Chapter 53: The Church
The residential block remained silent long after the contestants had gone to sleep.
Wuxia floated near the ceiling, once again attempting to understand how a soul was supposed to rest, when a faint disturbance passed through the room’s locking array.
His eyes immediately opened, the military seal on the door dimmed for less than a second before returning to normal, but something had already crossed through it.
Wuxia turned toward the entrance as his expression became serious.
Someone broke through the military’s security?
That should have been nearly impossible, they were not inside an ordinary residential district but deep within the city’s military headquarters.
Patrols, detection formations, and high-level officers covered the entire compound, while Death Eye himself was somewhere inside the base.
Even Qin Haoran’s family should not have been reckless enough to attack Xingluo here.
Wuxia spread his Soul Perception through the room, but before he could examine the corridor, the door opened without making a sound.
A tall figure dressed entirely in black stepped inside, carrying a narrow blade against one arm.
His face was hidden beneath a dark mask, while no insignia or identification mark could be seen anywhere on his clothes.
Wuxia’s soul force stirred at once. "Xingluo, wake up."
She shifted beneath the blanket without responding, while the intruder crossed half the room in several silent steps. "Wake up now!"
Xingluo’s eyes opened just as the man raised his blade she rolled from the bed as the weapon descended behind her, cutting through the mattress before splitting part of the metal frame beneath it.
Xingluo struck the floor and pushed herself up as crimson light spread across her body.
The Fall of Rahk formed around her before the attacker could strike again, its red plates closing over her arms, chest, and legs.
"What the hell is happening?" she demanded.
The masked man pulled his blade from the ruined bed and slowly turned toward her. "The Church has found the star marked for sacrifice."
Xingluo froze, the confusion on her face disappeared and was replaced by genuine alarm.
Wuxia’s raised hand also stopped for an instant, there was only one organisation across the Human Alliance whose members referred to themselves simply as the Church.
The Church of Severed.
Its followers worshipped the being they called the Akhvaroth, the Sleeper Beyond Creation and their name had appeared behind destroyed settlements, mass sacrifices, dungeon outbreaks, and attacks that had crossed the borders of several main cities.
Even after countless military purges, no one knew how deeply the Church had spread through the Alliance.
Xingluo tightened her fists inside the crimson gauntlets. "How did the Black Eclipse enter this base?"
The masked figure raised his blade as dark mana flowed over its edge. "The Sleepless God watches from beyond the veil, the false stars shall drown in blood, and their light shall guide His return."
A violent impact suddenly shook the neighbouring wall and then another followed farther down the corridor, then screams and the sound of shattering doors spread throughout the residential block.
Someone outside shouted that the base had been infiltrated, but the warning ended in a heavy crash.
Xingluo’s face paled slightly, it was not only her room. The Church had attacked every remaining contestant at the same time.
Wuxia moved toward the soul mark on her forehead, ready to release the Panther and the two Flood Dragons.
If the Black Eclipse had truly entered the base, there was no reason to preserve their strength or hide the Soul Soldiers.
The masked man rushed forward before Wuxia could summon them. His blade cut toward Xingluo’s neck, but she raised one armored arm and forced the weapon aside before punching toward his chest.
The attacker turned with the strike, reducing its force, then drove his elbow into her shoulder.
Xingluo staggered into the desk as the blade returned from below and scraped across the side of her armor.
She caught his wrist before the next strike could reach her and tried to throw him, but the man shifted his weight and drove one knee into her stomach.
The armor absorbed most of the impact, though the force still pushed her several steps back.
Wuxia watched the exchange with growing tension, the attacker was clearly a second-transition Awakened, but something about his movements felt strange.
He had entered with enough force to appear lethal, yet every strike changed slightly before reaching Xingluo’s unprotected areas.
The attack against the bed had been destructive, but it had landed only after she began moving.
Even now, the man had several chances to target her head and throat, yet his blade continued striking the armor instead.
Wuxia spread his Soul Perception through the attacker’s body.
His mana output had been restricted around the level of someone who had only recently completed the second transition, and despite claiming to serve one of humanity’s most infamous cults, his emotions remained steady.
There was no fanaticism, excitement, hatred, or fear inside him, only concentration.
Wuxia’s eyes narrowed as he extended his perception beyond the room and sensed other masked figures fighting throughout the residential block.
Their strength was almost identical, their mana remained carefully controlled, and none released the unstable killing intent normally carried by people willing to die for a god.
Then Wuxia noticed the military-grade reinforcement beneath the attacker’s boots and his alarm slowly faded.
