The exact same horrific sequence repeated itself. Her skull shattered into jagged fragments. Her skin peeled backward violently. Torrents of thick, dark blood washed over the golden floor. Pilt sighed heavily, adjusting his ruined coat. The sheer repetition of the violence was becoming incredibly tedious to watch. He kept his sharp eyes focused on the grotesque limb holding Mira, silently calculating the exact amount of force required to sever the disgusting meat hook.
Another wet mass of flesh dropped from the cluster of appendages above. The third clone rapidly assembled itself from the biological paste. The woman rose to her knees, coughing up a mouthful of golden fluid mixed with her own residual blood.
"This is your final opportunity," Mercyros warned. "A penny for your thoughts. Do not be unwise."
The woman looked up. Raw terror completely replaced her previous religious zeal.
"There is a ghost here," the woman blurted out quickly. "A specific human woman. She may have been your mortal lover. Or perhaps she was your family member. Mother Fate must have violently separated you from this specific soul. We have actively tracked this soul down. You want her back!"
Absolute silence descended upon the place. The static tension in the air grew incredibly heavy. Pilt watched the floating deity, waiting for the third and final explosion to cover the floor in more useless biological waste.
The explosion never came. Mercyros lowered his head slightly. His glowing eyes dimmed for a brief fraction of a second.
"Indeed," Mercyros said. His formal tone carried a strange, heavy resignation. "You are entirely correct."
Pilt stood completely frozen for two full seconds. Then, a loud, mocking scoff escaped his throat. He made a sharp sound of pure laughter. His entire worldview regarding the divine beings had just been thoroughly insulted.
He marched forward, his flamboyant arrogance returning. He did not care about the crushing gravity or the absolute authority of the Monolith. He was deeply offended by the sheer banality of the revelation.
"Are you actually serious right now?" Pilt yelled, throwing his arms out wide in a theatrical display of disbelief. "Was that the grand, foundational reason behind all of this tedious nonsense? Is that the profound, complex motivation that tiny mortal minds supposedly could not comprehend!?"
Pilt pointed an accusatory finger directly at the floating deity.
"You want a woman! That is your ultimate master plan?"
Before Pilt could unleash another string of insults, the physical environment violently rebelled.
A deafening crack echoed directly above them. The featureless, invisible ceiling of the void shattered completely. A massive, cylindrical hole opened in the empty space, revealing a dark, damp tunnel leading straight upward. Small chunks of crushed rock and clumps of golden sand rained down into the room, splashing heavily into the puddle on the floor.
A human figure dropped through the open shaft above them.
Pilt noticed the movement before he understood what he was seeing. The figure fell quickly, cutting through the darkness with enough control to make the descent look deliberate. He did not shout or reach blindly for the walls. He adjusted his body in midair, turned one shoulder, and aimed himself toward the centre of the chamber.
A battered steel spear remained locked between both hands.
Its head was chipped. Dried stains marked the shaft, and several shallow cuts ran through the metal. The weapon looked too heavy to control during a fall, but the boy held it steady.
His attention never left the compact deity floating above the broken floor.
Lucid had arrived.
Pilt's muscles tightened before Lucid landed.
The reaction embarrassed him. He had faced trained Awakened, criminal factions, and creatures that could remove a man's limbs before he registered the first strike. None of them had made his body respond so quickly.
The pressure surrounding Lucid was different from what Pilt remembered.
It lacked the unstable aggression the boy had shown during their earlier encounters. There was no visible rage, no careless burst of power, and no attempt to announce himself.
He simply fell.
That silence carried more threat than anger would have.
Lucid appeared to descend from an open wound in the ceiling. Jagged stone framed the shaft, and loose debris followed him down. He wore an orange life jacket. Thick mist covered most of his face, though the fog no longer moved with its usual restless rhythm.
It clung closely to him.
Pilt narrowed his eyes.
There was something wrong with Lucid.
