The Rotting Cathedral stirred.
A chorus of whispers slithered through the desecrated halls, voices of the half-dead murmuring in agony, devotion, and madness. Their prayers were not for salvation—Selene Nocturna had made sure of that.
They prayed only to her.
Lucien, the once-proud inquisitor, now the first of her Plague Apostles, lay sprawled before the throne, his body still twitching, his mouth stretching in an involuntary grin. The sickness within him had reshaped his bones, stiffened his flesh, but refused him the mercy of death.
Selene watched him with detached amusement, running a blackened claw along his trembling cheek.
"Still conscious? Impressive."
His eyes—milky and rotting—rolled to meet hers, pleading.
Selene leaned in, close enough for him to see the hungry glimmer in her golden irises.
"You were a man of faith once, Lucien." Her voice was velvet-draped poison. "Shall we see if your god still listens?"
With a flick of her wrist, she beckoned her disciples forward—the Choir of Rot.
Dozens of figures emerged from the cathedral's shadows. Men, women, and children alike, their bodies draped in tattered remnants of their past lives. Some bore the marks of the grave—patches of peeling flesh, empty eye sockets, exposed ribs crawling with necrotic insects.
Others were still fresh.
Selene stepped back, allowing the Choir to descend upon Lucien.
Their hands, bony and diseased, tore at his robes, tracing their filth across his skin. The sound of wheezing breaths and fevered moans filled the cathedral as their afflictions bled into him, spreading like wildfire.
Lucien screamed, but no sound escaped his lips.
His voice had already rotted.
Selene tilted her head, pleased.
"Ah… yes. A fine addition."
Lucien's body convulsed, his form twisting, reshaping. His spine cracked, lengthened, his limbs stretched unnaturally. Blackened veins bulged beneath his skin, and from his throat came a sound—not a scream, but a hymn.
A horrid, rattling chant, sung in a language not meant for the living.
The Choir of Rot answered in kind, their voices rising in a grotesque harmony, filling the cathedral with a dirge of suffering.
A new plague was born.
And the world would soon sing along.