Transcendent Odyssey [Coffeepen]-Chapter 44: AMONG WOLVES IN BORROWED SKIN

PREVIOUSLY-

Raphael shook his head,

"I don't know why the system is playing cupid. But,"

He ran a hand through his hair,

"I am not going to be bald."

"Haha!" Drelgor wheezed,

"I don't know whether to be happy or sad now."

Raphael clenched his wrists,

"Happy.... Let's be happy."

-------x-----------

Raphael and Miriel stood outside a crumbling cathedral. The church's walls had cracks slithering across it like snakes.

But at this moment, cracks were appearing somewhere else. Between the relationship of two people.

Miriel stood still.

Her wand trembled in her grasp, knuckles white around the shaft. Blood spattered her robes.

She stared at Raphael. "You killed her."

Raphael didn't flinch. "She was already dead the moment you turned your back."

"You didn't even try to save her!" Her voice cracked. "You didn't hesitate. You didn't shout a warning. You chose to kill her."

"I chose to finish the fight."

Miriel's eyes widened. She stepped back, as if seeing him for the first time.

"Gods... you didn't feel anything, did you?"

He glanced at her—expression unreadable. His voice was a dull, even note.

"Feeling has no bearing on outcome. I did what was efficient."

"You scare me."

It came out before she could stop it. Soft. Hoarse. Honest.

Raphael's brow twitched—barely. His gaze met hers. Calm. Frigid.

"Then your fear is functioning properly. This is just a test, there is no space for sympathy here."

Silence thickened between them. Somewhere behind them, one of the fallen groaned. Neither moved.

Miriel shook her head, slowly.

"That girl trusted you. I trusted you."

Raphael turned to leave.

"Then you were both careless."

She called after him, voice shaking.

"You think you're always right. That it's okay because it was necessary. But sometimes what's necessary still makes you a monster."

He paused. Not to look back. Just to speak.

"Monsters get things done. That's why we still have a door to walk through."

Miriel didn't follow right away.

She stood there a while longer, wondering if something else had died, too.

A FEW HOURS EARLIER-

Raphael, Miriel and the party arrived at the doors of a crumbling church.

"This is the labyrinth,"

Miriel gestured towards the establishment.

Raphael glanced around,

'A church right in the middle of a dense forest...'

"Is that so?"

CREAK!

The brown-haired girl opened the door.

They entered the building.

THUD!

The heavy wooden doors groaned shut behind them, swallowing the last whisper of wind from the forest.

The air changed immediately—damp, stagnant, and thick with the scent of old incense and mildew. Dust drifted like ash through narrow beams of faded light that filtered in from shattered stained glass, casting fragments of red, blue, and sickly green across the rotted floorboards.

They stood in a grand hall, long-abandoned yet eerily preserved by something unspoken. Vaulted ceilings stretched far above, half-collapsed in places, revealing the skeleton of the structure—splintered rafters, curling vines, and the faint drip of water leaking from unseen cracks.

Broken pews lay overturned, some with dried blood staining the wood, others scorched as if from lightning or divine wrath. Along the curved walls stood a dozen faceless statues in crumbling robes, their hands folded in prayer or held out in silent offering. Each bore a thin layer of dust—except for one, whose hand was perfectly clean, as if someone had taken it. Recently.

At the far end of the hall rose what remained of the altar—a blackened, stone slab, cracked down the middle. Behind it, the wall was lined with what must have once been a beautiful fresco, now barely discernible beneath layers of soot and claw marks. One could just barely make out a veiled figure surrounded by kneeling supplicants, their faces scratched away.

A black-haired girl walked up to the altar.

CLICK!

She pushed a random block on the left wall of the altar.

RUMBLE!

Beneath the altar, stone ground against stone as a hidden spiral stairway began to descend into darkness. The edges were lined with worn scripture, etched into the walls in an ancient dialect. A faint heat pulsed up from below... not warm, not inviting.

Like the exhale of something that had just woken up.

STEP!

STEP!

The group descended down the stair case.

"Is this the end?"

Raphael's voice was low, not anxious—merely curious. He stepped lightly, his boots clicking on damp stone as he gazed into the corridor ahead: a narrow vein carved through the labyrinth's rotting flesh, flanked by soot-streaked torches that flickered with feeble life.

Miriel turned her head slightly, her silhouette haloed by the sputtering firelight. "This is the first level," she said, her voice steady but cold with tension. "The stairs to the second are at the far end of the passage."

Raphael gave a silent nod.

As they moved forward, their footsteps echoed against the timeworn masonry. The air was thick with old iron and something subtler—like the breath of wolves long dead. Raphael's gaze swept over the corridor with surgical detachment.

