CHAPTER 253: MORE CLUES

The damp misty breeze remained outside when Kael closed the church door, but the cold—the kind that crept up his spine—did not leave him. The silence inside the temple was thick, dense, as if it swallowed every step, every breath. The interior was lit only by the faint gray light filtering through the cracked stained-glass windows, casting restless shadows on the walls.

Kael examined the place carefully.

The wooden benches were overturned, some broken in half, others with claw marks, as if a desperate struggle had taken place in that sacred space. There were candles lying on the floor, some still melted on the edges of the altar steps. A censer hung from the ceiling by a twisted chain, swaying slightly... even though there was no wind.

Klee remained kneeling by the entrance, her eyes fixed on the cross that had withstood the test of time at the back of the altar. Kael took a step forward, his eyes scanning the place, instinctively alert to the slightest movement, the slightest change in the air.

That’s when he saw it.

A dark, dense stain crossed the stone floor. Dried blood. The almost black hue betrayed the time that had passed since it was spilled, but the thickness, the traces... something there said that death had not been quick.

It was a trail.

Kael crouched down, gently running his fingers along the edge of the dried blood. The pattern was clear: it was not a static pool, but a trail... as if someone had been pulled. Or dragged. The blood snaked through the side corridor of the church, disappearing beyond a wooden door at the back, slightly ajar.

He stood up and looked at Klee.

"Stay here. Don’t go in, no matter what happens."

She just nodded, her face too pale to protest.

Kael pushed the door slowly. The low sound of the hinge broke the silence with a long, uncomfortable creak. The hallway behind it was dark, with the smell of mold and rusty iron growing stronger with each step. There were unlit candles on the walls, some still dripping dry wax—signs that, not long ago, someone had been there trying to maintain some routine... some faith.

The trail of blood led him to a small reinforced wooden door, which seemed to give access to the sacristy or some kind of private room. The doorknob was covered with a hardened red crust.

Kael took a deep breath.

He pushed the door open.

The smell hit him first.

Iron. Decay. Old blood. And something worse, more rotten, like burnt flesh mixed with bodily fluids exposed to the elements. Kael brought his hand to his mouth, trying to stifle the gagging sensation. His eyes adjusted to the dim light of the small room, and that was when he saw it.

The body—or what remained of it—lay near a bookcase filled with religious texts.

It was a man in a torn cassock, and for a moment Kael recognized the emblems of the Order of Light embroidered on the fabric. A priest.

But the real horror was in the state of the body.

It had been cut in half, brutally. The upper half lay face down, arms outstretched as if it had tried to crawl away, nails broken, fingers bloody. There were deep claw marks on his shoulders and arms, as if the creature that attacked him had toyed with him before delivering the final blow.

The lower half was... missing.

Kael slowly approached and knelt down. The man’s legs had been torn off—not cut with a blade, but torn off like flesh being ripped apart. Bite marks and jagged lacerations revealed that something had devoured them.

The skin around the edges was stretched, the tissues torn, as if the teeth that had devoured him were jagged and animalistic, but very... very sharp.

The priest’s face — which Kael could now see clearly — was frozen in an eternal scream, his eyes bulging and dry, his mouth open and twisted, as if the pain he had felt at the end had exceeded any human limit.

Kael felt nausea rising in his throat, but he held it back.

Next to the body, there was a small silver cross lying on the floor. He picked it up. The silver was stained with blood, but it still shone in the dim light coming through the crack in the door. A symbol of faith... abandoned in the midst of horror.

He looked around and saw an open book on the desk next to the wall. Some pages had been torn out, others were stained with blood. The last words written in shaky handwriting were still visible:

"I don’t know what it was... God has betrayed me. That creature, the fruit of the devil, began to kill our villagers. God is not with us..."

Kael closed his eyes for a second.

