Amon slid out from under the sheets without a sound, the wooden floor creaking faintly beneath his weight.

Thankfully, Syl didn't wake up.

Despite having told him that she had trained herself to stay up for three days, it was more than obvious that she needed rest.

Standing guard for three days was one thing.

Fighting a Corrupted Draconic Spawn, being knocked out and captured, escaping by running through the forest while handcuffed, being injured by a Golem, and fighting two Demons, all these things in quick succession, were another thing.

Plus, the mental strain could not be underestimated. Leaving the tribe she had been born into and for which she had tried so hard, aligning herself with Akane, whom she had thrown to the wolves earlier, and with Demons that were after her life just hours ago… It wouldn't have surprised Amon if Syl had stayed asleep for three days.

'Alright,'

When Amon opened the door,

'Huh.' He chuckled internally. 'Guess their argument continued for a while.'

Akane was curled up to the right of the door, her tail wrapped tightly around herself like a blanket. Levia slept on the opposite side, back straight against the wall, her hands resting loosely over her knees. Her long, pale hair spilled like silk over her shoulders. Their mutual animosity was obvious even in sleep. They had positioned themselves on opposite sides of the door like sentinels refusing to leave their guardposts even to rest. Neither stirred as he stepped past them.

Amon descended the stone staircase slowly, feeling the shift in the atmosphere the deeper he went. The upper floor of the church felt like an abandoned fortress. Down here though, the silence was viscous. Heavy and unnatural. Each step echoed faintly, and the air felt harder to breathe.

When Amon reached the main hall, he stopped at its center.

'I can feel something.' He thought, closing his eyes.

Amon inhaled.

Exhaled.

And let his other senses take over.

It took a couple of seconds, but the world around him shifted. Behind his closed eyelids, invisible threads seemed to appear out of thin air. Thin, translucent, and blood red. They stretched out like cobweb strands from his body in every direction. Some reached for the staircase he had just walked down. Others toward the exit, the outside world. But most… Most of the threads moved in one singular direction.

His eyes opened, and he followed the direction that the threads pointed at.

A couple of steps later, Amon realized that the threads split.

He followed each path drawn by the threads, and they all seemed to lead to the same place despite separating.

The threads all lead to the same place,

'Which is nowhere.' Amon scratched his neck. 'They keep going then disappear… Almost like they're guiding me somewhere that isn't part of the church. No hall or door leads to where the threads go.'

Amon slowly walked toward the altar that rested just outside the church.

'Below?' He raised an eyebrow. 'There's no proper path to get below the altar though.'

The Black Stone embedded in his hand pulsed faintly.

The altar loomed in front of him like a slab of carved materialized darkness.

Cracks ran across its surface like a spider's web, each one faintly leaking that same violet mist he'd noticed before.

Standing before it, Amon could feel it. Properly now.

He ran his hand along the altar's surface, fingers trailing over old gouges and ritual carvings. Nothing happened. He walked around it twice, studying the structure. There were no seams in the stone floor, no hidden passages behind the altar, no suspicious tiles.

Still, Amon was convinced. He could feel it.

'There's something down here.'

While Amon did not know it, the very altar in front of him was where the Black Stone, Azaroth's Heart, used to reside.

Additionally, the altar allowed the High Priestess more precise control over magic. It was no ordinary slab of stone.

'Whatever gives the altar power is below it. I'm sure of it.'

There was one more thing he had not tried.

Amon exhaled slowly, raised his hand, pressed his palm directly against the cold altar surface, and let the Black Stone embedded in the back of his hand sing.

The black, gooey liquid of corruption immediately started seeping down and into the altar's cracks.

The reaction was immediate.

A deep hum reverberated through the area. It wasn't a sound. It was a vibration.

Akane's ears twitched in her sleep.

Levia's hand curled slightly.

"Amon…?" Syl whispered with half-open eyes, before nodding off.

The vibration crawled up Amon's arm, moved through his ribs, into his skull, before traveling back its way down to the altar.