Corpses littered the path.

Not human. Not anymore.

Dead lycanthropes—grotesque hybrid wolves—lay sprawled in ruin. Their fur was the colour of old blood, their canines elongated into daggers, jaws frozen mid-snarl. Ribbons of flesh and sinew dangled from broken limbs, staining the floor in arterial arcs. Claw marks gouged the walls and ceiling—evidence of a brief, savage resistance.

CREAK—

Miriel stepped ahead, her fingers finding the tarnished brass of an ancient knob. She twisted. The door groaned like something alive, opening inward on rusted hinges. Behind it, a second staircase slithered downward into deeper dark, like the spinal column of a buried titan.

They descended in silence.

At each level, the air thickened. Oppression was no longer metaphorical—it pressed on their lungs like damp velvet.

Level Two.

The parishioner undead stood frozen like mourners at a ruined mass. Their robes were rotted to ribbons, but the porcelain masks clung to their faces, some delicately cracked, others shattered to reveal rotting gums and empty sockets.

Level Three.

The Echo Thralls lingered in half-formed clusters, their shadowy bodies oozing in and out of the cracked brickwork. Their mouths—widened far past anatomy, hollow and rimmed with teeth like broken glass—murmured secrets in voices that didn't belong to them.

Level Five.

The Wretched Penitents knelt in rows along the walls, their skinless backs flayed and raw, their spiked confessionals dragging behind them with the sound of iron grating on bone.

Level Eight.

Mourning Blossoms clustered in corners and alcoves, their infantile faces curled into weeping grimaces. Delicate vines pulsed with fluid beneath translucent skin.

He smiled faintly to himself.

'She is strong,' he thought.

'But she still hesitates.'

SKID—

The party halted before the final gate.

Not a door. Not anymore.

It loomed before them like the ossified mouth of an ancient beast. A massive gate wrought entirely of bone: femurs lashed into grating, spinal columns forming the arch, skulls fused into the hinges. Where a doorknob might have once been, a skeletal hand dangled—its bony fingers curled around something unseen.

Set into the palm were four embedded skulls, each etched with runes that pulsed with a faint, hateful light.

They did not blink, but somehow—they stared.

Miriel stepped forward. Her jaw clenched.

She reached for the hand.

TURN—

The skeletal fingers rotated in a sickening circle. Bone grated against bone with a dry, intimate crack.

DING—

------[CELESTARK SYSTEM]-----

◽ Access Denied!

Participants needed- (1/5)

--------x------------

Miriel pointed to an engraved skull.

"Place your hands on them," she said. Her voice was clipped, strained—tension and fatigue winding around each word.

There was no explanation offered, but the others obeyed.

Caerina, the black-haired girl, eyes flicking from skull to skull, pressed her palm against the one with the spiral rune—a mark of memory.

Elira, Caerina's twin, ever quiet, took the cracked one, etched with the sigil of guilt.

Kiri, the brown-haired one, stepped to the third—its surface worn smooth except for a single jagged line, like a lightning bolt. Her hand lingered an inch above it before she forced it down with a hiss of breath.

Raphael stood before the fourth skull.

Its sockets were empty, yet they seemed to see through him.

He didn't move. His hand hovered inches above the bleached dome.

Miriel turned her head slightly.

"Well?"

He said nothing. His gaze lingered on the handprints now glowing faintly under the girls' touch—each one reacting, resonating. The gate throbbed with a faint heartbeat.

Raphael's eyes narrowed. He stared into the skull, and in that moment, it felt as though it stared back.

There was a pulse. A whisper.

"The unrepentant one."

He slowly raised his hand and placed it down.

Miriel turned the knob.

CREAK—

The bones groaned in protest as if reluctant to obey. The skulls heated beneath their hands, their glow flaring, then dimming into embers. Chains receded, slithering like centipedes into unseen grooves. The skeletal hand curled shut.

Then, silence.

With a gasp of dead air, the gate opened inward.

Stone grated. Bone cracked. Dust spilled like ash.

The scene opened to a lively town square. It looked like an ordinary village.

Shops lined up in a circular arc. Some selling fruits, some vegetables, some stitched tunics. The chatter of folks and laughter of kids playing filled the area.

At the centre of the square stood a twelve feet statue of a woman carved in stone.

She looked like an angel. Wings of stone protruded from her back; her face covered by clasped hands that prayed to something higher.

DING!

----[HIDDEN QUEST]----

◈Go on a dungeon date.

Progress: (100%)

Reward- Vitreocleave Doctrine

Reward granted!

