Once Voyage had teleported away, Eric turned to Max. "What do you think about the offer?"
Max leaned back against the counter, arms crossed. "I think he was being too honest, honestly. Too desperate, too. When someone tells you the truth that easily, something's usually up."
Eric shook his head. "I don't think so. He was being honest because he wanted to build trust with us. He even admitted we'd basically be cannon fodder to him, even if he didn't say those exact words."
Max walked over to the balcony and looked out at the city for a moment before speaking again. "So is there anything else we can actually do here besides just trusting them?"
Eric didn't answer right away. He ran through everything they had, every resource, every connection, every advantage they could call on if things went wrong. There wasn't much. They were broke, exposed, and completely without backing in a city that clearly didn't care about either of those facts. If they needed support from somewhere, an organization like one of the Four Great Bodies was about as good as it was going to get.
Still, the thought of trusting them fully didn't sit right with him either.
After a long moment of consideration, Eric finally spoke. "We don't really have another option. We have to trust them, at least for now. But not completely. We stay vigilant, we watch our backs, and we try to build some kind of relationship with the other bodies too, so we're not putting all our weight on one side." He rubbed a hand over his face. "For tonight, let's just get some sleep. Tomorrow we go about our day like normal, and then we meet the Trapper and hear him out."
Max glanced back at him. "Do you think he was threatening us? Using how exposed we are against us?"
"Yes, he was," Eric admitted. "But he wasn't wrong to. If our positions were reversed, I probably would have done the same thing." He allowed himself a small, tired smile. "That Voyage has clearly done this before. Makes sense why they'd send someone like him for this."
"What's the actual goal all four great bodies have here in Paris that made them send their people?" Max asked, still trying to piece it together. "And what did he mean by 'second one' and 'third one'?"
Eric didn't have an answer for him. Truthfully, he didn't have an answer for any of it. "I don't know," he admitted. "The only reason we're even in this city is that the voice in my head showed me a vision of the Eiffel Tower in one of my dreams. I've told you that already." He paused mid-sentence. "Wait. The Eiffel Tower?"
Something clicked. He brought his left hand up to his chin and started mumbling to himself, working through a thought he clearly hadn't finished having yet.
Max's eyes widened. "Did you figure something out?"
Eric didn't answer right away. A slow smile spread across his face instead, and when he finally looked up at Max, there was something sharper in his expression than there had been a moment ago. "Yes. I think we've got one more card to play here. The voice gave us more of a clue than I realized."
They talked for a while longer after that, but eventually Max started yawning and decided to call it a night. He said his goodnights, and a grey bubble surfaced from his shoulder as he stepped straight into the wall behind the sofa and vanished into it without another word.
Eric decided he'd done enough thinking for one night too. He needed sleep, and he needed to actually get some rest for once. He opened the door to his bedroom and found Ruby already deep asleep. He crossed the room quietly, pulled the stool over to the window, and sat there for a while, looking up at the moon again. A few minutes of that was enough to settle whatever was still turning over in his chest.
He got up, put the stool back to where it belonged, and lay down beside her. Before closing his eyes, he looked at her face one last time, something heavy and unreadable behind his own gaze, and let himself fall asleep.
The night passed, and another day came. Thursday. Tomorrow was the day he'd finally meet the Dimension Pathway Hypernova, and everything before that was supposed to just be a normal day, or at least that was what he was hoping for. Logically speaking, there shouldn't be any attacks today. If something went wrong, he'd have a Hypernova from Divine Karma backing him up now. But that was exactly what worried him too. He and Max were still exposed, still without real protection of their own, and that kind of vulnerability didn't just disappear because someone had made him a promise.
Eric sat up in bed and realized he was alone. He stared at the wall for a few minutes, something heavy sitting behind his eyes, before finally stretching and forcing himself up. He probably shouldn't have let yesterday get to him as much as it had. If he kept letting things pile up like that, letting the stress build without doing anything about it, he was eventually going to lose control of himself completely. He needed something solid, something that could actually protect him and Max and take some of this weight off his shoulders. He was hoping the meeting with the Trapper tomorrow might finally give him that.
