Crow paused at a grand entry. The stone archway, bricks—everything was exquisitely carved. Unlike the roughly hewn bricks of the passageway they’d been traveling in, the style and craftsmanship were on a whole other level. At the top of the arch was a brick called the capstone, with a fresco painting. The androgynous human painted on the fresco had a finger pressed to their lips. Above that, they carved a phrase into the stone: Halt deinen Mund!

“What mean?” Otto asked.

“Not sure,” Crow said. “If I were to guess, based on that painting, it’s something like remain silent.”

“That’s the translation, but it’s a bit more rude. It’s closer to ‘Shut your mouth.’”

“Oh, that’s good—”

Crow stopped talking and turned around to face the person speaking. It was a girl who looked like a female version of Buer, only without armor. There were some nasty scars on her face, but that wasn’t nearly as intimidating as her intense eyes. Even he felt insignificant in front of her gaze as if he were an insignificant being, which, if he was honest, hurt his pride a little.

“Are we fighting?” Crow asked after a long pause.

“No. You two clearly shouldn’t be here, and no matter how I try to manipulate this scenario, no part of you screams Minnustern. How did you get in?”

“Well, that is a much longer story than we have time for, but have you, by chance, ever heard of the Fomoiri?”

“I have not. Is this going to take long?”

“I don’t know,” Crow chuckled. “How about Scath? Does that name mean anything to you?”

“Nope. You should hurry. I’m sure paladins will arrive behind you if you don’t hurry.”

“I’m almost to the point. You see, this realm suddenly filled up with Scath, and they’ve attacked and killed many innocent people. Ah, so you know what I’m talking about, but do not know the danger they pose. If I’m not wrong, you people are the reason those monsters are on the loose. You fucking idiots,” Crow spat out the last with pure contempt that made the woman step back.

“What about that first thing you said, the Fomoiri?”

“Before the Rootless and the Daemons were the Fomoiri. They are beings of pure chaos and extremely evil. Your tampering with things you don’t understand has created one. The reason my brother and I are here is that one chased us. It was powerful enough that even your entire order wouldn’t be able to stop it.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed, and she could tell that Crow wasn’t lying. In fact, his anger and rage practically radiated from him. Underlying that, she could even sense fear and trepidation, which bothered her more than his anger. She felt the two men before were hardened warriors and had seen their fair share of fighting. Even facing her, she could tell they were undaunted, but mentioning the things he’d just talked about, his energy shifted. Frowning, her eyes flicked back down the hall.

“That doesn’t explain how you arrived here?”

“Are you trying to get out?” Crow asked after a momentary pause. Her only answer was to stare at him as if waiting for his reply. “We know an Astrologer, and he shifted us here. Once we got in, we couldn’t get out. We didn’t have much choice, and we went in the opposite direction of a dumbass tin can. But not before we kicked his ass—”

“Me kick. You watch,” Otto interrupted.

“Fine. After you kicked the shit out of Mr. Tin Can, we left him back there and came this way.”

“You defeated a paladin?” the woman asked, not quite believing them.

“Did,” Otto nodded. “Not paladin. Inquisitor.”

The woman stared hard at the two of them. No wonder they didn’t fear her; they had the ability. Coming to a decision, she pointed through the door. “Inside that arch is the Inverted Cathedral, something of the order’s dark past. You enter that place looking like you do—you’ll be killed immediately. That’s if you are lucky.”

“And if we are unlucky?”

“You become me.”

“Me better looking,” Otto said, and Crow chuckled but immediately smothered it.

“Your idiot friend is funny,” the woman said with a grin. She wasn’t even offended.

“Piece of advice… don’t assume he’s an idiot,” Crow told her. The girl once more reevaluated their dynamic, and neither of them appeared intimidated by what she’d said. They didn’t seem like the arrogant, haughty types, either.

“I’m Sarah. Formally a paladin. Formally an Inquisitor—formally a lot of things.”

“Why are you here if you got away?”

“Conviction.”

“That’s vague and intimidating, but I need more than that.”

“Why?”

“Maybe we can help each other.”

“I’m going to destroy that cathedral. Castrate the fucking Clergy that put their cocks in the female paladins without permission. I’ll excise the evil from the order to ensure the other female won’t suffer from the depravity I did.”

“Raped?”

“It’s confusing, but in the end, those women all agreed, me included. We’ve been brainwashed since childhood, and most of us believe in the Clergy. Not me. I didn’t come to this place a virgin and knew they sent me here for disobedience. I refused to let one of the Clergy touch me. To return to my branch of the order, I had to comply with their reconditioning. Which means I laid on my back and let the pigs have their way with me. I could have stopped them. Most of the Clergy aren’t even cultivators.”

“If that’s true, why don’t you fucking kill them all?” Crow found the whole situation odd. It made no sense.

