Chapter 379: The Storm Before the Rain

The blacksmith made a mold from the original, but after melting it down, he discovered it wasn’t pure silver—something else had been cast into it from the start, taking up about half the volume.

Silent within the metal for over twenty years, perhaps proximity to Dominic had triggered something—an animal awakening from hibernation, sensing another season’s turn, all prey around defenseless.

“You really never noticed anything was off about it?” Kup repeated, incredulous.

“Maybe… maybe it was just a little lighter.” The priest pressed his wooden holy symbol tightly, trying to suppress the suffocating palpitations.

He had worn the silver emblem for so long that time had dulled its shine and presence, making it a natural part of the church, a part of himself.

A faint, muffled crack echoed, seemingly from some distance—he instinctively glanced left and right but found no source.

The others, still without answers, were rummaging through the forge, clatters and bangs echoing everywhere, yet that single sound stood out with startling clarity.

Closer than the air beside him, closer than his ears—inside his body, echoing in his memory.

The crack was a trigger—he saw in memory two cultivators grappling before him, himself frantically reciting exorcism incantations.

In the chaos, something cracked—ancient wooden floorboards, brittle finger bones, aged metal—the sound vanished instantly, like an accidental ink splatter from a brushstroke, unnoticed by all.

As he wiped away that memory, the still-wet ink spread and blurred, darkening the scene; the more he recalled, the more it faded.

Everyone stood with mouths open, murmuring words like underwater bubbles, yet one phrase stood out clearly.

【Where did they go?】

Yes—he had never truly pondered this. The old priest told him the church’s caravan had gone north; Benny’s family said the madmen had gone to a mountain.

But what did that actually mean?

His fingers instinctively scratched the skin on his chest, long accustomed to the holy symbol—itching in every pore, as if something fine and dense were about to sprout beneath it, arranged like precise words, tightly interlocked, like scales or feathers.

The iron horseshoe beneath the eaves swayed slightly; a breeze carrying crisp clinks and dampness blew into the forge—the signal of rain about to fall.

After days of overcast rain, it was time to take the books out and air them again. He recalled the collection, unchanged since the church’s founding, memorized inside and out, and prepared to walk back alone.

His waist suddenly slammed into a rigid horizontal bar—he looked down and saw a hammer.

The handle was in the girl’s hand, clearly dividing the boundary between inside and outside the room.

“Where are you going?”

“Back… to organize the books.” He was startled by the excuse—he had never been someone so careless.

Not long ago, he had rushed here in a panic over accusations of heresy, and now he was ready to abandon the investigation team and return.

“Why?”

“Because I suddenly remembered rainy days cause mold?” There were still many days until the next clear day, yet he felt an inexplicable urgency.

Yin Feng shook his head, the hammer handle unmoved in his grip.

“For safety, I recommend you seal the library for now.” Kup emerged from the back room with a small crucible, shutting down the priest’s thought with one sentence: “Until we rule out suspicion, all written records could be evidence. You wouldn’t want to invite trouble through unnecessary actions, would you?”

“Set everything else aside—we must first find what was cast into the holy emblem.”

He held the crucible under the light; the solidified residue of black and silver clearly showed an anomaly.

The silver had not fully coated the inner wall near the spout—instead, a shallow, irregular circular depression remained empty, surrounded by fragmented cold-flow patterns that marred the otherwise smooth cooling surface, like nested eddies on a filthy water surface.

Someone had repeatedly prodded something while it was still molten, then removed it once slightly cooled—the edges bore marks of prying and peeling.

From the imprint left on the silver surface, the object was a flat, irregular slab, roughly three fingers long and two wide—impossible to identify precisely, but likely the kind of thing that falls into some corner and is never found again.

Kup felt dizzy, unsure whether he hoped the blacksmith had taken it back.

“Where does he live?”

“Over there—the house south of the church, against the mountain.”

The group dragged the priest and knocked loudly on the blacksmith’s door at dinnertime.

A woman wrapped in a headscarf peered through the door for a long while, confirmed it was indeed the priest, then cautiously opened a narrow gap, watching the unfamiliar outsiders with suspicion.

When asked whether the blacksmith had brought home any unusual items in his final days, she pondered long before giving an ambiguous answer:

“Before he fell ill, there was one day he came home unusually early—didn’t go drinking, but seemed dazed, refused help undressing, and went straight to bed.”

“Could you tell what it was?”

“I didn’t see it—I only felt like he was hiding something. Was it that thing that made him sick? I’ve told him countless times: greed is a sin; he shouldn’t take what the Lord hasn’t granted. He always ignored me. I never thought it would come to this…”

Her eyes reddened, tears welling. Two children by the hearth watched the scene, curious but seemingly unaware of what had happened.

Kup pressed on: “Did he go out during those days?”

“Maybe into the mountains—I saw mud and grass clippings stuck to his boots when he returned.”

“Do you know which mountain?”

“We only have one path up—the highest one to the north.”

“I understand. May the Heavenly Father bless you.” Kup had pieced together enough—their behavior was predictable: those who could went to the “holy site,” otherwise they climbed the highest peak.

“If you find anything strange in the house afterward, hand it over to us immediately—it could be a vessel for demonic spirits.”

After one final warning and precaution, Kup took his leave.

Stepping out of the courtyard piled high with firewood, the sky had darkened; the wet, cold stone path beneath his feet led beyond the village, toward the hazy, silent silhouette of distant peaks.

Towering cliffs and sheer rock faces piled and crowded together, shattering the boundary between earth and sky in the night. The land lost its solidity, like a torn cloth lifted at one corner, torn by the strengthening night wind, ready to plunge into the bottomless darkness above.

“It looks like rain’s coming.”

“Which is easier—climbing now, or climbing in the rain?” Kup drew a deep breath, trying to calm his pounding heart.

A deep intuition rang its alarm—signaling he was approaching something, not in physical distance, but in a more abstract sense.

“You can’t climb in the rain,” the priest shook his head. “The mountain path becomes slicker than a spoon dropped in soup. And at night, it’s dangerous too. Best to wait a few days.”

“Everyone, bear with one more meal of dried rations—we’re leaving now.”

?? Seriously stuck in writing; nothing feels right (′?`). Urgently need feedback and suggestions on recent chapters.