidia tried to study the statue to see if there was any obvious reason Sheeby was so bothered by it. However, there was nothing that stood out. It just appeared to be an ordinary statue. Lidia walked up to Sarah and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Listen, I know you are strong as you are right now, but if you truly wish to have a chance to become stronger, I think you should be the one to read what the statue says."

Sarah sturdied herself before responding.

"To be honest, I’ve been thinking about it quite a lot. Receiving that power means I would be expected to fight even more. I don’t know if that’s something I want. I wish I could simply stick to my cooking, just like the old days."

A small pause followed her short speech.

"However, there’s no one to cook for anymore except for you all. I’ll do it."

Squabee walked over to Sheeby to continue comforting her while Sarah approached the statue. Slimo was very on edge seeing Sheeby so upset, but he bit his tongue out of curiosity. He wondered what kinds of things were written on a statue in a place much more valuable to the Luminators.

The massive plaque that rested at the base of the serpent, the words written on it slowly glowing brighter with every step Sarah took towards it. Once she finally reached it, she read silently to herself. Everyone watched her, waiting in silence as tension slowly grew around the room.

"What does it say?"

Lidia bumped Squabee lightly.

"Let her finish."

However, something horribly wrong started happening to Sarah’s expression. Her face contorted into one of pure terror. In all the time everyone had known Sarah, they had never seen her like this before.

"No. NO!! THIS CAN’T-"

Suddenly, she started howling out in pain while throwing up blood.

"Sarah!!"

Lidia tried running forward but Slimo grabbed her arm to stop her.

"Wait."

Lidia looked back at Slimo angrily as a shadow casted over her. The statue was beginning to move as Sarah flailed on the ground in pain, blood flowing out of her closed eyes and onto the stone surrounding her.

"Argh! Ahh! H-Help me!"

Lidia pushed herself off Slimo and darted towards Sarah. The statues tail flicked itself in the air before shooting down where Sarah was laying. In the blink of an eye, Sarah had been impaled right through her stomach. For the brief moment she was stabbed, she stopped screaming. She continued shaking violently as she kept her eyes closed. Lidia could hear small mumbles escaping from her lips.

"No, no, no. I don’t want this anymore. My brain, my organs, my soul burns."

Just when everyone thought it was over, the Statue moved again, this time aiming its tail for Slimo. Slimo managed to dodge its attacks the first few times, but his wrist ended up being scratched by a small part of its tail. Slimo girt his teeth and held on to his hand.

"Shit. I didn’t want a power! Why is it attacking so randomly?!"

Next, it went after Squabee. However, Squabee’s power appeared to be countering the tails perfectly. She escaped all its jabs before it moved on to someone else. Lastly, it shot after Lidia, impaling her right inside her shoulder. She grabbed on to the tail and crushed it in her grasp.

"That’s enough, damn it!"

Once she broke the tail, a reaction over the entire body took place. Cracks appeared all over the statue before it collapsed itself into dust in mere moments. Everyone panted heavily while looking at each other. Lidia shook off her wound and ran over to Sarah. She picked her up in her arms and started studying her injuries. Sarah was still mumbling something under her breath. Luckily, the bleeding appeared to have stopped in every place she was hurt, but now blood was covering her face and chin.

"What are you trying to say, Sarah? What is it that was on that plaque?"

Sarah started crying while her eyes stayed close. She grabbed on to Lidia’s collar and screamed in her face.

"We need to leave this place! I wasn’t supposed to see this! He doesn’t want anyone finding out!"

"What? Who are you talking about? Zalo doesn’t want us to see this?"

Suddenly, Sarah went limp in Lidia’s arms. Lidia shook Sarah.

"Sarah? Wake up! I need you to tell me what you saw!"

Lidia put her ear to her chest. She was still breathing, her heart was still beating, the shock simply must have been too much for her to handle. Slimo stared at Lidia while holding on to his arm.

"Is she okay?"

"She’s just sleeping. I wonder if the statue had some sort of enchantment to make the reader feel that way on purpose."

