How had Lara found the Key of Chak Chel in the original timeline? Bella no longer remembered the details. She did not rush to find the Key first. Once it was removed, just as in Lara's original timeline, without the Silver Box to contain it, the divine power of Kukulkan inside the Key would be unable to settle properly and would bring disasters such as tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.
The correct order was to obtain the Silver Box first and only then search for the Key.
The fact that Trinity was throwing all its strength into searching for the Silver Box proved the point. They were obviously following the same order: Box first, Key second. Only a reckless rookie like Lara would take whatever she saw, crawl through every gap, scale every wall, and dismantle anything that crossed her path.
Bella certainly was not going to cause volcanic eruptions or tsunamis that swept through cities. Peruvians were people too. If eighty or a hundred thousand died, her conscience would condemn her just the same.
She needed to get both artifacts first. As long as she inserted the Key into the Silver Box, she could get Kukulkan, the designated sucker in Bella's plan, to send down divine power. She was determined to obtain the portion of divine power that could help her forge a Divine Body. There was no way she would let Trinity waste it.
Combining Unuratu's account with Paititi's written records, Bella eventually marked thirteen locations that might once have been inhabited by ancient Maya. Where there had been Maya, there would have been temples, and according to the customs Unuratu knew, the Key would certainly have been enshrined in one of those temples.
Which one, exactly, was something Bella would have to discover herself.
"All right, I understand. I'll bring back both the Key and the Silver Box. By the way... where is the oldest church around here?"
At the very end, she asked the question as casually as if it had just occurred to her.
"A church? A Catholic church? If you go west from Kuwaq Yaku, I think there's a very old church about two miles away. I heard it dates back to the colonial era. Is something wrong?" Unuratu asked curiously.
Bella shook her head. "Just a small matter."
She soon left the resistance valley.
Overthrowing Paititi's current king was not something she needed to worry about. Lara could fight a thousand people alone, and Desmond Miles was not much worse. If he truly could not manage it, he could always ask his father for reinforcements. The Brotherhood could casually send over a few Tyrants and some bioengineered humanoids and flatten Paititi outright.
Following Unuratu's directions, Bella found an abandoned church outside the town that had deteriorated beyond recognition. Without much effort, she entered the crypt beneath it and easily retrieved the Silver Box of Ix Chel, which colonial missionaries had hidden there long ago.
Trinity was still searching all over the mountains, following pile after pile of clues. In reality, missionaries had already carried the artifact out of Paititi during the colonial era.
The Silver Box of Ix Chel was pure white, about thirty centimeters (roughly twelve inches) long and roughly rectangular, its shape resembling an hourglass twisted most of the way around.
Bella was worried that Kukulkan might detect her dimensional space, so she placed the Silver Box in her backpack instead.
The divine power inside the Box was not particularly strong. It mainly served as a locator and conduit. Even so, the faint trace of divine power on it tried to seep into the holder's mind. Bella ignored such a weak influence completely. Brainwash her with a stray thought or two? Maybe if the Dragon of the Moon showed up holding the Mind Stone.
Paititi lay at the source of the Amazon River, in what modern maps marked as the Andes, near the 5,597-meter (18,363-foot) Nevado Mismi. The place where the Paititi people had stored the Key of Chak Chel was also somewhere in Peru. Bella followed the river northward, searching the places where the Paititi migration had once stopped for long periods.
With Teleportation, the Cloak of Levitation, and Weyland's satellite positioning, Bella was extremely efficient. Even so, she made two full trips through Peru's Amazon basin before she finally found a Mayan temple.
The temple was in an extraordinarily remote location. The nearest human settlement was more than five kilometers (about three miles) away. Everyone living in the area now was Peruvian; there had not been any Maya here for a very long time.
This should be the place, right? How had Lara found this godforsaken spot in the original timeline? Looking at the ruined temple, Bella drank water while pounding her aching legs. After making several circuits through the mountains, she was exhausted.
There were no enemies present. At the circular stone in the center of the temple, she drove down a fist, shattered the disk, and retrieved the sealed Key of Chak Chel from beneath it.
The Key was an ornate dagger made of some unidentifiable material. Its blade was pitch black. The moment she took it, a strange pulse tried to spread in all directions, only to be stopped by Bella, who had prepared in advance.
With both the Silver Box of Ix Chel and the Key of Chak Chel in hand, the two artifacts inseparably tied to Mayan mythology were finally hers. She needed to return to Paititi and summon Kukulkan at Paititi's altar, then use his divine power to forge her Divine Body.
Finding the Key had taken her nearly half a month. When she returned to Paititi, she discovered that William Miles had already arrived with elite Brotherhood forces and a number of bioengineered humanoid soldiers. They had been fighting Trinity for several days.
The old man's expression was a little strange, but he continued directing the battle in an orderly fashion.
Desmond Miles was a born assassin. He had inherited the combined combat skills of the great assassins who came before him—Altaïr, Ezio, and Connor. Whether using a bow, a battle axe, or the Hidden Blade, he handled each with extraordinary mastery. Add a one-percent concentration of Isu genes, powerful physical abilities, and Eagle Vision, and he could move freely across the battlefield without a single opponent able to withstand even one exchange.
Bella was in no hurry to perform the ritual at Paititi's altar. She was not some boss in a video game. There was no chance she would rush into a ritual before every enemy had been dealt with. What if someone interrupted it? How infuriating would that be? She had already waited nearly half a year. A few more days did not matter.
She lived alone in a tent. Her only task each day was meditation, adjusting her Mind Lake and her mental state to their best possible condition. With knowledge from the Darkhold as support, and with her side prepared while Kukulkan remained unaware, Bella estimated her chances of deceiving him at as high as ninety percent. Even so, she intended to make every possible preparation and leave nothing to chance.
Trinity's military strength was considerable, and it also held the terrain advantage. The Miles father and son joined forces with Paititi's resistance and attacked hard for three straight days, yet still failed to defeat Trinity.
Paititi's terrain was simply too complicated. Mountain roads stretched everywhere, while the bioengineered humanoids were unfortunately not very intelligent. Seventy percent of their losses came from falling into ravines and dying on impact.
"Jason, O'Rin, you two go as well."
Bella felt like an imperial government's hunting dog sent to suppress some martial-arts sect. Every day she had to open portals and transport more bioengineered humanoids, and she was thoroughly sick of it.
Fine. She would send Jason and O'Rin out instead!
Jason was very pleased with the assignment. He pointed at the distant mountains, then at himself. O'Rin understood immediately and nodded, meaning: Got it. All the small fry are yours!
A specialist in crushing weaklings, Student Jason picked up his machete and headed into the mountains!