He went through his usual routine, brushed his teeth, showered, got dressed, and made his way to the dining table. Ruby was there already, setting out the plates, and something about her looked off the moment he saw her. She was paler than he'd ever seen her, her movements slower, almost hesitant, like she was holding herself together more carefully than usual. She didn't greet him the way she normally did. No "Good morning." No excited rundown of whatever dish she'd found and the ridiculous YouTube title that had led her to it. She just kept her eyes down, quiet, not quite herself.
At least the food was still new. He glanced at the plate, some dish he didn't recognize, and then looked back at her.
"Ruby," he said, unable to keep the concern out of his voice. "Are you feeling okay?"
"I'm fine, just... heavier," Ruby said, poking at her own stomach with both hands like she was personally betrayed by it. "I think I've gotten fatter." She puffed out her cheeks and gave her belly one more experimental squeeze, as if that would somehow confirm her theory.
Eric had to physically stop himself from reaching over and pinching her cheeks right then and there. She looked far too pleased with her own dramatics for someone claiming to feel awful.
Then something caught his attention.
His eyes blinked, pink irises deepening into a brighter shade, four small black arrows curling into place around his pupils. His vision shifted, and for a moment he wasn't looking at Ruby anymore; he was looking into her, at the quiet swirl of colors that made up everything she was. Blue, red, yellow, faint threads of purple woven through all of it, every color sitting exactly where it should. She was healthy. Perfectly healthy.
Except for two small black spots, resting right where her shoulders met her neck, pressing down like something was sitting on top of her that shouldn't be there.
"A curse spirit," Eric thought, his amusement fading fast. "I'll have to hunt it down with Max tonight."
He crossed the room in a few quick steps and pulled her into a hug before she could react, one hand coming up to gently cradle the back of her head.
"H-hey! What are you doing?" Ruby squeaked, flailing weakly against him, though she barely had the energy to actually push him off. She gave up after a second and just let herself be hugged, grumbling into his shoulder instead.
Eric pressed his other hand flat against her back, and a thin trail of golden liquid slipped from his palm into her, quiet and warm. After a moment, he pulled back just enough to look at her properly.
"Feel better?"
Ruby rolled her shoulders experimentally, glanced left, then right, like she was double-checking her own body actually belonged to her again. "...A little," she admitted, and then, because apparently that wasn't enough of an answer, she smiled, threw her arms around him in a proper hug this time, and mumbled into his chest, "Revenge time."
Eric hugged her back, resting his chin lightly on top of her head, and looked out toward the window with something heavier settling behind his eyes, the pink dimming just slightly, losing its usual shine.
They sat down together and had their breakfast, same as always.
...
After breakfast, Eric headed out for work with Max at his side, the two of them walking the whole way to the police station on foot. Even now, even after everything, neither of them was willing to risk teleporting somewhere they couldn't see coming. Old habits, maybe, or just good sense given the last few days.
Claude was waiting for them when they arrived, and after a short conversation, he handed over their official ID cards.
"Congratulations on becoming official police officers," he said, smiling.
Eric shook his hand, sunglasses hiding the moment his vision shifted underneath them checking Claude over the way he'd started doing with everyone lately. Most of him looked stable, the colors settled and unremarkable. But there, in his chest, was that same cluster from before, black shot through with red, curled into a sphere. It had grown since the last time Eric looked. It wasn't just color anymore either; it had started to take on shape, something almost physical now, wet and pulsing like a lump of raw flesh trying to become real.
He didn't try to heal it. Touching something like that without knowing exactly what it was could just as easily spread it to himself. The only real fix was finding whoever had tainted Claude in the first place and dealing with them directly, or finding some other method entirely, and right now he had neither the resources nor the time for either.
They changed into uniform, collected their guns and gear, and headed out to patrol. For the first stretch of the job, this was apparently all they'd be doing, walking the streets, getting used to the routine, before any real cases came their way. Claude had called it "fitting and fairness" when he explained it. Eric didn't particularly care either way.
Max hesitated before they split up, clearly not thrilled about the idea of leaving Eric alone again after what had already happened once. Eric waved it off, told him he wasn't going to get attacked today, and even if he was wrong about that, it was Max who should probably be more worried, not him.
Max just grinned. "I want them to come," he said, and walked off without waiting for a response.
...
Eric spent the morning walking without any particular direction, keeping half his attention on the people around him and the other half on anything that moved wrong, anyone who lingered a beat too long or fell into step a little too naturally behind him. Old instinct, mostly. He helped where he could, small things, nothing that needed much of him, but the real focus stayed on watching his own back.
