Chapter 170: Whetstone Finn touched the pillar’s core logic — the divine certainty that said "this attack will hit its target" — and simply negated it. The pillar dissolved mid-descent, scattering its light harmlessly. Solarius’s eyes widened. That spell should have been absolute. Backed by divine authority, woven with his God’s blessing, impossible to dismiss so simply. But Error didn’t care about "should haves." Finn frame skipped forward, closing distance in a glitching burst that left seven afterimages. He was testing now. Experimenting. Seeing what divine-powered Error could do that mana-limited Error couldn’t. He activated [Corrupt Input] while moving, flooding Solarius’s divine perception with false data. Then layered [Invalid] on top of it, making the Champion’s defensive wards forget they were supposed to activate. Then [Reversion] on his own momentum, causing his approach to become non-linear and unpredictable as he came to an unnaturally abrupt halt. Three spells. Simultaneously chained together in a combination that would have left him unconscious or dead from the sheer mental strain before. Finn’s fist caught Solarius in the jaw, inverted force fueled by divine power. The Champion’s head snapped back and he shot backwards like a broken doll. "You’re strong..." Finn said, then moved. He gave Solarius no reprieve, frame skipping forward again, appearing where the Champion would land, already positioning for the next strike. "...But you’re limited." His palm struck Solarius’s chest as the Champion fell toward him. He layered [Invalid] into the attack, rendering the divine protections woven into Solarius’s flesh useless. ​Ribs cracked as Solarius hit the ground hard. Yet, the Champion pushed on with raw willpower. He dropped into a roll and came up in one quick motion, readying himself for the next attack even as blood leaked from his mouth and nose. "I was limited too," Finn continued, striding forward calmly. "By mana. By mind-strain. By the pain that came from using my power at full capacity..." Solarius tried to create distance, forming wings of light that lifted him into the air. [Invalid] Finn raised a hand and pulled down, forcing Solarius to the ground like stone. His wings of light forgot they were supposed to generate lift. "But divinity is different," Finn said, clenching and unclenching his fists with intrigue in his eyes. "It doesn’t burn or constrain the same way." A curious look crossed his eyes, a thought that made him raise his hand again, and this time try to create something new. Not his mana-learned spells, but one born purely out of divine essence. His will shaped the divine essence. His concept gave it nature. And immediately, the air between Finn and Solarius began to display visual artifacts — corrupted pixels, frame tears, rendering errors that belonged in broken computer graphics, not physical reality. The glitch-field expanded, and everything it touched stopped working correctly. Solarius’s divine authority stuttered. His God’s blessings tried to activate, failed, tried again, failed again, caught in an error loop. His sword of light flickered in and out of existence, unable to maintain coherent form. His body moved forward but arrived backward, momentum inverted at a conceptual level. "This is what I can do," Finn said, watching the Champion struggle against divine Error made manifest. "When the limitations are removed." Solarius screamed in frustration and desperation. "Solar Declaration: Cleansing Radiance!" Another pillar of light descended. Then another. Then five more. The Champion was going all-out now, no longer conserving power, no longer fighting tactically. He threw all caution to the wind and began attacking with everything he had in hopes that something would overwhelm Finn’s defenses. The pillars of light were massive. Each one capable of erasing a city block. Seven of them falling simultaneously, each targeting different positions to prevent escape. If not for Finn, the town would have become a crater. [Invalid]. [Invalid]. [Invalid]. Three pillars dissolved instantly, their divine certainty negated. [Corrupt Input] layered with [Reversion] on the fourth, causing it to hit where Finn had been twelve seconds ago, which was nowhere near his current position. The fifth and sixth pillars he simply frame skipped between, letting them strike empty ground. The seventh one — the one aimed at the huddled Guardian believers — Finn stretched forth his hand, and caught. He reached out with Error-touched divinity and grabbed the descending pillar of light as if it were a physical object. The divine radiance burned against his palm, trying to unmake him, but his Error was stronger. More fundamental. He inverted it. The pillar of destructive light became a pillar of darkness. The conceptual opposite of what Solarius had created. Finn hurled it back at the Champion. Solarius barely dodged. The inverted pillar grazed his shoulder, leaving a glitching wound. For a short second, the affected area became temporarily non-existent. Then it snapped back into corporeal existence a moment later, but not in the right way. The bones were on the outside of the muscle. The skin was inside-out. Solarius screamed in agony, clutching his ruined shoulder... But he could bear it. His body was even trying to heal before Finn’s eyes, though it was failing miserably. And when Finn saw this... When he noticed Solarius could actually take his attack, he realized he was smiling behind his mask. This was what he’d needed. Not just victory. He could win the fight anytime he wanted now. But understanding. Testing. Learning what divine Error could actually do when given free rein. Solarius was the perfect whetstone. Strong enough to not break immediately. Powerful enough to force Finn to experiment. Experienced enough to show him the limits and possibilities. "Thank you," Finn said, and meant it. He stopped holding back. Divine Error flooded outward in a wave. Within a twenty-foot radius of Finn, physics became optional. Gravity suggested down but didn’t insist. Light moved in curves because straight lines were boring. Sound arrived before it was made. Cause and effect developed a casual relationship instead of a strict one. Solarius stumbled into this field, and his body immediately started malfunctioning. His legs moved forward but his torso went sideways. His sword arm tried to swing but the blade arrived three seconds before the swing started. His divine authority attempted to assert itself but got caught in a logic loop where it was simultaneously active and inactive. The Champion fell to his knees because his knees couldn’t agree with his brain about which direction "down" was. "You demon... Y—You’re using me—" Solarius gasped, understanding dawning through the pain and disorientation. "—As practice..." "Yes," Finn confirmed. No point in lying. "You’re strong enough to survive experimentation. Weak enough that I can control the damage. Perfect for learning." Humiliation joined the pain in Solarius’s expression. The Champion of the Radiant One, reduced to a training dummy for a newborn divine. But he kept fighting. Not because he thought he could win. Finn could see calculation forming in the Champion’s eyes. He had already accepted his defeat and the overwhelming power difference. But he still kept fighting because he was waiting. Building toward something. Some final gambit that required preparation, required the right moment. Finn saw it clearly with Error Vision. The threads of possibility converging. The divine essence within Solarius shifting, preparing for something that wasn’t an attack. A summoning? No. More than that. A channel. Finn’s eyes narrowed behind his glowing mask. The Radiant One’s priests, watching their Champion being systematically dismantled, broken by indignation and faith, began charging forward. "For the Radiant One!" one screamed with light building around his body. "Witness our sacrifice!" another shouted as his meagre divine power condensed into destructive self-explosion. They were going to die. All of them knew it. But the humiliation of watching their Champion used as a whetstone overwhelmed their survival instinct. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖 Seven priests charged at Finn simultaneously, each one preparing to detonate their divine essence in a suicide attack. Finn didn’t even look at them directly. [Invalid] × 7.