Matriarch Despair introduces herself to us while kneeling in front of her, the speech laced with cruel and existentially degrading insults.

  "I'm not your typical generic Goddess or so whatever babysitting sky mommy. Anyways, don't ask if I didn't know everything about your personal lives or some useless preferences because here, your names and memories are just noise. Void doesn't care about your dignity, nothing different from porking your own dignity for an ounce of chipped silver. By the way, pleasantries are too boring isn’t they? There's a sword rack at the side of the altar, pick it up or else?"

  Nikolai and the four newcomers included Takeshi pick the glassy steel longsword and quickly form in line and Matriarch Despair announces the mechanics.

  "This is free-for-all combat, you are going to kill each other, as I said. There's no room for unnecessary negotiations or refusal, don't worry my children. Death is non-existent here, your injuries even fatal injuries can be regenerated instantly. Now start, work your asses off".

  The female newcomer named Maibelle Rutherford sloppily swung her sword against Nikolai, he lunged the sword straight in her neck. Takeshi attempted to sneak attack but Nikolai's guard stance had blocked his surprise attack, the longsword pommel bashed into Takeshi's head has cleanly decapitating him with following horizontal slash.

  Another newcomer Akihisa Mei and Liang Feng double team to overwhelm Nikolai and block its potential opening stance.

  Nikolai threw his longsword at Feng like a javelin and impaled his upper chest. He quickly pick up the discarded sword as Mei desperately charges at him, Nikolai postures in a side guard stance thrusting her into the lower chest part. Maibelle awakes from unconsciousness after her neck finishes regenerating, her body frozen and trembling in horror.

  Nikolai approaches her and splits her head in half. Fresh blood pooling to the floor and pinkish brain matter spilling in sacred floor of the cathedral. The smell of crimson iron is too overwhelming even the dead will complain and rolling now in their own respective graves.

  A handsome and stern-looking man in gray clerical robe, embroidered with Edelweiss motif, appear at the side of the confessional, he applauds the impressive performance of Nikolai's act and other newcomers. Doesn't mean, it implies praise but perfect marketability of new toys for the grand scheme of things. He is very glad regarding new products, the Matriarch and the Overseers was very pleased and entertained with a raw yet fresh concept of storyline.

  "Since you are done, why don't two of us waltz each other with our own blades. You contemptuous rat?"

  Matriach Despair's chilling retort makes Nikolai convulse in fear. She is beyond mortality.

  Matriarch Despair pulls out a translucent stiletto that reflects the microscopic world, Nikolai quickly postures in a guard stance to block the incoming attack and she blitzes toward him at attoseconds reaction frame in non-local instantaneity. Matriarch Despair cleanly decapitates him without a single spill of blood and the headless body collapse in floor.

  Nikolai choked in terror, holding his neck while gasping for breath. Prescience occurs in his neurological map does show Mobius strip of simulated probabilities lead on it's own endless and despairing death in different forms of artistic gruesomeness.

  Maibelle's sanity further shatters in despair when she saw Matriarch Despair's demonstration of absolute power. Her mental state spirals to the zenith of madness and repeatedly killing herself while manically laughing in the pleasure of agony.

  Maibelle cuts her own stomach open, yanking the bloody intestines out, and then she ties it around her neck like a decoration that horrified Feng and Mei. They broke down in tears and pleading for mercy to someone save them from deliverance of damnation is pretty common in religious drama.

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  Takeshi only stares blankly at the Haemanthus garden, which signifies his newfound obsession. Now, he become an ascetic of absolute obedience and docility meaning to serve, love, and devote the very system that torments him like a beaten dog, whining around in the cesspit of delusions.

  Patriarch Futility watching the awkward personal moments with indifference. He walk to the altar and starts narrating their suffering.

  “So pathetically oversaturated, bland, and obviously predictable response from people who don't believe in the existence of Hell.”

  “Suffering is the motif of duplicity and only matters if have a story to tell but it still doesn't matter because the free will is nothing different from a wind-up toy. Not everyone cares about the noise produced by insignificance. lt only polluting the clarity amidst vagueness of the existence.”

  Patriarch paused for a moment and he orders them together to stop the melodramatic theater of their foolishness.

  "All of you may rest, my children. The next trial begins sooner. Also don't forget to form friendships and cherish affection amid adversity. Comfort each other then forget the animosity, you may pretend this never happened before. Love your enemy and embrace what you are from within".

  Patriarch Futility's ominous sermon and his serene demeanor are not something that should be taken lightly. In this alien world, every words weigh law and has consequences.

  Matriarch Despair dismisses us to clean ourselves from the aftermath of monotonous carnage. Thick stain of blood crusting on robes, smell still lingering around as the floor paints red like a messy canvas. Nikolai and others descend into the church grotto.

  They walk 40 paces toward the shallow lagoon and take a bath together without looking or talking to each other. Mei helps Maibelle to wash her body while Takeshi and Feng stare blankly at mosaic icon of Haemanthus adorned in cave wall and then shamelessly prostrating in ground though naked and pray in something gibberish with pietistic fervor.

  Nikolai has no choice but to cry in despair, unable to bear the horror any longer. He has already fought many wars, witnessed unspeakable atrocities, and endured pointless existential struggles in trenches where he hid like a rat, seeking sanctuary from bullets and explosives flying all around him. Above all else, he is simply tired of it, and even in the afterlife he cannot escape his past: kill, destroy, obey.

  Maibelle shrieked in terror when the moment she accidentally take glance at Nikolai. Mei immediately embraces Maibelle to calm her down, and Mei averts her eyes in fear indicate the hostility still lingers.

  And then, Maibelle profanely shrieked in rage and cried out violent threats.

  "Fuck off, you freak psychopath. Don't ever dare to touch or look upon us even with. I will gouge your fucking filthy eyes out and shove it into your fucking mouth!".

  Nikolai and two other men still remain nonchalant. Her cry, anger, and complaints are nothing but background noise for irrelevance. Seriously, she has the nerve to bitch around and still thinks this is some random sequence of a fever dream. After taking a bath, they change their tattered clothes for new ones in the opulent wardrobe.

  Nikolai is quite fascinated in architecture design of the cathedral, its extremity of asymmetric-symmetric topology tricks the perception into thinking the place is moving around like a centrifuge.

  Patriarch Futility is playing harpsichord at left side of the altar, accompanying Matriarch Despair as a violinist. They sat themselves in a pew to listen in musical performance of Null Reverends and not afford to risk being subjected by wrath of these two powerful entities.

  Matriarch Despair starts performing, Nikolai pauses for a moment when he recognizes the musical piece, it is Giuseppe Tartini's Il Trillo del Diavolo because Major General Kovalchuk once invited him to watch classical performances in the National Philharmonic Orchestra during Major Kovalchuk's birthday.

  The graceful Larghetto sways the stars, gracefully dancing amidst the melancholy of the void. Soothing the very soul of despair, storming the mortal's heart beneath darkness. Matriarch Despair's descent to Allegro moderato, the ominous atmosphere inside the cathedral hall including outside turns everything in crimson hellscape.

  Haemanthus garden revealed its hellish nature, the valley of flesh and vegetation of innards. Projects unimaginable atrocities spanning boundlessly where screams and pleas of the damned echoes eternal torment.

  The screeching devilish sound of Adante makes Nikolai's instinct screams and he orders around immediately to get the sword to prepare for the worst scenario. Five direwolves huge as adult tiger broke into the cathedral, their eyes were brimming with unfathomable bloodlust and hunger for flesh.

  "Remember, attack synchronously. Don't ever dare swing sloppily or attempt to attack independently also maintain your defensive stance. Now move and form in a circle".