By early afternoon, he'd relaxed some, though not completely. He was still paying attention. He just wasn't bracing for it anymore.
Something about the day itself had started to feel wrong, though.
There was no crime anywhere. None. Not a single pickpocket, not one purse snatched, not even the usual low-level chaos a city like Paris produced without trying. Instead, everywhere he looked, people were being kind to each other in a way that felt almost staged. Strangers pressed money into other strangers' hands. People handed over food, clothes, whatever they had, and the ones receiving it looked genuinely moved, genuinely grateful, not the polite, distracted gratitude people usually gave. At one point, a young man threw himself bodily into the street to keep a stray dog from getting hit by a car. Eric had to move fast to pull the idiot out from under the wheels himself.
The longer Eric walked, the more of it he started to notice, small things at first, then harder to ignore.
An elderly man stood on a corner handing out umbrellas to strangers, one after another, even though the sky was clear and had been all morning. Nobody questioned it. They just took the umbrellas, thanked him, and walked on, like it was the most natural exchange in the world.
Further down the street, a group of teenagers had gathered around a stalled car, pushing it in complete silence, no laughing, no complaining, no phones out, just quiet, focused effort until the car rolled clear of the intersection. When it was done, they didn't even wait for a thank you. They simply scattered in different directions and went about their day as if nothing had happened.
Outside a bakery, a woman was giving away every loaf of bread she had, one after another, to anyone who walked past, whether they'd asked for it or not. Her shelves were nearly empty by the time Eric passed her, and she didn't look distressed about it in the slightest. If anything, she looked lighter, unburdened, like she'd been waiting all morning for the chance to empty her own shop into the hands of strangers.
A man in a suit knelt on the pavement, carefully tying the shoelaces of a stranger's child while the parent stood by, smiling, offering no thanks and asking no questions, as if this sort of thing simply happened here, as if it always had.
None of it was wrong exactly. None of it should have bothered him. And yet the deeper he walked into it, the more it started to feel less like a city full of kind people and more like a city acting out kindness from some shared, invisible script, all of them moving through the motions with the same eerie, practiced calm, none of them quite looking at each other, none of them quite looking at anything at all.
Eric slowed his pace, watching more carefully now. His brows furrowed as he felt very unsettled about the unusual scenes he had been observing for hours.
That was when he noticed something else. Nobody was smiling with their eyes. Their mouths curved the right way, their voices carried the right warmth, but every single person he passed had the same distant, glassy look behind their expression, like the kindness was happening to them rather than coming from them.
He'd seen a lot of strange things in his life. This was somehow one of the more unsettling ones.
And it wasn't just everyone else. Eric could feel it creeping into him too, a warmth in his chest that didn't belong there, a rising urge to be kind, to give, to help beyond anything reasonable. At one point he caught himself seriously considering walking into a bank, taking out a loan, and handing the money straight to whoever looked like they needed it most on the street outside.
That was the moment he knew something was wrong. This wasn't him. This had never been him.
"The Goodness Pathway." The pieces fell into place fast, but the next thought came just as quickly and left a colder feeling behind it. "Then where is the Walker behind it?"
He stopped walking and scanned the street properly this time, slow, deliberate, checking every face, every doorway, every rooftop he could see. Nothing. No one stood out. His intuition stayed completely silent. His premonition didn't so much as twitch. Whoever or whatever was doing this, it wasn't announcing itself, and that in itself made his skin crawl more than an outright attack would have.
He forced himself to keep moving, telling himself it was probably just some passive effect of the Pathway itself, something that didn't need an active presence nearby to keep working. But the further he walked, the more obvious it became that the feeling wasn't fading. If anything, it was getting stronger, no matter which direction he took.
That put him on edge in a different way now. He kept his guard up properly, watching every shadow a little longer than necessary, every stranger's hands a little too closely.
He tried to walk it off first, cutting through side streets, doubling back once just to see if the feeling would loosen its grip. It didn't. Eventually, he gave up on subtlety altogether and started teleporting instead, short bursts of golden light carrying him block by block, chasing the pull toward wherever it originated from. Each jump left him more uneasy than the last, the warmth in his chest growing heavier and harder to ignore the closer he got.
Eventually, he found himself standing at the mouth of a street called Rue de l'Église, also known as Church Street.
