A Tale of Forgotten Gods

Chapter 97: Case Ends

The gun shots echoed in the basement, the sound reaching at the festival happening in the Cathedral.

BANG!

People gathered around the lord’s statue and looked around the place as the loud sound echoed through the crowd. All of them stepped back, their eyes wide from the sudden interference.

The crowd of innocent citizens who held stained-glass lanterns and waited for the Father’s blessing froze in silence. A woman dropped her lantern, the glass shattering against the stone floor.

​”Was that... a gun?” A man whispered, looking down at his feet.

The priest yelled, his breathing turning shallow in fear. ”Escape, someone may have attacked!”

Upon hearing that, the crowd screamed and rushed outside with heavy steps, their feet echoing against the closed walls.

Beneath their feet.

The smoke from the revolver rose, clinging to the damp air of the underground chamber.

​Twelve rounds. The leader’s body slumped backward into the grand chair, his crimson robes shredded with blood pooling out from the bullet holes. The chimes on his brass ball rattled with a final dead stop.

​For a few seconds, no one could process what had just happened.

​The high-ranking royals hiding behind their masks sat frozen at the banquet table, silver forks suspended halfway to their mouths, then fell on the table. The acrid, metallic burn of spent gunpowder mixed with the copper trench scent of human flesh.

​The food platter rested in front of the empty chair, moved with slow movements. The forks lifted upward, cutting the food gently, then a crimson hand appeared for a brief second and then disappeared back in the darkness. The food floating got bit by sharp teeth, then swallowed.

​The Serpent’s voice hissed violently in Mo Fei’s mind. ”The obsession is clouding your judgment! Snap out of it! The entity is feeding on the blood you just spilled.”

​Murphy’s grey eyes twitched, and a cold, lunatic smile pulled at his lips as he reached into his coat to reload the revolver, which never needed to be reloaded in the first place. ”Fascinating... that was truly a masterful case to solve.”

​”MO FEI!”

​The sharp voice of his true self slammed into his consciousness; Murphy’s grip momentarily slipped. Mo Fei gasped, taking half a step back as the situation hit him. He looked at the revolver, then at the room full of cultists who were finally snapping out of their shock.

​”SEIZE HIM!” a voice roared from behind a golden owl mask—Prince Roosevelt’s unmistakable tone, stripped of all royal elegance and dripping with raw panic. ”DO NOT LET HIM LEAVE THIS ROOM ALIVE!”

Mo Fei’s eyes turned piercing grey again, and he turned toward him. ”Ah, me? You have misunderstood Prince Roosevelt; you are not leaving this room alive.”

Cultists rushed forward. The two heavy guards at the entrance drew flintlock pistols, aiming directly at Murphy’s back.

​BANG! BANG!

The gun in his hand twisted, turning into his double-edged Glaive as he slashed down the bullets precisely. The two severed halves of the lead bullets fell uselessly against the floor, their flattened edges emitting smoke.

​The cultists recoiled, their crimson robes fluttering in panic. The sight of a detective’s revolver instantly warping into a massive, two-sided Glaive shattered whatever illusion of authority they held. Murphy tilted his head backward slowly, his piercing gaze landing on the men behind.

”An Ascended...” a voice gasped from the high balcony, choked with terror.” He’s an Ascended!”

Prince Roosevelt stumbled backward, his owl mask tilting as his hands scrambled for the golden railing above. ”Kill him! I don’t care what he is! Use anything!”

​But why would Murphy wait? The cold, analytical mind of Murphy Law calculated every threat. The door behind him was blocked by guards, the balcony was occupied by fleeing royals, and the central table was surrounded by ten armed cultists.

​He lunged forward. The Glaive whirled in his grip, and he swept the blade low, slicing through the leg of the nearest guard before he could reprime his flintlock. The man screamed, falling hard onto the carpet. Using the falling guard’s body as a stepping stone to vault directly onto the long banquet table, he landed as the ​platters of horrific offerings clattered to the floor as his boots crushed the silver dishware.

