Anomaly

Chapter 405 – Worship of the true gods [51]

After giving Laura her instructions, Emily leaned back in the chair positioned behind the desk inside the room, letting out a long sigh as she closed her eyes for a few seconds. She brought one hand to her temple and gently pressed against it, as if that could somehow ease the persistent headache threatening to creep in.

She took a deep breath in a futile attempt to organize her thoughts and calm her mind amid the current situation. Truthfully, this wasn’t the first time Emily had felt frustrated watching her plans fall apart. In fact, it happened far more often than she cared to admit.

No matter how careful and meticulous she was, the world seemed to have a special talent for ignoring perfectly crafted strategies and replacing them with absolute chaos. It was irritating. When she finally opened her eyes again, Emily kept her head tilted back, her neck resting against the back of the chair. Bad decision.

The chair, for the record, was uncomfortable on an almost offensive level. The stiff material dug into her back, while the poorly positioned support made her neck silently protest. Emily was fairly certain that if there was still a tomorrow, she’d wake up with horrible muscle tension. That was, of course, assuming there would even be a next day.

In silence, Emily studied the countless photographs pinned to the ceiling and scattered across the walls of the room belonging to the sisters of the [Angel of Death]. Pictures were everywhere, some old, others more recent, hung with an almost obsessive energy, as if every empty inch of space needed to be filled with yet another face or memory.

Ironically enough, among the dozens of photographs spread throughout the room, one glaring absence stood out: Emily couldn’t find a single picture of the [Angel of Death] herself. That hardly felt accidental.

Emily had her own theories about what that deliberate absence meant, but chose not to dwell on it for now. This wasn’t the time to decipher strange symbolism or questionable habits. Letting out another tired sigh, probably her thousandth of the day, she discreetly massaged her temple, feeling the weight of recent events piling up.

Her train of thought was interrupted when a sound from outside the church began to register. First came a distant vibration. Then the gradual noise of something heavy approaching. The sound grew louder little by little, breaking the stillness of the place. It was clearly a vehicle, and not an ordinary one. The engine roared with enough power to echo through the church’s stone walls, making some of those present lift their heads.

It didn’t take long for the noise to completely overtake the room, instantly drawing everyone’s attention inside the church. Muffled footsteps echoed across the damp grass outside, slowly approaching the destroyed wall that now served as an opening into the interior.

The pale light from the streetlamps outside streamed through the massive tear in concrete and stone, partially illuminating the chaotic scene where Emily, Laura, the anomalies, and their two very unwelcome guests stood.

The rhythmic sound of boots against grass was enough to briefly pull everyone’s attention. A few seconds after Emily’s reflections, two figures finally emerged through the jagged opening in the wall. Two familiar faces.

Victor appeared first, walking with his usual impeccable posture. His expression remained the same as always, serious, composed, and professional, like someone who had already witnessed every kind of disaster imaginable. Even surrounded by destruction, he seemed to be analyzing everything with the methodical coldness of someone mentally cataloging every detail.

Rupert came right behind him. Unlike Victor, Rupert paused for a moment after stepping through the hole, his eyes slowly sweeping over the debris scattered across the floor and the section of wall reduced to rubble. One eyebrow lifted in a clear mix of surprise and disbelief, as if his brain was still trying to process what it was seeing.

The silence hanging inside was broken by a long whistle from Rupert: “My God... what the hell happened here?” He tilted his head slightly, taking in the damage before letting out a humorless chuckle: “Actually, what the hell happened to the city? Looks like a hurricane decided to come sightseeing and take everything with it on the way out”

He cast a glance beyond the church, taking in the ruined landscape outside. Partially destroyed buildings, streets buried beneath debris, and a suffocating atmosphere made the city look almost unrecognizable.

Rupert slowly shook his head: “Yeah... this view is definitely not winning any awards” His expression was still clearly one of disbelief.

When Rupert finally lifted his gaze, one eyebrow arched upon noticing everyone gathered inside. His eyes quickly swept across each face before he made a dry comment: “What an interesting little crowd” His tone carried an almost automatic indifference, as though the scene before him was little more than a minor inconvenience.

Beside him, Victor simply grunted in response, a low sound tinged with irritation, before shifting his attention to Emily and then Laura. The woman greeted him with a subtle nod, but the concern written all over her face was impossible to ignore.

Her restless eyes repeatedly drifted back toward the colossal pillar rising in the distance, piercing through the clouds and casting an oppressive shadow over the entire city. It wasn’t as if Rupert and Victor hadn’t noticed the monstrosity from the beginning.

Quite the opposite. Both of them were fully aware of just how serious the situation was. The problem was simple: there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. They were field agents, specialists in containment, combat, and rapid response, not scientists or researchers capable of understanding an anomaly on this scale.