The effect here was stronger than anywhere else he'd felt it all day, thick enough that it was becoming genuinely difficult to keep his thoughts his own. Whatever was at the center of this, it was close now.
The street itself felt different the moment he stepped onto it. Bells rang somewhere in the distance, layered over each other from what sounded like a dozen different directions at once, none of them quite in sync, and yet the effect wasn't chaotic so much as strangely soothing. Underneath the bells, he could make out overlapping murmurs, prayers rising and falling in different voices, different languages maybe, all of it blending into something that felt older than the street itself.
He stood there for a moment, just taking it in, letting his eyes adjust to a place that felt like it belonged somewhere outside of ordinary time.
Then something caught his attention at the very edge of his vision.
A small figure, golden and faintly glowing, floated just above the rooftops a little further down the street. It looked almost like a baby, if a baby could be made of light instead of flesh, small white wings folded against its back, its entire body and its wide, unblinking eyes the same pure, molten gold.
The moment it noticed him looking, it bolted.
Eric didn't hesitate. He took off after it immediately, moving fast up a narrow staircase and out onto a higher stretch of the street, eyes sweeping the rooftops and alleys for any trace of gold. It was gone. What remained instead was a row of old churches lining the street on either side, each one different from the last, stone weathered by what looked like centuries. Under different circumstances, he might have wanted to stop and actually look at them properly, take in the history sitting quietly in every arch and window. Right now, though, he barely had room in his head for curiosity. He pulled out his phone instead, opened a map of the area, and made himself memorize the layout properly, every street, every alley, every building he could see.
He kept walking, still searching for the small golden thing, when his intuition pulled at him suddenly, sharp and specific in a way that made him stop mid-step.
Right.
He didn't need to think; he turned, and there it was.
A church he was almost certain hadn't been there a moment ago, small and unassuming next to the grander buildings around it. A short staircase led up to a plain black door at its entrance, flanked by two grey stone pillars traced with thin lines of silver. On either side of the door sat a pair of large stained-glass windows, blue and yellow light pooling faintly through the old glass even in the daylight.
He was sure of it now. This church had never been here before
He looked around and saw a man approaching. He gestured for the man to stop and politely asked with a smile—a little too big a smile—"Hello, sir. Sorry to interrupt you, but may I ask you some questions?"
The local smiled and nodded happily. "Yes, officer. Ask me whatever you want to. I am happy to help you, even if it only helps you." "Too kind," Eric thought before opening his mouth and asking,
"Sir, are you a local from around here?"
"Yes, I am," the local man answered. "Have you ever seen this church while walking around, sir?" Eric asked while pointing to the church on his right side. The local turned his head to look at the church, put his left hand on his chin, and thought for a few seconds before speaking. "Hmm... Officer, I have to say I have not seen this church here before, but I also feel like this church had always been here. If I look back, I can remember memories of me playing with my friends around this church, but they are blurry right now."
Eric thanked the local man with a polite smile and watched him walk off down the street, whistling something soft under his breath, utterly unbothered, utterly unaware.
Once he was alone again, Eric turned his full attention back to the church, and that was when it hit him properly.
The calm was still there, thick and heavy in the air like it had settled into the street itself, but underneath it now sat something else entirely. A low and constant pressure, pressing against the back of his neck and the space between his shoulder blades. He had the distinct, crawling sensation of being watched, not by one person, but by hundreds. Almost a thousand. Every window of the church seemed to hold something behind the glass, watching without moving, without blinking, without any of the small human tics that made being watched feel survivable.
He glanced up at the stained-glass windows on either side of the door. For just a moment, impossibly, he thought he saw shapes behind the colored glass, still and silent, pressed close to the surface like they were peering out at him specifically. When he blinked, they were gone. He wasn't entirely convinced they'd never been there.
The two pillars flanking the staircase seemed different too, the silver lining catching the light in a way that almost looked like it was tracing shapes, faces maybe, though every time he tried to focus on one directly, it dissolved back into ordinary carved stone.
He turned to face the church fully now; every instinct in him screaming that turning his back on it would be a mistake.
His first step onto the staircase felt heavy. The second step felt heavier still, like the air itself had thickened around his legs. By the third, the sensation of being watched had grown so overwhelming that he could have sworn he heard something, faint and distant, like a thousand voices breathing in unison just behind the walls.
