Chapter 84

Considering that if they didn’t visit the church, they’d have to go somewhere else to “tour and sightsee,” Kraft followed Captain Weilian into the church.

Passing through the silver-embossed entrance and stepping into the central hall, the most classic element of the standard structure was no exception in the Comfort Harbor Church.

No barriers were erected vertically across any floor in this area, allowing the gaze to reach straight to the dome, typically adorned with painted scenes of heaven; the larger the church, the more it emphasized this feature—this awe-inspiring height symbolized the unbridgeable gap between god and man.

The Comfort Church took the traditional design further by using an entirely glass mosaic ceiling, reflecting the candlelight of the grand chandelier to an extreme degree, achieving unparalleled grandeur and making worshippers, dazzled and entranced, forget where they were, as if standing beneath the stars of heaven, detached from worldly noise.

The side pillars partially divided the hall from the side chambers, with barriers made of small red glass panels obscuring the view, faintly revealing candlestands behind; their transparency was significantly higher than those seen in the harbor district, and their color was more uniform and orderly.

The singing came from behind the semi-transparent glass wall—clear, ethereal, echoing through the vast space, its harmony mistaken for choral effects.

The uniform, unaccompanied chorus of children's voices, bathed in hazy red light, was indistinguishable between a castrato and a boy; the sound unsettled Kraft—unnatural layered voices always reminded him of his deeper experiences, all produced by human vocal cords striving to sound as far from normal as possible.

He turned his head, trying to shake off the sound clinging to his ears; but the singing filled every corner of the enclosed hall, and as a guest, he couldn’t cover his ears without being rude, so he focused instead on the surrounding decorations.

Contrary to its exterior, the church’s interior defied the ascetic, solemn sacred tone, using abundant warm-toned glass: a dominant pale red, highly transparent glass cast a drunken crimson glow, complemented by slightly varied deep red and dark glass, with rare touches of orange-yellow and amber.

The designer clearly sought to evoke a gentle warmth beyond holiness, softening the church’s inherently intimidating impression to better suit its name, “Comfort.”

But this adjustment was overdone; to Kraft, it felt like accidentally spilling half a box of sugar into coffee—too sweet to describe.

In the time it took him to walk halfway through the central hall from the entrance, his impression of the warm light steadily declined; like the singing, it was everywhere, filling the space like a hazy mist, seeping into his pupils, coating his retinas with a sticky, syrupy sweetness he couldn’t wipe or wash away.

Some might feel they’d entered a comforting, sweet heaven—Kup, for instance, loved this place, though he’d recently confessed privately to doubts about the foundations of faith; clearly, that didn’t hinder his appreciation of the environment.

Since entering the doors, this young man from the Salt Tide District had been entranced; his body language unmistakably revealed his relaxation from the initial tension upon entering; the warm, sweet visual experience deeply pleased him.

Weilian led them toward the altar, where the priest was recounting a scripture tale to the kneeling worshippers—specifically, the humiliation and oppression the saint endured on earth before ascending.

White stone statues of saints, each in different poses, lined both sides; the center held no statue at all, replaced instead by the winged circle emblem representing the supreme being—no concrete form was provided for public veneration.

Scriptures frequently described the Heavenly Father descending to earth to perform miracles, testing and refining his believers, rewarding the good and punishing the wicked; sometimes appearing as ordinary people in various guises, always ending with the revelation of his true form, as all fell to their knees praising his mercy and wisdom.

Logically, there should be many descriptions of his appearance; in fact, the opposite was true: to glimpse or imagine the Heavenly Father’s face was always taboo—claiming to have seen it directly was deemed disrespectful, related artworks were avoided, or it was outright declared that God had no true face and could never be seen or remembered by mortals.

The saints carved from lustrous white stone were frozen at the moment in their stories when they beheld the divine true form: a barefoot farmer gathering grain, a knight in a saintly robe wielding a sword in battle, an elderly bishop raising his head in astonishment while reading scripture.

The carving skill was exceptionally high; even to Kraft, who had zero artistic sensibility, they were stunning—the fabric’s softness and muscle movement were rendered with astonishing realism, while maintaining perfect consistency across all statues.

The farmer was not too short, the knight not too towering—each maintained a balanced proportion.

Their gazes all fixed on the central emblem representing the Heavenly Father, aiming to condense over twenty stories into a single scene.

The priest finished his sermon, descended from the platform, and took from a young acolyte behind him a basket of bread, distributing it to the listeners; someone who’d only heard the end still managed to sneak one.

