The two stood awkwardly, Cahaya's hand fidgeting, her expression unbecoming of what she usually wore on the outside.

Faltering...

Perhaps, breaking slowly...

Harapan saw this, eyes narrowed as he moved his right leg, but only to receive Cahaya's gaze as she lifted her head up, "It's okay... "

He stopped, motion paused, and he retracted back his foot.

Shifting over to the side, and glanced down onto the fallen candles on the ground, their flames vanished.

The lighting around his area dimmed, and he knelt, gaze lingering briefly over Cahaya's face, but it was only for a moment...

'Fear... '

Nevertheless, he bent down and picked up the fallen stand, the one that had been holding the blue candles a moment ago.

His movements were unhurried, as though even something so trivial deserved to be corrected.

He set the stand upright again, making sure it rested exactly where it had been, "If you don't mind, telling me is a way for you to lessen your burden"

"But it will not, would it?" Cahaya's expression snapped back to the same cold indifferent face, lowered her hand, and exhaled, "Like I said... "

She paused, perhaps testing the weight of her words, "You don't need to worry"

Her expression shifted again...

Fear...

Harapan caught it immediately...

However, he simply nodded.

“I suppose so, Miss Cahaya,” he said plainly, dusting his fingers off.

Then, he turned his back facing her.

“I… uhh.” Cahaya’s voice wavered.

Perhaps a bit complicated herself.

She hesitated, her eyes darting left, then right, scanning every corner of the chamber as if trying to catch sight of something that had already slipped away.

Her gaze lingered longer than usual, almost desperate, yet no matter how she strained her senses, she could not locate the faint peeping glance she had felt earlier.

Her shoulders stiffened. “I will continue with the laboratory expansion below. You can come and join me later.”

“Huh?” Harapan tilted his head slightly, brows pulling together.

His expression was blank, but his tone carried that obvious note of confusion. “What’s with that…”

Before he could finish, Cahaya had already vanished, leaving only the faintest distortion in the air where she had stood.

She was in a hurry, almost unnaturally so, her departure abrupt enough to speak for itself.

Harapan stood there for a breath, blinking.

“...” His lips pressed into a line, and then he exhaled through his nose.

‘She’s scared of something…’

The thought carried no urgency, only a steady observation.

A suspicion even.

He lowered his eyes, the faintest crease forming at his brow.

‘Could it be?’

Pieces of the puzzle slid into place within his mind.

If his guess was right, then Cahaya’s reactions aligned far too neatly.

He smoothed a hand across the front of his robe.

The pristine white garment had accompanied him since the first day of his rebirth.

Its folds still clean, its edges as creased from the days used.

He adjusted it slightly, as if reassuring himself of its presence.

“And judging by her expressions…” His voice came low, almost casual. “Mother should be coming here very soon.”

He guessed it right, and honestly, it was too accurate.

It was easy to guess on his part.

Who could potentially force a tier 7 being that possessed a such a terrifying strength into such a state, especially with such fear over her expressions.

No one but Mother alone could do it.

"And I suppose, she isn't that robotic huh... "

He mused.

With that, his body flickered, presence vanishing as though it had never been there.

The place fell silent once more, while Harapan reappeared deep beneath the church, where shadows stretched and the air grew colder.

Damped even, the stench of the soil evident in the air.

From the outside, the church’s original main headquarters had always looked rather unremarkable.

It didn’t stand out in size or grandeur when compared to the surrounding structures.

Especially now with these huge buildings around the place.

It wasn’t a towering monument with spires that reached the skies, nor was it a squat, cramped chapel tucked into a corner.

It sat comfortably in between, modest in width, with a roof that did not stretch higher than the neighboring houses, but wide enough to welcome the people.

Its presence had always been subdued, quiet, and for the earliest batch of believers, it had been enough.

Back then, it served as a beginning, ample in space for those who first rallied behind its cause, the first batch of men and women who decided to anchor their faith here.

To hug tightly, the glimmer of hope in this despairing world.

To them, this was more than just a building. It was home.

The air in its halls carried the warmth of shared conviction, the stubborn unity of those who chose to believe even while the world around them scoffed and dismissed their scriptures as nonsense.

Yes, in the early days, Harapan's messages were treated as... foolish words.

Some scoffed...

Some cursed...

Some even spit...

Well, the overall general reactions by that time were... not too welcoming.

After all, everyone was just starting their first week here too, finding their own ways and paths.

So the same for the first batch of believers.

A sweet little refuge, built not on grandeur but on persistence that what they believed in was salvation.

The criticism from outsiders had been harsh.

People had laughed at the so-called holy texts, ridiculing them as false inventions of Harapan, nothing more than copied words twisted into hollow promises.

But those first followers endured.

They refused to waver, carrying their “fake” scriptures into the streets, into markets, into homes, spreading them with patience, even as the insults piled higher.

Slowly, painfully, their numbers grew.

And now, standing in the same spot, months later, the contrast was staggering.