At the top, he stood in front of the black door and raised his hand out of habit, knuckles ready to knock.
He waited for a long time, standing in silence, yet no one answered.
He waited a moment longer, some old instinct telling him to wait, to be patient, to be polite in a place that clearly demanded it. Then, slowly, the realization surfaced.
"You don't knock on a church door." The thought arrived gently, almost too gently, wrapped in the same warm, persuasive calm that had been pulling at him all morning. He recognized it now for what it was, the Goodness Pathway working its influence into even the smallest of his decisions, softening his edges, making him more agreeable, more trusting, more willing.
He finally pushed the door open.
The moment he crossed the threshold, everything changed.
The pressure that had been building against him all morning, the crawling sense of being watched, the unnatural pull of kindness he hadn't asked for, all of it simply lifted, like stepping out of deep water and finally being able to breathe properly again. His body settled. His mind cleared. The warmth that had been sitting wrong in his chest for hours faded into something far more ordinary, far more welcome.
Calm. Just calm, plain and simple, nothing forced about it.
The inside of the church was dim, lit only by scattered candlelight and the soft, colored glow filtering through the stained glass. It should have felt cold given the stone walls and the age of the place, but instead the air carried a gentle warmth, like sunlight remembered rather than sunlight felt. Somewhere, without any clear source, a melody drifted through the space, low and slow, more felt than heard, the kind of sound that seemed to settle directly into his chest rather than his ears. It wasn't a hymn exactly, nothing with words or structure he could place, just a soft, wordless hum that rose and fell like breathing.
The silence beneath the melody wasn't empty either. It had weight to it, the particular hush of a place that had held centuries of quiet grief and quiet hope in equal measure, absorbed into the very stone.
Eric stood there for a moment just taking it in, feeling something in him unclench that he hadn't realized was still tight.
Ahead of him, near the black altar at the far end of the nave, a figure knelt in prayer, dressed in simple grey robes that pooled softly around him on the stone floor. Two silver earrings, each shaped like a small cross, caught the candlelight faintly from his earlobes as he bowed his head, utterly still, utterly absorbed in whatever quiet words he was offering up to no one Eric could see.
Eric stared at the man for a few seconds. He activated his vision and looked around. He was shocked to see that the man in front of him had no colour in his body except pink and yellow, representing love, happiness, and empathy. Around the walls, there were thousands of figures—some white, some yellow, some pink, of all shapes—staring at him.
"Angel Spirits," Eric thought. He deactivated his vision as he didn't want to enrage the Angel Spirits, already looking at him angrily. He walked on the red nave and stopped a few steps before the sitting Father, who was still praying, oblivious to his presence.
Eric looked up at the black altar and saw the statue of an old man with a wrinkled face who wore a tattered grey robe. He had grey hair and grey-silvery eyes. He also wore two cross-shaped silver earrings in each earlobe. He had a book in his left hand, which he pressed close to his chest. His entire body was scarred, and his right hand faced forward, as if preaching something with absolute determination even while being injured and facing predicaments.
Eric looked to the right and saw a stoup attached to the wall filled with pure water. By its side was a confessional and a brown lectern.
On his left was a brown organ and pulpit. On the two sides of the black altar were two stained-glass windows that illuminated the dark church. By the walls were multiple candles lighting the place and making it holy.
"This is definitely no ordinary church." The thought settled clearly despite everything pulling at him to just relax, just let go, just stop questioning things for once. He was in a place that felt far too calm for something built on stone this old, this soaked in centuries of confession and quiet sin, and yet he refused to let that calm dull his edge entirely. He kept his thoughts sharp underneath it, holding onto his own logic like a rope in deep water, and let himself confess, quietly, everything he probably should have said out loud a long time ago.
Just as he finally worked up the will to speak to the man at the altar, the Father rose on his own, prayer finished, and turned to face him with a gentle smile and a warmth in his gaze that felt almost too practiced to be real. He looked like a younger, gentler echo of the statue standing above the altar behind him, fewer wrinkles, no scars, his grey robe whole and unworn instead of tattered like the stone figure's.
"Hello, Father. I apologize if I interrupted your prayer," Eric said, bowing slightly, his voice calm, his eyes half-lidded from whatever peace still lingered in his chest.
The Father shook his head gently, his voice low and even, the kind of voice that could probably talk a dying man into feeling at ease with it. Anyone else standing here might have already been in tears.
