The morning air was colder than it should have been. It hung like a veil over the meadow where blood had dried into the soil. The crows hadn't come yet, but their silence was a promise.
Daniel awoke to the sound of hooves cracking against dirt. His body was wrapped in cloth—coarse, but warm. Every muscle in his torso screamed as he sat up, his vision spinning, head pounding like a war drum. Klav lay nearby, unconscious, breath steady but shallow.
The golden figure stood with his back to them, his sword planted in the earth like a grave marker. Saint Torren. The golden light of dawn glinted off his armor, but his presence felt like dusk.
He turned slowly. No smile. No warmth. Just a calmness that didn't belong in a man who had, hours earlier, severed another's head and silenced a noble's bloodline like it was routine.
"You're alive," Torren said, voice like polished steel: clean, sharp, without excess. "Good. I hate wasting efforts."
Daniel tried to speak, but his throat was dry and full of the metallic taste of pain. Torren kneeled before him, uncorked a flask, and pressed it to Daniel's lips.
"Drink. It'll dull the ache."
The liquid burned. Daniel coughed, wiped his mouth. "Where's… Daren? His father?"
Torren didn't blink: "Delivered. Judged. Concluded."
Daniel's stomach twisted. "You... killed his father?"
"No. I gave him the truth. Then he chose silence. It is the cleaner path." He stood, brushing dust from his armored knee. "A noble who allows his son to hunt the weak forfeits the privilege of speaking."
Daniel looked to Klav: pale, bruised, his lips cracked. "We need help. He—he's hurt."
Torren's eyes narrowed slightly. "Then walk."
He motioned for Daniel to follow as he began striding toward the distant hills. Hoofbeats followed: a single steed for Torren, walking at a disciplined pace beside him. Daniel half-carried, half-dragged Klav to his feet and followed, limping into the unknown.
They walked in silence. And in that silence, Daniel saw it: villages burned in the distance, a banner torn and trampled in the mud. Not by beasts. By men.
The Church of Light didn't just walk where darkness had been. It walked where order had failed—and made something else grow in its place.
Not mercy. Not hope. But judgment.
If Torren had already arrived, then it meant the Church of Light had been alerted to the corruption within the village. Someone had sent word. Someone with enough reach to matter. Which meant, Daniel reasoned with a faint smile, that Lord Vayren's days were numbered. Torren would complete his mission, arrest the noble, and by the end of this journey, justice would be delivered.
"It's strange," Torren said suddenly, his voice low, thoughtful. His golden armor shimmered under the pale light. Then he glanced at Daniel, expression unreadable: "My mission was to arrest Lord Vayren and bring him to the Church for trial. That was it. Simple. Clean. But then I saw you both—half-dead, bloodied, standing against D and C-rank mercenaries like cornered wolves. And you did not yield."
Daniel remained silent, steps steady, breath shallow.
Torren continued: "Your friend, Klav, has an unnatural volume of mana. To be honest, even I do not possess that much. And I am an S-rank under the Light's own banner." He paused for emphasis, his voice tightening: "But you, I couldn't sense anything from you. It was strange, like trying to detect sound in a vacuum. So I used a skill of mine, something I rarely rely on: the Eye of Divinity."
He stopped walking. The silence between them cracked like dry ice.
"What I saw," Torren said, turning fully to face Daniel, "was worse than I imagined. Your mana wasn't absent. It was buried. Chained. Wrapped in layers of curses—powerful ones. Ancient. Living. I've studied demonic seals, cursed bloodlines, and remnants of the Old Kingdom, but nothing like this. Even touching them through the Eye could have killed me if I wasn't careful."
Torren's golden gaze narrowed, sharper than a sword's edge: "So, tell me. Who are you? And why does a boy with no formal training and no aura to his name carry a lattice of death curses that could unravel a Grand Mage at SS-rank?"
Daniel met his eyes, calm despite the weight of the question. He had expected this. And still, it unnerved him.
"I'm just an ordinary human," Daniel replied, voice flat but composed. "Trying to live my life."
Torren stared for a moment longer. Then he turned away and resumed walking.
The silence between them resumed, but now it was heavier. Not hostile; just aware.
As the forest gave way to open fields, the peaks of a walled city emerged, solemn and cold in the afternoon light. The air shifted, cleaner and stiffer, scented faintly with incense and old stone. Towering walls rose from the earth like the ribs of a giant, each etched with divine scripture, faintly glowing with residual magic.
Atop those walls, pale banners fluttered in the wind, bearing the sigil of the Church of Light: a radiant sun pierced cleanly by a silver spear. The symbol was not a call to peace. It was a declaration of vigilance. The city beyond the gates was not meant for comfort. It was a place of judgment, austerity, and truth.
As they approached, the ground beneath them changed. Grass gave way to white cobblestone, each stone inscribed with a faded rune. Torren walked calmly, as if he had tread this path many times, while Daniel's eyes traced the carvings. Every few meters stood a stone statue of saints past, figures cloaked in light, with blindfolds over their eyes and swords in their hands.
A soft toll of bells rang from somewhere beyond the gates, solemn and slow, not welcoming, but warning. The gates themselves opened without touch. A whisper of divine force parted them, revealing a corridor lined with clerics in robes of white and gray, heads bowed as Torren passed. None looked at Daniel.
They walked in silence through the passage, deeper into the ward. The walls here shimmered faintly with divine wards, layers upon layers of magical script buried under centuries of reinforcement. The deeper they went, the heavier the air grew. It clung to Daniel's skin, not with heat or cold, but with pressure—judgmental, ancient, aware.
At last, Torren stopped at a bridge that overlooked the inner sanctum: a cathedral built of marble and glass, its windows burning faintly with golden light even though no sun shone directly upon it.
Torren turned to Daniel, and for a long moment, simply looked at him. His eyes glinted not with suspicion, nor accusation, but interest. Thoughtful, sharp, curious.
"You intrigue me," Torren said, smiling, not with warmth, but with precision. "I do not know what you are, but whatever has bound your soul did not come from this world. The Light does not fear you. And neither do I."
He paused, then added, more quietly, "I look forward to finding out what you truly are."