Chapter 73: Taken souls

Inside a cave, Phanes looks around, and her eyes immediately land on the walls' carvings. The stone monuments protrude from the well-sanded stone surface as if they are living beings stuck inside the story made out of stone.

Phanes immediately recognizes Udarr in the carvings. The sculptor must have met the actual god for such accuracy. 

The carvings show Udarr, with his army of thousands, standing on clouds, looking down at his burning city. His expression is livid! Pointing at the city, Udarr commands his colossal army to descend for the annihilation. Like a crashing wave, his thousand heavenly soldiers descend onto the city. 

The mortals below the heavens gasp as they look at the sky. As if they cannot distinguish fantasy and reality, some stand frozen. Others, finally snapping out of their daze, turn their backs, preparing to run away from the madness—terror blooms on their faces. 

Erebus walks past the enormous stone carvings with a disgruntled expression, leaving Phanes and Eric to admire the work. Soon, Phanes and Eric stop and follow Erebus's faraway figure, afraid to be left behind. 

As they walk deeper, the cave narrows down into a single artificial tunnel, leading one way; the walls and ceiling are smooth like someone has plastered the walls. 

Watching Erebus's back, Phanes suddenly sees a split image of Ian's back. Astonished by her sudden connecting thoughts, she looks at Erebus's dark hair and light honey skin on his nape. 

'Erebus and Ian do share some similar features… I wonder what those three are doing right now.'

Then, the tunnel ends, showing them a chamber with enormous black metal doors in front. Phanes sweeps her eyes over the chamber, noticing statues in a circle at the center of the chamber before the metal doors.

'Udarr really has something with circular chambers and stone carvings… 2, 4, 6, …, 12, 13. Thirteen statues.'

The statues are all the same girl—someone who resembles Maya with her almond-shaped eyes and flower bud lips, but more grown-up and strange. 

Each statue poses unique arm movements while sitting down.

Although the stone statues are shaped with a humanoid figure, they had more than two arms. Some had even numbers of arms, and others odd numbers. Those that had odd numbers of arms are peculiar. Everything carved onto those stone statues is in odd numbers, whether jewelry or body parts. 

The same line of thought is applied to the statues that have the law of even numbers.

From the forehead down to their feet, a red line splits the statues in half.

"Thirteen…" Erebus murmurs.

The ground suddenly lights up in a purple glow, shocking all of them up.

"Quick! Move away from the magic circle!!!" Erebus yells.

Phanes moves away from the magic circle that appeared out of nowhere in a split second. She has been able to get away, but that is not the same story for Eric, a normal human.

His shrieking scream grips Phanes's heart tight. Terror and pain come out of Eric's pleading screams. Before Phanes can do anything, Eric's body collapses to the ground. The part where the magic circle touches Eric's body starts to turn gold, and the color slowly spreads all over the magic circle. 

Then, the red lines that run from the forehead down from the statues also turn gold. The magic circle and lines' light engulf the room until the statues' eyes turn red. Examining the golden light's nature, they discover essence flowing from the magic circle to the statues.

Erebus touches one of the statues and pushes in his essence. The magic circle stops glowing, and the lines of the statues return to red.

Phanes walks into the magic circle again to look at Eric, and to her horror, she cannot feel Eric's soul anymore.

The magic circle has forcibly removed Eric's soul from his body. 

She looks at Erebus, examining the body as well. His eyes fill with sympathy for the young man. A physical body without a soul is no more than a doll. Phanes closes her eyes, tightening her eyelids as frustration builds inside.

Mortals are such fragile beings. Just like that, and they are gone.

Phanes lets down the body to the ground. She understands why so many people have disappeared now. 

Rapid footsteps resonate with the tunnel that leads to the chamber where Phanes and Erebus are. Phanes focuses on the exit of the tunnel, and a small figure comes out of it.

Maya, out of breath, runs towards Eric's soulless body. She touches the slowly cooling body. Her eyes filled with guilt. She has planned not to touch these people since she likes them, but nothing would have prepared her that they would find this place out of all others.

Maya meets Phanes's eyes and starts shaking in fear. The goddess is enraged, unlike Erebus, who is only with a slight frown. Maya is scared out of her wits, but she has more important things to do before all else.

She walks towards each statue and touches it. Her hand each time takes out a gold orb. After collecting all thirteen of them, she puts them together. Like drops of water coming together, the orbs combine into one. Inside the bigger orb, an inextinguishable golden flame burns.

Then, she puts the combined orb on top of Eric's chest. 

The orb gets absorbed into Eric's body. The young man's pale face starts to gain back color, and his heart beats again. Maya lets go of her breath when she finally feels Eric's chest rising. 

Maya immediately jumps away, narrowly avoiding the soundless strike towards her. The magic circle breaks from the damage, and half of two statues collapse into the ground, crumbling into pieces.

"Release the souls…" Phanes commands.

"I can't!" Maya screams.

"You can't?"

"I…" Maya shakes as she tightens her fists. 

She will perish if she does.

"I had always questioned this when I was with you… How is it that you were able to live for so long?! I thought that Udarr might have created you as a special relic, but it seems that you have been greedily using other mortals' lives to fuel your own!"