"Son. You are Eric Heisenberg, aren't you?"
Eric went still.
He hadn't given his name. He hadn't given anything. He'd walked in off the street, unannounced, uninvited, and this man had said it like he was simply confirming something he'd already known for years.
Before Eric could ask how, the Father raised a hand, calm and unhurried. "Let's have a seat before we continue."
Eric let it go, for now, and followed him to the pews, sitting at the outer edge of the first seat on the right while the Father settled across from him on the left. They faced the altar together in silence for a long while, neither of them speaking, the soft melody still drifting somewhere above them, and Eric let his eyes close, though some part of him stayed fully alert underneath the stillness.
Eventually he opened his eyes again.
"Father. What's your name?"
The Father opened his eyes slowly, as if surfacing from somewhere far away. "You can call me Father Irenaeus."
Eric turned to look at him directly now, his voice quieter, more deliberate. "Then tell me. How do you know my name?"
Father Irenaeus revealed a smile and answered, "I knew you would be coming here. How do I know your name? The Lord told me. Do you believe in Him?"
"I do not believe in any lord or God," Eric replied.
"Then who do you believe in?" Father Irenaeus asked. "I believe in what is real and exists," Eric answered. "What if the Lord is real?" Father Irenaeus asked. "If 'He' is, then I still don't care—as long as 'He' is not doing anything to me, I am fine with 'Him' existing." Father Irenaeus smiled at Eric and asked, "What if 'He' does interfere with you?" "I will burn 'Him' to the ground and make sure 'He' doesn't get in my way," Eric replied.
"In your way to what? Your goal? What is your goal?" Father Irenaeus asked another question. Eric stared in front of him before looking down and saying softly,
"I do not know. More accurately, I have forgotten what my dream was. I once thought of accomplishing something, reaching somewhere, touching something, and experiencing that something. However, now that I am 24 years old, I have forgotten what that dream of mine was."
"It is alright. I am sure you will remember your dream in the future. You must have many questions to ask. Ask me; I will answer your questions to the best of my abilities," Father Irenaeus told Eric.
"Tell me first—are you an Aura user?" Eric asked with an emphasized voice. Father Irenaeus shook his head and explained, "No, I am not. I am just a piece of this church that preaches teachings of sacrifice, peace, kindness, empathy, understanding, and coexisting without any hate toward the other."
"But isn't that an ideal world? Is it human nature to hate others, want resources from others, be greedy, kill, and slaughter others for their loved ones? Eric questioned the teachings of Father Irenaeus. Father Irenaeus nodded. "That is true. However, after fighting, hate, greed, lust, slaughtering, and killing, peace, coexistence, and kindness naturally come and stay for a long time before another war happens. There can't be an ideal world, but there can be a world where peace exists for a long time."
"I believe that the Dystopian War and Lumenia's existence are the biggest testament to this."
"I find no problem with it. You are right—peace is just a temporary and calm point in the cycle of human nature." Eric agreed with Father Irenaeus, and they both fell silent for a while before Eric asked another question. "This church wasn't here before and is now here, spreading the effects of the uniqueness of the Goodness Pathway and having thousands of Angel Spirits living in every corner. What is this church? A huge Rank 0-level relic of the Goodness Pathway?"
"Yes and no. The church is not a relic of the Goodness Pathway but something even more important than that. If you had been an Aura user of the Goodness Pathway, you would have been said to have found a diamond in a galaxy of dust. The church appearing, however, is random. I can only control it to a certain extent. It goes wherever its heart desires. It is normally attracted to places where there is a lot of happiness, understanding, empathy, and coexistence. I was barely able to get it here. Wherever it appears, it spreads kindness, empathy, and the urge to do good deeds and sacrifice yourself and your belongings for the well-being of others."
"Then, can you tell me what this church is if not a Rank 0 relic?" Eric asked. Father Irenaeus answered, "You need to be a Hypernova before you can even begin to comprehend the type of place you are in."
"Is that so?" Eric mumbled under his breath. "So this is the type of knowledge that will make me lose control?" Eric thought and asked, "What is the name of this church?"
"Church of Serenity," Father Irenaeus said, the name leaving his mouth in a tone that didn't quite sound human, something layered underneath it, like more than one voice speaking the words at once.
