Noah's body phased through the ground, as if he didn't exist in the first place. Within seconds, his head broke through, his eyes immediately scanning his surroundings and taking in any information.
Underneath the floor of the wooden podium was a set of rough stone stairs leading downwards. While no light illuminated the darkness, any Awakener would still be able to navigate this darkness with their enhanced body functions.
Noah began his descent, a slow and steady tread without any panic.
'Luckily, the secret door has not been tampered with by the Sanctuary. Had it been like the entryway into the cathedral, I'd have to wait ages for someone to come up and open the hatch'
The man continued to walk in silence for a few minutes, his steps devoid of presence in the hollow stairway, where the wind howled in all directions.
After a while, the stairway opened up into a completely new environment without warning. Space expanded in the blink of an eye, warping what had originally been a narrow stairway into a vast and illuminated space.
A smooth white ceramic stone lined the floors and walls, the glazed surface reflecting the artificial light from overhead.
Rows upon rows of massive glass tube capsules, each able to fit several people in them. In fact, each was filled to the brim with a translucent blue liquid, and filled with all manner of objects.
Naked corpses of different people, some were brutally battered, with a few remains only being that of a few severed limbs. Yet each of them had one similarity. Trapped within the capsules with the dead bodies were star cores of various colors, swirling around with energy that could not escape.
Noah stopped before one of the glass tubes and glanced down. At the base of the capsule was a white plaque engraved with several words.
'Luke Cranbell, Blue Divine, 7,621 CS - 461 DB'
It was the name, level, and length of life of the Awakener inside the capsule. Anyone can see clear as day that this underground facility was much more than grounds for worship, rather, it held a sinister purpose.
Noah turned his attention away, looking towards the only signatures of life in this urban graveyard.
A few dozen meters away, a group of men and women, all dressed in white lab coats, were speaking from their electronic tablets to a familiar looking young man in black priest robes and an old man in similar, yet white attire.
Bishop stood with his usual confident mannerism, his perfect brown hair looking brighter under the artificial lights. He listened carefully to what the scientists were saying, occasionally glancing at the face of the old man to gauge his reaction.
Even from his distance, Noah knew exactly who that old man was, having done his research on the Purifier's history.
The backbone of the Holy Sanctuary, second only to the Harbinger of Positivity, and a ruthless and cunning individual. This was the Pope of the holy land, Saint Leon Benedict, a powerful Awakener among Saint-Supremes said to be second only in strength to Saint Elizabeth.
Despite not showing himself publicly as often as other Saint-Supremes, his rise to power, as well as his early history of wars against other Saint-Supremes, were no small feats. To be able to control a powerful force like the Holy Sanctuary required nothing less than extraordinary talent and strength.
Noah, still in his invisible state, drew closer until he stood right between Bishop and Saint Leon. Neither of these powerful Purifiers were able to sense Noah's presence as they continued to listen to the head researcher speak.
"-has been a failure, and although we were able salvage the materials used, we lost the Scion Candidate"
Bishop frowned at the researcher's last point, though he quickly recovered, "That is no big deal, have someone go get a few more from the slums. What about your implantation research, how has that been going?"
The head researcher sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, "Ever since Head Researcher Elaine went into that crack in space, progress has been slow to say the least. She was our greatest asset and a prodigy, and without her, we were barely able to implant a Stage Four"
Saint Leon finally spoke after a long bout of silence, "Mobilize all of your materials to allow for Stage Five implantations. The experiment can be considered a success if we can mass produce these implanted Awakeners"
The researchers talked about deadlines, expectations, and what resources they would require, but Noah did not care about that. He has already heard what he needed to hear, quickly making his way deeper into the facility.
While his expression was unreadable behind his ghostly mask, one can still sense his mood from the chilling gaze that pierced through the eye sockets.
Noah has long known that the Holy Sanctuary performs inhumane experiments under their Saint Garden Cathedral, though he had not expected the operations to scale as far as it did. Dubbing this corpse infested facility the Graveyard of Saints can be considered to be quite accurate.
He stopped before a glass capsule that stretched towards the ceiling, clearly much larger than the rest. Inside of it was a little boy with blonde hair, suspended in the viscous liquid with various tubes connected to his body.
Most concerningly however was that his entire chest compartment had been opened, revealing the lack of a heart. On a nearby table, several smaller capsules contained star cores of various colors.
The boy was of around ten years of age, and a regular human without any power.
The star cores had one hundred and twenty eight points, the cores of Saint-Supremes.
The Holy Sanctuary had tried to create an artificial Saint using a human child and the star core of a deceased Saint. They failed, but an innocent person died in the process, and it seems from their conversations that they won't be stopping anytime soon.
Who knows how many children have died already.