Chapter 169: Divine Error As Finn’s identity began clarifying... solidifying... The divinity also began to shed the essence of Garuda, attuning instead to Finn’s new identity. And on the outside, the first immediately noticeable change was seen on the mask on his face. ​What had been crude wood, a simple devil-face picked up from a market stall, began to transform as Finn forced the divine essence to recognize its new owner. Solarius stepped back as Finn transformed, and for the first time, wariness flickered in his expression. ​The wood grain on the mask smoothed, then hardened. Color bled away until the mask was pure, bone-white, framed by edges that morphed into a void-like black. It melted into his skin, fusing until it was no longer a simple prop, but a feature, a permanent symbol of his heretical nature, an immediately recognizable mark of an entity existing in the spaces between definitions. ​Error made manifest. Divinity corrupted and reforged. And after that simple mask became suffused with Finn’s divinity, becoming a symbol — His symbol — his divine aura suddenly soared. Everyone around felt it clearly. It was Error given divine weight. Glitch made sacred. Wrongness elevated to the divine. ​Power flooded through Finn’s body. The wound on his arm stopped bleeding as if his body had forgotten it was supposed to bleed. He parted his lips slightly and whispered: [Reversion] The spell activated without the slightest strain. His Paradigm State was effortless now, because he was Error, not just a bearer of it. The effect of Reversion, powered by divinity, was exponential. Instead of three seconds, twelve seconds reverted. The sword’s damage was unmade. Finn’s arm became whole again, as if it had never been cut. Every injury he gained within the last twelve seconds reverted back to a state before he gained them. And the wrongness that emanated from him afterwards was so thick, so pervasive, that everyone watching — Solarius, and the Transcendents — had deep frowns of fear on their faces. This wasn’t time being rewound. It wasn’t even a healing spell, nor was it a declaration of any kind... This was Finn forcing a glitch upon the world. That had always been known. But it had never been felt as deeply wrongly as it was now. Finn was a literal virus. Solarius had a sombre look on his face. One tinged with apprehension. "You—" he started. But Finn’s climbing aura shut him up instantly. The divine pressure that had been weighing down on everyone suddenly had competition. Finn’s presence expanded outward, and without Deacon’s translation field, without any need for words, everyone in the square perfectly understood what they were in the presence of. The believers of the Guardian fell to their knees from the instinctive recognition that they were witnessing something unprecedented. Something that shouldn’t exist, but did anyway. The Radiant One’s priests and warriors stumbled backward, fear naked on their faces. This was an impossible development. The aura emanating from Finn had gone beyond what just anyone, even if they were an incarnation, should be able to release. Even the other Transcendents felt it. Thalia’s Order was recoiling from the sheer conceptual wrongness of what Finn had just become. Himothy’s Glory had immediately recognized Finn as an extremely dangerous competitor, one that would provide him a ton of Glory if he were to conquer. The man forced a grin of challenge on his face despite the oppression Finn leaked wantonly. Deacon’s Truth could see... well, whatever truth there was to see in this moment. But Finn’s attention was on Solarius. The Champion stood frozen, his serene expression finally cracked. There was fear in his eyes, but it wasn’t just fear. There was also recognition, respect, understanding that the parameters had shifted dramatically. The mask’s eye sockets glowed with green light as Finn stared at Solarius. He didn’t speak. Because he didn’t need to. The divine essence burned through him, no longer foreign, no longer Garuda’s. Transformed into something new. Something that had never existed before in any pantheon, any theology, any structured religion. Finn didn’t know how gods were ranked in this world or where the Radiant One stood in whatever hierarchy governed divine power here. But Garuda had been Rank II. That much he’d known from his Soul Register back when he had access to it. And in that innate understanding the register had provided, he’d known there was only one rank above Rank II, and two more below it. The 0.27% of that Rank II essence — stolen, dormant, now fully attuned to Error — had ensured this drastic transformation. Perhaps that was the defining factor in the terror he saw reflected in every face around him. Solarius raised his sword of light, divine authority flaring around him like a corona. "Radiant One empower me—" [Frame Skip] Finn moved. The spell, powered by divinity instead of mana, launched him sixteen steps this time. Quadruple the usual range. And the afterimages he left behind were more solid, more real, lingering for seconds instead of microseconds. He appeared behind Solarius, already casting [Invalid]. The divine blessing protecting the Champion’s back — some passive ward Finn had sensed throughout the fight — simply failed. It stopped working, as if it had never existed. Finn’s fist, wreathed in inverted kinetic force amplified by divine power, slammed into Solarius’s spine. The Champion flew forward, crashing through the remains of a market stall, wood splintering around him. Finn didn’t pursue immediately. Instead, he flexed his fingers, analyzing the sensation. No mental strain at all. The cap that mana had imposed on his Error magic, the brutal cost of each spell, the careful rationing of mental strength, the agonizing feedback from sustained use, was gone. Divine essence didn’t deplete the same way. It was a different resource entirely. Vast. And for these first experimental moments, abundant enough to burn freely. Solarius rose from the wreckage, wiping off blood from the corner of his mouth. His serene expression had evaporated entirely. Now there was only calculation, fear, and grim determination. "Solar Declaration: Radiant Judgment." Light gathered above Solarius, condensing into a pillar of pure destruction that began descending toward Finn. It looked somewhat slow, but it didn’t need to be fast anyway. It was the kind of spell that didn’t need speed because its target couldn’t escape. Finn activated Error Vision. And unlike the painful, three-second version he could maintain with mana, or the 10-15% glimpse he’d trained himself to use passively, this was full throttle. And it was effortless. The world exploded into threads of possibility. Solarius had seventeen different near-certain follow-up attacks depending on how Finn reacted. The pillar of light had forty-three points of structural weakness where Error could unravel it. The ground beneath Finn’s feet had six optimal positions for leverage. The air currents suggested three escape vectors that Solarius hadn’t accounted for. And Finn could see all of it. Process all of it. Act on all of it without the agony that had always accompanied this level of perception. His passive Error Vision now operated at roughly 60% of what used to require full concentration and leave him bleeding from the eyes. And if he needed more? He could push to 100% and sustain it for... he wasn’t sure. Minutes, maybe. Hours? He didn’t need to find out yet. 60% was more than enough. He looked towards the pillar of light descending towards him from the sky. [Invalid]