I woke up to chanting.
Not the terrifying kind, mind you. Not the "sacrifice him to the void" kind I'd half-expected after yesterday's revelations. No, this was more like a bunch of old monks trying to harmonize in a public bathroom.
"Mokh-tan Xal'zhur… Mokh-tan Xal'zhur…"
I sat up groggily and squinted at the source.
Five robed figures stood in a circle, holding glowing stones and chanting my apparent evil god name like they were warming up for a cosplay séance. Lirien stood behind them, arms crossed, looking way too amused for someone who probably invited these weirdos into my… our ruin.
I rubbed my face. "What the hell is happening?"
"Morning devotion," Lirien said brightly. "They showed up before dawn. Word's spreading."
"That *I'm* Kaer Xal'zhur."
"Yes."
"And you… let them in?"
"They were very respectful," she said with a shrug. "They brought offerings."
One of the cultists stepped forward and presented a charred lizard on a stick. "O great shadow-become-flesh," he intoned reverently, "accept this Flame-Touched Basilisk tail as token of our faith."
I blinked. "Did you… did you light it on fire first, or—"
"It combusted upon entering your presence," he said, eyes wide. "A divine omen."
I looked at the tail. I looked at him. I looked at Lirien.
She gave me a helpless smile, the kind that said *this is your mess now*.
I took the offering with all the solemnity I could muster. "Uh… cool. Thanks. Very crispy."
He bowed so low I thought he might snap in half, then backed away into the shadows, muttering prayers in a language I didn't recognize.
I turned to Lirien. "You know I'm not Kaer, right?"
"Yes."
"So why—?"
"Because," she said, her tone turning serious, "it doesn't matter what *you* believe. It matters what *they* do."
That sat in my brain like a lead weight. I hated that it made sense.
She gestured for me to follow her through the ruins. The cultists continued their chanting behind us, echoing off the stone in a way that made it sound like I had a whole damn choir.
"How many people think I'm this Kaer guy now?" I asked.
"Hard to say. Half the region? Maybe more. Rumors spread fast when they come with miracles."
I frowned. "I haven't done any miracles."
"You fell from the sky, bled shadows into sacred stone, made a priestess collapse in divine ecstasy, and cracked the foundation of a sealed city just by sneezing."
"…Okay, but none of that was *intentional*."
She stopped walking. We were in a broken hallway now, sunlight bleeding through shattered arches. Vines curled around toppled columns like the ruins were trying to grow back.
"That doesn't matter to them," she said. "Faith doesn't care about intent. They want a god. And you're close enough."
I sank onto a chunk of fallen masonry. My head was spinning.
"I'm just… me. I don't even know how to do magic. My best spell so far was lighting my sleeve on fire."
Lirien knelt beside me. "Then it's time to learn."
She drew a circle in the dust with her finger. Strange glyphs spiraled outward like petals, each one glowing faintly as her hand passed over them. She handed me a small black stone.
"Focus," she said. "Feel the flow. The stone will guide you."
I stared at the stone. "It's just a rock."
"Everything starts as 'just a rock' until it obeys your will."
That sounded like a proverb, or maybe just magic logic.
I held the stone. I closed my eyes. I tried to feel… something.
At first, nothing happened.
Then—like a vein pulsing—there was a rhythm. Faint. Whisper-soft. It wasn't a sound, exactly, more like the idea of a heartbeat, ancient and slow. It didn't come from the stone, but from beneath me—from the ground, the city, the world itself.
A pulse. Then another.
The glyphs glowed brighter.
"Good," Lirien whispered. "Now reach deeper."
I did.
And the world… *shivered*.
The stone snapped in half with a sharp crack. I yelped and flung the pieces, stumbling back as the glyphs on the ground sparked and swirled into a vortex of shadowy light.
A pressure built in the air—hot and cold at once, like being dropped into boiling ice.
Lirien flung out her hands and chanted something in a language I didn't recognize. The vortex stopped spinning. The glyphs dimmed. The stone halves rolled to a stop at my feet.
I stared, wide-eyed and panting.
Lirien looked at me, expression unreadable.
"That," she said, "was raw magical feedback."
"Was that… bad?"
"It means you have no control," she said. "But a *lot* of power."
I picked up one half of the stone. It was smooth now, like it had been melted and refrozen mid-scream.
I held it carefully.
"Let's call that a win," I said.
Lirien didn't smile. "No. Let's call that a warning."
We trained until the sky turned violet.
