Chapter 190 (2/24): History in the Walls
“Hey, Kagriss? Remember that dream I told you about?”
“The one about that time someone stole your wings… or was it the time you stole someone’s wings?” Kagriss furrowed her brows in thought, trying to remember.
“You don’t remember…?” Ever since she became an undead, Camilla stopped having dreams except for those she had of the heavenly messengers. The only time she told Kagriss about them was the first time she had them, so it wasn’t surprising that Kagriss could pick out the memory so quickly. That said, Kagriss’s lapse in memory proved that even an undead’s memory wasn’t perfect. Camilla waved the thought away. “Well, it’s not a big deal. In that dream, I was an angel. A being of holy power, a messenger of the gods to visit their will upon the human race.”
Camilla closed her eyes, remembering the gospel she learned from a young age during her time in the Order. Without reservation, she revealed to Kagriss the basics of the humans’ religion.
All the races, she was told during her training, were created in the image of the great pantheon of gods. However, over time, the other races strayed away from divinity, until only the humans were left.
While the other races corrupted themselves and empowered themselves with wicked magic, the gods decided to reward humanity for their devotion, sending the angels to teach the humans magic of their own and cleanse the world of evil. Ever since then, the winged human was considered the messenger race between humanity and the pantheon.
“So angels dealt exclusively with humans, because only the humans remain faithful?”
“That’s how I learned it, yes,” Camilla muttered. “I was young then, so I believed it, but now… it doesn’t seem like the whole truth, even if it was the truth.”
“If the angels dealt only with humans, then what is imagery of them doing so deep in vampire land?” Kagriss asked, pointing at the relief, at the wing figures clearly depicted rising above the surrounding rock. The polished stone so vividly showed the bronzed angel’s skin being pulled taut by ripple muscles beneath.
“Who knows… maybe this place was once part of human territory?” Camilla said. But immediately after she shook her head, refuting her own theory. “Impossible. Recorded history only goes back to just a few centuries ago…almost a thousand years. Never have I seen a map where this land was once part of human history. Before those centuries…there are no records…”
She fell silent, spacing out as she realized the implications. Why were there no records? There was no way that humanity was only a few hundred years old in total. There were people from other races that lived longer than that. Victoria has probably lived longer than that.
Did that mean that Victoria or her mother lived through the rise of humanity and knew things that none of the other humans know?
Camilla began to shiver. A feeling of powerlessness suddenly descended on her, shaking her to the core. It made her feel like she was a small grain of sand caught in a river flow, the river of history, and no matter what, she would never be able to do anything to change her own course, or the path of the river.
“Milla, I’m here with you, remember? Remember your promise to yourself and what you came here for.”
Right as Camilla was about to take a step back away from the wall, her hand was suddenly grabbed and with a slight tug, she fell forward into the strong embrace of Kagriss.
“You don’t have to do anything special. Just do what you can, little by little. Start by getting rid of the undead in Amaranthine Point and cleanse the Moltrost Church. Then a little more if you wish, by conquering all the other desecrated zones,” Kagriss said. “Little by little, those little grains of sand will tumble together, held together by a powerful bond, until they form a big boulder that can finally stand against the river. Maybe it’ll even break through someplace and carve out the start of a new path for the water to flow through.”
“Kagriss, you…”
However, Kagriss just put her finger to her mouth. Although Camilla was suspicious about how Kagriss managed to find out what was hidden in Camilla’s mind, and even reassure her about her worries, she decided to trust her.
Kagriss leaned in close. “You sometimes talk while you think. Your muttering is really cute, but I couldn’t help but interrupt you…”
“Talk?!” Camilla covered her mouth, blushing. How long has she had that habit? When did Kagriss notice, and what else did she notice? No matter how hard she tried, she could not pry an answer out of Kagriss. Her head lowered in defeat, and she went back to examining the sculptures on the wall.
Her mind worked overtime trying to figure out the answer to the vague question that had plagued her mind since she set foot in the dungeon.
Angel… holy messengers of the Gods… holy magic… wings…
The image of the pendant that looked like a feather resting in Victoria’s box rose up in her mind, adding another piece of the puzzle, as well as another hint.
Feather pendant, mission, holy mana…
One thing that each set of clues both contained was the existence of holy magic, and another was feathers: feather ornament, the feathers of an angel’s wings. Together, they formed the key to unlocking some ancient history that lies beyond recorded human history.
“Let’s keep going. I want to see if there’s anything else,” she said.
So far, all she had seen was various scenes that starred these winged people. They were an advanced civilization who built palaces whose scale could scarcely fit on these walls without crowding out the other pictures. Great fortresses with walls dozens of meters high and thick. Mountain temples that would take hours to scale on foot, yet the angels could easily reach them just by flying.
Camilla squinted at the portrayal of one of the mountain temples, feeling a strange sense of familiarity, yet unable to figure out what the feeling came from. Like always, the answer was lurking at the edges of her thoughts, and although she came close to grasping it every time, the answer would flee.
