Malric halted in his tracks.
He looked up at the cathedral ahead—monolithic, brooding, and somehow detached from the very fabric of the world. It was not simply cast in shadow; it created shadow. The moonlight dared not touch its icy stone, and the wind curved around it, as though the air itself feared to graze its walls.
It stood in defiance of natural order, cloaked in a darkness that smoldered, writhed like a fire of ash.
To anyone else, it might have seemed abandoned and old, exuding an unsettling chill.
But Malric was no ordinary man.
The moment he stopped and laid eyes upon it properly, his breath hitched.
The sin—it wasn't just present; it pulsed.
It poured from the cathedral in waves, thick and oppressive, smearing the air like ink in water.
As a Hell Demon Hybrid, his demonic senses could sense things that couldn't normally be sensed. Sin was his fuel, his blood, his gift—and yet this… this was something else. He saw it. Not metaphorically, but truly saw it.
