Bolton paled.
If the refugees got wind of this, most of them would give up. It wouldn't matter how many weapons or walls we had. Despair kills faster than any sword.
"Just because they're gone doesn't mean we shouldn't protect ourselves," Lancelot said, his voice steady but softer than before. "We can still fight off these threats. We can still rebuild."
His words should've sounded inspiring, but even he looked tired saying them.
Next to the royals, Lancelot was the last figure the kingdom had to rally around. The strongest knight in PrideFall. And now, everything rested on his shoulders.
Bolton exhaled, slow and shaky. "Then let's do that, then." He turned back toward the workshop, his movements stiff.
Lancelot tapped my shoulder as we crossed back through the portal to the ruined streets.
Walking the ruined streets, the weight of the city settled in my gut. The air smelled of damp stone, rotting wood, and the acrid tang of slime pooling in the distance. The roads were cracked and uneven, littered with abandoned carts and shattered doorways.
Lancelot walked ahead, hand resting lightly on his sword hilt, shoulders squared like he carried something heavier than just his armor.
I envied how easy it seemed for him. To just… keep moving.
I wasn't built like that. My thoughts tangled, looping back to the same grim conclusions. The rogues were trained soldiers. The royals were gone. The city was dying. And yet, we were still walking, still pretending we could fix it all.
How much longer could we keep fooling ourselves?
The streets were eerily silent, the usual background noise of life swallowed by the city's ruin. My boots scraped against the cracked stone, the sound oddly loud in the emptiness.
Lancelot walked ahead, steady as ever, but something about his posture was different. He wasn't tense, exactly—just... heavier.
I let the silence linger a little longer before speaking. "So what's on your mind, buddy?" I asked, keeping my tone light. Small talk wasn't exactly my forte, but something about tonight made me feel like it was worth trying.
"Nothing," he said, though the pause that followed told me otherwise. He glanced toward the remains of a building, its frame barely holding together. "Let's take a break."
I blinked. "A break? We've only been walking for an hour."
He let out a quiet chuckle—something I hadn't heard from him in a while. "I remember saying that to someone a long time ago. Feels like another lifetime."
"Your knight that left us in the sewers?" I asked as we stepped into the building's shadowed interior.
"Not just him. Others too."
It was the Cyra-Elara Cathedral—one of the last standing structures in the city. The twin statues of the goddesses still loomed over the entrance, cracked but unbroken. Inside, the husks of dead slimes littered the floor, mixed with burnt books and overturned pews. The air smelled of old fire and something faintly metallic.
I watched Lancelot's expression as he took it all in. There was something distant in his eyes, like he was searching for ghosts.
Testing the waters, I finally asked, "There was something I wanted to bring up. I'm surprised Bolton never asked about it."
"What's that?" He lowered his helmet, and for the first time in a while, I could see his eyes—wary, guarded.
"That weird rabbit thing. Connie, I think? What was that?"
His brows furrowed slightly. "I have no idea," he admitted, slumping onto a wooden bench dusted gray with age. The wood creaked under his weight. "We found her in the outskirts of the forest. She said she had business with someone in the capital, but never said who."
"And you didn't press her?" I raised a brow, taking a seat beside him.
"I didn't have the energy to chase after her riddles."
I huffed a laugh. "Bolton must've been dying to get her under a microscope. I've never heard of a human-rabbit hybrid before. Some kind of failed experiment?"
"Maybe," Lancelot said, but his mind was already elsewhere. His gaze drifted up to where the mosaic of the goddesses had once shone in colored light. Now, the glass lay shattered, its pieces scattered across the stone floor.
After a long pause, he muttered, "I wonder what they're doing now."
I followed his gaze. "Who?"
"The goddesses of the sun and moon. The most powerful entities in the world." His voice was quiet, but there was a weight to it. "Why aren't they helping us?"
I thought about it for a moment. "They're supposed to be in the Sphere of Elysium, right? But no one's seen or heard from them in millennia." I shrugged. "I doubt they ever existed at all."
The cathedral was still, the dust settling in the silence.
Then, the doors groaned open. A man stepped inside, his boots clicking against the cracked stone floor. His pristine robes trailed behind him, somehow untouched by the filth that clung to everything else. He was older, but time had not dulled his arrogance—if anything, it had refined it, polished it like a relic no one had the courage to discard.
His eyes swept the cathedral, his expression expectant. Then, slowly, his smile faded.
"Where are they?" he murmured.
I smirked. "Oh dear. Did your congregation forget their meeting with the heavens today?"
His gaze snapped to me, lips curling slightly, but the mask of patience remained. "That's heretical," he said with a laugh. "Though I suppose in a wasteland, heresy and faith lose their meaning."
"Oh, it matters," I countered. "And I'll tell you exactly what the goddesses are doing now."
Before I could elaborate, Lancelot's sword rasped from its sheath, the steel catching the fractured light from the ruined mosaic above. He moved in one smooth motion, settling into a combat stance without hesitation.
I sighed. "Here we go. Relax, Lance. He's not a threat—just an inconvenience."
I already knew how this would go. I had heard that nasally voice too many times over the past few weeks, always delivering the same sermon.
"The slime is divine punishment," he declared, recovering from his momentary surprise. "A reckoning for the sins of the kingdom."
Lancelot exhaled sharply but returned his sword to its sheath. "If you don't have a plan to fight it, stop wasting our time and leave."
The pastor ignored him, stepping further into the cathedral, past the ruined pews and husks of dried slimes. "The goddesses have abandoned us. In their absence, corruption festers. The slime is merely the first wave. Soon, the world will—"
"Leave."
Lancelot didn't raise his voice, but the word rang out like a closing gate. He didn't need his sword to command fear—his presence was enough.
The pastor tilted his head, unbothered. "You seek to stop it?" He chuckled lightly, the sound airy, amused. "You cannot fight what is divine."
"Watch us," I said, already summoning a portal beneath him.
With a flick of my wrist, the spell snapped into place, and in a heartbeat, he was gone—reappearing just outside the cathedral's entrance.
For a moment, he simply stood there. Then, his laughter drifted back through the doorway.
"You'll see," he called back, adjusting the star insignia on his chest. "The heavens have spoken. Cyra, goddess of the sun, and Elara, goddess of the moon, have set this divine reckoning for a reason."
I leaned against a half-broken pillar, unimpressed. "And what's that, exactly?"
His teeth gleamed as he smiled, pristine and unsettling, as if the apocalypse had politely chosen to avoid him.
"To release Alterra," he said, voice almost reverent. "The goddess of the planet, the stars, and all that is. To interfere with this judgment is paramount to blasphemy. Do not resist."
With that, he turned and strode away, his polished shoes clicking against the uneven floor.
Silence settled over the cathedral once more.
Lancelot exhaled through his nose, his gaze drifting upward to where the mosaics of the goddesses had once bathed this place in color. His shoulders tensed, not with frustration, but something heavier.
I softened my tone. "Don't worry about them. They're not even worth considering in our plans."
"It's not them I'm worried about," he muttered. His thumb ran over the silver ring on his finger, rolling it between knuckles. "It's… something else."
Ah. So it was about her. I should have known.
"You used to come here with Her Majesty and your kid, didn't you?" I asked gently, though I already knew it wasn't my place.
His eyes glazed over for a fraction of a second before he shook his head and stood. "Right."
That was my cue. No need to push.
I stepped out into the street, the sun burning the nape of my neck as Lancelot readjusted his helmet. Back in knight mode.
Time to patrol. Time to figure out what those rogue knights were up to now—while avoiding zealots who thought the end of the world was something to celebrate.
I stretched my arms over my head. "...This is going to be a long day."