The wisp fluttered up like a startled candle flame, spinning in tiny circles as light folded around the group. A low hum filled the temple, something like pressure and not just sound, and suddenly their boots left the ground.
Vert's body drifted weightlessly. Cainan's rose, and Park hovered stiffly, arms out, the ragged folds of his space suit rippling as if under deep water. They rose higher and higher, through the golden shafts of light streaming from the cracked ceiling, until they floated eye level with the massive silver statue of Lancelotis holding his extinguished lantern.
Park stared downward, his visor catching the white glare. The vastness. The weightlessness. It made something cold claw through his void-suit. "This reminds me of space," he muttered, voice quieter, more mechanical. "Like me, drifting in space."
Cainan crossed his arms, glaring at the wisp. "This your plan? You gonna drop us from up here to avenge that Armu chick?!"
The wisp spun in place, her light flaring red from sheer irritation. "NO! NO! How many fucking times do I have to say we need you?!" Then she froze, gasped sharply, and squeaked, "Lancelotis… forgive me for cursing in your temple…"
Vert grinned, voice teasing. "Keep making it mad, it's funny."
Park sighed. "Please no. I am very tired of her squealing."
Cainan turned toward him mid-float. "You don't even have ears, how can you even hear anything?"
Vert tilted her head. "Yeah! That's a good question. How can you hear?"
Park's voice came softer now. "My consciousness and senses were placed inside this suit. Something holds my voice and senses inside the void within. I was born like this, a pure comet. A gift from the stars, they said. Everyone around me called me special. And yet, I could never do anything on my own without destroying something. Containing my power inside this suit was the only way to save myself and everyone else."
Cainan blinked, genuinely curious. "So say if your suit just so happens to be destroyed… then what?"
Park's tone didn't change. "Most likely, everything in this half of the world would be consumed inside out and spit out very violently causing hundreds of millions of deaths, and insane god-like destruction."
Cainan's voice cracked. "HUH?! We're walking around with a ticking bomb?!"
Vert's eyes widened. "Wait, wait, wait…so when I took your helmet off earlier in the prison, was I in danger?"
Park answered calmly. "If you had fallen in, yes. You would have been consumed forever. But since the suit contains my comet body and power to a certain degree, removing my helmet causes no damage."
Both Cainan and Vert exhaled at once in relief.
Cainan smirked. "So those holes you conjure, those black magic hole things—"
"They are part of the void within," Park said. "Power drawn directly from my body. I can make them larger, but if I did, you would all die. So I keep them to a reasonable size for destruction."
Cainan's face lit up like a child's. "Oh, that's good… real good!"
'He's just right for my future kingdom!'
Vert didn't even look at him, but she was definitely speaking to Cainan. "Tell me why I already know what you're thinking before you say it."
Cainan grinned. "Say, Park, how would someone of your insanely powerful caliber like to act as a nuke for a kingdom I might hate someday? You could drop a fat nuke of space on them and wipe them out. Thinking how rich and famous I'll make you!"
Park tilted his helmet head slightly. "I might consider it."
Cainan perked up. "Really?!"
"No," Park replied flatly. "I will not commit genocide for the sake of anyone's command and desires."
"Tch. Boring," Cainan muttered.
The wisp suddenly zipped ahead, her glow brightening. "We are here! Get ready!"
A wide circular gate of radiant white opened before them, carved into the upper wall of the temple like a door to another world. The air shimmered, gravity shifted again, and the group glided through it.
On the other side, light devoured everything. A blinding white chamber opened before them, walls laced with runic gold veins pulsing faintly. The floor reflected their bodies like mirrored glass, and at the end of the hall, standing before a swirling white vortex, was the Pilgrim Lynzelle.
His skin was silver and metallic, immaculate even, and his upper body bare, sculpted like a statue that had come alive. Around his waist hung a silver robe folded perfectly. Behind his back floated a circle halo of hovering silver swords, each one trembling a few inches from his back. His hair was long, silver, and curled like threads of moonlight. His eyes were pure white and from them ran red tears that streaked down his metallic cheeks. Above him spun a dull grey halo, slow and cracked, stained with rust-red blood. His mouth was fused shut, silver lips molded together like armor plating. In his hand he held a silver javelin etched with scripture and faint white flame, and white glowing runic symbols.
The wisp fluttered beside him, panting. "Lynzelle! I got them!"
Cainan, Vert, and Park stepped forward, feet stepping against the mirrored floor.
When Lynzelle spoke, the sound didn't come from his mouth, it
Mcame from everywhere, vibrating through the walls and their bones. "These are the warriors who defeated Armu… and the horde of warped humans outside? They don't look like much."
Cainan raised an eyebrow. "Wanna get kicked in that portal?"
Vert jabbed him in the side. "Shh."
Lynzelle continued, his tone neither warm nor cruel. "I will make everything clear. I do not agree with your presence here, nor with the presence of the Primarch or the Witch Mother. But they have reached the First Sanctuary. They wait for something. I assume it's you."
Cainan cracked his neck. "Yeah, it's me. The stakes are high, and my life's on the line. I gotta survive this."
Lynzelle lowered his javelin, pointing its sharp end toward them. "Healing light for what's to come."
A wave of white light radiated outward, wrapping around Cainan and Vert and mending their wounds, washing fatigue away. But when it reached Park, it hissed, bending and distorting like heat against cold metal. The light refused him.
Lynzelle's voice deepened. "What power do you hold that rejects the light? Blasphemy."