That was precisely why, when Laura contacted them and urgently called them in, Victor and Rupert assumed some kind of countermeasure was already underway; maybe a technical team analyzing the phenomenon, or at the very least a preliminary plan to deal with the pillar. But after taking in the current situation, Victor began seriously doubting that assumption.

“So...” Victor began, his voice low and controlled. His gaze briefly shifted toward his younger sister, Chronas. Noticing his attention, she looked back at him, holding his gaze for a few seconds before forming an almost imperceptible smile at the corner of her lips.

Victor let out a quiet breath through his nose and turned his attention back to Laura: “How bad is it, really?”

The question came out direct and unfiltered. As he spoke, he casually raised a hand and pointed toward the massive pillar towering in the distance, its presence warping the landscape like an open scar carved into the horizon.

“Judging by the looks on your faces, I’m guessing there isn’t any countermeasure ready to undo... that” His voice hardened slightly at the end.

Outwardly, Victor maintained his usual relaxed demeanor, loose shoulders, neutral expression, an almost indifferent air. But beneath the carefully maintained facade, his mind was anything but calm. The pillar was a bad omen.

Laura was the first to answer Victor’s questions. She gave a slow nod, as if confirming a bitter truth, while her expression visibly stiffened and darkened. The tension in her jaw betrayed her discomfort: “We’re completely stuck here” Laura replied with a heavy sigh, her voice weighed down by frustration.

Her gaze drifted toward the pillar in the distance, the colossal structure seeming to crush all hope through its mere existence. For a brief moment, she stared at it as though searching for an impossible solution hidden somewhere along its surface.

“On top of that, according to these two...” she continued, gesturing with clear irritation toward Eve and the unknown man. The motion was quick, almost sharp, accompanied by an unmistakably displeased expression: “We’re totally screwed, with no viable way to repel the pillar”

Laura scoffed after hearing her own words out loud, as if hating the conclusion hard enough might somehow change it. Muttering the last part under her breath in annoyance, she crossed her arms over her chest, adopting a posture that was both defensive and confrontational: “Like hell I’m just gonna sit here and wait for my inevitable annihilation” Laura muttered, her tone carrying a faint venom.

Rupert, who had remained silent until then, merely observing everything with his usual detached expression, finally decided to speak: “By the way, upper management is in complete chaos because you two decided to run off with our superpowered little friends without authorization” Rupert commented casually, as though he were only mentioning a minor inconvenience.

His gaze slowly traveled across each anomaly gathered in the room, silently analyzing them one by one. As his eyes moved from one to the next, an involuntary chill ran down his spine, accompanied by an unpleasant tightness in his chest. Rupert had to admit, even if only to himself, that the sight was something straight out of a nightmare.

The entities gathered there radiated an overwhelming aura, subtly distorting the space around them, as though reality itself rejected the idea of containing them all in the same place. For an ordinary person, merely looking at this scene for a few seconds would probably be enough to make them pass out.

Then something caught Rupert’s attention. He narrowed his eyes, his relaxed demeanor vanishing almost instantly as he noticed one specific absence: “Where’s the [Angel of Death]?” he asked, frowning. His tone, once laid-back, now carried unmistakable weight. Of all the anomalies that could disappear without warning, that one was definitely not ideal.

Noticing the same absence, Victor immediately turned toward Emily and Laura, demanding an explanation with his eyes alone. He outright refused to believe the two of them had somehow lost track of the single most problematic anomaly of all, and perhaps the only one capable of turning a terrible situation into a favorable one.

Laura and Emily, on the other hand, exchanged a brief but hesitant glance. For a few moments, neither of them seemed to know how to answer, or even where to begin explaining the anomaly’s sudden disappearance. Their discomfort was painfully obvious.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on one’s perspective, neither of them had to mentally revisit the deeply unpleasant moment when they’d been slammed against the wall like rag dolls. The reason arrived as abruptly as it was absurd.

From above, right at the center of the room, a sharp crack echoed from the church’s aging ceiling. Small fragments of wood and dust began raining down, instantly drawing everyone’s attention upward. Then, without warning, a figure came crashing through the weakened structure.

CRASH!

The entity dropped through the church ceiling like an out-of-control projectile, slamming into the stone floor and sending up a thick cloud of dust and debris. The impact made the ground tremble slightly as shallow cracks spread outward from the point of impact. For a few seconds, the room fell into complete silence.

Disbelieving eyes turned toward the silhouette partially hidden by the dust cloud, utterly unable to process the ridiculous scene unfolding before them. The lethal tension that had been hanging in the air was momentarily replaced by pure confusion.

Then, from within the cloud of dust, a voice echoed through the room, strangely calm, far too relaxed for the situation: “I think I need to work a little more on my landing”