Finn couldn't help the small smile that tugged at his lips as he stared at his open palm, feeling the subtle pulse of faith trickling into him. It was barely anything, droplets where he'd need an ocean, but it was there. Proof that his gambit had worked, that stolen divinity could be sustained and grown through belief.

As Finn stared at his palm in thought, Himothy watched him with an unreadable expression before his face hardened into something firm, resolved, like he'd made a decision that couldn't be unmade.

He took a step forward, intending to say something when, all of a sudden, his blood turned cold and heavy like lead.

Everything stopped.

For a short few seconds, everyone, including Finn, were shocked into stillness.

A gaze descended from the sky, locking onto the building where Solarius was being interrogated, and Finn felt it like a physical thing. Ancient. Vast. Utterly unconcerned with the mortality of anything beneath its attention.

The gaze swept across the settlement with idle curiosity, cataloging, assessing, before landing on Finn.

His divine essence, that trace amount he'd been so proud of moments ago, immediately shrunk inward. Not from conscious choice but pure survival instinct.

Every iota of divine power within him tried desperately to become invisible, to be nothing, because showing even a flicker of power in this presence meant instant annihilation.

Finn couldn't raise his head. Couldn't move. Couldn't even think beyond the certainty that he was in the presence of something so far beyond him that the gap couldn't be measured.

A Great One.

The term surfaced from somewhere deep in his stolen divine essence, knowledge that came with the power he'd claimed. If this could still be classified as a God, then it could only be Rank I. A Great One. The highest tier of divine existence.

But even that classification felt inadequate.

It felt like he was in the presence of something abstract. Not quite a concept, but more like… Origin. A true source of unending power. The wellspring from which lesser divinity flowed. Absolute in a way that made Finn's stolen fragment seem like a candle trying to compete with the sun.

Around him, civilians collapsed, dropping dead where they stood, killed by the trace pressure the existence emanated without even trying. The same townspeople he'd hoped would become his believers, his foundation — gone. Erased as casually as one might brush away dust.

The young priestess he'd saved. The woman who'd opened her door. The old man he'd carried to safety. All of them, dead in the space of an heartbeat.

Finn couldn't even move to help them. Staying conscious under this presence took everything he had. His vision was narrowing, consciousness threatening to fracture under the sheer absolutism pressing down on his existence.

The gaze focused on him for one eternal moment.

Finn felt himself analyzed. Dissected. Understood completely and found... what? Amusing? Irrelevant? He couldn't tell. The entity's intentions were as incomprehensible as its power.

Then it was gone.

The pressure vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving Finn on his knees, gasping desperately for air like a drowning man.

"W—What was that?" Himothy whispered through ragged breaths. And for the first time, Finn saw pure terror on the Glory Bearer's face. Pure, unadulterated, primal fear. Himothy was trembling, hands clenched into fists so tight his knuckles had gone white.

"I don't know," Finn managed to say, though that was a lie. He knew exactly what it had been. Just not who.

Divine essence be damned. There was nothing… nothing him, or anyone could do if such an existence wanted them dead. All of his clever tricks, his Error manipulation, his stolen power, meant absolutely nothing in the face of that.

Finn stared at his hands. They were shaking. When had that started?

He forced himself to look up, to take in the carnage that had occurred within the span of a few seconds. A silent death that had wiped the settlement clean of all mortal life.

Every single civilian, down to the last of the potential priests and priestesses he'd identified, were all dead.

Bodies lay in doorways, collapsed mid-step, with expressions frozen in confusion rather than pain. They hadn't even had time to realize what was killing them.

What now?

Finn stared at the devastation with dull eyes. He should have been angry. Pained. Should have felt something.

But there was nothing.

He was entirely numb.

All his fighting spirit, his aspirations for divinity, his careful plans for building faith and power, everything had fizzled out completely.

In the face of something like that, all his ambition felt worthless. Trying to gain divine power seemed like a child playing at being a king while true monarchs waged wars that could end civilizations.

That hadn't been divine power at all. Not in any sense he understood. It was too vast, too absolute to be categorized alongside what Solarius had wielded, or even what he had taken from Garuda.

