Gates of Penance-Chapter 20: Insidious humming

On high alert, Nacht opened his eyes while gripping his saber in both hands. He looked around the room in confusion.

’I’m not halucinating am I?’

He eased his grip on his sword before he rubbed his eyes. It must be because he hadn’t had a proper rest in a while, otherwise there was no other explanation for why he was back in the same chamber in which he had entered this hell hole. Unlike the first time he was on this floor, the chamber was in pristine condition, having no sign of anyone being here, let alone a battle taking place. Everything around the chamber was the same as he had remembered, except now there was an ominous black door at the end of the room.

"Will you stop that incessant humming?" 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Alister was still here with him of course.

Nacht had to consciously stop himself from humming. It was a bad habit of his, and a telltale sign that he was anxious.

"Sorry... It’s a bad habit."

Alister walked ahead of him and started making his way towards the door.

Nacht followed a couple steps behind.

As they approached, the ebony door opened on its own, revealing a terrifying blood red glow.

He hesitated, suddenly unsure of what lay beyond the chamber, but Alister simply ignored the crimson presence like it was perfectly normal and walked out of the chamber and into the violent red light.

Nacht lingered for a moment before he followed Alister through the door, and once he did, the first thing he did was look for the source of that ominous glow. Straining his neck, Nacht looked directly above him and was met with the moon. However, it wasn’t the luminous white moon he was familiar with, instead it was a giant blood red moon that offered him nothing but dread.

’The blood moon... an eephermal.’

The longer he looked at the crimson moon, the more he couldn’t turn away from it. In only a few seconds— as his mind became more and more chaotic—he had become completely enraptured by the moon.

It wasn’t until Alister had slapped him on the back of his head that he had finally snapped out of his trance.

"Don’t stare at it you idiot! Are you trying to get yourself killed!"

Nacht rubbed the back of his head where Alister had hit him.

"I wanted to see what it looked like."

Alister nodded maniacally.

"And go insane from madness before dying an excruciating death? Merely looking at it for even a second can cause a sinner to go insane!"

Nacht looked at Alister with a blank expression on his face.

"Are you sure you didn’t already stare at it for too long?"

Alister shrugged.

"I wouldn’t know... the first time I saw the blood moon I wasn’t keeping track of the time."

Nacht shook his head in mild exasperation before he thought about something that Alister had said. Why hadn’t he died the second he looked at the eephermal? He wasn’t an enlightened... at least not yet. So he shouldn’t have been able to survive looking at the blood moon for this long let alone recover this quickly. Nevertheless, It didn’t take him long to realize why.

As he looked around, he noticed he was in an arena of some kind. It looked ancient with unfamiliar architecture but it still looked like a typical battle arena. However, he didn’t pay too much attention to the arena since he was currently eyeing the twenty other sinners that were in the arena with him! They were all positioned into a circle, surrounding what looked to be a fractured white shard illuminating a soft white glow in the center of the arena. High above the shard was the answer to Nacht’s earlier question.

Hovering above the arena was a miniature star that emitted a blinding light. It was trapped, surrounded by a myriad of complex runes that Nacht had never seen before. The runes trapped the star in a cage and negated its crushing pull. The star wasn’t large but even a small star could exert a pull that would crush any enlightened in an instant.

The white star struggled desperately to push back the harrowing blood red light and failed terribly. However, it still managed to push back the eephermal’s more debilitating effects.

"What the hell is that?"

Alister looked at Nacht in slight amusement.

"What are you referring to? The blinding star? Or the fractured shard in the middle?"

Nacht shielded his eyes as he tried and failed to gaze at the star that was shielded by its blinding light.

"Both I guess?"

Alister’s smile widened.

"The shard in the middle is the shard of ascension. Think of it as a cheat way to reach the next gate. It is one of the ways us sinners trapped in penance can ascend and avoid the infection. It forcefully cleanses the soul, purifying it enough to push a sinner into the next rank and therefore the next gate. The shard is the reason why I am here in the first place and luckily for me, it is the last one."

Nacht frowned slightly.

"How do you know it is the last one?"

Alister pointed to the star, or at least in its general direction.

"Don’t you see? The star is failing and therefore so is the crucible. Soon it will devour the crucible as fuel to avoid the blood moon’s influence for as long as possible. The star is probably part of the mechanism that forces us to the lower floors to avoid its consumption. However, we are now on the last floor. So soon enough it will devour this floor as well and whoever is still here. It is clear that whoever built this place didn’t build it to last, and so it is finally coming undone."

Nacht’s eyes widened in surprise.

"Why is it trying to avoid the blood moon’s influence? Is the star alive?"

It wasn’t weird for abstracts or even some exalted beings to take on a non humanoid form. So it was very possible that the star was an abstract of some kind or maybe even an ancient creature from years past. Since it’s battling against the blood moon it has to have a will of some kind... or used to at least, meaning it had to be alive at some point in time.

Alister shook his head.

"No, in fact I’m quite confident that it is dead. As for why it’s trying to fight against the influence of an eephermal, I have no idea."

Nacht squinted his eyes.

’Maybe it’s forced by the being that built this place?’

That would be quite a feat for someone to force an entity that could resist an eephermal to forcefully fight against one. The star seemed to be quite weak at that so it must’ve been quite strong when it died. Even if it was at the power level of a lesser god it still wouldn’t be able to resist an eephermal, especially one that affected all of penance. However, Nacht didn’t think it needed to. It only had to resist a small portion of the eephermal’s power since the blood moon most likely didn’t even realize that something was resisting it.

In the end this was all speculation on Nacht’s part. Maybe the star desperately fought the eephermal after its death for another reason or maybe it wasn’t a living being at all. Perhaps one day he’d find out the truth about this place.

Nacht anxiously looked at the sinners that started making their way towards the fighting area of the arena.

’If I survive that is.’