Alphard advanced with absolute caution, careful to keep his footsteps from echoing through the frozen emptiness of the nave. He had no compass, no shelter in that oppressive space, save for the crimson glow bleeding through the glass — a thin line of light cutting through the dark that he clung to as his one safe path forward.
The suffocating silence broke only against his ragged breath, his heart hammering without pause, its pulse throbbing through every inch of his body.
Here... is this where I transmigrated?
Swallowing back the panic threatening to freeze him in place, Alphard pushed deeper into the nave until he stood before the main altar. At the center of the presbytery rose the ceremonial table — a cracked, frozen slab of stone, desecrated by a thick, dried crust of blood that bore silent witness to some ancient, violent horror.
What did any of this mean? Why was I brought here? Damn it — I just went to sleep, and I woke up here.
As he sank deeper into the moment, the light caught the edge of a mysterious sheet of paper, wedged into a crack in the broken stone. The faint sound of it shifting in the air caught Alphard's attention.
Picking it up, he angled it just enough to catch the light directly, and found he could read it clearly, without any difficulty at all.
"It's in Japanese."
This world is not what it seems. The sea is cursed. The beasts lie in wait, and sacrifice, once made, cannot be undone. The ruins of the temple of the God of Beasts will reveal the hidden truth of the cosmos.
"The God of Beasts?"
Suddenly, a shift in the silence set every one of Alphard's senses on high alert. A sharp, metallic screech tore out of the darkness, and the heavy wooden pews began dragging themselves across the floor in a chaotic scrape against the stone tiles.
He strained his eyes desperately, but the cathedral's darkness stood like an impenetrable wall; something was moving around him, entirely beyond his sight.
What was that?
He pulled back quickly toward the shadows lining the walls, careful not to stray too far from the beam of light. Gripped by panic, he forced himself to take a deep breath, desperate to regain some measure of control — but the reprieve lasted only a heartbeat.
Without warning, the heavy pews were hurled violently into the air, thrown by some invisible force that splintered the wood apart.
In the middle of the chaos, a thin thread of blood cut through the emptiness, catching the crimson moonlight with a ghastly shimmer.
A guttural, bone-chilling roar reverberated through the stone walls, echoing into every corner of the cathedral, as two burning, malevolent red eyes tore through the thick darkness.
Survival instinct took over, and Alphard broke into a desperate sprint for the exit. But just as he was about to reach the great doors, the temple's foundations shook with violence.
The floor split apart, and a grotesque mass rose from the depths, expanding unnaturally until its back scraped against the cathedral's high vaults, sealing off any hope of escape entirely.
With frightening speed, the beast growled, dragging itself toward Alphard on its many legs, trying to crush him beneath its bulk.
Its erratic spasms, paired with the threads of blood that danced like limbs along its back, formed a scene beyond aberrant. The creature bore a third eye — disturbingly human in shape — embedded in the middle of its forehead, an unholy organ that let it glimpse the immediate future, anticipating Alphard's every move by precious seconds.
Still, rather than give in to panic and flee, he stood his ground. He knew his body wouldn't hold up for a prolonged chase, so instead of burning through his strength, he waited, watching for one wrong move from the creature that would let him break free without exhausting himself first.
He chose to play by the same rules: sharpening his senses to read the beast's patterns, countering its intentions, and slipping past death by a hair's breadth with every lunge it made.
Maybe it's just the adrenaline talking, but this thing isn't exactly fast on its feet — though its reach is long. If I can get it to smash through that wall, I might be able to slip out.
Just as the odds seemed to tip in his favor, a brutal blow from the beast cracked the wall, tearing open a breach in the stone.
Without a second thought, Alphard slipped through the gap and sprinted with every last ounce of strength he had left. But the relief was short-lived — with a deafening crash, the creature demolished the wall entirely, charging forward on all fours like a rabid hound chasing down its prey.
Though its movements lacked any real agility for turning, its straight-line speed was devastating. Alphard was forced to weave through the narrow alleys, cutting sharp, zigzagging turns — a desperate tactic meant to slow the creature down, even knowing that this superhuman effort would eventually drain what little strength he had left.
I have to run, I have to run, I don't want to die!
As Alphard pushed himself faster, the cold cobblestones underwent an impossible transformation: from the cracks in the ground burst an instant sea of crimson spider lilies, spreading like a blessed plague across the entire district.
The dense carpet of flowers snagged the beast's limbs, tangling it enough to bring its charge to an abrupt halt.
Exhausted, his lungs burning, his body having clearly reached its limit, Alphard collapsed, dropping to one knee in a desperate attempt to catch his breath. Looking up, astonishment froze him in place: suspended in the air, a mysterious man watched him from a distance, his cold attention split between the boy and the beast now held fast.
"Don't be afraid. I've come for you, Alphard."
The stranger descended with an almost sacred unhurriedness, landing atop the bed of lilies before advancing with a steady stride, utterly untouched by any trace of fear in the face of the colossal threat before him.
The creature, meanwhile, thrashed in a savage frenzy, twisting desperately against the crimson stems binding its body; it roared and shrieked, trapped in a helpless agony, while the air of the alley thickened with an eerie chorus of murmured complaints and bodiless laments rising from the flowers themselves.
"Red as life, red as death. The heart parts from existence, and the crimson moon, ever watching, breaks in joy and rapture. May the mother take you back into her womb, and may you be poured out among tears and fresh blood. May your spirit be freed, and may your pain fade as the blood stills in your veins. Glorious is the day of death, for from it springs the meaning of our lives. May pain vanish from the face of the earth. And may your existence remain, held in the memory of the book of life."
The crimson stems drove themselves viciously into the creature's flesh, working like needles that drained its blood without mercy, while it writhed in an indescribable agony, letting out choked groans of pure suffering.
Reaching their limit, the roots — swollen with the beast's life force — took on a dull, murky sheen and disgorged the fluid back into it; a tide of rotten, corrupted blood that poisoned the creature's own bloodstream from within.
The extermination worked from the inside out, the monster withering away from its very core, its structure collapsing until its colossal body disintegrated entirely into nothing, the lilies sinking back into the cracks in the earth, leaving behind only the cold, desolate cobblestones.
Collapsed on the freezing ground, Alphard convulsed violently. A thread of dark, foaming blood spilled uncontrollably from his mouth, staining his lips, as a series of spasmodic shudders wracked his entire body.
Every fiber of his being burned with an agony so sharp that his muscles locked rigid, forcing his back to arch against the stones beneath him.
The man noticed Alphard's torment at once. In the space of a blink, he closed the distance to his side, watching the boy fade rapidly in the grip of his own agony.
With senses honed far beyond human limits, he could hear the erratic, weakening thrum of Alphard's heart, along with the thick surge of blood climbing his throat and spilling past his lips.
Kneeling beside him, he pressed his palm to Alphard's chest, controlling the flow of blood from within and steadying the spasms wracking his body. Against all odds, he eased Alphard into a deep, painless sleep, saving his life in the process.
"This the boy, boss?"
"Yes. That's him. Philip — take him home, please."
Without wasting a moment, Philip lifted Alphard's limp body into his arms. It took him only a couple of minutes to cross the city's rooftops at a staggering speed, slipping through the window of the young man's bedroom with a ghostly stealth that raised not the faintest suspicion.
Careful not to make a sound, he laid him down on the mattress and vanished from the room just as quickly, leaving no trace of his presence behind — save for setting Alphard's top hat and cane down neatly beside the bed.