Death, Devotion, Dissonance

<What are you even talking about?> Evin replied, not understanding the Voice's sentence.

<Nothing. Let's continue.>

The sudden words were unexpected and Evin still couldn't understand what they meant, but he had a Temple to conquer, so he put the matter out of his head quite easily. But just as he was about to leave, a platform in the wall appeared and Evin could see a card on it.

Pleasantly surprised, Evin went to pick up the card, but as his hands reached for it, the wall seemingly came to life and trapped Evin's hand using some mechanism. Panicking, Evin struggled to pull out his hand, but his strength wasn't enough to do so.

As he then started to struggle with his bag to get the lodestones, the Voice began to hack at the wooden trap with the Hard Air sword. The contraption finally gave in to the sword and Evin was able to pull out his hand. Naturally, he was still holding the Card that he first reached out for. Since he was going through so much trouble to get it, it would be tragic if he didn't.

[Food (x40)]

'Shit!' Evin cursed and wanted to throw the card to the floor.

The trap hadn't hurt him by any means, though it still wasn't a pleasant experience to have your arm trapped inside a wall. 

<Let's be more careful of traps,> the Voice chuckled and urged Evin to proceed further. 

Evin picked up his spear form behind the door and began to explore the underground area of the Temple, keeping himself mindful of potential traps.

And, an hour of exploration later, Evin finally managed to reach what he believed was the end of the underground area – which was a fancy-looking door that screamed a boss fight. Aside from this clue, he was keeping mindful of the route he was taking ever since entering the Temple, and of course, this also applied to the underground. Evin carefully remembered the mental map he had of the area and if he wasn't wrong, after this next room, Evin would find himself where he started in the first place, which was where he first fought against the three creatures. 

When he first entered that room, he didn't really see a door that led to where he was now, but Evin was open to the idea of hidden doorways, or things of that nature. 

Sighing, Evin put his spear leaning on the wall and approached the door, the Voice's two swords hovering behind him. It would've been fine if there was only one sword, but the voice decided to add an extra pair just in case, despite the extra mana that was required to maintain them. As for the spear, at this point, he was starting to wonder exactly what he was trying to do with the damn thing, but he still stubbornly clung onto it.

Putting his thoughts away from the spear, Evin quickly opened the door and surveyed the room. Immediately, three deformed faces turned to meet him, but Evin noticed that these guys weren't naked like the rest of the creatures, but wore dark gray cloaks which were stained with the color of blood. 

Evin saw the Voice's two swords being sent towards the enemies' chest, but the enemies swiftly held their hands in front of their necks to protect themselves. Evin knew it would be useless, but he very quickly realized that he was in big trouble this time. The cloaks these creatures were wearing were made out of ketricite. 

As Hard Air swords were prime examples of objects created and held together by magic, they were instantly disintegrated at the slightest touch to ketricite. Seeing the pair of swords which effortlessly cut through every enemy he encountered in the Temple crumble so easily in his eyes, Evin's mind blanked out for a second. It was immediately put back into action, as the three creatures started to run towards him, growling menacingly all the while.

<Shit, run back towards the corridor and run as far away from the door as possible!> the Voice sounded urgent. <And give me complete control of your mana-core!>

Evin didn't allow himself to stand still for even a second longer, slammed the door in front of the creatures' faces and grasped for the lodestones. The Voice quickly took rein of his mana-core and Evin let it happen, considering that it was an emergency. It immediately began gathering the air towards a certain location.

He ran towards the other end of the corridor, though he was still mindful enough to grab his spear while he was at it. 

The moment the three enemies appeared from behind the door and ran towards Evin, a powerful explosion occurred right in front of their faces. Of course, their ketricite robes didn't help against that. Although it required World energies to gather the air and set it on fire, the ensuing force of the explosion was completely free of magical influences. Even Evin who was standing a dozen steps away felt the shockwaves and began coughing due to the dust that was swirling in the air.

<Open the door behind you, so we can get some fresh air. Sigh, and take a few stabs at the enemies. They shouldn't be dead from just that.>

The sudden order shocked Evin, but he managed to calm himself down and approached the three after the dust settled down.

All three of their faces were burnt badly, but Evin could tell that they were all breathing with various levels of difficulty. One's teeth were completely shattered from the impact, and Evin could see its fragments littering the inside of its mouth. Another one's whole left side face was ripped off somehow, revealing its shattered cheekbone. 

Every time they took a breath, they would grunt in pain, and seeing the culprit of their demise, they would flinch back in fear.

Evin knew what being hit by an explosion meant, but seeing it up close and in person gave him a much deeper impact. And looking at these creatures struggling to survive from the aftermath of it, Evin knew that it would be merciful to kill end their suffering. One by one, he approached the three creatures and put his spear through their throats. 

The disturbing feeling of metal piercing through flesh vibrated through his hands, making Evin cringe every time he performed the necessary act. At the end of the endeavor, his hands were left trembling and his breathing became coarse. Definitely, performing the deed himself, instead of leaving it to the Voice's magic were completely different experiences.

<The reactions of your body… don't be ashamed of them. It's proof that you're a good-natured person deep within,> the Voice said in an unusually gentle manner. <But as the kingdom intents to, I must make you kill personally at least once in this area...>

Slowly, Evin started to notice the care that went into the Voice's actions. The way it forced Evin to take a closer look at the corpses of the creatures; the active manner it took the responsibility of taking care of the enemies at first; how it crippled these three enemies just enough, so Evin would find it easier to focus on the act of taking another life, instead of just killing to survive himself; and finally, the gentle words it sent towards him after the deed was done.

After all the time he spent listening to the Voice's education, Evin couldn't help but notice these things. This showed that the Voice still cared about Evin, despite the way he was treating it lately.

'I really feel like a piece of shit now…' 

His conscience nagged at him to apologize, but a weird sense of pride and stubbornness had taken hold in his heart and was stubbornly refusing to let Evin bow his head.

His head muddled, he walked over the creatures he just killed and entered the final room. Compared to the other rooms, which were decorated with the bare minimum of objects necessary inside a room, this room had much more things loitering around: books, drawings, papers, bloody samples floating inside water tubes, and of course, an altar with a corpse of a person located in the middle of the room.

Curiously, Evin picked up a piece of paper from the ground and to his surprise found a highly detailed drawing of the human anatomy. All the other papers also contained different drawings or notes about the human body and mind, but Evin couldn't really understand how they were all connected. Besides, he was more interested in what reward he would get from defeating those three robed creatures.

<What do we do here?> he asked inside, while approaching the wall on the opposite side of the door. <If we're not correct, beyond this wall should be the first room we entered, right?>

<It is, and maybe there's a hidden pathway there, but that's not important now,> the Voice sounded excited. <First of all, gather all the scattered pieces of paper and pile them in one place. Hurry up.>

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