Destiny of Sin

_Chapter Begins_

William stared at the giant wooden doors at the entrance of the church.

There was a complicated expression on his pale face.

His fists were clenched, and his eyebrow and lip twitched from time to time.

From the outside, William probably just looked like a homeless man who was really constipated.

But on the inside, a massive tug-of-war was raging between two opposing factions.

On one side were logic and instinct, both desperately trying to pull William toward the exit of the church.

On the other side were pride and curiosity, both screaming at him to stay and explore.

But even though pride and curiosity were on the same side, they had very different goals.

Pride wanted William to explore the church just to find the fifty dollars and return to Elsa without any embarrassment.

Curiosity, on the other hand, didn't care about the money.

It wanted answers—wanted to understand what happened to the church, to the cult that once gathered here… and maybe, still does.

In William's mind, the internal battle felt like it lasted for hours.

In reality, it was over in thirty seconds or less.

And to pretty much no one's surprise…

Pride and curiosity had won.

William now wore a very visible look of frustration.

"Ugh…"

He clenched his fists harder, now openly angry.

"Why… why do I feel the need to know the history behind everything around me?" he muttered, scowling.

"Who cares what happened to the church… or that stupid cult?"

He slowly, reluctantly relaxed his fists and softened his expression.

Now, his eyes were fixed on the small wooden cabinets lining the walls of the church, his face blank.

For some unknown reason, he felt drawn to them.

He had a gut feeling those old wooden cabinets would reveal two things:

One: Where his money went.

Two: Where the cult went.

Purely from intuition, William felt strongly—too strongly—that this church extended underground.

He walked over to one of the cabinets standing quietly against the side walls.

With a weak push of his left hand, the thin wooden door swung open, revealing the inside.

William scowled.

Where a toilet should have been, there was instead a wide hole descending so deep he couldn't even see the bottom.

"Why… why does my intuition always have to be right?" he grumbled.

He rubbed his face, sighed, and then casually started climbing down the ladder placed inside the hole.

He descended into the underground.

It took him about five minutes to reach the floor hidden beneath the cursed church.

William immediately began scanning the area for cultists—but there were none.

Still, something else grabbed his attention.

Directly beneath the ladder, everything—the walls, the floor—was made entirely of dirt.

It looked less like a basement and more like a crude mine carved out of the earth.

The narrow walls formed a single tight hallway that led right to where William had climbed down.

And just a few meters ahead, that hallway clearly branched off in multiple directions.

William was glad it started with just one path—at least this way, he'd be able to see the enemy coming.

But all those layout details weren't what truly caught his eye.

What did… were the symbols and tools scattered throughout the hallway.

_Chapter Ends_