​A cultist wearing a bull mask lunged with a rusted ceremonial dagger. Murphy sidestepped, the cold air brushing his cheek, and slammed the heavy pommel of the Glaive into the mask’s center. The porcelain shattered, and the man dropped like a stone.

The weapon twisted into the gun, and he shot the guard, then surged toward the men sitting on chairs, heavy kicks landing on each one, and then he jumped back, shooting the men multiple times as the smoke erupted from the gun.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Their screams echoed throughout the hallway as they fell motionless on the ground.

Yet, the empty chair remained still; the thing ate the dishes without any single care of its people being killed.

Their final screams reached faintly on the top of the Cathedral.

He turned his head toward the balcony where Prince Roosevelt and Platinum V. Carthen were desperately trying to pick the lock of the private royal exit.

​Murphy raised his left hand, his fingers twitching as he caught the spirit thread and snapped it; Prince Roosevelt’s balance dropped as the sudden vein in his brain snapped. Then, he caught the second royal’s thread and snapped it too. Platinum shrieked, tumbling backward over the balcony rail and landing heavily onto the shattered remnants of the banquet table below.

​Prince Roosevelt froze, turning around in absolute horror to see the tall detective standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at him through the dark with a hollow gaze that was filled with pure rage; there was no obsessed smile over his lips.

​”You...” Roosevelt stammered, backing against the locked door. ”What are you doing? The people... the city works for me! You can’t touch me; if you do... you... you will get behind the cells and even get hung!”

​Murphy Law took a step up the stairs, his boots clicking with deliberate, slow rhythm against the stone. ”I decide the laws that protect the law of the city, Prince.” Murphy whispered, his voice echoing in the dark, hollow room as his slow steps gave the royal a feeling of paranoia. ”I am the law of consequences.”

​He stopped, towering over the prince, and pointed his gun toward the man.

​Click.

​Roosevelt fell to his knees, clutching his hands together in desperate prayer. ”Tell me what you want; keep it, keep anything. I’ll give you the highest position in between royals. Even your life will be spared.”

”Prince Roosevelt, you may have bought justice and laws in the past. Tonight, the justice you are trying to buy is no longer the blind justice you bought before.” Murphy said flatly, his fingers curling around the trigger. ”The case is solved.”

​BANG.

Suddenly, the empty chair stepped back. Murphy’s eyes lay on the thing that sat in the room; its figure slowly stood, and finally the crimson flesh of the entity appeared.

Murphy jumped down the stairs, then walked toward the main doors. The royals didn’t move, as if they feared what that madman would do if they tried to escape. He closed the main door shut and locked it. He appeared next to another door and then locked it too. He found every secret exit, locking all of them from inside, then finally announced. ”I hereby declare that if any of you try to move out, I’ll kill you first.”

With that, he walked toward the figure standing in the darkness, watching the man come forward. Behind that figure, massive eyes opened in the wall.

Murphy’s eyes flickered in recognition, the same eyes he saw in the royal estate.

The crimson entity shifted, its form uncoiling from the shadow of the empty chair like thick liquid. It pulled the chair back, swallowing the dishes. Where its head should have been, a blank porcelain mask hovered, with two eyes but no mouth, its true face hidden behind it.

The massive eyes embedded in the stone wall behind it blinked in unison, their yellow irises dilating as they locked onto the sole investigator standing in the blood-soaked hall.

​”Great Master.” The Serpent’s voice thundered through his mind, keeping its ancient calm tone, it whispered. ”That is not just an entity you’ve fought before. It is an abyssal construct fed on human sacrifices. It is a being that has lost its face, and those entities that lost their faces are known for their extreme bloodthirst. Be aware of it.”

​Mo Fei’s hand trembled on the grip of his gun, but the cold, relentless madness of Murphy Law refused to surrender control. He walked forward, stopping just in front of the entity and staring at it. ”It is not as strong even if it took sacrifices.” He whispered aloud, his voice low and terrifyingly calm. ”Those who drink blood can bleed. I’d win.”

​The entity moved without taking steps. In a blur of light-swallowing movement, a massive arm composed of intertwined tendrils tore through the air, aimed directly at Murphy’s chest.