I took a step toward Gundir, groaning as my ribs protested. I hadn't noticed it before, not while I was tense under the pressure of Elisabeth's mana, focused on staying alive. But now that the threat was gone, the injuries were catching up quickly. My entire body throbbed with deep, pulsing aches. The fractures along my ribcage made breathing sharp, and my left arm hung heavier than it should, stiff and likely cracked.
The steady steps I tried to maintain turned into a slow, uneven limp. But even with my condition, Gundir was worse. I hadn't realized it earlier, when he had controlled both the Goddess' divine power and mine, but now it was impossible to miss. Both of his shoulders were twitching involuntarily, spasming with each ragged breath, and trails of dark green blood ran from his nose and ears. His entire body trembled, barely able to support itself.
Still, he had enough strength and willpower left to lift his head and meet my eyes. He understood what I was about to do.
"Do what ya must," he muttered, his voice carrying more exhaustion than anger.
I stepped closer, my hand tightening on the knife. I was right beside him now. One motion, a single clean strike, and I could bury the blade in his neck or his back. Quick. Efficient. Relatively painless.
But for some reason, I hesitated.
Something deep inside nagged at me. A pull I couldn't explain. Instincts told me to end it. He was dangerous. He had wielded divine energy. He knew too much, which was both good and bad. But still, he was sealed in that capsule, left behind by the Goddess or one of her people. Everything I had received so far from her remnants had only benefited me. And standing here now, looking at him, I couldn't help but feel like maybe I should give him a chance too.
I narrowed my eyes, still trying to justify my hesitation.
"What was your relationship with the Goddess?" I asked, buying myself a few more seconds before I made a decision.
"Why do ya care?" he spat, his head swaying. "Ya think I'll grovel?"
Even now, barely conscious, he managed to gather whatever last bit of strength remained in him. He sucked in a breath, then roared with what little power his lungs could muster.
"FUCK YA!"
I blinked, caught off guard. That was not the answer I expected. Not a plea for mercy, not some desperate justification, not even a pathetic lie to save his skin. Just raw, unfiltered defiance.
For a moment, I stared at him - the short, hairy lump of a man, slumped unconscious like a dark sack of exhaustion - and smiled.
Strangely enough, whatever malice I'd felt toward him, or maybe not toward him, just in general from what I had been through, vanished instantly. Normally, that kind of reaction would've irritated me, but the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that someone like this couldn't be the scheming type. You don't waste your last breath cursing someone if you're playing some long con.
Still, I wasn't stupid enough to simply leave him be. He was strong, and I had no intention of letting him recover freely. My gaze swept the room, searching for something to restrain him with. The chains that once held the capsule were far too massive to be of any use. I needed something smaller, something flexible but strong enough to hold him.
After a bit of digging, I found what I was looking for - a few lengths of thick rope, and several smaller chains buried beneath broken equipment. I tested their strength myself, pulling with what little force I could still muster, making sure they wouldn't snap under his strength. If he was as strong as I suspected, I needed every advantage. Even if these restraints couldn't fully contain him, they would slow him long enough for me to use Phantom Step and react if necessary.
Finally, I bound his hands and feet behind his back, weaving the chains and rope together in tight knots. When I was satisfied with the restraints, I glanced down at him once more. He had already drifted off, snoring loudly like nothing had happened at all. The sound was so absurdly loud that for a moment I considered smacking him awake just to shut him up. But I didn't. I was too tired myself. Better to let him sleep. The longer he stayed unconscious, the better.
With effort, I dragged his body back into the capsule. The front panel that had fallen earlier still lay nearby, and I propped it back into place, securing it with a combination of rope and chain as best I could. It wasn't perfect, but it would hold for now.
I stood back and looked at the sealed capsule, satisfied with my work. Gundir wasn't going anywhere. If he wanted to keep breathing once he woke up, he'd answer my questions. But for now, he was secured.
Then my gaze shifted toward Elisabeth's corpse, or rather what was left of it.
The priority was obvious - the vial of my blood. The last thing I wanted was for someone to stumble across her portal and find that vial. I hoped she'd left behind some kind of artifact that would let me access her storage space, but first, I needed to check one more thing.
Crimson Rite.
The crimson diagram started to form in front of my hand, the familiar swirl of energy gathering into shape. But before it even fully materialized, it flickered, faltered, and collapsed entirely. Her remains were too far gone. Honestly, if it had worked on a corpse that damaged, I'd have been even more surprised.
I sighed in disappointment and crouched down, carefully examining her body, or rather, the left half that still existed. The right side was simply gone, erased by the crimson divine energy.
I combed through what little was left, searching for anything she might've kept on her person. There was nothing. No hidden trinket, no artifact, no sign of a storage key. Nothing… except for a single ring.
It caught my eye immediately - a stark, deep red, with a crimson gem embedded at the top. The only intact item left on her.
At least there's this.
I didn't know what it was or what it did, but if it had been important enough for her to keep on, it likely wasn't useless. I slipped it into my Veilspace, not willing to take any chances until I checked it with Guidance. I hoped that her storage vanished along with her death, and if not, then perhaps this ring was the key to accessing it.
But for now, there was nothing else I could do.
I found a relatively clean patch of ground, far enough from Elisabeth's shattered body, her dark blood, and the capsule. I sat down slowly, my ribs complaining with each breath, my arm throbbing with dull pulses of pain.
I hadn't found an exit yet, though I hadn't exactly searched hard. My body needed rest more than it needed solutions at the moment.