Please check your inbox.

------------------------

With a flicker of interest, Raphael raised a hand and dismissed it with a flick of his fingers. The light shattered like glass and vanished.

DING!

A window materialized to life before the party.

[Among them walk five wolves in borrowed skin.]

[Slay them before the bell tolls again... or one of you dies.]

[Each correct kill grants two more minutes.]

A screen materialized above them.

[1:59]

The group glanced around in rising panic.

Boots shuffled. Breaths caught. Eyes darted.

The girls moved quickly, scanning the crowd with urgency.

Shopkeepers hawking wares.

Beggars tugging at sleeves.

Children playing.

Street performers juggling knives or flame.

Laughter. Dust. Too many faces. Too many masks.

But none stood out. No shadow peeled away from the wall. No movement betrayed the predator among them.

Miriel exhaled sharply and closed her eyes.

From her fingers, tendrils of colourless mana unravelled, creeping through the air like mist on a cold morning. They probed the crowd—softly brushing against auras, weaving through bodies, testing for something out of place.

Beside her, Raphael stood still, as if the chaos didn't touch him.

His gaze locked onto the angel statue in the town square.

Pristine marble. Wings outstretched. Head bowed in gentle sorrow. A monument to false mercy.

A thought crossed his mind-

White hair.

Amethyst eyes.

A maniacal grin.

The image surfaced, unbidden. A whisper echoed in his mind.

'The evillest demons wear the hide of the kindest angels.'

His lips curled, faint and sharp.

Almost... amused.

Without a word, he gripped the shaft of his spear. Muscles coiled.

THROW—!

The weapon whistled through the air, a blur of silver and wrath.

CLANG!

It struck the chest of the statue with a crack that echoed across the square.

Stone chipped.

The spear clattered to the ground, bouncing once, twice, before settling—its shaft trembling.

For a heartbeat, he felt bloodlust.

Miriel's eyes snapped open.

"Raphael—!" she hissed.

But he didn't turn.

He simply stared at the statue's chest, where the pristine marble now bore a thin fracture.

"Hahaha," Raphael's hand went up to his face.

DING!

The timer ended.

[0:00]

THUMP!

Kiri collapsed.

Her body slumped forward like a marionette with cut strings. Her head rolled—bumping against the base of a fruit stand—before coming to rest beside a glistening red apple.

Blood poured from her neck, a dark, glugging stream that soaked the cobblestones in a widening bloom. It oozed like spilled wine, pooling beneath her unblinking eyes.

"Aaaah—!"

The girls screamed, a chorus of shock and grief breaking the illusion of calm.

"K-Kiri..."

Miriel's voice cracked, her lips trembling as she stumbled a step forward. Her hand covered her mouth, her fingers stained with mana residue.

Behind her, Raphael laughed.

A low, breathy sound at first, then sharper—like glass scraping against stone.

"Hahaha—"

Then, silence.

The laugh died mid-breath.

Like a broken record hitting a jagged edge.

DING!

A crystalline chime echoed through the square.

[2:00]

The glowing digits pulsed into existence in the air, searing their truth into everyone's mind.

The timer had reset.

Miriel spun toward him, grabbing his arm with desperate force.

"Why? Why are you laughing? Is it funny?"

Her voice broke.

"She died, Raphael—Kiri died!"

Raphael turned his head, slowly.

His face held no emotion.

His tone was cool as still water.

"Lady Miriel," he said, as though correcting a misstep in etiquette, "this is a test. Your companion is safe."

He gently pried her hand away—no anger, no resistance, just a cold kind of detachment.

Miriel stood frozen. Her mind screamed against his words, but logic whispered he was right.

'She is safe. This is a system trial. This is temporary.

But still—'

'How can one be so— freēnovelkiss.com

so numb to another's death?'

STEP.

His boots clicked against the blood-slick stone.

Raphael walked away from them with eerie calm.

Past the crying girls, past Kiri's cooling corpse.

He approached a woman seated alone on a wooden bench—aged, with weathered skin and sunken eyes. Her hair was threaded with silver.

She had burn scars across one cheek and the left leg ended at the knee, wrapped in old cloth.

A beggar. Watching birds.

Raphael's hand moved.

He drew his dagger.

Slowly. Deliberately.

The glint of steel caught in the morning light.

His fingers curled around the hilt—firm and practiced. His shadow stretched long across the cobbles.

He stepped forward.

His voice, when it came, was almost... academic.

"Woman with burn scars. Amputated left leg. No evident combat utility."

His dagger flashed.

A blur of motion.

Too quick for the woman to scream.

Too swift for anyone to stop.

SLICE!