"A new lead?" Amon asked, his voice gentle, though confusion threaded through it. What is he talking about? The report? The haunted house? His thoughts turned quickly, searching for meaning and finding only fragments.
"Yes," Val replied, repeating himself with quiet certainty. "A new lead. And if you are confused, Amon, yes, it concerns the haunted house."
"Oh," Amon murmured.
Yet that answered very little. What kind of lead? he wondered. A clue about the ritual? About the house itself? About the Endorian Empire?
Fe Yuan let out a small laugh and tilted his head. "What do you mean, the haunted house, sir? Are we hunting ghosts now?"
No one laughed.
Val's gaze shifted toward him, cool and unyielding.
"This is not the time for jokes."
He tapped the end of his cane lightly against the white ground.
A faint ripple spread through the white space.
"Check your quests."
At once, Amon obeyed.
A translucent window unfolded before his eyes, bright and still.
== << [| QUEST |] >> ==
Name: New Lead
Objective 1: Infiltrate the Organisation
Objective 2: Learn more about the ritual of descent
Objective 3: Kill all the ritualists
Objective 4: Spread the gospel and perform miracles | Optional
| Rewards |
10 000 SWC: Gold Tier | Fragment ??? | ????
== << [|----------------|] >> ==
The moment the others checked their own windows, the mood shifted.
Their expressions froze almost instantly.
The description alone was enough to chill them, and the title of the quest, New Lead, only deepened the unease. It suggested movement. Continuation. A hidden road branching off from horrors they had thought already finished.
For a short while, none of them spoke.
Then, one by one, they calmed themselves and looked back toward Val, their attention sharpened, their expressions tighter than before.
Val let the silence settle fully before he began.
"We uncovered a clue tied directly to the ritual found within the haunted house. There is an organisation connected to it, and we have reason to believe that the ritual was not merely ceremonial, nor symbolic, nor incomplete in the ordinary sense. It was a ritual for descent."
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"Not the descent of a god."
His voice deepened with reverence.
"The descent of a True God."
Amon's composure nearly broke.
What? A True God? How?
Shock passed through him like ice beneath the skin. His mind filled at once with questions too large to answer, too heavy to carry all at once. A god was one thing. Humanity had slain gods before, lower deities, servants, divine authorities clothed in lesser majesty. Even then, such battles had never been ordinary. They had required monsters to defeat monsters.
But a True God was different.
The gap between a god and a True God was not a matter of rank. It was the distance between heaven and earth, between a spark and the sun, between imitation and origin.
Only the Erith Order had ever brought down a True God.
And even that victory had nearly destroyed the continent.
If not for the Great Convergence, and the technologies that had emerged alongside it, humanity might have vanished entirely beneath the aftermath.
Leon was the first to give voice to the disbelief pressing upon all of them.
"I do not understand," he said slowly. "The only True God ever known to have directly encountered humanity was Hades, and he died long ago, during the Second Era of the Great Convergence."
He paused, then added with visible doubt, "That is what history says."
Val looked at him without warmth.
"Then understand better."
Silence followed.
It spread through the white space until it became oppressive.
The steady beating of hearts seemed strangely loud in that realm. Slow breathing touched dry skin. Tiny shifts of posture, faint twitches in the face, the quiet movements of fear and strain, all of it became painfully visible beneath the stillness.
Then Val spoke again.
"You assume death is an ending. That is the error of mortals. For men, yes, death is the finality of life. It closes the hand, extinguishes the breath, halts the blood, silences the name. But gods are not men."
A faint smile touched his lips.
What little calm remained in the atmosphere was stripped away and replaced by something denser, older, and far less merciful.
"It is not the same for them."
His next words descended with dark authority.
"Gods never truly die."
No one spoke.
A few seconds passed.
The idea sank into them slowly, like poison dissolving into blood.
Everything they had been taught suddenly felt less stable. If gods never truly died, then what did that mean for all the divine beings humanity claimed to have slaughtered? Had they been destroyed, or merely displaced? Broken, or sleeping? Silenced, or waiting?
Amon felt his thoughts stir again.
