blueteamnovel 618. Where Mother Sleeps
618. Where Mother Sleeps
618. Where Mother Sleeps
Vexed Consanguinity.
The name struck Frost as odd, but the notion of sins and the ‘One Sin’ being shared by all gave it meaning.
Hateful, and bleeding descendants of a common ancestor.
The Rod of Agonizing Legibility bled words as Frost unleashed hell upon the rising entities, bubbling their bodies until they evaporated into hot, red mist. With such miniscule HP they were of no threat to her.
But to the Princess on the other hand, they were the most powerful entities a human could feasibly face. When one died another two took their place. They multiplied and birthed from the red pool, hands reaching out from the crimson shallows to their ankles.
Flames warded them away as Frost pushed through, annihilating the Rods of Agonizing Legibility with ease, using her teeth to shatter them as her hands were busy securing the Princess to her back, all the while pale monoliths arose
< “The collective pool of life has been passed down untainted even with sin.” >
< “Sin prospers in blood like the critters of a pond.” >
< “It represents our wholeness as one.” >
< “Our spiteful origins of utter beginnings.” >
“Is this you or are you translating those words!?” Frost roared, frightening the girl who latched onto her back for dear life.
< Nay. I am translating it for you >
< “Blessed is the blood.” >
< “Contaminate it you will not.” >
“Like the separation of humans and Demi-humans... Is this what this Angel taught!?”
“A-Are you asking me or a ghost!?”
Bloody, pale lances shot out from the floor and walls, yearning to impale Frost.
However, the trajectory was off.
She could have avoided them by simply not moving at all as she powered through the infinite hallways of blood.
“Just a voice ringing inside of my head! Princess! Are you sure that Angel you saw didn’t have a vendetta against you!?”
“I-I’m not sure! How come!?”
Frost’s heat alone was able to clear large areas of blood to prevent the formation of these entities. Physical attacks were hardly useful even with her power. They needed to be thoroughly destroyed, and there was no better way than with her flames.
She grit her teeth and manifested the Corrupted Persona of Asterism.
Star-shaped ornaments painted like living brushstrokes clipped onto her hair. Stars surrounded her alongside cosmic dust, creating a harmless accretion disk.
“You might not believe this, but I think they’re targeting you.” Frost reached out her barrier mid-transformation.
The entities awaiting on the other side avoided her, and instead, reached futilely towards the Princess.
“B-But... I’ve never... been attacked when I came here...” It shocked her to no end. “Blood? Could it be because of the big bird’s blood? Is the Angel blaming me?”
“Whatever it is, it’s no coincidence that the Icon of Judgement’s death activated it. Maybe it was a failsafe.”
“To get rid of me...?”
< Sin on the other hand... has always existed >
< But here it has taken a form due to the influence of an Angel whose virtues opposed Wrath >
Frost hailed bullets into a pale, bleeding wall ahead. Words collapsed from its wounds as it cracked. The door was far too large for a place where only a mother and child were allowed to live, much like the grandeur interior of the Nexus.
Looking closely, broken chains could be found wrapped along tall columns. Atop those were the busts of a feminine figure. In place of their eyes were rotting apples, which must have been golden apples at some point in time.
“Meaning this Angel of Wrath can create enemies born from Sin?”
< Correct >
< But she is not present >
The words of the door were then translated to her moments before she set foot into the sanctums of the pale palace.
The room they stepped into was a great hall made from white Tearstone. The architecture within was gothic. However, it was also clumsily made. On the surface it was grandeur and utterly perfect, but upon further scrutiny the details that were amiss.
Were there a ruler of Puritas, then this would have been utterly perfect. Hints of brutalist architecture expressed themselves through the thick walls and the lack of lighting. Blood bled through iron grates found in the walls, and on eyes of statues depicting an Angel, but their tails were all severed to defile it.
Battlements gushed with blood. Murder holes littered the floors above, as did siege weapons. They were all pointed to a singular spot in the center of the room where the blood collected into a conical basin.
“... This... isn’t a palace at all.”
“It is!” The Princess cried. “It’s where mother sleeps! Down there!”
She pointed at the pool.
“There’s a passage down there!”
Studying the walls, the chains which glowed ominously like those of the Chained Theocracy, Frost came to the realization that this place was no palace. The blood from behind did not follow.
However, the one within gave birth to new entities.
A being rose from the collection of blood. It was the bloody statue of a red angel, its wings skeletal and stabbing the air individually like scythes.
It stood at over five meters in height, and its hands reached up to cusp something inconceivable as it wept tears of blood. Suddenly, its body twirled, revealing a hateful expression with bared fangs.
Letters dripped from the tip of its feathers, as it did from a pale tablet it cradled in its arms.
Hemorrhagic Effigy
Wrath
AFFINITY : Wrath
LEVEL : 120ORIGIN : Sin
HP : 250,000
ATT : 3,500MAG ATT : 3,500ATT DEF : 5,000MAG DEF : 5,000
MP : 12,000
RESIST : 777AGI : 0
< “Mixed blood of the astral and man must never be.” >
< “Do not taint the seed you have given to us.” >
A flash of a memory appeared before Frost’s eyes.
For a split second, she saw two Angelic figures.
One with red wings and bleeding words like that of the Listening Bird and its Mantle of Sin; and the other with many glorious wings.
But that was all Frost was able to see.