Darkness.

It was not the absence of light, but something deeper. A void that wrapped itself around Aelric like unseen hands, whispering, pulling, twisting.

Then—a voice.

Soft at first. Familiar.

“Aelric.”

His eyes snapped open.

He was standing in the middle of his childhood village.

The sight made his chest tighten.

Everything was exactly as he remembered—the dirt roads, the brittle wooden houses, the figures moving in the fields like shadows. But it wasn’t just a memory.

The air was thick with something suffocating.

The weight of submission.

Aelric inhaled slowly. This was the past.

But the trial wanted to make him relive it.

His family stood in front of their small, crumbling house—his mother, his father, his brother, his sister. They looked at him the same way they always had—like ghosts.

No life behind their eyes.

No thoughts of their own.

It had always been this way. The villagers were like puppets, moving through the same routines every day, speaking the same empty words, eating only what little was necessary to survive.

They let themselves starve.

They let themselves suffer.

And they accepted it.

Even when their bodies trembled and collapsed under the Supreme One’s voice, even when the pain racked their bones, they never asked why.

But Aelric had.

His mother turned to him, her face gentle, her voice soft.

“You’ve been gone a long time.”

His hands curled into fists.

“You never should have left,” she continued, stepping forward. “You were always different. Always asking questions that didn’t need answers.”

Aelric’s breath came slower.

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He remembered this conversation.

The first time he had questioned the Supreme One’s voice, he had turned to his mother and asked why.

She had smiled at him—just as she did now—and spoken the same words.

“It is mercy.”

And that was when Aelric had realized.

That was when his eyes sharpened for the first time.

He had rejected those words then.

And he rejected them now.

The illusion shifted.

His mother’s face changed. The softness faded, replaced by something colder.

“You did this,” she said, her voice sharper. “You woke them up.”

Aelric turned—and his breath stilled.

The villagers were no longer empty.

Their faces were filled with terror.

They trembled, their eyes wide, hunger gnawing at them, their bodies wracked with fear.

They were alive.

And that was the problem.

Aelric’s defiance, his questions, his refusal to accept what had been forced upon them—it had spread.

The villagers had begun to think.

They had begun to feel.

And with their emotions came fear.

And hunger.

And anger.

But it was already too late.

The sky darkened, and a heavy, crushing pressure filled the air.

The voice.

The Supreme One’s voice.

It echoed through the village, resonating in their bones.

“THE ORDER IS ETERNAL. IT HAS NEVER CHANGED. IT WILL NEVER CHANGE.”

The villagers screamed.

Aelric remembered.

That day, the Order had come—not to kill him.

But to break him.

They had stood at the edges of the village, watching, amused.

They had awakened the villagers completely.

For the first time, his family felt everything.

Fear.

Desperation.

Pain.

And the Order let them feel it all—long enough for them to realize what it meant.

For the first time, the villagers understood what it meant to live.

And what it meant to die.

And when they understood—they stopped begging for mercy.

Aelric’s father stood tall, for the first time in his life. His mother’s eyes, once filled with quiet submission, were clear.

Even his younger brother and sister, trembling as they were, had never looked more human.

The villagers turned to Aelric and spoke their final words.

“It’s better this way.”

The Order laughed.

And then, they slaughtered them all.

One by one.

Not in anger. Not in rage. But for amusement.

Because they wanted to see if Aelric would break.

But he hadn’t.

He had watched.

And with every drop of blood, his conviction had only grown.

The illusion wanted him to feel guilt.

To make him question if he had killed them.

But Aelric did not question.

His voice was steady.

“You’re wrong.”

The illusions did not waver.

“Even if I had remained silent,” Aelric continued, “you were never alive to begin with.”

The screaming stopped.

His mother’s lips parted, confusion flickering across her face.

“You were nothing but dolls. Empty husks. The moment I spoke, you remembered how to feel. You remembered hunger. You remembered fear.”

He stepped forward, his eyes burning.

“You didn’t die because of me. You died because you were already dead. And when you woke up—the Order killed you for it.”

The illusions around him began to distort.

His mother, his father, his siblings—all of them twisted, shifting, breaking apart like glass.

“You want me to regret waking you up?” Aelric’s voice did not waver. “I regret nothing.”

The sky cracked open.

The voice of the Supreme One thundered again—but this time, it did not shake him.

“THE ORDER IS ETERNAL. IT HAS NEVER CHANGED. IT WILL NEVER CHANGE.”

Aelric laughed.

And he spoke back.

“You fear change. That’s why you remind us over and over again that it won’t happen.”

“But you’re wrong.”

The world began to collapse.

The village shattered, dissolving into darkness. The faces of his family, the villagers, the Order’s enforcers—all of them crumbled like dust.

The illusion tried to consume him.

But it failed.

Aelric stood tall.

Unshaken.

Unbroken.

More resolved than ever.

Then, the darkness vanished.

Aelric opened his eyes.

He was standing at the entrance of the trial chamber.

All around him, the warriors of the hidden city stood frozen.

Their expressions were filled with shock.

No one had passed the trial since their first ancestor.

Aelric was the first person they had ever witnessed succeed.

Then, the ground shook.

A pressure filled the air, something ancient—not older than the Order, but still beyond anything they had known.

And one by one—the warriors bent the knee.

Aelric’s gaze flickered toward them.

But before he could speak—a voice echoed through the chamber.

“You are… different.”

Aelric’s eyes narrowed.

The Unknown Goddess had awoken.

End of Chapter 9