Chapter 137: The Temple Is Closed for Divine Reasons
That was all he said.
Mirabelle lowered her gaze to the small knife in her hand. Then to the altar.
She hadn’t been expecting this.
It felt... different from the religions she had known in her previous world.
Still, she chose not to question it.
Instead, she stepped closer to the altar.
She had no idea how much blood constituted an offering. Deciding that a small amount would surely suffice, she turned the blade toward her left palm.
The edge slid across her skin with astonishing ease. A faint sting followed a heartbeat later, almost delayed, before warmth began spreading across her palm.
She had barely applied any pressure before a thin crimson line appeared.
Drawing a slow breath, Mirabelle turned her hand over.
Then she gently pressed her bleeding palm against the smooth, pale surface of the ancient stone altar. It disappeared with a faint hiss, as though rain had fallen onto sun-warmed stone.
The stone drank her blood as though it had been dying of thirst.
The crimson drops seeped into countless tiny pores hidden within the smooth surface of the altar.
They spread through the ancient stone, following invisible paths like veins slowly forming beneath its surface.
Her blood spread through invisible channels beneath the stone, branching farther and farther like veins awakening after centuries of slumber.
A faint hum filled the sanctuary.
Low. Almost imperceptible.
Then it grew.
The vibration deepened until the altar itself began to tremble beneath Mirabelle’s hand. The vibration traveled through every bone in her hand until she could no longer tell where her heartbeat ended and the altar’s began.
Even the air quivered with it.
Behind his mask, the priest went pale.
This time...
He saw none of the golden light.
No shimmering particles.
No radiant magic dancing through the sanctuary.
Instead... Darkness.
It was as though someone had extinguished the world itself. From one heartbeat to the next, his vision was swallowed whole.
Mirabelle experienced something entirely different. She felt it. The immense power gathering around her.
The altar sang beneath her palm.
It sang because of her touch.
She could feel something leaving her together with her blood.
Not enough to weaken her.
Not enough to frighten her.
Yet undeniably a part of herself.
The ancient stone drank it in.
Her blood. Her vitality. Her very life.
Although the offering was small, she sensed it spreading throughout the enormous block of stone beneath her hand, racing through those hidden veins as though awakening something that had slept for countless generations.
Then the altar began to change.
A soft shimmer, almost pearlescent, bloomed beneath her palm. It spread silently through the ancient stone.
White slowly surrendered to color.
Pale ivory deepened into rose.
Rose darkened into crimson.
Until, little by little, the entire altar transformed into the rich, unmistakable red of freshly spilled blood.
Then —
CRACK.
A sharp sound echoed through the sanctuary. It was followed by a deep grinding noise, like unimaginably massive stones scraping against one another.
The sound grew louder. Heavier.
As though entire mountains were slowly shifting.
The grinding became a violent tearing.
Mirabelle’s eyes widened as fine cracks spread across the statue.
One after another, they raced over the immense figure of the Beast Goddess. Each fracture branched into countless others, weaving an intricate web across the pristine white stone.
The cracks deepened. Spread faster.
With an ear-splitting shriek, the statue’s outer layer exploded away.
Fragments of white stone crashed across the temple floor, their echoes rolling through the sanctuary like thunder. Dust billowed through the hall, carrying the dry scent of ancient rock that hadn’t seen daylight for centuries.
As the cloud of dust slowly settled, Mirabelle found herself staring into darkness. A smooth, polished black stone that seemed to drink in the surrounding light. It reflected almost nothing. Even the sunlight appeared reluctant to linger upon its surface.
Thin crimson veins ran through it, glowing softly beneath the surface. Unlike the black stone surrounding them, they shimmered in the sunlight like liquid blood flowing through living flesh.
Mirabelle forgot to breathe.
The Beast Goddess had not moved. Her posture remained exactly the same. Her wings were still spread wide. One hand still reached toward those who stood before her.
Her expression had not changed.
And yet...
Everything had changed.
The gentle warmth that had radiated from the white statue was gone.
In its place stood something infinitely older.
Infinitely greater.
The black stone seemed to possess a depth that no ordinary rock should have contained, as though entire nights had been compressed into its surface.
The crimson veins pulsed almost imperceptibly.
Not with life. With power.
She no longer looked merely like a goddess who protected her people. She looked like one who could erase kingdoms without taking a single step.
