Extra's Guide to Surviving a Dark Fantasy World-Chapter 42: The Crown

"Lord of the Crimson Veil... Lord of the Crimson Veil... Lord of the Crimson Veil!"

"Lord of the Crimson Veil... Lord of the Crimson Veil... Lord of the Crimson Veil!"

"Lord of the Crimson Veil... Lord of the Crimson Veil... Lord of the Crimson Veil!"

The chants continued, further escalating, becoming louder and louder and louder, and then-

Pause-

The chanting stopped in unison, and all the figures suddenly froze where they stood. I held my breath as one by one they began turning towards my direction. The tallest one raising her hand and pointing at me, followed by everyone else.

"CHHHHRRREEEEE!"

A deafening scream resounded through the chamber, causing me to almost fall on my knees.

This is it.

I immediately turned on my knees and was about to run away when suddenly the screams vanished. I reluctantly turned around only to see the chamber completely empty. The women around the altar had disappeared, as if vanished into thin air, leaving behind nothing but the statue in the altar.

What in the world was that? How did those people vanish? Was I hallucinating?

One by one, questions began bombarding my mind until a wild idea came into my mind.

Those things could also be reflections. That would explain the sudden disappearance; reflections were the only things I knew that were capable of appearing and disappearing midair.

If those things were indeed reflections, then the people they belonged to were alive as well. That didn’t make sense; nothing survived out in the wastes, so who could they have belonged to

Questions after questions began surfacing into my mind before I eventually forced them to stop.

This is going nowhere. Those things could be looked upon later; for now, though, I needed to comb through this place in case there was anything valuable.

Steadying myself, I walked inside the chamber, cautiously looking around.

Those... things, they really were gone. Walking through the room I eventually came face to face with the statue, standing at a distance had still been fine, but standing this close, the feeling of rage was overflowing.

It was like desperately holding the reigns of a charging beast.

"Zarethar, that’s what they called him. Is he the same Zarethar that lunatic Siv was worshipping?"

That seemed like the only possible explanation. In the novel, Zarethar was only described as a demon worshipped by a cult of serial killers, nowhere had anyone mentioned anything like this.

I reluctantly touched the tentacles overflowing out of his cloak, feeling the cold stone texture under my burnt fingers.

Void... Veil... Flame... Flesh...

Bone... Blood... Breath... Silence...

Lord of the Crimson Veil.

All these chants were unlike anything Siv had recited, but that could be explained by these being spoken in original Khravaen.

Damn it, my list of research topics seemed to grow longer with each passing day.

Still, whoever this ’person’ was, it definitely had some connection with Khaldrin, and from how the will was reacting, it wasn’t a good one.

I might need to stay away from that cult for the time being. Nodding to myself and once again reigning in the rampaging will, I was about to turn around when I noticed something.

"That crown," I murmured while squinting my eyes. "That doesn’t look like it belongs to the statue."

Deciding to investigate, I climbed up on the platform the statue was fixed on, before climbing over the statue itself.

The statue was tall, too tall for me to reach the crown with my bare hands, not to mention it was giving off this sinister vibe that was making me want to stand a couple of feet away from it.

Still, I needed to check that crown, plus it wasn’t helping that Khaldrin’s will was only growing more and more pleased the more I stepped onto the statue.

"It really is detachable," I spoke while standing on it’s shoulder, all the while inspecting the crown.

Like the statue, the crown itself was more of a circlet, made of some kind of onyx black matte metal, with several small jagged dark spikes protruding out of its front sides.

This thing... it reeked of death. I didn’t know how I could tell, but I could. Somehow, I could feel the misery and anguish radiating out from it.

Steadying myself, I grabbed the crown, feeling its cold metallic body brush against my fingers, when suddenly, my finger accidentally pierced through one of the spikes, causing some of my blood to fall down on the crown.

As soon as my blood made contact with the crown, the sinister presence emanating from the statue intensified, multiplying several folds.

I felt watched as if being scrutinized by a predator.

My heart sped up, threatening to leap out of my chest, at the same time my vision turned hazy as a layer of sweat instantly drenched my back.

At the same time, the anger in me rose; only I couldn’t tell if it belonged to me or the remnant will.

"Stay away, you Vermin," I spoke in perfect Khravaen, instantly answering my question while yanking the crown off the statue in one go.

The world felt silent, and the wrenching feeling in my gut vanished the moment the crown left the statue.

I let out a deep sigh as my heart once again began to calm down.

That... I had never felt something so sinister in my life.