Arc 12: Clearing up

The Grand Cardinal lead us through the door personally. He and his group of cardinals and the Head of Guards escorted us through the long hall.

"I am very humbled by the fact that I have the honors of guiding a Lord in the Heave-..Grounds to help us in troubles that had plagued us for centuries. It would have seemed that our prayers were answered," The Grand Cardinal, who introduced himself to be Lexicas II, told me.

I had told them to drop the tone and to simply talk to me casually but they insisted that they could not disrespect one of the Goddess' chosen.

"Anyways, now that you have your dagger, do we still call you Daggerless?" I asked Daggerless as we walked through the stone floor. The stone floor eventually stopped being smooth. The Head of Guards gave back the dagger while profusely apologizing and bowing so low that she was practically kissing the floor.

"We should call him Nearly-Lost-An-Opportunity-Of-A-Lifetime," Sarjay commented. Once the dagger was recovered, Sarjay regained his senses and went back to his carefree self.

"No, I believe that this is a good name and a constant reminder of my shame of losing my dagger once. My name should remain so." Daggerless continued, "Besides, wouldn't it sound romantic if I lost the dagger and fought through the holy city's elites just to get it back? It'll score me some more points if she asks about my name, right? Right?"

Of course this idiot had an ulterior motive. The stone floor eventually stopped becoming paved as we walked deeper into the heart of the cathedral. The floor started to have a mushy texture, the dirt floor was colored black, showing a disease-ridden feeling. The cardinals and the Head of Guard surrounded themselves in a pale light, perhaps to protect them from the miasma.

Eventually we arrived at a stream. It seemed like inside the cathedral, they didn't pave the area around the stream. Lexicas II motioned towards what appeared to be black smoke coming from the river.

"We believed that something around here is what's causing the miasma of death. But the holy water of Aon causes them to be purified as the river goes downstream," Lexicas II theorized.

"Have you ever checked underwater?" I asked.

"Many years ago, we tried. But nobody that goes down ever goes back up. We believe it's because the Goddess was angry that we would dare defile the sacred water with our mortal flesh," Lexicas II answered.

They probably died from touching the toxic waste. I moved closed to the body of water and ran my hand through the river.

"I'm taking a dive, nobody follow me," I instructed not only the cardinals, but also my companions.

"But the Goddess will..."

"Well, now. My brother. Remember that I'm a Lord in the Heavens temporarily demoted. I can fix this," I explained as I dived into the river. As I swam through the water, I could see something black. Like algae, they were practically all over the riverbed. These must be the toxic waste.

Black tentacles sprouted from the riverbed and tried to attack me. What the?! These food were so toxic and so old that it gained a form of self-defense?!

I swam around dodging the tentacles. I opened my palms towards the tentacles as I swam backwards. I froze the water around my palms and launched shards of ice towards the tentacles. Multiple tentacles were hit by the shards and dissipated. The remaining tentacles attempted to skewer me but I used air magic to propel myself faster through the water.

I swam just above the black sludge and boiled anything near with fire magic as I glided through the riverbed. As the water boiled, so did the black sludge. I could hear faint whispers and cries as I boiled the black sludge.

"Please, don't hold this against us. We never meant to…"

"Free us…"

"Why couldn't we be a decent dish?"

Ok. This was freaky and I was a walking skeleton. I started to boil the thing as fast as possible because I just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. Staying around a sentient sludge of food waste was just not good for my mental health.

I did barrel rolls as the tentacles tried harder to destroy me, trying to stop me from destroying to sludge. Slowly, the sludge started dissipating as well.

I noticed the shape of the sludge started to clear up and I could see the sewage exit by the upslope of the river. As the sludge started to decrease in size, it started to gather up. All the tentacles gathered up and the concentrated waste created one giant tentacle which was faster than the previous ones.

This damned pile of underwater rotting food! It's time to smite you and bring you peace in the afterlife! That's a strange thing for an undead like me to be saying…

I circled around the tentacle as it tried to slam itself against me. I went closer to the core and created as much ice shards as I could. I launched all of them as I dodged the tentacle and it skewered the tentacle.

I reached the bottom of the tentacle and the sewage exit. I started to boil it hard. The screams and whispers started to become more ghastly and violent. If I had eardrums, it would've exploded. Soon, the sludge solidified and cracked away before being washed away in the current.

I launched superheated water inside the sewage exit just to clean out the entire drainage. Once I'm satisfied that I cleared the place, I crushed the sewage exit with boulders that were made from earth magic. This was to prevent anyone from finding this.

The truth, sometimes, should never be revealed. With this, I swam back up to the surface.

Once I reached the river bank, I checked the river and saw there was no more smoke coming out. The cardinals were cheering and praying.

"Oh, great Lord in the Heavens! You had cleansed Aon from a great threat!" Lexicas II was overjoyed.

"Bossu…" Maven approached me dejectedly. I squeezed out the water in my sleeves and sighed.

"It's done. Your history is no more," I whispered to her and patted her back. The only history she had left now were our memories and the stronghold's sentient walking food waste, Rookie.

"Holy vassals of the Goddess, you shall not speak of this incident nor my existence to anyone," I said to the cardinals.

"What? Why? The world must know of your great deeds, oh Holy Lord!" Lexicas II cried.

"It's...er….according to my contract I signed and defined by the Goddess. If you do, you will be smitten in the holy court of law," I lied through my teeth with the crappiest lie I got.

"That...I don't fully understand, but I understand that it is the Goddess' will," Lexicas II said.

"Now, excuse me. My compani-...I mean, angels and I have to go somewhere else," I excused myself. With my still-wet robes, my companions and I dragged ourselves out of the hall.