Clara was wandering alongside the church, looking for any clues for whatever god was taking over; the murals being completely devoid of divine imagery was… confusing to say the least. It wasn’t even notably Shadowing Voices and their snakes and devilish imps, nor any of the five Ancient Devils such as Teserot.

  Which was odd, even the minor gods had something and while she wasn’t too well versed in theology, she could sense the divine life breathed into the murals, although it was fading awfully fast. And that was still God of the Sun’s nice warmth that was only seconded by her personal god of Brightness’s Delight.

  But the lack of divine symbols wasn't what was so disconcerting in the murals, it was the obscene amount of people. Even for social gods like Brightness’s Delight or Shadowing Voices, there were recurring characters between the murals sometimes.

  Even some of the more ancient churches had recurring characters, and even then they seemed more odd with polytheistic view with the singular god. Some murals portrayed the god getting godhood, or as a mortal fighting in tough scenarios just like the party was, but…

  These murals were devoid of all of it, showing just crowds upon crowds of unknown peoples with different motives and differing views. There was one mural of what appeared to be a debate between two separate people, with such detail that a brilliant painter had to have painted it.

  But those two people were seen nowhere else, and some of the more out of reach murals had shown slightly more negative depictions. People crying blood, the black ink pouring from their eyesockets dripping down into a formative puddle of darkness that seemed to link the grand mural together with the hundreds of scenes.

  And Clara followed the dark puddle. Someone was broken down in the mural, and someone walked up to Clara and tapped her on the back. She turned to face them, but there was nobody there. Upon turning back, just as swiftly she noticed the mural changed.

  And so did the environment. It was still full of people, but not the same people. And on the other side there were the same people, and one face she recognized in the mural. Her own; staring into her.

  And the impossibly dark eyes replacing her pink ones were terrifying to see on a painting. It was like seeing a prophecy that involved you; or someone’s speed portrait that had few details off, but just enough to know deep down that it isn’t you.

  But even then, the details were all accurate. The only difference was the cracks in the very marble that housed the ink, and the ink itself was seemingly pouring out of her eyes. It was wrong, and the area she was in was filling with darkness as well.

  There was a deep fog, one of pitch black that slowly surrounded her while she was distracted taking in the details of the environment, the many people perfectly still as though statues in a park, or a petrified town. And the lack of life was terrifying as well.

  She didn’t even feel her own lifeforce, and that’s when her instincts were screaming at her to run. But Clara knew she shouldn’t, or rather she couldn’t. Her movement was truly dragged down by an impossible level, the air being too thick to possibly even move beyond the sound barrier.

  It was a terrible feeling, to be bound down by the air itself, alongside the miasma that made up the pitch black fog. The efforts that Clara made to fight it only made movement harder, so she gave up ‘quickly’. Her ability to perceive was at least not split apart, everything was still as statues, even microadjustments in the air she was able to see.

  That’s when she felt something clamber onto her back, and speak to her. “Why’d you fail to save me Clara?” The voice was eerily similar to a mage she knew well, and failed miserably to save.

  It didn’t help that the weight was the same as the upper half of a body. She knew consciously that it wasn’t actually him, it couldn’t be Sornid. There was no life in there, and no lifeforce like any of her allies.

  It was terrifying to hear his voice again, especially in such a violent manner. She felt herself dragged down into the earth, slowly sinking down. Clara desperately wanted to give in, but also her mind screamed at her to move. So she did.

  Clara gripped onto whatever was on her back, and threw it off at full speed. It flew in front of her, and she saw… No, that isn’t Sornid. It’s a poor mimicry of it. Clara dragged herself forward to kick the mimicry in the chest, and she felt the ribs snap.

  This thing was too weak to be Sornid too. Just as she was just a few weeks ago. The time that passed didn’t make the wound any less raw and this mimicry was just something beating it raw, the pain reset.

  She did feel the miasma break away as she hurt Sornid with her own hands. No. That isn’t him. Clara reminded herself again and again as she saw his face on the other statues, they all were repeating similar things.

  “Why couldn’t you save me from Heavenly?”