Inside him, Eric felt his own liquids stir, pink and gold both rippling beneath his skin like something disturbed at the bottom of still water. For a moment they threatened to rise properly, to react the way they usually did around anything unnatural, but the church's calm pressed back down over them before they could, smoothing the disturbance away as easily as it had smoothed away everything else since he'd walked through the door.
"Any other questions?" Father Irenaeus asked, watching him with that same unreadable warmth.
Eric shook his head. There would be time for more questions later. Right now, some deeper part of him didn't want to push any further, not yet.
"Then let's enjoy this warm serenity for a while," the Father said, settling back into his seat.
Eric nodded and let his eyes fall shut again, the melody still drifting somewhere above them, wordless and endless, and let himself sink into it properly this time.
He wasn't sure how long passed. It might have been minutes. It might have been much longer than that. Time inside that place didn't seem to move the way it did outside.
When he finally stirred, it was slow, disoriented, the kind of waking that comes from somewhere much deeper than an ordinary nap. He rubbed at his eyes and blinked against the dim candlelight, and it took him a moment to realize his head had been resting the entire time in someone's lap, someone pale and glowing faintly white, edges soft and shifting like the figure was made of the same stuff as distant stars.
The moment it sensed him waking, it was simply gone. No sound, no movement, just absence where a presence had been a heartbeat earlier.
Eric sat up quickly, pulse spiking despite himself, and looked around the church properly. Father Irenaeus was still exactly where he'd left him, seated, eyes closed, hands folded, as still and unmoved as if no time had passed for him at all.
As if sensing him waking up, Father Irenaeus opened his eyes and looked toward Eric and asked,
"My Lord has told me you'll be meeting a certain Hypernova tomorrow evening," Father Irenaeus said, his tone as calm as ever. "Do you require any help?"
Eric's gaze sharpened immediately.
"So that thing was going through my memories while I was asleep." He didn't bother hiding the suspicion on his face. There was no point pretending he hadn't noticed, and no point being subtle about it either. Still, he couldn't exactly blame anyone but himself for letting his guard down enough to fall asleep in a place like this in the first place. That was on him. Lesson learned.
He filed the irritation away for later and focused on what actually mattered.
"Depends what kind of help you're offering," he said, voice level, giving nothing away. He wasn't about to accept anything blindly, not from a church that had appeared out of nowhere, not from a man who somehow knew his name before he'd said a word. "You don't seem to have much reach beyond these walls. Your control over this place seems limited even to you. And as far as I can tell, you're not affiliated with any organization at all." He studied the Father carefully. "So what exactly can you give me that anyone else can't?"
Father Irenaeus laughed, low and unhurried, and reached up to remove one of the cross-shaped silver earrings from his left ear.
"The help I can offer," he said, holding it out, "is far greater than anything any organization could give you."
He held the silver earring out, and Eric took it carefully, cradling it in his palm as he turned it over, studying it from every angle. It caught the candlelight in strange, shifting ways, throwing off small glimmers of color that didn't quite match anything burning nearby. Whatever it was, it was beautiful in a way that felt almost unfair, like something that shouldn't have been allowed to look this simple and this perfect at the same time.
He was certain immediately that this was a relic, and out of pure instinct, he started to send a thread of his golden liquid into it, the same way he'd done with the Mirror Knife, hoping to pull its information into himself directly.
His premonition went off like an alarm the instant he tried.
"I wouldn't," Father Irenaeus said, calm as ever, though there was something firmer underneath it this time. "Not unless you'd like to lose control of yourself entirely and become something closer to a monster than a man."
Eric stopped immediately, pulling his liquid back in.
"Then tell me what I need to know about it," he said instead, meeting the Father's eyes.
Father Irenaeus smiled and rose to his feet, unhurried, and reached out to press two fingers gently against Eric's forehead. Information flooded in a moment later, quiet and orderly, everything about the relic that was safe for him to know arriving all at once, clean and complete.
Everything except one piece. When Eric reached for the relic's origin, there was nothing there. No memory, no image, no fragment of history to hold onto, just a smooth, deliberate blankness where an answer should have been.
Looking at everything else the relic told him, he found himself grateful for that blank space rather than frustrated by it.
