The Spirit Mountain Temple complex was also known as the City of Trials, but now more than ever, it truly felt like a place that tested our faith and demanded sacrifice.
By the time we arrived, the walls had already fallen, and demons were pouring into the fortress city. The majority of the corpses were human, predictably enough; judging by the state of the battle, the mercenaries had arrived too late. The priests had holed up inside the inner temple as their final line of defense, but it wouldn’t be long before the demon army breached it. The streets were filled with demons attacking the people who’d missed their chance to flee, and mercenaries trying to rescue them. Here and there, flames were beginning to spread.
“First things first!” I shouted to Cion over the chaos. “We need to track down the people in charge!”
If the goal of this attack was to free the prisoners, then the battle aboveground was meaningless. In order to put a stop to the fighting, we’d just have to pray that the Golden Lion wasn’t already drunk with bloodlust—but I couldn’t even spot the general anywhere nearby.
If they’re attacking here, does that mean he already knows about the underground research facility?
“Cion! Let’s—”
“Watch out!”
She grabbed my hand and yanked me back as a shadow went flying right in front of me. A sickening squelch rang out as flesh tore and bones shattered; what had been a priest moments ago turned into a lump of meat.
I turned to see a huge minotaur staring us down.
“Wait, please! We’re—” I started.
But he was never going to listen to me. Dodging the minotaur as he charged, I glanced at Cion—she was looking to me for guidance. Our negotiating position wasn’t any better than it had been yesterday, but if we joined in the fighting now, any lingering hope of a truce would go up in smoke.
“Just please, keep it nonlethal, okay?”
“I’ll do my best...” she gritted out.
The minotaur rampaged through the narrow alley we’d found ourselves in, smashing the stone walls of the surrounding houses. Cion leaped at him, but he was bigger and tougher than her to begin with; going easy on him wouldn’t get her anywhere. I moved to join the fight as well, but our chances of taking him out nonlethally were looking abysmal.
“Ah?!”
With a yelp, I slipped in a puddle of the dead priest’s blood and lost my footing.
“Alicia!”
I wasn’t at all braced to defend myself as the minotaur swung down at me. Cion gave up on incapacitating him and charged at him with her sword out, but she wasn’t going to make it in time. The shadow of a massive axe fell over my head—
“Graaah!”
—and a large, sweaty man leaped in to parry it, sending it crashing to the ground.
“Boss!”
At the last second, Cion twisted her hand to knock out the minotaur with the flat of her blade, then jumped down to land next to us.
With a large, beat-up broadsword in his hands, the innkeeper and former royal knight captain gave us an exasperated look.
“You two—” he started. “No, never mind. Found any leverage yet?”
“I can’t say whether it will be enough to put a stop to this, but we at least know their destination.”
“Then get going!”
A pair of feathered talons came clawing down at us; before Cion could react, the innkeeper caught them with the flat of his sword.
“I dunno how much longer we can hold out, but we’ll save as many people as we can!”
Looking around, I saw a few mercenaries hidden in the shadows of buildings, guiding civilians and priests who hadn’t gotten out in time.
“Put in a good word for us with the higher-ups when we’re negotiating the reward money, okay?” he said with a grin.
“I swear it to the Gods!”
I’d been hesitant to abandon the people aboveground, but if he said to leave it to them, then I’d do just that. Old guys like him liked having youngsters turn to them for help. Besides, I’d stayed up all night healing everyone’s wounds—nothing wrong with getting some work out of them in return.
Cion and I raced through the city, avoiding the fighting as best as we could. On our last visit, the streets had been decorated with demon corpses, but now they were dyed with the blood of humans and demons alike, a vivid testament to the two sides’ mutual hatred. Even if an instinctive fear lay at the root of that conflict, things had only gotten this bad because of the Church’s actions...
No—it didn’t matter where it had started. All of this would have happened sooner or later at someone’s hands, regardless. So this wasn’t Cion’s fault. It wasn’t anyone’s... Or maybe that stubborn insistence was just my own weakness talking.
“We’re kicking the door down!” I shouted as we reached the end of the underground tunnel. The stone door was shut tight, but I boosted my strength to kick it open. We stepped inside to find the archbishop all on his own, running around between the test subjects lying on the altars.
“Excellency!” I called out.
He stopped in his tracks for a brief moment, but nothing more. Even as we stepped closer, he ignored us completely. He just kept racing frantically from one divine soldier to the next, injecting some sort of liquid into their bodies.
“Archbishop! Listen! The demons want—”
“They’re after this place, aren’t they?! I know that! The Gods told me of it as well! That’s why there’s no time to lose—I must awaken the divine soldiers!”
His eyes were bloodshot, and my words were clearly falling on deaf ears.