Tower of Heaven

No matter how he thought about it, he had to find the source of that aura. Horus couldn't stop his curiosity, even if it ruined the illusion he had been living in for the past week.

When night fell and the peaceful family was fast asleep, Horus snuck back into their home with his body wrapped in qi. He was hidden from their ordinary senses entirely, and even as he stepped over the creaky floorboards and found the divet that indicated the presence of a hidden door, they remained fast asleep.

It was a good thing that he put up a small barrier, because there was no way the smell that burst from beneath the floorboards would have gone unnoticed.

It was putrid and disgusting, like the smell of rotting flesh and burning flesh combined into one. It was released in such quantities that it formed a cloud of darkness within the barrier and almost made Horus vomit.

'I wish I could keep denying it.'

He truly wished that this place could be a light instead of more darkness.

However, the smell alone was enough to crush that dream. He held his breath and firmed his mind, walking down the wooden steps into the large area below.

His eyes narrowed into pinpoints and adjusted to the darkness, revealing to him what was hidden beneath the peaceful facade above.

'Are these…people?'

They were chained to the walls, hung from the ceiling, and strapped to tables. They were all missing at least one body part, and without exception, they had been stripped of their skin. Their faces were stuck in perpetual expressions of horror, and the worst of it all…

'...they're still alive.'

Each and every one of them had been kept alive through cursed means. They were forced to suffer in pain, far away from where anyone could hear their cries.

'How many bodies have been in this room?'

The stench was something that had melded into the floor, walls, and ceiling. It couldn't have been caused by the ten of them alone.

'How long have they been doing this?'

This village was completely isolated from the outside world, which meant that these people could only be fellow villagers.

'What…the hell is happening here?'

Horus frowned deeply. Clenching his fists, he turned around and left. He knew he had to be smart. He couldn't alert anyone yet, otherwise, he wouldn't be able to get to the bottom of this mystery.

'I need to return to the house.'

He needed to tell Atlas and Artemia what he'd found.

And he needed to do it as soon as he possibly could.

***

Atlas thought he was silent when he left the house, but he wasn't silent enough. One person did notice his movements, but that was only because she was paying attention.

When she noticed the house's door opening, her eyes went there. When she saw him concealing himself, it was only natural for her to get interested.

Artemia excused herself from a conversation with the village ladies and followed his traces. They took her behind the house and to an area of the mountain that hadn't been developed yet.

'But, why isn't he here?'

She was following paths in the face of the hill from a certain point. They were not paths she could guarantee were made by Atlas, but where else could he have gone?

That was the thought process that led her here, but by the time she arrived, she had already understood that she wasn't following Atlas' path. Explore stories at empire

Still, she was an easily distractible person, and tracks leading to such an isolated location were nothing short of interesting.

'Will there be treasure here? Or maybe an ancient monument to that God they were talking about…'

She moved forward with expectations of splendor, but the end of the path actually led her into the surface of the hill that the village resided on.

'A secret underground area? This is definitely the kind of place where a treasure would be.'

The walls were illuminated by a bioluminescent flora whose light became brighter as she went further inside. With excitement in her eyes, she dashed into the open area that appeared roughly thirty meters inside.

Only, what she found was not a treasure.

Squelch!

A sound that was produced by her foot touching the floor.

Her eyes widened in horror.

'That is not the floor.'

It was not anything like the floor. No, it was a half-decomposed corpse that turned into mush as she stepped on it and stained her garments.

She took several steps back, trying to rationalize what she was seeing.

It wasn't just one or two bodies. This space that looked like the entire center of the hill had been hollowed out was filled to the brim with corpses. There had to be thousands at the very least.

In the center of the mass was a display made of fresher corpses. They were hung in such a way that they created a symbol with their bodies. Before them stood a pedestal that was decorated with a human head wearing a crown of flowers.

'This…this…'

'...is this an altar? …an altar to their God?'

It had an inviolable feeling of unwavering faith and worship, yet it was a twisted scene that she could hardly comprehend.

What was happening in this village?

'The people I've gotten to know can't be the ones responsible for this kind of atrocity.'

Where had these thousands of people come from, and why had their bodies been thrown here so carelessly?

Had they died naturally?

'No. They obviously didn't die naturally.'

Her brain tried to rationalize it in a way that she could accept, but she refused such a misguided explanation. She was no longer a child, so she couldn't delude herself.

'This is like what Atlas was saying before. I have to see the world for what it is and properly draw distinctions between things.'

No matter what kind of feelings she had for this village and its people, she had to view the situation from a rational perspective.

'This is an altar created for the purpose of being an altar. It's on a mountain of corpses because that's how they wanted it to be.'

But, the villagers she'd come to know couldn't be the ones who did this.

There was something dark happening behind the scenes. The corpse altar couldn't be explained otherwise.

'Is this why he was so hesitant about getting close to the villagers?'

Atlas was the only one who showed a sense of wariness since they'd arrived here. It was his nature to never trust anyone or anything. That was why he wore a mask, and that was also why Artemia didn't question his behavior.

It was just his nature to be suspicious.

'But, maybe he had more of a reason than that?'

Atlas was a person who thought too deeply. Someone like her couldn't follow his thought process at all, so she stopped trying many years ago.

However, if he knew something about what was happening here, and if he was able to sense something off from the beginning, then he was the one in the right.

'Maybe I'm taking the wrong approach.'

Artemia shook her head and regained herself.

'First, I should regroup with the others.'

She had to share this discovery with them as soon as possible.

And, when they came together, perhaps they'd be able to do something about it.