  “You were too weak. Why have you not tried again?”

  “You are still too weak.”

  The way that voice rang out in her head caused her to scream. The fog closed in as she did, and Clara felt it clutch at her skin. She tried to peel it away but failed, and she looked out of the painting to find a familiar sight, with some mixings of someone else’s creativity.

  Clara kept having these doubts, but she was going to tell them to herself and not let these fakes tell her them instead. She summoned her personal sword and cut through the mimicries, cries of anguish filling the air.

  Those aren’t Sornid. She noted as she cut through them. There was a hint of Sornid’s voice, but she was cutting through something that wasn’t him alongside them. The burning within her heart only fueled her desire to get out.

  The ink that poured out from the creatures that mimicked her failure slowly pooled at her feet, beneath her boots. It flowed like thick blood, and it slowly climbed up her. She quickly jumped to separate herself from the pool of ink, and when it reformed into the shape of a person she groaned.

  This was going to be a long fight, and the person that stood before her was slightly wrong in make, but it wasn’t anything divine. That she was certain of, rather it was another mortal; someone in a situation similar to her wearing a priest’s clothes, the black coat covering the shape of the man’s body, but they too weren’t wearing any divine symbols similar to everything else in the mural.

  Their arms were just ever so slightly too long, and they seemed to match her own expression of pain. She knew she was inside the mural by now, especially since the two debating figures had joined her quick dispatchment of the statues.

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  “Oh dear, I was hoping I wouldn’t have had to fight someone in my own domain.” The priest spoke, with their legs just continuing through the floor, not ending at any point. It was awful. “It’s a terrible sight isn’t it? I know my painting skills weren’t the best when I painted myself into being.”

  The hell she was trapped in was nowhere near done, and the priest seemed to not realize the danger he was in. Some people ignored the combat capabilities of a healer, let alone against someone considered ‘unhealthy’ by the System.

  One’s flaws could be exacerbated by healing magic, especially if you used the counter to it, debuff based magic. Typically rooted in Necromancy, but some people had access to Decay damage even without it.

  That’s because the System combined schools of magic like it was nothing, and the skills she collected were the strongest feats of magic she had access to. And she simply cast a skill relating towards that very scenario, to try to split the person’s attention.

  The ink splashed upwards as they clasped their hands together in prayer. The priest laughed as ink fell out their mouth like a waterfall, and the spell crashed against the ink and slipped into the ground, cracking the canvas flooring.

  The dark mana dispersed itself throughout the land, and Clara took note of how the mana flowed. This certainly was a separate world, and her speed was reduced greatly, now struggling to break the sound barrier.

  So Clara had to lift herself up to avoid the mana from flowing back into her body. The impossibly long legs slipped forward through the land, simply moving through the solid land like it wasn’t even there.

  It was a dangerous opponent, especially since Clara couldn’t free herself from the inky blackness latching onto her arms, slowing her down by such a significant margin. And the priest’s laughter didn’t quiet down as she got further either.

  “Terrible…” Clara said as she dove down to the maximum speed she could muster. That’s when she noted that her own self-control was preventing the ink from breaking off, as the air wailed in the pain it must’ve felt from burning into naught but void.

  The ink had been burnt back, and the priest flinched. The ink caught her though, causing her to fall into a completely pitch dark ocean. She could still breathe, but she couldn’t tell if that was due to her common [Water-Breathing] skill or if it was breathable.

  The airiness of the ink implied the latter, but the mana drain implied the former. It was awful to be so uncertain about an opponent, and now she felt something lashing at her. They were nowhere near equal to her speed, and she was able to evade them, but some of them were traps.

  The ink itself slashed at her, stabbed at her, and she quickly dodged many of them off of instinct, and it was failing her slowly. There were scratches appearing all about her, and her twisting was slowly getting less useful.

  [HEALTH: 7,250,363/7,350,780]

  The cuts weren’t nearly enough to be fatal, they were light scratches but they were causing a stinging on her skin, which was splitting her attention. Clara realized the danger of these small cuts quickly, and healed herself as fast as she took the damage.

