Chapter 38: The Temple (pt.3)

'Oh my god!'

Vian was aware that Alastor was unpredictable, but being pushed down into a strange, bottomless hole, was surely something she did not expect.

The thing that made her feel better was him jumping right after her. His action was not done with the intention of harm or to abandon her.

'He is just… A bit unique.'

Alastor was grinning happily while falling next to her, she could even see his eyes gleaming with excitement and a few wisps of flame surrounding him.

"Al– Alastor?"

The wind was making it difficult for her to even speak, she wondered how Alastor could act so naturally like nothing is wrong with him.

She did not know, Alastor was feeling alive more than ever. Someone like him always wanted to indulge into adventures, to be away from reality, and to have fun.

He smiled at her, his eyes glowing.

"Yeah? There is no reason for you to worry about anything here," he spoke with ease, surprising her.

Pointing at the bottomless hole under him, Alastor tried to explain quickly to Vian who did not catch up with his explanation.

"This temple, from what I am assuming, is forcing the people inside him to wander amidst the poisonous gas as the first step. The second step, if they survived, is making them get into a trial."

"Trial-?"

"Yes. It is nothing but a trial, so you don't have to worry much."

Vian was about to say something but her voice died down once she saw Alastor disappearing in front of her own eyes. Her eyes widened as she let out a sharp gasp, trying to reach to where he was.

However, she could not focus on that for so long. Without any prior notice, Vian found herself slammed to the ground.

"Kah!"

A scream came out of her mouth as she tried to slowly move but was then slammed harshly on the ground.

'What, what is this?!'

Vian gulped thickly, realizing she could not even lift a finger.

In another place, Alastor found himself in a similar situation, but he was stuck on a white wall instead.

"Heh? What is this now?"

Unlike Vian, Alastor did not panic. He smiled lazily and moved his fingers. His muscles started to twitch, and soon enough, he was able to move his hand with enough force.

"This looks like it will be a hassle for Vian, but only at the start."

Escaping this force was not hard. With enough mana control, she was bound to be able to move freely just like him.

'But she should be alright.'

Given how her phoenix was with her, she was not going to get hurt. For now, though, Alastor decided to examine the place he was in. He was surrounded by four smooth, white walls.

'I am stuck here.'

The place was empty with nothing around it but a few symbols floating in the air.

A moon, a sun, a heart, and a spear.

'Sound interesting enough to figure out...'

Alastor tried to touch each one of these symbols and felt a strange power coming from them. He stopped, his hands hovering around them now.

Something was telling him that moving them recklessly was bad. At the same time, he lacked knowledge about those things. How was he supposed to take care of this without activating some trap?

'Avoiding activating a trap seems to be impossible.'

[That is correct.]

"Hmm?"

A weirdly rough voice spoke with him.

[You are indirectly activating traps the more you are here.]

The voice spoke again, causing Alastor to be interested.

"How so? The room is empty, there is no way that you can activate any traps here, is there?"

[You are talking with the Holy Spirit of this temple. What do you think?]

The soul was disguising their voice as they spoke confidently. Although their fingers were trembling, their voice was steady.

Which made Alastor a bit cautious. Meeting a Holy Spirit was one thing, but being on the face of one may be more harmful than what a person could expect.

Holy Spirit.

A being that was born directly from the faith of people who came to pray in the temple.

The spirit tends to grow up slowly, and gets stronger the more faith the temple receives.

Unfortunately, there was no way for Alastor to know how old this spirit was, or whether it was weak or strong.

'It is someone I need to be wary of.'

That was Alastor's conclusion.