Thalia watched the Guardian's believers straighten slightly. Watched hope kindle in their eyes. Watched them look at Finn not as a stranger defending their faith, but as something more.

Clever, Thalia thought despite her anger. By not answering, he lets them believe whatever they need to believe.

The Honored One observed this shift. His serene expression didn't change, but something flickered in those eclipse eyes. Recognition, perhaps. Or respect for the tactical brilliance.

"I see," he said softly. "You will not answer. Very well. I suppose I shall find out for myself."

He took a single step forward.

The air pressure changed instantly. What had been merely oppressive became crushing. Divine authority made manifest, pressing down on everyone in the square except the Honored One himself.

Thalia felt it like a physical weight. Her knees wanted to buckle. Her body demanded she kneel.

But Order rose within her. Structure imposed on chaos. Law written against divine authority.

She remained standing.

Around her, the other Transcendents struggled similarly. Himothy grinned through gritted teeth, his concept-born lightning crackling around him as he pushed back against the divine pressure. Keeva flickered as her Disguise tried to hide even from this overwhelming presence. Tavian's body shifted slightly, as if trying to find a Passage through the divine weight.

But the mundane believers fell to their knees immediately. All of them. Guardian faithful and Radiant converts alike, oppressed by this power they couldn't comprehend, let alone resist.

All except one.

The young priestess Finn had saved remained standing. Trembling, but still standing.

Thalia noticed. And so did the Honored One.

"Is that a blessing?" He raised a brow. "But I don't feel any trace of divine touch..."

He turned to look at Finn's figure again, and this time, he smiled. "So you might be an incarnation after all! Well then, let me introduce myself to you." He stepped forward and his divine aura rose, his skin glistened, the morning sun, now risen higher in the sky, reflected its light off his body in a divine halo.

"I am Solarius. Champion of the Radiant One. Bearer of Solar Authority. Blessed with the Divine Right of Conquest."

His voice carried layered harmonics. Multiple tones speaking in perfect unison.

"I have ended seventeen false gods. Absorbed their faithful. Proven their claims hollow. I have walked through temples protected by divine wards and emerged unburned. I have faced incarnations before…"

He smiled gently as a sword of light slowly materialized in his hands.

"And I have killed them all without fail."

Thalia watched the exchange with a grim look.

She and the other Transcendents had lowered themselves to the ground despite being able to withstand the divine oppression, so as not to draw attention to themselves. But she was almost sure the Honored One had sensed them somehow.

She exchanged a glance with the other Transcendents next to her, and an unspoken understanding passed between them one by one.

Himothy met her gaze and grinned, understanding immediately.

Tavian nodded slightly. Ready.

Keeva's expression was unreadable, but her posture shifted. Prepared.

Even Ailin, who preferred observation to combat, tensed in recognition of what was coming.

Thalia's message was clear. If Finn fails. If this fight turns against him. If the Honored One exposes him as a fraud or kills him outright. We kill everyone here. No survivors. No witnesses. Clean elimination of the entire Radiant One's procession.

It was ruthless and also violated every of their mission parameters. But things had progressed to this level.

They weren't acting passively any longer.

Finn's play had made it such that they would get to see Divine power go up against Transcendent power head to head. It sped up what they would have otherwise waited to observe and theorize passively over weeks, if not months, to just days, hours even.

But the risk was high.

If Finn failed then they would be on the run, looking for the location of the breach in this world to escape back to theirs, while under the pursuit of the Radiant One and any other God that learns of what had happened in this town.

But if Finn won. If they were able to overwhelm or kill the Honored One and the procession cleanly. It would be a literal miracle for the townsfolk. They would have a stronghold in this world. A base where they could forward their operations in understanding divinity better.

That was if the attention of the Radiant One himself wasn't drawn here if one of his Champions died…

Too many ifs. Thalia frowned. But she remained ready as the Honored One charged towards Finn.

.

.

.

Finn's POV

Solarius burst forward towards him. Not with the explosive speed Finn had seen from Transcendents, but with a fluidity that suggested the distance between them was negotiable. Optional.

His sword of light came down in an arc that left afterimages burned into Finn's vision.

[Frame Skip]

Reality hiccuped.

Finn's body glitched, leaving a ghost image where he'd stood a fraction of a second ago. The divine blade passed through empty air, slicing through Finn's afterimage that flickered and dissolved like corrupted data.

He reappeared four steps to the left, already moving, calculating the next exchange.

Solarius pivoted smoothly without any trace of surprise registering on his serene features. The sword shifted mid-swing, redirecting precisely towards Finn's new position.

[Frame Skip]

Finn glitched again, reappearing somewhere else, and the Honored One's blade cut through nothing for the second time.

"Interesting," Solarius said softly with a voice that carried that unsettling multi-tonal quality. "Space manipulation? No... this is something else. Reality itself hesitates around you."

He thrust forward, and this time the blade extended, stretching like molten gold, reaching farther than any physical sword should.

Finn threw himself sideways, feeling the heat of divine radiance pass close enough to singe the edges of his mask.

Shit! That was close!

He hit the ground, rolled, and quickly transitioned into a crouch—

Solarius was already there.

The Champion moved with casual inevitability, as if his position at any given moment was predetermined. Blessed with the Divine Right of Conquest, he'd said. Perhaps that meant more than just authority. Perhaps it meant outcomes bent toward his victory.

His sword came down.

[Invalid]

Finn's hand shot up, Error surging through him as he touched the concept of the attack. The mechanism of the strike itself. The logic that said "this sword will cut this target."

He made that notion Invalid, and the blade passed through him at the last second. As if the universe had momentarily forgotten that swords were supposed to cut things.

"Huh?" Solarius's eyes widened fractionally. The first real surprise Finn had seen from him.

Solarius's surprise provided Finn a short moment of respite. But instead of widening the gap or taking a breath, he immediately channeled Error into an inversion. The sand beneath Solarius's feet reversed its friction coefficient. What should have been stable ground became slippery and frictionless like ice.

The Champion stumbled.

Just slightly. But that was enough.

Finn's fist, wreathed in inverted kinetic force, caught Solarius in the ribs with a thump. He timed the impact so perfectly with his inversion that the blow that should have pushed Solarius backwards became a pull, driving the impact inward like a singularity for a second.

Solarius was thrown off balance as his body was yanked forward first, before the inversion effect was released and he shot backward, tumbling through the air.

But he very quickly adjusted in the air, coming to a graceful, controlled fall as he skidded to a stop twenty paces away, one hand pressed to his ribs. When he pulled it away, there was no blood, but Finn saw the way he favored that side slightly.

Alright. That worked. Let's see if I can replicate it…

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