Or rather, Lirien trained me while I tried not to accidentally destroy the rest of the city. Which, according to her, was *progress*.
"Again," she said for the fifth time, tossing another rune-etched pebble in front of me. "This time, don't incinerate it."
"I didn't *mean* to last time," I muttered.
"That's what you said before you levitated the lizard."
"In my defense, it bit me."
She raised an eyebrow. "And you responded by summoning a shadow maw from the floorboards."
I shrugged. "I panicked."
Lirien sighed, then stepped back and folded her arms. "Focus. Remember: don't force it. Shape it."
Right. Easy. Like telling a wildfire to simmer down and behave like a nice little candle.
Still, I took a deep breath and knelt by the pebble. I reached for that hum again—the pulsing undercurrent of the world. It was getting easier to find now, like tuning into a forgotten frequency. Faint and ancient, but *there*.
I let the power thread into me, like drawing water through a straw. Not too fast. Not too much.
The pebble shimmered faintly.
I held it there—hovering between surge and silence.
And then the pebble *glowed*. A soft light. No flames, no screaming stones, no rips in reality.
I grinned. "Did you see that?! It—"
The pebble exploded.
A very *small* explosion, sure. But still. I hit the ground coughing as soot clouded the air.
When it cleared, Lirien was rubbing her forehead. "You're *trying* to give me wrinkles."
I coughed again and held up a singed hand. "That was better, right?"
"That was *less catastrophic*. Let's not confuse that with better."
Still, there was a glint of something in her eye. Not pride, exactly. But not frustration either. More like… weary acceptance.
"Maybe it's not about learning control the normal way," I said, brushing off my sleeves. "Maybe I need to make up my own style."
"Oh yes," she said dryly. "Let's teach the maybe-evil-god improvisational spellcraft. What could possibly go wrong?"
I sat on a toppled pillar and stretched my arms behind my head, staring up at the broken sky above the ruins. "Well, I haven't leveled the city yet."
"Small victories," she said. "But don't forget—someone will come looking. Once they know the seal is broken, they won't just wait around."
I looked over at her. "The Church?"
She nodded. "And maybe worse. Not all enemies wear robes and claim to be holy."
That was… comforting.
I leaned back and let my eyes drift shut. "So, hypothetically, if I *was* the Evil God, what would I be doing right now?"
"Holding court in a floating fortress of obsidian and lightning."
"…Okay, wow. Got that image ready, huh?"
She gave a faint smirk. "Kaer Xal'zhur was known for dramatics."
I peeked one eye open. "Do people actually *miss* him?"
There was a pause.
Then: "Some do. Quietly."
"Huh."
We fell into silence again, but it wasn't awkward. Just the sort of stillness that came when you'd both run out of questions neither of you had the answers to.
Then, faintly, we heard it.
A distant sound. Metal on stone. Rhythmic.
Footsteps.
Lirien snapped up, all sense of calm gone. She crouched near the edge of the broken wall, scanning the distance.
"They're here," she said. Her voice was tense now. Low.
I scrambled to her side, peering out into the dying light.
At the far end of the ruined plaza, a group approached—figures in armor glinting with runes, long coats trailing behind them like banners. At least a dozen.
At the center, someone carried a staff shaped like a key. It glowed with soft violet light.
"They're not Church," I said.
"No," Lirien murmured. "Worse. Spellbreakers."
"Spell—what?"
"Witchhunters. Enforcers. They hunt rogue magic. Especially the kind that breaks seals and frightens gods."
I swallowed. "And you're just *now* telling me about them?"
"I hoped we'd have more time."
The Spellbreakers moved like a machine—disciplined, synchronized, purposeful. Their leader stepped forward, raising the glowing key-staff.
The ruins around us responded. I could feel the change—a shift in the air, like pressure dropping before a storm. Magic suppressed. Stilled.
"Anti-magic field," Lirien whispered. "They're sealing the city piece by piece."
"Can they seal *me*?"
"Depends how much you've accidentally awakened."
A cheerfully unhelpful answer.
One of the figures raised their hand. A voice, clear and magnified by magic, echoed across the plaza:
"By order of the Arcanum Concordia, the unauthorized wielder of divine-class arcana is to surrender immediately. Resistance will be met with force."
I blinked. "That's me, huh?"
"Yes," Lirien said. "You're divine-class arcana now."
"…Neat."
"What do we do?" I asked.
Lirien's eyes met mine, sharp and steady. "We run."
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