Park bowed his helmet slightly. "I don't need it. Thank you."
Lynzelle raised his javelin again, the vortex behind him whirling faster. "The way to the Sanctuary will not be a traditional walk. You must temporarily die within the light's power. Only then can I guide your bodies safely there."
Vert frowned, voice sharp. "Temporarily die? Yeah, I'm trusting this less and less now."
Cainan added, "I'm ready!"
"Damn Cainan, can you at least act like you don't trust them?"
The chamber pulsed with that unearthly glow again like the inside of a god's eye. Lynzelle's words broke through the silence.
"Light reveals truth, but also destroys what cannot bear to be seen. As a Pilgrim, I guide the lost souls burdened by the horrors of this world to the temples scattered across the land. I guide those who have died in the name of Lancelotis to his afterlife. I am the Pilgrim of Guidance. You know my role, I will guide your souls to carnage."
His voice faltered, stained blood tears thickening down his face. "And I hate it. Never have I used my role for violence. Especially for non-believers such as yourselves. The First Sanctuary was the first brick Lancelotis placed to build all temples. It was where I communed with him and his djinn face to face. How dare I defile it?! But I have no choice."
Vert tilted her head, crossing her arms. "Are there other Pilgrims of Lancelotis? Why aren't they here helping?"
"The Pilgrim of Judgment. The Pilgrim of Purity. The Pilgrim of Silence," Lynzelle replied. "They are bound by oath to never leave the temples they protect. A simple vow to uphold when calamity was never meant to stain these grounds. But after the Great Rain—when the witches of Nacht spread their necromantic plagues across twelve kingdoms—Lancelotis sent us out to heal the lands with light. The witches used it as distraction. They sought to corrupt the temples from within."
Cainan stepped forward, resting the flat of his sword against his shoulder. "What then?"
"Our clerics, priests, Pilgrims, and Armu herself fought them off," Lynzelle said. "The raid failed, though many perished. The temples were spared."
Park's voice came calm and low. "What do they want now? Do you know why the witch is here?"
Vert added, "Yeah, how dumb is it to stroll into a temple of Lancelotis? Didn't they already fail once?"
"A Witch Mother," Lynzelle said gravely. "One of the first to master Nacht's curse. Those who loved nothing, offered pieces of their own soul for power. Witch Mothers are the ones who had something, and sacrificed everything."
Vert turned to the wisp. "But since the brain…"
"…The witches cannot gain more power," the wisp finished softly. "All divines are gone."
Cainan groaned. "Why do we need all this history? Can't we just go in and end this already?"
Lynzelle approached, his silver form reflecting the soft shimmer of the portal. "If you are to be king of Kalhalla, you must know what you stand against. I sense vast power inside you."
Cainan smirked and pulled down his collar. The red rune gleamed, pulsing like a living wound. "Yeah, the Rune of Death."
The wisp gasped. Lynzelle's head bowed slightly. "The god of death's rune…the power King Bastion used to save his kingdom and hold off Stroheim before he was sealed…. How do you bear it now? And inside of you, at that? No one has ever physically bonded with a Rune."
"I don't know," Cainan replied. "I came from another world. When I got here, I already had it. Some summoning ritual. A nice looking woman with dark blue hair and yellow eyes brought me here."
"Princess Audren of Kalhalla," Lynzelle said. "She performed the Summoning Rite. Whoever chose you found you worthy. But if you were meant to serve Kalhalla, this changes everything."
He raised the silver javelin, light running along its edge. "Now then. I must wound you so you can die temporarily. The light will carry your body through the crossing. You will rest in coffins of light, surrounded by roses, upon a lake of mirrored water beneath a sky of pure white."
Cainan swallowed. "I'll wake up… right?"
"Your fear of death will hinder your path."
"It's not fear," Cainan said, glaring. "I just don't trust people playing with my soul. But… if that's the only way, fuck it."
Lynzelle nodded, voice heavy. "Your companion who rejected the light, will not be cut. He will be carried through. Any who step into the portal unmarked will die instantly. The magic of that realm devours souls. But your companion holds no soul in his being."
Park's voice dropped to a whisper. "Anymore."
Vert frowned. "Why can't you come with us, Lynzelle? Surely you're strong. And how'd the witch and Primarch even get in there without you?"
"That is a mystery I cannot yet speak," Lynzelle said. "Lancelotis taught: light devours darkness, and darkness devours light. The witches' mastery of curses likely opened the way. And if I die, you will have no guide to return. You will be stuck in the First Sanctuary for All Eternity. I must remain after guiding you all."
It made grim sense. None argued. Lynzelle spun his javelin, light coiling like scripture around him. He began to chant a hymn of fractured syllables, each word burning through the air like shattered glass.
The chamber flooded in brightness. Then, faster than thought, the javelin cut across Cainan and Vert, a perfect, silent slice that left a comet's trail of white. They fell instantly, bodies limp and gleaming in the divine glow.
Lynzelle lowered the javelin and turned to the wisp. "Find the rebellious Knight Captain Harpe. The one who left us without final words. Bring him and his entourage."
The wisp hesitated. "He left us… do you think he'd come back?"
"He will," Lynzelle said, staring at Cainan's fallen body. "If they seek their summon, Audren will come. They need their king. And the Rune of Death may be the only force capable of ending the brain."
The wisp nodded, trembling. "Yes, Pilgrim Lynzelle!"
The chamber dimmed, the two bodies glowing faintly on the temple floor, and the portal's white vortex swirling like a patient mouth.