Something kept her from the answer, but it didn’t go too far. Camilla instinctively knew that all she needed was a single breakthrough to be able to finally grasp the answer.
The breakthrough should be in these walls.
“It’s just so much of the same thing,” Camilla muttered. “Can’t the sculptors of this piece show something else? All they’re showing are scenes that depict how great they are.”
A huge amount of pride practically oozed from the reliefs, as if telling the viewer, “Behold, our glorious race. Behold our achievements, o pitiful ones, and tremble.” However, despite the arrogance, Camilla had to admit that she was a little awed.
This angelic race built on such a scale that it seemed on par with the vampires. In comparison, despite living in great walled cities as well, the home of the humans looks like ruins from a long forgotten empire dating back from before history, coated with a layer of glamour to hide the disrepair. They looked much like the fortress of Amaranthine Point.
Recent cities like Moltrost were much smaller in scale in practically every way except the living population.
Kagriss had gone on a bit ahead of her and quickly called her over. “There’s something else here.”
“Really? Let me see,” Camilla said, “what is it?”
“It’s definitely different,” Kagriss replied with a mysterious smile that made Camilla shiver. Kagriss was definitely up to no good. Upon arrival, Camilla took one glance at the sculpture and regretted it.
“W-wha… what’s something like that doing here?!” she managed to gasp out, backing up and pointing at the art piece with shaking fingers.
“What do you mean? These reliefs chronicle these winged people’s culture. Why would this not be included?”
“B-but…” Camilla covered her eyes with her hands, yet she slid apart her fingers to peek through the gaps in between, unable to resist looking more. Although already an adult and has been for years, and even having done so many shameful things with Kagriss, the thought of being confronted by such graphic depictions still made her as red as a beetroot.
Two slim bodies were wrapped around each other, as intimate as could be. Their wings were wrapped around each other in a lover’s embrace yet hiding nothing. The angels’ breasts were full and squished against each other while their legs were between each other’s thighs.
Camilla took one last look, having burned the image into her mind, before she turned away, taking a deep breath, moving blood away from her face to chase away her flush. “L-let’s keep moving…away… it’s so lewd… indecent…” Her voice grew quieter as she spoke, and she lowered her head and moved past Kagriss.
When she finally looked up again, she was a good distance away from where she and that sculpture had been, yet the sight that greeted her on the wall shook her. Images from her dream flashed before her eyes.
Angels in armor like the one she wore in her dream flew about the battlefield, facing a common enemy. They wielded weapons of all sorts, but most used a simple shield and spear, while those in the back had longbows drawn back to the weapon’s limit. Others held their staves up her, as if preparing to cast a spell.
Holy light radiated from their weapons and Camilla could almost feel the power despite the whole scene being carved into stone. But when she looked to the side, at the enemy of the angels, she half expected the enemies to be the other races. But what she instead saw was other angels.
Civil war…
The messengers of the Gods were fighting amongst themselves in this ancient relief. For what reason? Angels were fallible. They were not divine. They built great cities, had their own pride, engaged in depravity, and fought amongst themselves over disagreements. Mortal, like humans.
Camilla’s eyes drifted to the side, toward the next scene. More war—war, and the horrible reality of it. Cities were left in burning ruins, riddled with craters from great spells. The walls were collapsed and homes, mere rubble. Winged people laid on the streets, bleeding out from deadly wounds, their blood so intricately carved that if the color wasn’t the same sandy color as the rest of the sculpture, Camilla might have almost mistaken it to be real.
After the war was rebuilding. The sculptures showed the starving people, living beneath a flimsy shelter because their homes were destroyed. It showed an awkward peace, built on a flimsy agreement between two leaders. It showed the city rebuilt, regaining its former glory and its arrogant atmosphere, yet to Camilla, it would be forever tainted by its history of violence.
Everything she saw depicted a horrible reality that stripped every aspect of divinity from the angels, leaving behind raw mortality. The sculptures depicted the angels at their best and worse, hiding nothing.
Behind the arrogance of the reliefs was a simple raw truth, that the angels were mortal. But more importantly, it didn’t seem like they were what humanity thought they were. The angels were not messengers of the Gods; they were just another race. A powerful, glorious race, but just another race nonetheless.
But the question that arises was…where were the angels now?
Apart from just angels, the relief also showed the other races at times. There were the elves, the dwarves, the bat-winged vampires. There were the orcs, the trolls, the beast-folks. The elementals, the devils. However, no matter where she looked, she could not find the tell-tale short, rounded ears of the humans.
She was forced to accept that the angels were before humanity’s time yet appeared at the same time as all the other races that were still present. Where were the angels now? Where were the humans then?
Camilla fell silent, feeling herself growing closer to the truth, but before she could take another step toward that coveted treasure in her mind, one of the Trista hunters next to her lurched and buckled, falling to his knees. The elemental supported himself with one hand and held his head with the other, completely still as he steadied himself.