Chapter 807: Chapter 808: Self Determination It was arrogant but Damon had always been arrogant. He was not religious. Why would he be? God did not care about them. Religion was just an opium fed to the foolish. They would accept the injustice of the world. It was a tool used to control the masses. The goddess did exist but sadly she was indifferent. Everyone liked to believe their religion was right. Their God was kind and wanted the best for them. They believed the teachings that they may or may not even understand, written by some long dead people who shaped agendas and interpretations that served their own views and vices. But was it really true? People were born into their religion. You did not know if it was right or wrong. You had simply been indoctrinated. It was correct because your father practiced it. Your mother taught you it was correct. Their predecessors had done so for thousands of years. And so faith became a reason to kill others who had a different indoctrination. Even then humans could not do without faith. God must exist. If not, then why did humans need faith? Why were we at peace when we believed our joys and woes were in the hands of forces far beyond our control and comprehension. It was an intentional biological design. Faith was tied into the very concept of being human because God became a known thing that eliminated the fear of the unknown. Damon chose to walk into the darkness. His words echoed behind him toward the hollow saint who continued to kneel. "How pathetic to kneel to something man has carved from stone." Faith was a mysterious thing. It was a belief without proof. Then if religion was faith, was God even real or were humans simply praying to themselves, building meanings where none existed. Damon did not lack faith. If that was what defined it. He simply lacked faith in the goodness of gods. He stepped deeper into the darkness. Killing the hollow saint crossed his mind, the instinct still lingering from the trial of sin, but Damon dismissed it. There was no point in needless slaughter. They were all trapped in this place. When Damon entered the darkness, Lazarak followed, and Matia moved silently behind them. The darkness swallowed them whole. Damon could not see nor hear anything. Up was dark. Down was dark. Left and right were the same. Only his own breathing told him he still existed. "So this is the obstacle keeping us from leaving." His voice bounced back at him in hollow echoes as if he spoke in a vast empty chamber. "Lazarak, what do you..." He stopped. Lazarak was gone. Matia too. The god of darkness had vanished along with her. Damon exhaled slowly, steadying himself. He knew it would not be that easy. Still he moved forward. If there was an end to this place he would find it. He walked. Then walked more. Time slipped away. His head throbbed. His thoughts grew heavy. Doubts crawled through his mind. He had walked in a straight line for what felt like hours and hours. He hoped Lazarak and Matia were somewhere behind him, but the absolute silence and endless void gnawed at him. The terrain never changed. The same flat, barren nothing. The same smothering black that devoured all sense of depth or direction. He thought of going back. He crushed the thought at once. He grit his teeth and unfurled the wings of the Mirror Seraph. The glass feathers shimmered faintly against the void. Flying was risky. Something could strike him down. Yet he needed to confirm at least one direction. Up. He leaped and soared through the void. The wings beat soundlessly. No wind touched him. No resistance or change. He rose higher and higher and still the world remained exactly the same. There was no end to this darkness. He could fly forever. "I need to go back." As soon as he said this, his eyes caught something. A light far ahead. His heart jolted with a surge of hope. He snapped his wings wide and rocketed toward it. In mere seconds he broke through the void and landed at its source. He froze when he saw where he was. Lazarak stood with his arms crossed, Matia silent beside him. The hollow saint still knelt praying before the statue of the goddess. Nothing had changed. Lazarak smiled slightly. "Welcome back. You’ve been gone for a month." Damon narrowed his eyes. He landed beside Lazarak, studying the untouched scene. "A month. I’ve been gone that long huh." "It seems this trial is a bit tricky." Lazarak’s tone was calm but wary. The hollow saint did not move. His voice floated softly from his kneeling position. "You spent a whole month wandering aimlessly. If you had joined me in prayer the goddess would have answered us by now." Damon frowned. Something was wrong. He turned toward the darkness again. "This darkness is like faith. It is endless. Without faith you are lost. But with faith we become like the hollow saint. We become stagnant, relying on the divine to solve problems we can fix ourselves." He looked at Matia and opened his palm. She immediately understood. Frost gathered around her hands and she shaped a massive axe of ice, placing it firmly into Damon’s grip. Damon hefted it, feeling its weight. He walked toward the hollow saint. Footsteps echoed through the chamber. The saint did not flinch though he clearly sensed Damon’s approach. Even with a massive axe drawn, he didn’t move. He lifted his face slightly. A serene, relieved expression crossed it. "At last. My time has come." He embraced the possibility of death without fear. Damon raised the axe. Muscles tightened. Frost glittered across the blade. He swung downward with full force. But the axe was not aimed at the saint. With a shattering crack, the blade smashed into the statue of the goddess, splitting it apart. Light erupted from the broken stone, flooding the world, tearing apart the darkness. "Faith is important. But it must never be blind. And we must never be slaves to it." The trial was not about defying a god. It was about accepting that gods existed yet choosing your own power, your own direction, your own life. That was the key to the first trial and last trial.