The cracks in the altar widened as the black corruption bleeding from the back of his hand danced, rippled, and hardened.

The thin violet mist hissed and turned red.

Then, the ground beneath Amon's feet cracked.

"...!"

Amon staggered backward as fissures split the stone floor in jagged patterns radiating outward from the altar. The cracks deepened rapidly, splintering. Dust rained down from the ceiling. Candle flames fluttered violently.

Then, the slab beneath gave way.

Amon fell down and through, swallowed by the darkness below.

His feet landed on something hard after a couple of seconds.

'The secret room.' He thought with a smile.

It was pitch black, but his Beastly Instincts allowed him to see pretty well with what little moonlight reached here.

'Both altars, the one at the center of the church and the one outside of the church are connected to it. There's no proper way of getting down here. This place is supposed to stay a secret… Not even Levia knows that it exists. The ground below the altar outside the church is thinner and easier to pierce through, that's why I could feel the threads of Mana moving through here.'

The chamber was vast, circular, its walls carved from dark stone and marked with symbols that Amon did not recognize.

Lines of pale fire traced around the chamber's perimeter, igniting one by one as if acknowledging the intruder's presence.

"Aha." Amon stepped forward. "This is what I'm here for."

At the center of the chamber, surrounded by a circle of flames and resting atop a pedestal of polished obsidian, was a weapon.

Its blade was long, curved, and blood red. Its haft was wrapped in chains of some metallic substance that shimmered faintly. The entire weapon exuded power like heat from a forge.

Amon's eyes narrowed as he stared at the Scythe's dark haft and at its blood-red blade.

The Black Stone began to vibrate uncontrollably, and so did the Scythe.

Their pulses started to synchronize like two hearts beating with the same rhythm.

"Hm."

It was certainly interesting.

Amon cautiously stepped closer. And once his foot crossed the circle of flames that surrounded the weapon,

"...!"

The chamber faded suddenly.

The next instant, Amon stood in a void.

'Tsk.' He clicked his tongue, remembering his experience after devouring the Black Stone.

The ground beneath his feet was neither solid nor liquid. Thankfully, he was able to stand on it. Unlike last time, when he felt like all he could do was float helplessly.

Above Amon was an endless black sky churned with formless shadows.

"So," He asked. "What's this?"

Amon lowered his gaze towards the figure standing in front of him, right where the Scythe had been previously.

The figure was much taller than he was, and was cloaked in black tatters.

Its face was hidden by a long bone mask resembling a beast's skull, with two jagged horns curving backward like a ram's. In its hand rested the very Scythe that Amon had aimed to make his.

Amon's eyes narrowed.

"Jarath, huh?"

Upon uttering its name, Amon instantly felt an immense amount of pressure push down on his shoulders and knees, as if the darkness surrounding, previously weightless, now weighed a ton.

"Could you…" Amon muttered through clenched teeth as he fought back against the pressure, refusing to be brought down to his knees or even to be made to bow. "Be a bit nicer?"

"Who dares touch what is mine?" It asked with a violent, heavy voice.

Amon stared calmly and defiantly, smirking as if he couldn't feel the exuded pressure.

"How about the dead stay dead, huh?" Amon's hand clenched reflexively, and the Black Stone responded with a single pulse.

Jarath tilted his head slightly.

"You are… Not one of mine."

"I am not one of your Followers, no." Amon smirked. "Though I did have fun killing and Devouring a few of them."

A blood red aura started rising from the figure's body, wrapping around the weapon.

"If you are not mine, then…" Jarath lifted the scythe and,

"...?" Amon raised an eyebrow, confused by the attack that had been seemingly stopped halfway through the swing.

Jarath had frozen.

The empty sockets of his mask narrowed.

"You are…"

The entire void shuddered, and the shadows shifted.

Jarath took a single step backward.

And dropped to one knee.

He laid his Scythe on the ground, and lowered his head.

"My Liege."

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