Kael took a deep breath, trying to ignore the metallic taste of nausea in his mouth. The words in the diary echoed in his mind—dry, desperate, cursed. The pain impregnated in the shaky handwriting was almost tangible, as if the paper itself was still vibrating with the terror of the person who wrote it.

He ran his fingers along the edge of the page, feeling the relief of the ink smudged by dried blood. This was more than an account; it was the confession of a man who, in the last seconds of his life, lost not only hope... but faith.

Kael tucked the bloodstained cross inside his tunic, close to his chest. Not out of devotion—not anymore—but as a reminder. A reminder of how far darkness could penetrate. Even to the foundations of the sacred.

A muffled sound crackled to his right.

He turned immediately, his muscles stiffening, his heart racing. There was nothing visible, but a chill ran down his neck. The smell in the room had changed subtly—less blood, more rot, as if something more... recent had joined that atmosphere of death.

Kael stood up, his gaze fixed on the shadows on the ceiling. The extinguished candles cast indistinct silhouettes on the walls, which moved with an almost imperceptible rhythm—as if the darkness itself were breathing.

Another noise. Louder. Something scratching wood.

It came from inside the closet in the corner of the room.

Kael advanced slowly. His hand steady on his sword. Each step was a hammer blow on the silent floor. The closet was ajar, the darkness inside it even denser than the rest of the room. The sound had ceased, as if whatever was there... was waiting.

He reached out and, with a single swift movement, threw the doors wide open.

Empty.

Nothing but piles of cassocks, some stained with mold and dust. But... the smell was coming from there. Strong. Sickening. Like the hot breath of a hungry creature. Kael moved closer, pushing aside the religious garments—and then he saw it.

Behind the pile of fabric was a hole in the stone wall. Small, hollowed out from the inside. A tunnel. Improvised. Crooked.

Something was using that space. Like a lair.

Kael backed away, his stomach churning.

"Klee..."

He ran back to the nave of the church, darting across the dark hallway like an arrow.

Klee was no longer kneeling.

She was standing, staring at the altar—paralyzed. Her eyes glazed over. Her mouth half open.

"Klee?" Kael called, lower than he would have liked. His voice sounded heavy, as if he didn’t want it to echo in that place.

The girl didn’t answer. But Kael noticed her shoulders shaking. She was whispering. Repeating something.

He approached slowly.

"What are you saying?"

Klee turned slowly toward him. Her eyes were different—deep, as if she had looked directly at something the human mind should not contemplate.

"There’s something behind the altar," she murmured. "I... I saw it move. There’s someone there."

Kael looked over her shoulder.

The massive stone altar supported the already chipped wooden cross. Behind it, the wall was cracked in several places... but there was nothing visible.

He walked cautiously past the altar. His footsteps echoed on the cracked stone floor. When he reached the back, he realized it wasn’t just a crack—it was an opening. Small, like the one in the closet, but this one led to an underground corridor carved into the living rock, spiraling downward.

It was narrow, but large enough for someone to crawl through.

Or something to climb up.

Kael turned to Klee.

"Someone—or something—has dug tunnels inside the church. They’re everywhere."

Klee hugged her arms, shivering. "I told you this place was... rotten. There’s something down there, Kael. Something that grew with the curse."

He nodded. The cruel logic of it was beginning to make sense. The creatures that had taken the villagers—or whatever they were—didn’t just come from the forest. They were coming from the bowels of the village itself.

The sacred had been corrupted from within.

And now, what remained of faith... was food for the darkness.

Kael approached the opening dug behind the altar. A hot breath rose from it. And with it... a voice.

Whispers. Disconnected words, as if someone were repeating ancient prayers with hatred, not devotion. Words that shook the stones.

"We can’t leave without finding the root of this," he said. "The priest tried to contain this thing. But it was already here... before him."

Klee, though terrified, nodded silently.

Kael pulled an unlit torch from the side of the wall and lit it with a match. The flame flickered... then held.

With his other hand, he gripped the Sword.

"Let’s find this thing soon, I’m starting to get nervous," Kael said.