The boy's posture remained controlled, but his movements seemed delayed by a fraction. His grip on the spear was firm, yet his shoulders were heavier than Pilt remembered. He looked exhausted rather than injured. More concerning was the absence of surprise in his body.
Lucid had entered a chamber containing a false deity, a veiled cultist, an unconscious woman, and a captive who had deceived him.
He reacted as though this was merely the next inconvenience.
'What happened before he came down here?'
Pilt had no time to consider the question.
"You!" he shouted.
His voice echoed through the shaft and across the damaged columns.
Lucid's eyes shifted toward him for less than a second.
That brief glance caused Pilt's throat to tighten.
He had intended to use Lucid.
The plan had not been complicated. Lucid possessed enough raw power to disrupt the deity, and he lacked enough information to realise how carefully Pilt had guided him into the conflict. Once the boy drew the entity's attention, Pilt would recover Mira, incapacitate the veiled woman, and withdraw before either side understood what he had done.
Now Lucid had arrived too early.
Worse, he had arrived while the plan was still visible.
Mira remained unconscious in the cultist's hold. The woman supported her with one arm while gripping the back of her coat with the other. Her purple veil concealed most of her face, but it did not hide the smile that formed when she looked upward.
Pilt had watched her display amusement before. He had seen contempt, satisfaction, and religious devotion pass across what little of her expression remained visible.
He had never seen her this pleased.
Her body lifted as Lucid descended, and her smile widened with an intimacy that did not belong between strangers.
Pilt's attention moved from her to Lucid.
'She knows him.'
The possibility reorganised the situation immediately.
If the cultist recognised Lucid, then she had either encountered him before or expected him. Neither option improved Pilt's chances.
He forced himself to examine the scene rather than react to it.
Lucid had entered with his weapon aimed toward the deity, not the cultist. His first focus had been the floating figure. That suggested hostility.
If Lucid opposed the deity, Pilt could still benefit.
The boy would occupy its attention. Pilt would strike the veiled woman, recover Mira, and retreat before Lucid decided to investigate why Pilt had misled him.
It was no longer a clean plan, but it remained workable.
Lucid descended past the final broken support.
His feet struck a leaning column. He bent his knees, redirected the momentum, then launched himself toward the floor.
The spear point scraped against stone as he landed. A sharp metallic sound crossed the chamber. Dust rose around his legs, but Lucid did not stagger.
He remained crouched for a moment, one hand wrapped around the lower shaft and the other close to the weapon's head.
Pilt studied him.
The fog covering Lucid's face shifted enough to expose two red eyes.
They appeared tired.
Not weak, not distracted, but tired in a way that had settled beneath his anger.
The boy rose slowly and looked toward the floating deity again.
He still had not asked where he was.
He had not questioned why Mira was unconscious.
He had not demanded an explanation from Pilt.
His silence made Pilt reconsider every conclusion he had reached.
The compact deity turned toward Lucid.
Its small form remained suspended above the fractured platform. Purple vapour moved around its limbs, gathering near the shoulders before dissolving into the air. Although its body appeared insignificant, the chamber responded to its attention.
The remaining columns trembled.
Cracks widened across the floor.
The air became dense enough to resist Pilt's breathing.
The deity's gaze moved over Lucid with interest rather than alarm.
Pilt felt the danger before either of them spoke.
The pressure did not come from Lucid.
It spread from the floating entity in a controlled wave, pushing against every living body within the chamber. Pilt's knees weakened. The veiled woman lowered her head, though her smile remained.
Lucid stayed upright.
The deity looked past him and focused on Pilt.
"Do you believe I am something to be disposed of?" Its voice entered the chamber without effort. It did not need to raise its volume. Every word reached Pilt with painful clarity. "You stand before me in an awakened state and mistake that temporary strength for authority. I reigned before your bloodline learned to name power."
Pilt clenched his jaw and tried to steady his breathing.