The angels came as twins.
One wept. One smiled.
Both killed.
They were called the Seraph Twins—divine Apostles of Serathiel, forged in mirrored light and born from war prayers never meant to be answered. They did not walk on earth. They floated inches above it. They did not speak. Their presence was scripture.
And they descended upon Velmire without warning.
The city's new cultist guard—the Ashen Wardens—were the first to see them.
And the first to die.
They didn't fight.
They simply looked.
And the Wardens burned from within—eyes glowing like suns, voices lost in choked hymns. Their armor cracked. Their bones glowed.
Lira watched from the reliquary spire as her brethren fell one by one. She didn't scream.
She wrote.
"They reflect belief."
"They do not need to strike. They simply reveal what people fear they deserve."
Ashen did not panic.
He stood in the center of the Black Reliquary, robes unmarked, voice calm.
He had been waiting for this.
"They are not gods," he told his followers, "they are mirrors."
"So we give them something false to reflect."
🜁 The Blinding Rite
Ashen assembled thirty of his most loyal cultists—those with shattered faith, broken guilt, and no illusions left. Together, they performed a ritual of false memory, sewing a shared delusion into their souls:
That Ashen was not their leader.
That they had never seen him.
That the cult was a lie.
That their faith was pure.
The ritual scarred them.
But when the Twins entered the Reliquary…
They saw nothing.
Just broken men.
Just prayerful women.
Just silence.
The Seraph Twins paused.
Then turned.
And left.
🔸 You have repelled a Tier I Divine Apostle Pair
🔹 + Echo Rank: Stable at A (Scourgeborn)
🔹 + Corruption: 65.3%
🔹 + Cultists: 128 (22 slain, 30 memory-scarred)
🔹 New Trait Gained: "Mirrorveil" – Cultists can be made immune to divine detection via ritual delusion
🔹 Relic Unlocked: "Ashen Glass" – Created from the residue of the Twins' passage; reflects belief, not appearance
🔹 Divine Awareness: MAXIMUM – Serathiel is now watching personally
In the north, Caelum stood at the edge of a frozen cliff.
He had felt it—the pull of divinity shift, if only for a moment.
He saw the vision in his sleep:
Two angels.
A reliquary of ash.
A figure standing calmly as fire bent around him.
He did not recognize the face.
But his soul trembled.
And for the first time, Caelum doubted his path.
Tahlon confronted Ashen that night.
"You let them die."
Ashen didn't look up from his writings.
"They chose to die free."
"They chose you."
Ashen stopped.
His voice dropped, cold as stone.
"They chose something the gods could never offer them: the right to refuse."
Tahlon had no answer.
He left—silently.
But in his sleep, the ash returned to his lungs.
Far above, Serathiel opened his eyes fully for the first time in three centuries.
The realm shook.
And across distant skies, new constellations changed shape.
They no longer depicted heroes or angels.
They now bore the outline of a man in chains…
…smiling.