The courtyard felt different after Lilith left.
The silence had no weight anymore. It just carried that strange, electric stillness that follows a lightning strike, right before the thunder rolls.
Liam stood over the crater she'd left behind, the acrid scent of scorched stone forever etched into his memory and the floor beneath him.
He flexed his fingers; the echo of hellfire still whispered faintly in his veins.
The cost had been real—his Essence had dropped to 366—but the System had promised him something new:
[New Objective: Address the Faithful of the Nameless Litany. Convert Devotion → Essence.]
[Reward: Tactical Features.]
"Tactical Features," he murmured.
The phrase was vague but promising—something beyond brute force, something for the mind. He'd need that.
He glanced through his remaining resources: Thirteen Evolution Points. They glowed like temptation. The other skills—Swordsmanship, Hell's Summon—called to him, but he resisted.
Martial Combat had kept him alive. Hell's Flame had won him something more than survival. Spreading himself thinner now would be a mistake. Perhaps it was best to evolve the tools he had before grasping for new ones. The points would wait.
The dull throb in his ribs from Kraz's crushing embrace reminded him he was still very much mortal.
When Eri returned, she didn't look him in the eye. Her hands trembled as she offered a vial of shimmering blue liquid.
"For the pain, my lord," she whispered.
Fear still clung to her, but it had softened into something closer to awe. He could feel it trickling into his Essence pool.
[+5 EP]
"Thank you, Eri," he said gently.
She flinched at hearing her name, bowed low, and fled.
The potion's taste was cool and metallic.
Relief followed almost instantly—his body knitting itself together beneath the surface, bones and sinew aligning in silence.
It felt like an utter absence of pain; no, an absence of anything. A void where discomfort had always lived.
It felt… unnatural.
He'd lived his whole life tuning out pain—its sudden disappearance was its own kind of power.
He spent the hours before dusk in practice. Not with flame, but with form.
The stances of Martial Combat unfolded through his body like muscle memory rediscovered after lifetimes asleep. Every motion smoother than the last.
He wanted his body to stop being a barrier to his will—to become a vessel precise enough for his mind to move freely.
When the sun began to bleed out behind Eldhar's jagged skyline, Lilith returned.
Gone was the casual attire of their earlier meeting.
Now she wore a gown the color of twilight and a crown of obsidian resting on her brow. She wasn't merely a queen anymore; she was sovereignty embodied.
"It is time," she said. Her tone was stripped of mockery, her words precise and regal. "The faithful await you in the Sepulcher of Whispers. They have fasted and prayed since the hour of your summoning."
Liam arched a brow. "The Sepulcher of Whispers. Sounds ominous for a blessing."
"Faith and fear are siblings," Lilith replied, already turning to lead him. "They share a home. Remember—these are not soldiers or courtiers. They are believers. The performance they need is not intimidation, but sanctification."
They descended into the mountain's heart, through corridors Liam had never seen.
The air grew cooler, drier.
Torches gave way to green flames burning in sconces shaped like weeping skulls. Even their footsteps seemed hesitant to echo.
At last, they reached a pair of massive basalt doors, their black surfaces carved with runes that slithered in the flickering light.
Lilith stopped. "Your stage," she murmured. "I will be watching. Do not disappoint."
The doors opened.
The breath left his body.
The Sepulcher stretched vast and circular, its ceiling swallowed by darkness. Yet the chamber was not dark—thousands of luminescent fungi climbed the stone walls, bathing the space in an unearthly blue glow.
And kneeling in the center, heads bowed, were the women of the Nameless Litany.
Hundreds of them.
Grey robes. Bare feet. No horns among them—they had been cut.
Why?
Their silence didn't feel like peace—only pressure. It drew at the air, at him. The System confirmed what he already felt:
[Devotion Detected: 347 Entities]
[Essence Conversion Active…]
[+10 EP… +15 EP… +12 EP…]
Essence flowed steadily, unbidden. He hadn't said a word, and already his reserves surged past 400.
He stepped forward.
The crowd parted in a tide of reverent stillness, Lilith fading into the shadow near the door. Every pair of eyes fixed on him—hungry, worshipful.
They didn't see a man. They saw a god.
He had to give them one.
Liam stopped in the chamber's heart and let the silence breathe.
"You were told you prayed to a ghost," he said softly. His voice carried, filling the vast hollow without force. "You poured your faith into an empty throne."
He opened his hands, palms outward. "But I heard you."
A ripple moved through the kneeling crowd—a collective shudder, a breath that wasn't theirs to hold.
"Your whispers in the dark pulled me from the void," he continued. "Your faith was the anchor that dragged me back."
He walked slowly among them, eyes meeting faces wet with tears and rapture.
[Devotion Spike Detected: 347 Entities]
[Essence Conversion: +210 EP]
[Total Essence: 621]
"For eons I dreamed of an end...and of those with the audacity to remember my existence," he said. "I had forgotten the taste of prayer. The sound of belief. You reminded me."
He stopped before a trembling girl, her fingers clasped tight enough to blanch her skin.
He reached out, brushed her forehead.
A golden spark bloomed beneath his fingertips, faint but radiant.
Her eyes rolled back; a cry escaped her lips—half sob, half ecstasy. The light faded. Just a flicker of his Essence, nothing more. The cheapest miracle he could conjure.
"Let your doubt fall away," he commanded, voice thick with something dangerously close to sincerity. "The silence is over. Your god has returned."
Then he let the Sovereign's Presence rise—not for terror, but awe. With the generals his aura was a storm breaking upon them, but here it was light too sacred to behold.
"And I will forge a new heaven from the bones of this world," he declared, "for you."
That broke them.
The chamber erupted—sobs, cries, bodies collapsing into full prostration. The energy hit him like a wave of molten devotion, feeding him faster than anything ever could.
[Devotion Critical Mass Achieved!]
[Essence Conversion: +550 EP]
[You Have Reached 2 Star Greater Fiend Stage!]
[Continuous Essence Gain!]
[Total Essence: 1121]
[True Essence: 42]
[Objective Complete: Address the Faithful of the Nameless Litany.]
[Reward: Unlocking Tactical Features…]
[New Module Integrated: "Cognitor" – Advanced Strategic Analysis.]
Liam stood at the center of it all, Essence roaring through him, a strange clarity settling in his mind.
His thoughts sharpened into something cold.
He had come to give a performance.
He had ended up conducting a sacrament.
And he understood, with quiet horror, that this—faith—was a power more intoxicating, and far more dangerous, than any hellfire.