Perhaps it was a smart move to let Gundir live…
I let my head lean back against the wall, keeping one eye half open, watching both the capsule and the remains of Elisabeth. Until the darkness pulled me away.
…
[Warning: Avenor has slain a soul belonging to another god.]
[Warning: Avenor has slain an Inquisitor of another god.]
[Warning: You've gained 100 Divinity Points.]
Three blue notifications flashed before my eyes one after another. First notification from Avenor came days ago when he used Guidance on the Soul Essence, catching me off guard, and now he had done something outrageous and killed another god's Inquisitor. Even if that earned me 100 Divinity Points, there was nothing free in this world.
You might've caused me serious trouble, Avenor…
[Inquisitor – Divine Enforcer]
The Inquisitor is not a preacher. Their role is enforcement, correction, and purification. Tasked with rooting out heresy, enforcing divine law, and preserving absolute order within the faith. Where the Priestess nurtures faith, the Inquisitor burns away doubt.
An Inquisitor may be assigned when a believer displays sufficient fanatical loyalty and zeal.
There was no way the disappearance of such an important believer would go unnoticed. And if the System had reported to that god the identity of the one who killed their Inquisitor… sooner or later, there would be consequences. But for now, I could do nothing about it.
I willed the Window back toward the dungeon. I wanted to verify whether the third divine energy signature had vanished. To no surprise, it was gone. But that wasn't all that caught my attention. I saw Aria, Vaelari, Ninali, Teryo, and Huanir gathered around a small bonfire near the dungeon's entrance, huddled together against the cold.
Teryo stood with his arms crossed, staring at Aria. She sat opposite him, silent, her gaze locked onto the flames as if they might offer some clarity that the conversation couldn't.
"We must return," Teryo grumbled, breaking the silence. "Sitting here any longer is pointless."
"We can't leave Avenor," Vaelari shot back, his voice shaky, though not from fear. He was visibly shivering, still not fully recovered from whatever strain the dungeon had put them through. "He is still inside. We must wait until he returns."
"Look at you," Teryo sneered, stepping forward as if he could physically shove his point into their heads. "You barely managed to get out of that dungeon alive. You were all separated because that bastard let go of you. You think he cares? He must not be trusted." His tone sharpened as his frustration boiled over. "We don't even know what's happening back in our settlement. I spotted five spider mutants while you were inside. Their numbers are growing… I don't care about Avenor…"
"Finally," Ninali snapped, cutting him off as she shot to her feet, her voice loud enough to echo slightly in the clearing. "Finally, we get the real reason." Her eyes narrowed, burning with anger. "You've been against Avenor from the moment you saw his shield. From the moment you saw it bore the same crimson oak tree that our God grew for us."
She stepped toward Teryo, closing the distance without a hint of hesitation. "Avenor is one of the strongest warriors our tribe has. The only true frontline we have. And he is blessed. Blessed by our God, who has given us protection and hope."
Teryo's face twisted from anger. "Your God. Not ours!" His breathing grew heavier, his eyes darting between them as if searching for even a sliver of support. "Just because some of you abandoned the Goddess doesn't mean the tribe belongs to this... new God."
"It does," Vaelari's voice cut through the argument. He slowly raised his head, revealing the markings on his face, markings that were no longer the faded traces of the past but were shifting, pulsing, as the color deepened into a clear crimson. My crimson.
His voice did not rise.
"It does," he repeated softly, and for the first time, Teryo didn't answer. He simply stared at Vaelari, his mouth half-open from shock.
[Congratulations, you have gained a new believer and a Divinity Point.]
"How could you?" Teryo's voice no longer held anger or outrage; He wasn't shouting. He wasn't accusing. He was pleading. The man who had stood like an iron wall defending the old ways, now faced something far heavier - the realization that Vaelari, one of the last true pillars of the Goddess' faith within the tribe, had changed his loyalty.
But it didn't take Teryo long to realize that Vaelari wouldn't have abandoned the Goddess on a whim. If anyone needed her to still exist, it was him.
His gaze trembled as he finally asked the question that had weighed on him ever since they returned. "What happened in that dungeon?"
It was the first time he'd let the others speak of it. Up until now, he had refused to hear it, cutting them off, dismissing their words before they even began. But now, standing in front of Vaelari, watching those once-familiar markings on his face turn crimson, he could no longer turn away.
"We saw what truly happened to the Goddess," Vaelari began, his voice hoarse from exhaustion, the cold, and whatever else still gripped his body. "There was a mural inside. Written in Elvish…"
But before he could continue, Teryo interrupted, though his voice was quieter now, almost subdued. "Why didn't you say something earlier?"
"Because you wouldn't let us," Ninali snapped before Vaelari could answer. "All you've cared about since the day Velmoryn God appeared was your authority. You're not worried about the Goddess. You're afraid of losing control over the tribe. You're afraid that we've chosen to worship a God who actually protects us, while the Goddess…" her voice faltered for just a moment, before hardening again, "the Goddess is gone."
Teryo flinched but said nothing. His hands, clenched into fists at his sides, trembled slightly. He wanted to argue. He wanted to shout. But the words wouldn't come.
"Ninali, enough," Vaelari whispered, raising his trembling hand and resting it gently on her shoulder. His touch was enough to pull her back. She exhaled sharply and fell silent.
"That's not all we learned," Vaelari continued after a pause. His breathing grew uneven, and a fit of coughs overtook him. It took him a moment to steady himself again. "It wasn't just about Her… it was about us."
This time, it was Aria who stepped forward, almost whispering.
"We found out the truth, Vael Teryo," she said without moving her gaze away from the fire.
"The truth about us… about the Velmoryns."
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