The Trial was three days away.
The monastery pretended not to know.
Chants still echoed at dawn, and incense clung to the inner chapel's rafters. Monks still polished marble and trimmed hedges, spoke in hushed tones, and bowed their heads during evening prayer. But the air had changed—heavier, as if the stones themselves were bracing for what was coming.
It wasn't just silence. It was stillness—bracing.
Like the building itself was drawing breath, holding it.
Kael noticed it most in how people looked at him.
Where once the monks had avoided his eyes, now they watched him. Curious. Quiet. A mix of awe and unease, like children studying a storm cloud and wondering when it would finally break.
As if trying to determine whether the shadow in their midst was growing larger… or simply more visible.
System Log:
Proximity Awareness: Active – Divine Scan Imminent
Core: Tier 2.5 – Catalyst of Undoing
Resonance: 6/10
Seer Contact Risk: 89%
Recommended Protocol: Advance or eliminate the detection point.
Kael sat in the sanctuary alone that morning. The early light filtered through cracked stained glass, casting fractured gold across the broken statue of the Lightmother. One of her arms had fallen off in the night, though no one admitted how or why.
No one tried to repair it.
He wondered if they even saw the break.
Kael wondered if anyone dared.
He stood and left without prayer.
The scriptorium was empty, as it often was this late in the evening. Kael sifted through old scrolls until he reached a small, cracked chest behind the third shelf—his hiding spot. Inside were fragments of copied ritual theory, torn parchments on resonance shifts, and a stitched sigil cloth he'd prepared weeks ago.
He unrolled the cloth and studied it.
The lines weren't divine.
They pulsed faintly now, a sign of evolution. Of growth.
[Black Sigil] — Stability: 78%
Bound Threads: 1 (Subject: Emil)
Corruption Drift: Low
Conversion Probability: Moderate
Brother Emil.
The young monk stood with his hands clasped awkwardly behind his back. His robe was too large, and his sandals too small, as if the monastery had never truly fitted him.
He hadn't spoken to Emil since the failed ritual. Since the collapse.
He didn't expect to.
Which is why he was surprised to find Emil waiting for him in the hall.
"You're not praying tonight?" Kael asked.
Emil shook his head. "I couldn't."
Kael didn't move.
"I… I was hoping you'd come here."
"Why?"
"I think…" Emil hesitated. "I think something's wrong with me."
Kael arched a brow.
He didn't need to explain. Kael remembered the ritual. The burning. The collapse. The moment the divine had rejected Emil and left him gasping.
Something inside Kael stirred.
"I can't feel the Light anymore," Emil admitted. "Even when I fast. Even when I cleanse. It's like something inside me got… closed."
"My prayers," Emil continued. "They don't reach anymore. The flame flickers, but it won't rise. The chant—when I say it, it feels like I'm mimicking something I no longer believe."
Kael knew the reason. The sigil he'd placed on Emil still lingered in his aura like rot beneath perfume.
Kael's fingers tensed. "The sigil is still with you."
Emil blinked. "What?"
Kael didn't repeat it.
System Ping: Residual effect detected – Subject Emil (Waning Devotion)
Progress toward conversion milestone: 38%
Effect: Faith disruption. Willpower suppression. Tier 1 seed corruption.
Target: Emil – Status: Conflicted.
"I think I'm broken," Emil whispered.
Kael frowned. "You're not."
"You're the only one who said that. Even now."
Emil stepped closer. "Can I ask you something?"
Kael nodded once.
"If I turned away from the system—if I stopped believing—what would that make me?"
Kael didn't respond immediately.
Kael's answer was quiet. "Free."
Emil studied his face. "But free to become what?"
Kael looked away. He didn't have an answer.
They walked the scriptorium aisles together, slowly. Dust hung in the air like smoke. The torches on the walls flickered low. Emil broke the silence again.
"I haven't told anyone. Not even the abbot. But when I touched the relic the second time, I didn't feel pain."
Kael's eyes narrowed. "What did you feel?"
"…Hunger."
That surprised Kael.
Not because of the word.
But because it was the exact same word the system had used when describing its growth vector.
"Have you dreamed?" Kael asked suddenly.
Emil nodded, slowly. "A voice. Not loud. Not words exactly. Just… presence. And colors. Ones I've never seen before."
Kael's breath slowed.
He's being called.
System Prompt: Alignment Shift Opportunity
Subject: Emil – Potential: Tier 0.5 (Passive Alignment Pending)
Optional Path: Disciple Arc Initiation
Bonus Title Unlock (Condition: Full Rejection of Divine System): "First Flame"
Risk: Accelerated Seer detection if disciple reaches 1st resonance milestone
Kael led Emil into the far reading chamber. No candles were lit there—only moonlight pouring through a high slit in the stone.
"Do you want to be saved?" Kael asked.
Emil blinked. "I… don't know anymore."
Kael held out the sigil cloth.
"This time, you choose to hold it."
Emil hesitated. Then took it in both hands.
Nothing flared. Nothing burned.
But something settled.
A silence Kael knew too well.
[Black Sigil] transferred – Rebound suppressed
Subject Emil – Conversion Milestone Reached
Progress: 60%
Trait Gained: [Shared Flame]
Effect: Your emotional state now passively affects the Subject's corruption arc.
They sat in the dark for a long time.
Kael spoke little. But Emil asked questions—about the system, about its rules, about what Kael had seen and what he still didn't understand. Not as a student, but as someone unlearning everything they'd been raised to believe.
The conversation lasted hours.
Kael told him pieces—not everything, not the system, not the entity—but enough. Enough to fracture the world Emil had believed in. Enough to show that the divine did not reward all. That effort did not equal worth. That the system judged based on alignment, not intent.
At one point, Emil said, "You don't seem evil."
Kael almost laughed.
"I'm not," he said.
"But I'm becoming something that evil will fear."
"I don't want to be like them," Emil said quietly. "But I don't want to be cruel."
"You don't have to be," Kael replied. "You just have to stop playing their game."
System Update: Seed planted in Subject "Emil"
Passive Trait Unlocked: [Mirror of Doubt]
Effect: Subjects influenced by you will generate ambient resonance based on proximity and belief drift.
Just before dawn, they passed the chapel on their way back to the dormitories.
Both of them stopped.
The statue was still there, still cracked. But something had changed.
The missing arm—gone for days—was lying not at the base, but on the altar itself, like someone had placed it there in offering.
Neither of them had touched it.
Emil turned to him. "What does it mean?"
Kael looked at the system's alert log. There was no answer.
He stared at the statue's face. For the first time, the expression looked less serene… and more sorrowful.
"I don't know," Kael said.
And for once, it was true.