What's the point? The thought was bitter, hollow. What's the point of any of this if something that powerful exists?

Movement at the warehouse entrance drew his attention.

Thalia emerged first, barely able to walk, with one hand pressed against the wall for support. Her Order aura flickered erratically, destabilized by what she'd just endured.

Behind her, Deacon stumbled out, and his eyes were bleeding golden blood. Repercussions of his Eyes of Truth peering at something he shouldn't have. The Truth bearer's face was ashen, shell-shocked as he forced his eyes open despite the pain.

Tavian came next, supporting himself on the doorframe, breathing hard.

And then Thalia turned back, reaching into the warehouse, and pulled Ailin out in her arms.

The Memory bearer was unconscious. Possibly not even breathing. Her chest wasn't moving properly. Her eyes were still rolled back, showing only white scelera, and foam had gathered at the corners of her mouth.

But it was her head that made Finn's pupils constrict in shock. It was swollen. Grotesquely distended, as if something inside was trying to force its way out. Her skull had expanded to nearly twice its normal size, the skin stretched taut and translucent to its limits, showing the network of veins beneath. It looked like a balloon at the cusp of popping, ready to burst at the slightest touch.

Thalia met Finn's eyes across the square, and there was reproach in her gaze. Dull and exhausted, but clear, unmistakable reproach nonetheless.

Look where your gambit got us now, that look said.

Finn couldn't argue with that assessment.

He looked down in guilt and forced himself to stand on shaking legs, then moved toward the warehouse entrance, needing to see the extent to what had happened.

As he drew closer to the entrance shakily, he stopped for a beat, before forging forward to take in the full view.

The entire interior of the interrogation room was painted red.

The error-made chains binding Solarius's body had shattered, but his body still lay where the chains had bound him. A body that was now missing a head.

Finn looked at the exploded brain matter and skull fragments coating every surface within a ten-foot radius and let out a weary sigh.

Whatever memory Ailin had touched, whatever knowledge she'd tried to extract, it had triggered the attention of something greater even than the Radiant One.

And that something had descended in response.

A Great One, Finn realized with certainty. Solarius knew something about that existence, and Ailin had touched upon it, inadvertently drawing the attention of the existence just by that simple action.

"Help me," Thalia whispered, drawing Finn's attention as she struggling to keep Ailin upright. The Memory bearer's swollen head lolled at an unnatural angle, and Finn could see hairline cracks forming in the stretched skin.

"She's dying," Deacon said from the side with his hands pressed against his eyes. He said nothing else after that, and it was understandable. The Truth Bearer was certainly the one at most risk of something similar happening to him. His eyes had seen a lot, and he knew a lot. A single slip-up and it could be his head popping like a balloon instead.

He did offer a few more words after a short silence, though: "Her mind can't contain what she pulled from Solarius. It's literally expanding her consciousness beyond what her physical form can hold."

"Can we do anything?" Himothy asked with a voice that was still shaky from the earlier terror, but trying to regain composure.

"I don't know," Thalia admitted, and the helplessness in her voice was worse than anger would have been.

Finn stared at Ailin's distended head, watching the cracks deepen, and felt the numbness intensify.

This is my fault.

"We need to get her somewhere stable," Finn started to mutter generic words, his voice sounding distant to his own ears. "Away from the bodies. Somewhere we can…"

He didn't finish the sentence.

Because there was nowhere. Nothing they could do. No solution that wouldn't require power or knowledge they didn't possess.

They were trapped in a dead settlement, surrounded by corpses, with one of their own dying from knowledge that was literally too large for her mind to contain.

A God — The Radiant One — was after them. And to make matters worse, somewhere out there, a Great One had also noticed them.

Thalia carefully lowered Ailin to the ground, cradling the Memory bearer's swollen head with gentleness, as if that might prevent it from rupturing entirely.

"Someone get the others," she said quietly. "Keeva, Yara, Osric… We need to take our next step…"

Himothy moved to comply, still visibly shaken but functional.

Finn remained frozen, staring at the carnage his ambition had created.

What now?

The question echoed in the hollow space where his fighting spirit used to be.

What the hell do we do now?

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