  The pain stayed, but she kept within the ink and kept using up her Mana faster and faster. It was an awful feeling slowly drained by these attacks, and the pain kept going deeper and deeper.

  It started at the skin, then she felt her muscle begin to sting, then the bones themselves started to ache. It was probably an enchantment, but her cheapest healing spell that practically had no cost even after being cast hundreds of thousands of times, didn’t get rid of enchanted pain.

  She wasn’t going to cast a better one though, those cost something and this was a battle attrition, and while the pain steadily climbed as her focus frayed from dodging. Eventually the scratches grew to gashes, and her healing failed.

  [HEALTH: 6,250,363/7,350,780]

  A tenth of her health, reduced. She felt more faint from this onslaught of attacks, and she increased the intensity of healing spell. The health problem improved, but now she felt a light emptiness spread through her body.

  The emptiness of mana, but this let her finally see that there was an innate life in the ink once more. It was just enough that she could grip it and wrench it free from the person who was attacking her.

  The priest groaned, or maybe the world itself did as she drained from the ocean and sight slowly returned as it thinned. She was shot out of the ink quickly, and the white light faded as it slipped through her hands like water.

  The priest had his knee down, and his grin was dying out. “You demon.” The priest’s words were still perfectly clear, and Clara slid across the floor damaged, the floor now rough and built like brick.

  The floor was still lacking life itself, but she didn’t care about what it was lacking as she stood to face the burning flame of life the priest was. The priest coughed, and their arm elongated to grip Clara’s neck.

  Clara punched the arm aside, not able to focus enough to limit the power. The sound was a loud slam and felt like it sounded out a few minutes after she smacked it aside. She was moving well beyond the speed of sound, and she didn’t care about collateral damage anymore.

  She saw the priest attempt the same trick, and she gripped the life the priest emanated into the fog. She didn’t drain it into herself, but rather she just tore it out, and she gained a level in the class skill.

  [Life Drain -> 1]

  She winced at the pain glowing from the skill, the act of violence behind the ability that probably shouldn’t have been used as such. Her class was one for healing she could surmise, or maybe that was a wrong assumption.

  The priest let out a louder groan, which transmuted into a scream as Clara kept tearing. Another level in Life Drain, which was unknown territory. Skills from classes shouldn’t be able to level.

  [Life Drain -> 2]

  The damage she left was clearly lasting, but wasn’t even physical as the ink barrier thinned enough for her to pierce through it, and feel her fist not just break but rather wet in blood as it pierced the skin, bone, and organs of the priest.

  The priest tried to let out a scream of pain but all that came out was a gurgle of blood filling the mortal’s lungs, and exiting. More blood spilled onto Clara’s chest, as she pulled her fist back from the warmth that surrounded it.

  The flesh made a wet mulch sound as she did, and the hatred was immediately killed as the priest collapsed, and she looked up towards the portrait as reality returned. The portrait was different now, it was covered in variations of Sornid and Judine?

  Why was Judine there? She quickly ran, and bumped into Linore on the way back to the room. “What may the hurry be?” The divine voice spoke out, “You aren’t on any time limit, are you?”

  Linore closed the door behind him, and it was a room dark, which just reminded her of the man she killed. She still felt the blood cling to her, and she knew it wasn’t her own. It felt terrible to move alongside the halls of this church covered in markings of violence.

  “...You look like you need a shower.” Linore stated before patting her on the back and walking onwards. She knew he was right, but that was definitively not what she wanted to hear. She felt her rage explode as she caught Linore on the shoulder. The divinity turned, and glared at her while they flinched.

  “Do not. Place your. Hands on me.” The pauses between words, and the speed at which they said it let Clara know it was a message for her. The sudden punch to the gut halving her Health and her vision nearly vanishing while collapsing really added to the punch of the statement.

  She felt herself fall like a sack of bricks as her vision faded again. “I hate that I only had to take you two off the board. Especially with a wild card like Bariton there, but oh well. Have a fun time talking to Judine.”

  Before Clara could respond, a kick to her gut knocked her unconscious as she fell down what felt like stairs.