Does that mean the lesser gods still exist as well? Even if they are lower deities, they are still gods. If death cannot end them, then what exactly have we been killing all this time?
The question left a cold taste in his mind.
Val, seeing the effect his words had produced, allowed himself a small smirk before continuing.
"Your task is simple in wording, though not in execution. You are to infiltrate the Crimson Organisation, uncover as many secrets as you can concerning the haunted house and the ritual of descent, and eliminate any member of the organisation as you see fit."
Then he added, with deliberate clarity,
"The leader of this task will be Amon."
At once, several eyes shifted.
Val's tone did not change.
"He has seen more than the rest of you. He knows more than the rest of you. And as of now, he is stronger than all of you combined."
This time, every head turned.
Their gazes fell upon Amon with different shades of emotion. Fear was there. So was jealousy. So was disbelief, and beneath that disbelief, a reluctant acknowledgement.
Amon smiled.
"Begin," Val said softly.
He tapped the ground once more with his cane.
The white space responded at once.
The world around them spun with violent force as the pale realm shimmered and began to unravel. Their vision dimmed, then dimmed further, until the endless white was gone from their sight. When it returned, they were no longer in that strange, and endless white space.
They stood once more in the plaza outside the White Spire.
As always, Awakeners lingered there. Some spoke in low tones, some murmured in private groups, some whispered, some argued, their voices rising and falling in scattered currents that crossed the plaza without forming any single whole. Amon heard them but paid them no mind. Whatever occupied their thoughts was of no concern to him.
Outside the temple gates, a carriage was already waiting.
It stood there with such patient stillness that it almost seemed less like a vehicle and more like an extension of Val's will, as though whenever a task was given, the carriage itself answered the summons and came to wait.
Amon moved first.
He walked forward with calm, steady purpose, without once turning back.
The others followed him.
Though none of them seemed to notice it, their footsteps gradually aligned behind his, falling into rhythm as naturally as lesser currents yield to a stronger tide.
The guards opened the gates yet again, stepping aside as the iron doors parted with a deep, heavy groan.
Without wasting words, the group made its way toward the waiting carriage.
One by one, they climbed inside, the wooden steps creaking softly beneath their weight.
When they had all taken their seats, the carriage doors swung inward and shut with a firm, final thud.
A moment later, the reins cracked lightly in the air.
The horses began to move.
"So, what is the plan?" Arroz asked, crossing his legs and resting both hands upon his thigh.
Amon did not answer immediately. He sat with the calm of someone who had already arranged the next several steps in his mind and saw no need to rush simply because others had begun to feel the weight of uncertainty.
"First," he said at last, his tone indifferent, "we are not going to be dropped in front of the organisation like fools. That would be stupid."
His eyes shifted briefly toward the carriage window, then back to the others.
"My quest indicates that we will first be taken to an information inn belonging to the Erith Order. We will gather what we need there, learn more about the organisation, and find a way to infiltrate it without being noticed, exposed, or caught."
Arroz gave a slow nod.
"Hm. That makes sense."
Not long after, the carriage slowed and came to a halt before a broad entrance of dark polished wood and dim amber glass.
They had arrived.
The carriage doors opened with a faint creak, and the sound lingered in the evening air for a moment before dissolving into the distant murmur of the street. One by one, they stepped down onto the stone pavement, their shoes touching the ground in soft, measured thuds.
No one spoke.
Together, they approached the inn.
Its entrance stood tall and imposing before them, its wooden frame old, heavy, and well maintained, bearing the kind of silent dignity only places with long memory seemed able to possess. They pushed the doors open and entered.
Warmth met them first.
Then noise.
Inside, wooden tables and chairs filled the room, most of them occupied by men and women dressed in top hats, black suits, dark coats, and long trench garments cut in varying styles of elegance and severity. Glasses of beer, stronger spirits, and half-finished bottles rested upon the tables. Some had clearly been enjoyed. Others had barely been touched, serving more as props than refreshments.
