So they waited…

And Himothy, empowered by their watching, brought down a creature that should have killed him in seconds.

It took five minutes of brutal combat. Five minutes of lightning and thunder, of impossible acrobatics, of a single man defying physics and probability and common sense.

The creature finally collapsed, with half its body still buried in sand, and the visible segments twitching in death spasms.

Himothy stood atop its head, breathing hard, covered in the creature's golden blood, with his concept-born lightning still crackling weakly around his raised fist.

He looked up at them and grinned.

Then thrust his fist higher.

Immediately, a sudden pulse spread outward from Himothy. Finn felt it wash over him. A wave of golden light that somehow carried emotion. Pride. Triumph. The absolute certainty of victory.

All of a sudden, Finn's exhaustion from the desert march faded slightly. The aches in his legs diminished. Even the oppressive heat seemed less brutal.

"What was that?" Keeva asked in surprise.

"His Paradigm manifestation," Thalia explained. "After a significant victory, witnesses receive a portion of his glory. Temporary enhancement. Morale boost. It'll last maybe ten minutes."

"That's..." Tavian looked at his hands, flexing fingers that suddenly felt stronger. "That's incredible."

Himothy slid down the creature's corpse and began walking back toward them, casual now, as if he hadn't just killed something that massed thousands of tons.

As he climbed back up the dune, storm clouds dissipating overhead, he shot Finn a look.

"Your turn to lead, Error bearer. I did the flashy part. Now you figure out where we're actually going."

Finn wanted to point out that they already knew they were heading south. But he also recognized what Himothy was doing — establishing himself as the combat powerhouse while acknowledging Finn's tactical role.

It was almost... professional.

"South," Finn confirmed. "And we need to move faster. That fight just announced our presence to anything with senses in a fifty-mile radius."

"Then let's move," Thalia said.

This time, they discarded the rope, storing it in a pack safely for their return. They could've done so a long time ago, but out of caution they decided to keep tied together this far.

But now, after this fight, they were much more emboldened.

As they walked past the massive corpse, Finn studied it with his Error Vision. Even without his Error Vision, the creature's biology was extremely bizarre. It was way too massive for anything conceivably natural.

But seeing it up close, and with Error Vision active, a frown colored his face as he understood why the creature could sustain such a logic-defying size without collapsing in on itself…

It possessed divinity.

Or rather, it used to possess divinity.

Finn could sense the last of the essence leaking into the air and dispersing into nothing. Normally he would've made up a reason to halt the team and claim the dispersing divinity. But the divine essence was so subpar in quality and little in quantity that for the first time, Finn felt no interest in it whatsoever.

The fact that he could only sense it from this close, and not during the creature's charge and fight with Himothy, went a long way to emphasize how inferior the divine essence was compared to what he'd stolen from Garuda or even something like the first divine creature they encountered.

His current theory was that this creature was probably a congregator of faith from a very small subset of people. A beast without true knowledge or consciousness. Just raw divine power sustained by collective belief.

He didn't know if he was correct, but probably this creature was most likely not even kept here by any locals nearby. Rather, it was a legend. The focus of tales and folklore told around fires about the great worm in the desert, the guardian of the sands, the death that swims beneath.

Those stories… that collective fear and awe, had congregated onto this beast to give it size and strength beyond natural limits.

A proto-god? Finn mused.

It wasn't intelligent enough to cultivate worship deliberately, but powerful enough to exist because people believed it existed.

It was a chilling thought. If mere folklore could create something this dangerous, what could organized religion with temples and priests accomplish?

They left the vicinity and kept walking south across the flat desert plain.

The stretch was larger than Finn had expected. Miles and miles of level sand, baked hard by the relentless sun. Himothy's temporary buff dispersed after about fifteen minutes, leaving them all feeling the full weight of exhaustion again.

But the memory of that golden surge kept morale high. They'd faced their first threat in this world and won decisively.

As they walked, Finn found his thoughts returning to Himothy's power.

Glory that scaled with witnesses. Declarations that bent probability. Victory that empowered observers.

It was eerily similar to divine power. Both depended on belief to gain strength. The more people who believed in Himothy's glory, the more glorious he became. The more people who worshipped gods, the more divine those gods became.

Was it a coincidence that Himothy was on this team?

Or had someone known that Glory would be essential for understanding how gods functioned in this world?

Finn glanced at Himothy walking ahead, with storm clouds occasionally flickering overhead when the Glory bearer got excited about something. The man was loud, reckless, narcissistic to an extreme degree.

But his concept was the closest thing to divinity Finn had seen among Transcendents. If they had to fight gods, Himothy might be the only one who could match them on conceptual terms.

The thought was both reassuring and deeply troubling.

.

.

The sun had traveled significantly across the sky by the time they finally reached the far edge of the flat expanse.

They crested one of the dunes they had seen on the horizon earlier. And thankfully, the first sign of civilization was within sight.

"Finally!" Someone exclaimed in evident relief.

Finn, along with the other Transcendents, analyzed the settlement from their vantage point.

It was a small town by normal standards, but large for something smack dab in the middle of the desert.

Finn could spot some greenery further behind the settlement, however, suggesting the presence of an Oasis. But what he was looking for was any sign of the divine.

Unsurprisingly, he found nothing.

From their distance and vantage point, it was practically impossible to sense anything. But at least Finn tried.

"Alright. We need Intel before we approach." Thalia turned to face the Transcendents, shifting into tactical mode immediately. "Keeva, Osric, Tavian. Get close to the town and scout the perimeter while staying undetected. I want to know population estimates, security presence, any signs of these so-called Gods."

"Finn and I can also go," Deacon chipped in. "Our eyes can decipher false reality and spot flaws. We'd be of help."

"Plus we can also hide our presence with our concepts," he added.

Thalia paused, then nodded after a short beat.

"Fine. Five-person reconnaissance team. The rest of us will camp here and wait for your report." She looked at the position of the sun, which was already lowering behind the dune they stood on. "Evening's setting. Take your time, be thorough, but return before full dark. We'll decide our approach once we know what we're dealing with."

Wordlessly, the five covert Transcendents took off down the slope of the dune, fading before the eyes of the onlooking Transcendents behind.

Finn activated [Null Perception] and faded from perception along with the others who activated their concepts.

They approached the settlement quickly and the first locals entered into their view.

They really look no different from us… Finn frowned.

They had been briefed on the species of this world. And when Finn had heard they were essentially human-looking by all standards, he had thought it weird.

What were the odds of stumbling in a world whose inhabitants bore a one-for-one resemblance to humans?

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