There was something unmistakably martial about her now.
This was no peaceful deity who begged the world for harmony. This was a goddess who would create peace by crushing anything that threatened those under her protection.
There was hunger in that silent figure.
Not hunger for flesh. Not even for blood.
But for victory. For dominion.
For absolute authority over the fate of the battlefield.
It was the terrifying certainty that if someone dared raise a hand against her followers the Beast Goddess would not hesitate.
She would answer. Mercilessly.
And in that moment, standing beneath those vast obsidian wings threaded with veins of crimson, Mirabelle understood something that no story, no prayer, and no temple carving had ever managed to convey.
The Beast Goddess had never been merely kind. She had simply chosen not to show this side of herself.
The priest trembled. His entire body shook uncontrollably.
The darkness that had claimed his sight did not frighten him. It dwarfed him.
His knees gave way beneath him, and he collapsed onto the cold stone floor. The impact echoed painfully through the vast sanctuary, yet he barely felt it.
Though his eyes stared into nothingness...
...they had never seen more.
For the first time in his life, the priest who had devoted himself to the Beast Goddess, who had felt her presence countless times stood before her true self.
Not merely the face she allowed her followers to behold.
Not the gentle Mother of the Beastmen.
Not the serene guardian carved into prayer and song.
But the whole of her.
The One who had shaped their world.
The Creator of the Beastmen.
The Sovereign before whom kingdoms, mountains, and centuries were equally insignificant.
She was compassion.
She was judgment.
She was creation.
She was the relentless force that demanded her people continue growing, struggling, surviving.
The presence pressing against his soul was immeasurable. It wasn’t heavy in the way mountains were heavy. It was absolute. Like standing before a truth so fundamental that reality itself bent around it.
It was the certainty that the laws governing the world existed because she had willed them into existence.
That every breath he had ever taken had only been possible because she had permitted it.
Golden tears spilled from beneath his mask.
They flowed silently down the smooth surface before drying into delicate shimmering trails.
No prayer escaped his lips.
No words remained worthy of being spoken.
Compared to the being whose presence filled the sanctuary he had never felt so impossibly small. And in that overwhelming realization came another.
A truth that pierced deeper than any blade.
He finally understood the task she had placed upon his shoulders.
Here.
In this place.
At this exact moment in time.
And as he stood before his Sovereign...
He could not shake the overwhelming certainty that he was unworthy of standing in her presence.
Mirabelle felt a faint tingling spread across her hand.
She lifted it and looked down. The cut was gone. Her palm was smooth and unblemished, as though she had never drawn the little golden knife across her skin or laid her bleeding hand upon the altar.
And yet...
The altar.
The statue.
Both stood as undeniable proof that it had happened.
Her gaze shifted to the priest. He was just pushing himself back to his feet, one hand braced against the altar for support.
His head turned slowly.
A look of astonishment spread across his features as he stared at the blood-red altar and the black statue, as though he hadn’t witnessed any of it.
Then his gaze settled on her.
Only then did Mirabelle notice the golden tear tracks running down the priest’s snow-white mask.
She searched the narrow eye slits for some trace of emotion. She found only devotion.
For a long moment, the priest didn’t know what to say. Because he knew exactly what had just happened. And he knew what it meant.
He also knew that the Queens must never learn of it.
At least...
Not yet.
Not until the young Duchess had become strong enough to stand before them.
He swallowed. His throat felt as rough as sandpaper.
"The Goddess accepts you as Duchess," he finally said. Then he moistened his cracked lips. "We must close the temple."
His gaze drifted briefly toward the black statue towering above them.
"No one can be allowed to see this."
There was such urgency in his voice that Mirabelle simply nodded. She understood.
The spread wings could have been explained. But a statue that had suddenly turned black...? One that looked as though blood flowed through its veins and dripped onto an altar stained crimson. That was something they could never show the citizens.
Many would see it as an ill omen.
A sign of war.
Panic would spread.
Mirabelle was convinced that war wasn’t what the Goddess was truly trying to say.
Even so...
She couldn’t ignore the unsettling possibility that the transformation also foreshadowed exactly that.
And so she silently agreed with the priest.
"Yes," she said quietly. "No one can see this."
The words were swallowed almost immediately by the immense silence surrounding the altar.