"This is the third ti," Alexia began. "How much longer do you plan to play this ga? And were those bodies you left behind actually real?"
After neatly arranging her napkin, Alexia brought over the fruit platter and tried to feed a slice of orange to Chocolate. But the cat, with a dignified air, turned its head away; it wouldn't accept food from just anyone.
"The bodies were absolutely real," Jenkins replied. "I wouldn't make a careless mistake like that. But that's not the point. What matters is that I saw an eye, a mouth, a nose, and an ear—all separate. Is the Difference Engine trying to assemble a face? Could this be related to so kind of advancent?"
"Given their shapes, it's possible the tal parts can combine. You need to be careful," Alexia warned. "If it really does form a face, I doubt its goal is as simple as building another chanical giant."
"Don't worry."
When he appeared for the fourth ti, the scene around the church had descended into utter chaos. chanical corpses surged from the sewers, their sheer numbers overwhelming the defenders in a tide of undeath. A foul mixture of blood, rain, and so unidentifiable fluid splattered in every direction. The cacophony of the downpour, explosions, and monstrous roars drowned out all else, making it impossible to even hear the person next to you.
Amidst the chaos, Jenkins rose into the air, seated on a high stool. His sacred sword carved two brilliant arcs around him before he launched into a whirling dance of blades, clearing the sky of any corpses capable of flight.
Fusing with different machinery granted the corpses a variety of abilities. Those that took to the air were typically powered by high-output steam engines, propelling themselves with powerful jets of steam.
The dazzling white trails left by his sword drew the eyes of anyone with a mont to spare. They looked up just in ti to see the man in the sky sliced into four pieces by two massive tal blades that shot out of the distance.
The pieces of his body tumbled from the sky, landing like stones among the crowd below. People cried out, pulling the still-warm remains under the eaves of a streetside building and confirming that the death was real and recent.
"They weren't blades. They were eyebrows."
Jenkins, now on his fourth death, explained. Alexia had already tossed her napkin aside. She ate the orange herself as a blue cube materialized in her hand.
"According to my calculations, the probability that they can combine is virtually one hundred percent," she stated. "I saw the mouth and ears you ntioned. I think the Difference Engine wants to use these features to speak."
"Speak?" Jenkins questioned. "Does it really need to go through all this trouble just to talk?"
"It probably wants to speak to the entire world. As powerful as the Difference Engine is, it can't make its voice heard in every corner of the material plane instantly. Don't let that face form. I suspect it's part of a ritual, one that requires so kind of 'declaration' to be completed."
"I understand," Jenkins said. "This will be over soon."
With that, he closed his eyes once more.
A strange man stood at the entrance of the Inherited Sage Church, his gaze fixed on four white sheets laid out on the ground. They covered four corpses that the church mbers had gathered.
Despite the intensity of the battle, the Church had spared personnel to greet the fifth Believer of Lies to arrive at their doorstep.
"Why do you look so weak?"
the old Gravedigger from the Church of Death and End inquired.
He was only pretending, of course, but Jenkins couldn't say that. Instead, he answered:
"I sustained so injuries... in the dream."
Jenkins had told Papa Oliver about this when he awoke, so the others understood.
"After we woke from the dream, we all went our separate ways to heal, since the severity of our injuries varied. That's why we didn't travel here together. I never thought..."
The corner of his mouth twitched as his eyes fell to the four white sheets on the ground.
"I never imagined these four would act so quickly."
No one admonished him for his disrespect toward the dead, because even now, the Church mbers found it hard to believe these people could have died so easily.
"Don't you worry," he said. "I'm an [Undying Man]. Unlike them, I won't die so easily."
he added, but Miss Bennett from the Church of All Things and Nature still looked concerned.
"Where are your other companions? What about Miss Fabry? You should all co here at once. We're cooperating now; we can protect you."
While they didn't believe the Believers of Lies could perish so easily, the Church was convinced that they had all sustained serious injuries in the dream.
"Besides, our records indicate that even an [Undying Man] has weaknesses."
Miss Bennett said, her voice tinged with worry.
"Yes, of course, there are weaknesses," Jenkins confird. "If I take more damage at once than my threshold allows, my immortality can be broken. But that's not easily done."
At this, Jenkins even feigned a few coughs to emphasize his weakness.
"But it's fine. We'll be alright once Miss Fabry gets here. We took six of the slots, but there are actually seven of us. The seventh was supposed to acquire the emblem of fate, but... I never thought they'd die here. Now, besides , only Mr. Candle and Miss Fabry have yet to arrive."
"Are Mr. Candle and Miss Fabry the strongest among you?"
"No, that woman is just the slipperiest. She hid in the back during the dream, so she barely got a scratch. But in terms of power, Mr. Candle is formidable. More powerful than any of you."
"We don't need to wait for Miss Fabry and Mr. Candle. Jenkins is an excellent healer. Perhaps he can..."
Before she could finish, a dragon of fire descended, only to be easily deflected. Swarms of tallic butterflies drifted through the rain, and Miss Bennett quickly moved to shield Jenkins.
"Get inside the church!"
"Right."
He turned to go, but a gigantic tal maw burst from a rift in space right behind him.
The old Gravedigger imdiately stepped forward. The coffin on his back slid open, revealing an equally endless darkness within. The tal maw and the mouth of the coffin faced off. Both the Gravedigger and the tal construct remained motionless, and without any flashy effects of light or shadow, the scene looked almost comical. Yet everyone knew this was the fiercest, most critical mont of the fight.
"This way."
Mr. Gilbert had already pushed open the great doors of the church, but Jenkins suddenly dodged to the side. The flagstones where he had just been standing exploded into fragnts.
"An unseen enemy has appeared!"
a Nightwatchman demigod shouted, his head snapping upward.
"There it is!"
For the Orthodox Churches, it wasn't rare to have mbers with magical sight capable of perceiving the invisible.
Mr. Gilbert grabbed Jenkins by the arm, and they were just about to step inside the church when a piercing shriek cut through the wind. A wave of dizziness washed over Gilbert, blurring his vision, but he fought it off with his formidable ntal fortitude and quickly ca to his senses.
He tugged the Believer of Lies forward, but the man simply collapsed to the ground. It was only then that Gilbert saw it: the man's neck was bare, his head having exploded and showered the area with blood and brain matter. In his montary daze, Gilbert hadn't even registered the warm liquid that had spattered across his own face.
This was the fifth Believer of Lies to "die." His body landed right beside the four white-sheeted corpses. Of course, one of those sheets covered nothing, as the first believer, swallowed whole by the tal maw, had left no remains at all.
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