There were stories in the church of saints distributing food transformed from the divine body to believers; as a nonbeliever, Kraft, out of curiosity, took a small bite—the unrisen bread nearly shattered his teeth; this must have been the bone of God.

“Shall we go up?” He stuffed the bread into his pocket, abandoning the idea of a quick dinner, and pointed to an unguarded staircase, intending to escape the annoying choir upstairs; the second floor seemed to be Weilian’s destination too—he gripped the railing and climbed ahead.

The spiral staircase was tucked into a corner of the hall, unobtrusive; after two turns, they reached the church’s second floor.

Here, several well-insulated small rooms were arranged; visitors occasionally opened the doors and stepped out, glancing around to see if anyone was watching them.

Through the gaps as they came and went, Kraft glimpsed inside: each room was divided by a small pane of mosaic glass, allowing only vague silhouettes to be seen—identity remained hidden.

Probably confession booths, Kraft had no interest, but the singing here was noticeably quieter; he glanced questioningly at Weilian, wondering why this captain, in the middle of the night, avoided “proper places” and came to this church—perhaps he had sins to atone for too?

“Oh, don’t look at me like that—I’m far more devout than those people, unafraid to confess my faults to God,” Weilian acknowledged his purpose matter-of-factly. “Besides, I always come to the church before heading to the harbor.”

“That’s at least ninety-nine percent better than those below,” Kraft leaned over the railing; below, heads surged, bathed in pale red light; from this angle, the red glow was no longer gentle—it felt like looking down on the masses struggling and lost in the world.

The only cold tones came from the winged circle emblem and its saint statues, utterly alien to the crowd; the emblem had no face, beyond human interpretation; the saints’ eyes fixed only on the emblem, never glancing at the flowing crowds below, nor toward the next priest ascending the pulpit.

After watching longer, he realized this design wasn’t accidental—the arrangement of people and space conveyed a deliberate message.

He’d visited fewer than five churches in his life, only about one and a half of them large; half was Saint Simon’s in Wenden Harbor; the only true large church was the Comfort Church. And with no theological knowledge, he shouldn’t jump to conclusions.

He turned his gaze back from below and waved to Weilian: “Go ahead—I’ll just wander around.”

“See you later.”

“See you later—may God watch over you,” Kraft said as he closed the door behind him, noticing the strange, conflicted expression on Weilian’s face—he clearly disliked the blessing.

“Maybe skip that kind of blessing?” came the muffled voice from behind the door.

Typical of a man who admires dragons only from afar, Kraft thought, shaking his head as he walked down the corridor toward the main entrance—he wanted to get closer to examine the church’s glass wings.

At the end of the corridor, they approached the lower edge of one wing.

The translucent white glass feathers, polished and assembled by methods incomprehensible to amateurs, ended in the longest feather nearly as long as an upper arm—its transparency rivaled ice crystals, so beautiful it seemed not of this era, surpassing even the pale red glass below.

The glass used in the church far outclassed the harbor’s colored lantern decorations—not by one generation, but many: higher transparency, fewer impurities.

Especially these exaggerated wings—they reached the level of an alien soul’s understanding of glass, almost like glass instruments.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” A crisp voice approached from behind, footsteps light.

Kraft turned to see a man with delicate, feminine features standing beside them, gazing together at the architectural marvel from close range.

“Indeed.” Even an alien soul had to admit this looked breathtaking at night—not merely due to technical mastery, but because of artistic genius far beyond Kraft’s reach; the devotion poured into its creation was unimaginable.

“The glass used in those other places? Just scraps and waste the church discarded. Comfort Harbor has no other place like this.” His tone carried pride and disdain as he tilted his neck upward, gazing at the wing’s tip. “Living here long enough, sometimes I think heaven must be like this.”

When excited, his voice shifted pitch, naturally adopting musical cadence—wide vocal range, like a musical theater performance.

Okay, Kraft now knew the source of the choir’s singing: no boys, only castrati. Some impoverished families sent their children down this path—undergoing procedures no one spoke of, and brutal training—to secure work in churches or performance troupes.

They retained a broad vocal range while preserving an unchanged, pre-puberty tone—perfect for singing sacred hymns.

“Incredible—how was this even done?” The man sounded like he knew secrets; Kraft thought he might extract something.

“They say it’s a technique from Dunling—using alchemical agents to remove impurities from glass, making it clearer than crystal,” the castrato reached out, catching the pure radiance of the glass, his voice ethereal. “This was custom-made, and there will never be another.”