Name: The Imperator's Cross
Rank: Rank 0 Pathway: The Goodness Pathway
Effects and Usage: The user can store and control thousands of Angel Spirits. The higher the rank, the lower the number of Angel Spirits that can be stored. The user's affinity with Angel Spirits increases exponentially. The user can store their good deeds in the relic and gain blessings in exchange for them at times when they are in danger. The blessing gained is random but suited to help the user escape the situation they are in. The user can even store sacrifices of others and use them to make weapons...
Negative effects: The user must sacrifice a part of himself or of others every time the relic is used.
Origins: Unknown.
The information kept arriving even after Eric thought it had finished, and by the time it settled fully into his mind, he found himself sitting completely still, staring at the small silver earring resting in his palm as if it might combust at any second.
Rank 0.
He'd heard the term before, in passing, the way people mention things they never expect to actually encounter in their lifetime. Rank 0 relics weren't just powerful. They existed in a category almost entirely separate from everything else, artifacts capable of turning the tide of a fight against a True Supernova, something that could make even the most overwhelming gap in power feel almost survivable. People spent entire lifetimes chasing after relics several ranks below this one and never came close. Organizations went to war over ones that weren't even a third this strong.
And here it was. Sitting in his hand. Offered to him like it was nothing at all.
If he'd been born into the Goodness Pathway, he genuinely wasn't sure what he would have done with himself in that moment. Screamed, probably. Wept, maybe. Something undignified, certainly. The sheer weight of what was being placed in his palm was almost enough to make his hands shake despite everything the church was doing to keep him calm.
But the shock passed, and underneath it, the same cold logic that had kept him alive this long was already working. He'd made his decision before he even finished processing the relic's full description, and no amount of awe was going to change it now.
He was too low-ranked. That was the whole problem, unavoidable no matter how badly some part of him wanted to say yes. A relic like this didn't ask small sacrifices in return. Every use would cost him something real, something physical, something mental, pieces of himself carved away one activation at a time. A Hypernova might have been able to absorb that kind of cost and barely notice. Eric wasn't anywhere close to that yet. If he took this and used it even once under the wrong circumstances, it wouldn't just hurt him. It could unmake him entirely.
Father Irenaeus watched him work through all of it in silence, and when Eric finally looked up, something like understanding had already settled over the old man's face, like he'd expected exactly this reaction all along.
"Haha. I told you, didn't I? The help I can offer is far greater than anything any organization could give you," Father Irenaeus said, laughing softly to himself.
Eric shook his head slowly, his expression heavy, and held the earring back out toward him. "I'm sorry, Father Irenaeus. I can't accept this." His grip on the earring loosened, reluctant despite everything he'd just told himself. "Setting aside everything else about it, the negative effects alone are far too much for someone at my rank to survive."
Father Irenaeus took Eric's left hand gently between both of his own and pushed it back toward him, closing his fingers around the earring with a warmth that felt almost paternal.
"You don't need to worry about the negative effects," he said, smiling. "The church will handle them. Use it however much you need, whenever you need it, and let the cost fall on us instead of you." He tapped a finger lightly against Eric's closed fist. "The earring keeps you connected to this place directly. Keep it in your pocket, and no matter what happens out there, I'll be able to reach you through it. A perfect balance, wouldn't you say?"
Eric looked at him for a long moment, something unreadable behind his expression. "I know you don't trust me," he said finally. "You don't need to. But it's usually wiser to accept help when it's genuinely offered."
"I'm not worried about trust," Eric scoffed. "I'm worried about what this actually costs me. What do I need to do to receive this?" He held the Father's gaze evenly. "There has to be a catch somewhere."
Father Irenaeus's smile didn't shift, though something behind his eyes seemed to deepen, older and heavier than the gentle expression suggested. "You don't need to do much. Just enter the confession room and speak everything, every mistake, every sin, no matter how small you think it is. Nothing left unsaid."
Eric turned to look at the confession room.
It sat quiet at the edge of the nave, half-swallowed in shadow despite the candlelight everywhere else in the church, its narrow wooden door slightly ajar like it had been waiting for him specifically. The warmth that had filled the church until now seemed to thin the closer his gaze lingered on it, replaced by something colder, something patient.
He didn't know exactly what confessing here would cost him, or what would be listening on the other side of that door. But he already knew there was no walking away from it now, not with the earring sitting heavy and warm in his closed fist, not with everything he'd already seen in this place.
He took a slow breath, steadied himself, and walked toward the confession room to give up his sins.