So that is what this is.
The military had arranged another assessment, the cult identity, simultaneous intrusion, and attacks on every contestant were meant to make the danger appear real.
Wuxia lowered the hand he had raised toward Xingluo’s soul mark, but he did not tell her what he had discovered.
From Xingluo’s perspective, the Black Eclipse had invaded the military base and entered her room to sacrifice her.
If she knew the truth, every decision from that point onward would become meaningless.
The attacker stepped forward again, turning his blade toward her chest. Wuxia floated beside Xingluo and calmly studied his stance.
"His strength is above yours, but he places too much weight on his right leg whenever he changes direction."
Xingluo lowered her body as the masked man rushed toward her and this time, she moved to meet him.
Xingluo stepped inside the blade’s path and struck the attacker’s wrist with her armored forearm.
The weapon shifted aside as she drove her other fist toward his chest, but the man turned and caught the blow against his shoulder.
His right foot moved back to stabilise him and Xingluo noticed it immediately. She kicked the side of his knee, forcing his balance to collapse before gripping his arm and throwing him toward the door.
The masked man struck the wall beside it, recovered almost instantly, and slashed as Xingluo followed.
She leaned away from the blade, but a thin line still appeared across the crimson armor covering her neck.
Before he could attack again, she caught his coat and drove him through the door, the metal frame broke apart as both of them crashed into the corridor.
Noise struck Xingluo from every direction, doors had been shattered across the residential block, and black-clothed figures fought throughout the passage.
Some contestants had activated their talents, filling the corridor with fire, wind, and flashing weapon light, while others were still stumbling from their rooms in confusion.
"Help! They are from the Church!"
"They breached the base!"
"Where are the soldiers?"
A young contestant ran past Xingluo, only for another masked man to appear ahead of him, the attacker struck him once in the stomach and then against the back of the neck.
The contestant collapsed before he could resist, Xingluo’s opponent rushed from behind.
She turned and blocked his blade with both gauntlets, but the force pushed her through the broken doorway of another room.
The contestant who had stayed there was already unconscious beside the bed, the masked man entered and kicked toward Xingluo’s chest.
She crossed her arms, absorbed the strike, and slid backward before grabbing the desk beside her and with a sharp turn, she threw it across the room.
The attacker cut through the wood, but Xingluo followed behind the debris and struck his exposed ribs, her fist landed heavily.
The man staggered for the first time, Xingluo caught the back of his head and drove her knee into his mask before throwing him back into the corridor.
He rolled once and rose, but another body suddenly crashed between them, a masked attacker had been thrown through the wall from the neighbouring room.
Miao Tianhe stepped through the opening a moment later, wearing only loose training clothes while pale mana covered his arms.
He glanced at Xingluo, then toward the two masked figures standing between them. "So they attacked you as well."
"This is not the time for conversation," Xingluo replied.
The first masked man rushed Miao Tianhe, while Xingluo’s opponent attacked her again, both fights collided in the centre of the corridor.
Xingluo avoided a thrust and drove her elbow into the man’s throat, but another attacker emerged from a nearby room and struck her from the side.
She crashed into the wall, cracking it beneath her armor. As she looked around, she saw more and more contestants were being forced into the corridor as the fighting spread.
Several had already fallen, while others gathered in small groups, attempting to protect the injured while the masked figures steadily surrounded them.
Then a violent boom shook the entire floor as cold air swept through the passage. One of the black-clothed attackers flew across the corridor and struck the opposite wall, thick ice already spreading across his body.
He froze in place before reaching the ground and everyone nearby turned.
A girl stepped through a broken doorway wearing a blue robe over her nightclothes. Long pink hair flowed behind her, while a silver staff rested in one hand.
Frost covered the floor around her feet, Xingluo recognised her as one of the final eight who had endured Death Eye’s pressure.
"The Awakeners Association president’s granddaughter," someone whispered.
The girl raised her staff as two masked men approached. Ice chains erupted from the floor, wrapped around their legs, and dragged them down before freezing their arms against the ground.
Even the remaining attackers hesitated, they could overpower her by releasing their true strength, but Death Eye’s restrictions prevented them from exceeding the agreed limit.
The soldiers who had already defeated their assigned contestants exchanged brief glances and a moment later, they abandoned the unconscious participants and began regrouping.
Three moved toward the pink-haired girl, while two joined the men surrounding Miao Tianhe.
Another pair approached Xingluo from opposite sides, Xingluo looked at the growing number of enemies and slowly raised her fists.