What had once been a humble house had become the most important place of the entire church.

This was the Mother’s house, the origin, the sacred birthplace where her blessing first took root in this world.

Every stone, every wooden beam in this old building had been touched, reshaped, elevated by what followed.

The transformation was undeniable.

What began as a fragile community now stood as a force strong enough to claim a seat among the Lord’s own throne cabinet.

The church wasn’t simply a faith anymore, it had become a political and military power.

Which in a way... Made Harapan felt deeply troubled.

They had their own established awakener paths for believers.

And also, another Harapan's worries due to his excessive skill books derivation from what had been gifted to him.

The library was opened to everyone that believed in the church.

For the poor, it was a ticket to enter into the rank of awakeners.

The most common way was to find the items to awaken, which for most mortals, a one in a billion chance.

But there's also another path, which was to directly learn a skill, and master it, then unlocking the path that correlated to the skill.

However...

Despite the allure of this method, the difficulty increased alongside the benefits.

Only those with talents can embark on this path.

And as time passed, more and more people joined the church to have a chance to embark on this path.

To which, most failed in their goals.

The library was no longer just rows of scriptures, but a collection of skills and techniques offered to those who chose to pledge themselves to the Mother.

Beyond study and prayer, they had trained warriors, holy mages and more.

Men and women clad in armor.

But the holy knights were different.

They were the gifted "path" under Harapan's hand. Designed to tackle the darkness in the city.

Compared to the surface level awakener paths that the church offered, the holy knights undoubtedly became the main pillar that held the church together.

Now, their very existence had become part of the balance within the territory.

The knights were not simply defenders of faith; they were guardians in the most practical sense.

And in recent times, their role had grown heavier.

The sightings of those monsters had became increasingly rampant.

Elias couldn't suppress the panic for long.

But, he didn't need to.

Coupled with the knights and the broken blade warriors presence in the three main cities.

The balance was restored.

It was a strange balance, living safe and unsafe at the same time.

For the people...

But compared to their former lives, when chaos and lawlessness had been rampant, people preferred this new reality.

It was imperfect, but it was better.

Way much better even.

The scene shifted downward.

Beneath the stone floors of the church, hidden far below the public sanctuaries and prayer halls, was a different world.

The church’s greatest secrets lay buried in the earth, concealed from prying eyes.

The underground stretched layer upon layer.

The first chambers seemed designed to be functional, their white walls unadorned, the air tinged with sterility.

Strange instruments sat in corners, metallic in appearance but with surfaces that felt wooden to the touch, as though two worlds of design had been forced together.

A faint hum carried through the halls, the sound of mechanisms running in places.

These first spaces were clearly for living.

Sleeping quarters, training rooms, storage compartments, practical areas built to house the knights.

From time to time, huge towering knights...

Or in reality, childrens...

Walked down the hallway, each steps thundering.

This was their stronghold, the base from which they took orders, received dispatches, and returned after carrying out their missions.

Deeper still, several layers below, the atmosphere shifted.

Here lay a chamber without light.

The second layer beneath the Knight's living space.

Darkness pressed against every surface, swallowing the walls whole.

The silence was not complete, interrupted

from time to time, by a noise that scraped at the nerves.

A chewing sound, jagged and wet, like bone being ground between teeth.

The echoes of it crawled along the stone, seeping into the blackness. No one lingered here unless they had to.

And further beneath that, the strangeness grew.

A vast chamber opened into view, dominated at its center by a massive machine.

Its form was alien, neither wholly metal nor wholly wood, its surface veined, humming noises creaked like old woods.

Despite the metallic appearance, it was odd.

The walls around the machine were not blank.

From every side, running like arteries beneath the stone, stretched veins of a dark, reddish hue.

Lines after lines...

They pulsed faintly, glowing with an unsettling rhythm, like ripples spreading across water.

Each of these veins fed toward the machine’s core, converging beneath it.

And above that central point, caught within a lattice of iron-like bindings, floated a crystal.

It hovered weightlessly.

Don't look...

It can look back...

The veins pulsed in time with it, as though they obeyed its beat.

It resembled a heart.

A great, unnatural heart, throbbing in rhythm with the red veins, each pulse sending another ripple of light along the chamber walls.

Perhaps channeling energy to it?

The bindings looked less like support and more like restraints, as though the machine was keeping the crystal from spreading its influence further, holding it down against its will.

And there, before the machine, stood Cahaya.

She looked small in the cavernous chamber, her figure dwarfed by the machine’s looming shadow.

One arm was crossed tightly across her chest, gripping the opposite elbow.

The other hand was raised to her mouth, where her teeth pressed nervously against her fingers.

Her nails were trimmed down, but she still bit at them, absent-mind

ed, caught in her daze.

Her eyes were fixed on the crystal.

The faint glow of the veins painted her face in alternating hues of red and shadow.

She stood silent, breathing shallow, caught between awe and unease as she gaped at the living machine, "M-mother is coming?"

"She is... "

"I... I will die?"