“You would never understand. We were raised a certain way, and they programmed our minds to obedience. So many prayers say obey, obedient, obedience, duty, subservience—you get the idea. From the time we could speak, they taught us that the Clergy was everything. They were our parents, grandparents, protectors, guardians, and even gods. Disobeying met with the harshest punishments, which weren’t limited to physical abuse but starvation, locked in boxes, hidden away in the dark, and much, much worse. The paladins are the perfect soldiers for the church because they obey without questioning their orders.”

“That’s dark,” Crow muttered. He thought about his childhood. Yes, he was punished for misbehaving; a lecture usually followed that. But, if he couldn’t ask questions or be curious about anything, he shuddered to think of what he’d become. “You are telling me all this because I don’t belong here… why?”

“If what you said is true, you don’t have much choice but to cross into that place. Because there is currently a pilgrimage happening, and the Inquisitor you bested is most likely already rescued. You can bet he’ll be coming this way with allies. Whether or not you want to, I think we are going to be companions for a time.”

“Why would you trust us?”

“Did you not hear what I just said? You are outsiders, and I’m essentially excommunicated. They’ll probably target me before you, provided we get caught. We are allies because you need me, and I need you. That simple. However, if you want to test it on your own, I won’t stop you. But don’t expect me to rescue you, either.”

Crow and Sarah stared at each other for several seconds.

“Otto agree. Allies.”

Sarah’s eyes flicked toward the giant and then back to Crow. The giant’s words had instantly changed his demeanor, and he was already nodding in agreement. She found the duo to be interesting. The trust the two had in each other was something rarely seen.

“I’m Crow. That’s Otto.”

“Inside that door, there are many stone pillars that help support the cavern’s ceiling and the Inverted Cathedral. We go to the right, which is a blind spot. We can move if we are careful and find a place to lie low and observe. However, we can’t go too far in that direction.”

“Why?”

Sarah pulled out a map and pointed at the cavern shaped like a half-circle. “See this flat wall? The Inverted Cathedral is here in the center. Along this rounded part are eight tunnels like this one, which are roughly equidistant apart,” Sarah explained before stabbing her finger down at a tunnel on the map. “We are at this one, so there are two more tunnels to the north. Got it?”

“I get it, so to the right, or the north, is there something that can help us?”

“There is. There is a hidden place that I doubt anyone knows about. It was where I exited when I escaped the dungeons underneath. It’s also a kind of emergency escape, so it is very well hidden. If they know we are here, they might think to investigate, so we have to lie low, and you can’t do shit, no matter what happens,” Sarah explained.

Crow nodded, and all three moved with nothing more needing to be said. The moment they entered the cavern, no matter how much he prepared his mind, seeing a cathedral built onto the ceiling of the cave with the long spires coming down to the surface was enough to shock anyone. It was a beautiful structure, just upside down.

Sarah pushed him and forced him to move to the right, or he might have continued to stare. The gothic megalith had four prominent towers providing direct support for the entire building. Those four towers went into the ground, so there was no iconography to be seen. The roof peak could be touched by standing under the cathedral. The attention to detail and the smooth stone were even more impressive than the archway they had just passed through. The craftsmanship was phenomenal, and Crow couldn’t stop staring at the structure.

“Impressive, right?” Sarah whispered to him when they reached a cove in the cave wall. It would have been easy to bypass in the darkness unless someone knew to look for it.

“How do you even use that building?”

“It’s mostly hollow. The Clergy holds mass inside, but most living quarters and other arrangements are below ground. Those towers extend another hundred meters down.”

“How do you plan on destroying this place? If it’s mostly underground, then breaking the cathedral seems like it’d be more of an annoyance than a deterrence.”

“Would you believe me if I told you this entire place was both a tomb and a prison?”

Crow’s eyes narrowed, and he stared at the woman before him. Meeting her didn’t seem like an accident, but he had no way of claiming otherwise. He glanced at Otto, who only nodded back slightly.

“Are the Scath related to this?”

“You mentioned them before. Are they that evil?”

“Yes. Now answer my question, is Minnustern involved with them?”

“They are.”

“Fuck. Your order damned itself. Even if you wanted to save it now, I’m not sure it’s possible.”

“What does that mean?”

“You might be sheltered, but even you would’ve heard of Caorthannach, correct?”

“Mother of Daemons, she is our order’s greatest nemesis.”

Otto and Crow looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“Look, you two bastards, don’t mock me.”

“Those Scath that your order is working with are Caorthans. Those are her fucking children. Isn’t that the funniest joke you’ve ever heard?” Crow laughed, but it was cold and without joy.

Sarah stared at Crow, aghast. She shook her head, not wanting to believe it, but suddenly, pieces she didn’t understand previously fell into place. “Those fucking monsters,” she sighed.