At the far end of the inn stood a bar and reception counter combined into one long polished stretch of dark wood. Behind it, shelves rose from floor to ceiling, lined with wines, beers, and other spirits arranged with almost ceremonial neatness. The bottles gleamed softly beneath the yellow lamplight, their coloured glass reflecting a richness that made the place seem ordinary at first glance.
Ordinary, but only at first glance.
Citizens, travellers, merchants, and awakeners mingled freely throughout the inn. Chatter rolled across the room in restless layers. Laughter broke out at intervals. Someone cheered. Someone else cursed. A few glasses clinked together. There were heavy pats on backs, boasts, fragments of gossip, exaggerated stories, praise, drunken argument, political muttering, and the occasional too-loud declaration meant for more ears than one.
To any untrained eye, it was simply an inn in high spirits.
A place of drink.
A place of celebration.
A place where strangers sat close enough to pretend they trusted one another.
But that was not what it truly was.
This was the Inn of Information.
Its laughter was often real, but never innocent. Its warmth was deliberate. Its noise was useful. The atmosphere of ease had been cultivated with precision, not for joy, but for concealment. What passed for celebration here was a curtain. Behind it moved older things, drowned honour, forgotten bloodlines, quiet bargains, political rot, old sins, sealed wars, names spoken carefully, and truths traded in tones too soft to disturb the room.
This was not an inn of cheer.
It was an inn of masks.
Leon, Amon called inwardly.
Almost at once, Leon looked toward him with a faintly puzzled expression. His brows twitched. His head tilted slightly. Yet Amon did not return the look, nor did he acknowledge him in any visible way.
Do not look back. I am going to sit with the man at the far right of the inn. Sit at the table beside me and order four beers and one wine.
The command was clean and immediate.
Leon understood.
Without hesitation, he gestured for the others to take the table nearest the far-right corner of the room, while Amon continued onward and seated himself beside a man dressed in a black suit, a long dark trench coat, and a high-top hat that cast a narrow shadow over his face.
At the neighbouring table, Leon raised a hand.
"Four beers and one wine, please," he said in a soft, measured tone.
The other four turned toward him with open confusion.
Their expressions carried the same question, though none of them quite voiced it at first.
It was Seraph who finally did.
"What are you doing?" he asked, his tone threaded with confusion and faint disdain.
Leon paused, then turned to look at him as though the answer were obvious.
"I am ordering four beers and one wine," he said flatly. "Can you not see that?"
Seraph's face hardened.
"Do not play clever with me, boy."
His fist slammed against the table.
The impact rang sharply through the inn, loud enough to draw glances from nearby patrons. A few looked over with irritation. Others with mild contempt. In a place built upon controlled noise, uncontrolled noise was a vulgar thing.
Arroz stepped in at once.
"Enough," he said, his voice firm without rising. "Let us all calm down. I am sure Leon knows what he is doing."
He looked at Leon in a way that made the rest of the sentence unnecessary.
You had better know what you are doing.
Leon gave a quiet scoff, then summoned his Inventory and withdrew the book he had been reading earlier. He opened it with casual composure and lowered his gaze to the pages as if he had not just unsettled half the table.
The title on the cover read:
How to Reign.
A short while later, a waiter approached them carrying a tray in his right hand.
He moved with practiced balance, the drinks steady despite the shifting crowd around him. Four beers and one glass of wine rested upon the tray. He wore a crisp white shirt, a fitted grey waistcoat, black trousers, and polished brown shoes. A folded napkin lay neatly over his left hand, completing the image of effortless service.
"Here is your order of four beers and one wine," he said with a polite smile.
One by one, he lifted the drinks from the tray and placed them upon the table with graceful care.
"Thank you," Leon replied softly.
With the same smooth politeness, he flicked a Southern World gold ingot toward the waiter.
The waiter caught it cleanly in his left hand. The napkin shifted slightly, but did not fall.
His smile deepened.
"Thank you very much."
He bowed.
"No trouble at all," Leon said. "Consider it a tip for your effort."
The waiter inclined his head once more and withdrew.
At the far right of the inn, Amon sat with the man in the top hat, black trench coat, and dark suit, speaking in low tones beneath the cover of laughter, drink, and the false warmth of the room.