Chapter 165: The Honored One Finn exchanged unspoken glances with the others as they moved among the scattered crowd watching the procession. Finn and the others who had covert spells as a result of their concepts, had them activated. While the others who didn’t were blanketed and silenced by layers of Keeva’s disguise spell and Osric’s silence spell. They all watched the procession move further into the town. More people emerged from their homes and watched in stunned silence. Some knelt immediately. Others stood frozen in shock or anger. And the Guardian’s temple, visible ahead, suddenly seemed very small and very fragile. The procession stopped in the central square. The ornate carriage positioned itself directly across from the Guardian’s temple. A deliberate statement. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then priests dismounted from some carriages. Six of them, all wearing white and gold robes identical to the ones Finn had heard described in yesterday’s reconnaissance. But these weren’t missionaries or low-ranking clergy. One stepped forward. An older man, gray-haired but still vigorous, with eyes that blazed with conviction. He raised his staff, the golden sun symbol at its top catching the first rays of actual dawn. And he spoke. Finn didn’t understand the language, but Deacon was translating in real-time and whispering the meaning. "People of this settlement," the high priest’s voice was loud, carrying a tone of absolute certainty. Not arrogance, per se, but more like the unshakeable conviction of one who believes beyond doubt that he speaks truth. "You have dwelt in darkness. In the age of beasts. Cowering before an animal that offered nothing but the illusion of protection." His tone didn’t mock. It pitied. As if addressing children who’d never known better. "But no more. Today, you are delivered from primitive fear into civilized faith. From the worship of crawling things into the embrace of true divinity." He gestured toward the Guardian’s temple without even deigning to name what it represented. "That place is a relic of ignorance. A monument to your isolation, your smallness, your acceptance of a world bounded by sand and survival." The high priest’s eyes swept the crowd as he spoke with a tone that didn’t condemn, but offered salvation. "Beyond your borders lies a greater world. Cities of marble and gold. Kingdoms where the faithful prosper under the Radiant One’s light. Where merchants travel freely, where knowledge flows like water, where civilization flourishes." He paused, letting the vision he painted sink in well. "You are a severed people. Cut off from the glory that should be yours by birthright. But the Radiant One is merciful. He has not forgotten you. Even here, in this arid desert where barely any life or civilization lays, His light reaches." The high priest’s voice rose in fervent intensity. "To commemorate this great event, to mark your deliverance from the age of beasts into the age of light, an Honored One himself has deemed it in his grace and mercy to descend to this place. To show you, with his own presence, the magnificence of our Lord." He turned toward the ornate carriage. "The Radiant One blesses you. Oh Honored One. Grace us with your presence and show them truth." The carriage door opened. And someone stepped out. The figure was tall. Perhaps a hand taller than Himothy, but lean where the Glory bearer was huge and broad. White hair fell to his shoulders. A pure and pristine color that seemed somehow surreal. It had such an attention-drawing effect that made it impossible to look away. His skin was pale. Nearly luminous, as if light lived just beneath the surface and wanted to escape. He wore simple white robes without any ornaments, or gold, or exquisite stitching. But the plainness somehow made him more striking, not less. A single take made one feel as if they were looking at someone... or rather something beyond human. As if it further emphasize his surreal visage, as he stepped out from the carriage, the first ray of dawn cracked over the eastern horizon. The light struck him. Or perhaps it was because of him that dawn cracked at that precise moment. It emphasized the godly feel emanating from him. The Honored One stood for a moment and surveyed the settlement with eyes that were deep blue, yet held depths of gold within them. When he spoke, his voice was soft. Gentle. But it carried to every corner of the square as if he stood beside each person individually. "You have prayed to something that could not answer. Believed in something that could not save. Trusted in power that was never real." He gestured toward the Guardian’s temple with one pale hand. "Your god was a beast given shape by your fear. Nothing more. And now it is dead, as all beasts must die. As all false things must end." He raised that hand higher, and the early sunlight seemed to gather around it, pooling in his palm like liquid gold. "I will show you the difference between what you worshipped and what is worthy of worship." The light in his hand began to glow brighter, condensing and compressing into something solid and terrible with each passing second. "Behold. True divine power." He cast the gathered sunlight toward the Guardian’s temple. The spell was massive and immediate. A beam of concentrated radiance followed the path his hand had directed, touched the temple and simply unmade it. There was barely any noise to the attack. The stone structure didn’t shatter in an explosion, nor did it burn or melt from heat. It simply ceased to exist. The beam swept across the structure from left to right, and everywhere it touched, matter dissolved into light and air and nothing. In three seconds, the Guardian’s temple was gone. Reduced to foundations. Erased so completely that even the rubble vanished, leaving only smooth ground where a building had stood moments before. The crowd was utterly silent. Too shocked for screams, too stunned for any prayers at all. They all stared wide eyed and mouths open in disbelief as their worldview crumbled before their very eyes. The Honored One lowered his hand, and the bright glow of the gathered sunlight dispersed, returning to normal dawn light. He turned toward the crowd, prepared to address the broken believers. To use this moment of absolute defeat to assert his God’s supremacy. But suddenly, as the first words were about to leave his mouth, he paused. Slightly, he turned his head to the side. And his eclipse eyes focused on something at the edge of where the temple had stood. A figure stood there. Male. Holding a young woman in his arms. She wore the brown robes of a Guardian priestess and appeared unconscious or in shock. The figure wore a peculiar mask. Something crude, picked up from a market stall perhaps. Carved wood with simplified features resembling a devil’s. But what drew attention wasn’t the mask. It was the fact that he stood exactly at the edge of the devastation. Right where the divine spell had stopped. Holding the priestess who should have been inside the temple when it was unmade. He had pulled her from the structure in the seconds between spell-casting and impact. Or perhaps during. Moving through space that should have killed him to save someone who should have died. The masked figure stared directly at the Honored One. And despite the crude mask hiding his face, there was something in his posture. In the slight tilt of his head. A smile. Humor, or maybe a challenge, playing at the edge of his lips. The Honored One’s expression didn’t change. His voice remained soft, gentle, curious, even. "And who may you be?"