Lidia stared at the rubble of the statue. The plaque had random letters spewed over the ground, but by pure luck, there appeared to be exactly one word of text that stayed intact, and it was resting right by Squabee’s feet. Sqaubee looked down at it while raising her eyebrow.

"Huh? Why did Sarah freak out about something like this? This doesn’t even make any sense."

Lidia grabbed the stone piece from Squabee and read it outload.

"All it says is ’Synopsis:’ I wonder if this was summary of something that happened in this temple, or perhaps to the entire world for a time."

Slimo picked up the piece next before dropping it back on the ground.

"We’ll need to ask Sarah when she wakes up. She’s been through too much today already."

Lidia nodded her head and looked around the rest of the room.

"For some reason, I can’t help but feel like this isn’t right. It doesn’t feel like we did the right thing by hunting down this statue."

"If you’re worried about Sarah, she will be fine. We’ve seen her pull through worse."

"That’s not really what I meant, but that is a part of it. For example, why is this statue attacking everyone who reads its plaque? I know that I was blessed with a power that way, but wouldn’t that be odd for someone who was a Luminator? What would be the point of building a statue that breaks once someone reads its plaque? It just sounds like a waste of time and effort."

"So, you’re saying whoever built these statues wasn’t a Luminator?"

"Maybe, or perhaps they were built after the Luminators had already disappeared. I find it odd that the last statue we found was a heartfelt goodbye message, but this one was simply a synopsis of something. Also, why imbue the statues with power in the first place? Did they know someone would eventually find them?"

Slimo thought to himself.

"Perhaps, they knew a battle between corruption and these light powers was inevitable. I mean, look at all the places we found these powers. Everything has been hidden very well."

"But even so, why hide the power? There’s just so many things that don’t make sense. It almost feels like these statues are a momentum saying, ’this power isn’t going anywhere, even if Zalo wins.’ In other words, it feels like it’s giving anyone who survives the calamity a last chance to fight back."

Slimo nodded his head in agreement.

"That’s a very likely scenario, but that still doesn’t explain what the traitor was after and why he was here. You would think a traitor would want to destroy something like that or at least prevent it from happening."

Lidia nodded.

"Yeah... you would think that."

Lidia carried Sarah back towards Sheeby who was pacing around the ground. She climbed on to Sheeby’s back and held on to one of her sharp scales tightly.

"If none of you want to walk up hundreds of stairs, I would suggest getting on top of Sheeby."

Without any hesitation, everyone else Squabee and Slimo raced to hop on Sheeby’s back. However, right as they were preparing to leave, a dark red hue started glowing behind them. Lidia turned around to see what it was. Her heart dropped at the sight. Painted on the ceiling was the same kind of eye that was surrounding Traitors name.

A long strand of black liquid began pouring out of its two-dimensional iris, slowly building itself into a makeshift form. Soon, the shape of a man appeared from the liquid and hardened itself in place. Sheeby started whimpering more and more, tucking her tail between her legs and backed away from the man.

’A human?’

Slimo was the first person to get off Sheeby and call outward.

"Hey, how the hell did you get in this place? Do you know what this room is? Who are you?"

The man in front of them finished his transformation. He had tan skin, short black hair, dull brown eyes, and was wearing a strange suit of dark red armor with a sword by his side.

He did not respond to Slimo’s call.

"Are you the traitor?"

Suddenly, the man finally seemed to realize Slimo was talking to him.

"Traitor?"

His voice was much higher than Slimo expected. The man didn’t look much older than Jacob, but his voice sounded younger and full of energy.

"You know what I mean."

The man turned his head toward the ceiling, his eyes brightening seeing the red eye painted above him.

"Traitor... hahaha. Hahaha. HAHAHA!!"

Slimo didn’t flinch at the strange laughter.

Suddenly, the man grabbed his sword and turned it on himself. Slimo raised a hand to try and stop him.

"Wait, don’t-!"

With one swift push, the man impaled his own throat with his sword.