Adel's eyes were bloodshot, his entire body haggard and trembling with anxiety. He couldn't sit still, couldn't think straight.
Trying not to raise suspicion, he had forced himself to keep working at the lumberyard a few days ago. But in a daze, he brought an axe down on his own foot—severing two of his toes.
The injury had earned him some rest at home, but the more free time he had, the more he spiraled into dark, obsessive thoughts.
He gnawed at his fingers like a madman, tearing the skin until blood splattered across his face—yet he still couldn't stop. His mind was spinning.
Who was that man?
Why did he come to me?
Why did he take my notes?
How did he know I went to the chapel?
What is he planning to do to me?
Was what he said about hiding abnormalities true?
Why hasn't he come back yet?
Too many questions swarmed Adel's mind, dragging him deeper into an abyss of dread and paranoia.
Then—knock, knock.
The moment the knock echoed through the wooden walls, a jolt of something indescribable pierced Adel's thoughts, shattering his mental loop. His brain blanked out completely.
He wasn't even sure how he got to the door. The world around him blurred into a haze. He vaguely remembered hurling himself forward—and then pain exploded in his foot, sending him tumbling.
When his thoughts returned, he found himself lying on the ground outside his home. Sitting calmly in a chair, looking down at him from above, was the masked man in the robes of a church brother.
A faint smile curled under Adam's mask. The usual warmth in his presence had twisted into something else entirely—something suffocating, oppressive.
Everything had gone better than expected. Adam had already picked up on a key detail the moment he reached the door—Adel was injured.
There was a strong metallic stench drifting from inside the house. But it wasn't the scent of fresh blood—it was older, foul, like blood rotting in a corpse. Dead blood. Worse still, there were discarded bandages tossed carelessly by the door.
So Adam had taken several steps back before knocking, staying out of direct reach. The second Adel lunged out, Adam was ready—his senses fully attuned, his reflexes sharp. He dodged effortlessly and drove his foot straight into Adel's injured toes.
Adel's desperate attack wasn't even an attack—it was a pitiful sacrifice.
"Looks like the mind games worked perfectly," Adam mused to himself, still smiling beneath the mask. It didn't matter how powerful someone was—without a stable mind, that power was worthless. If the will collapsed, the body was just a shell waiting to be claimed.
He looked down at Adel, now a crumpled mess at his feet. Adam knew, without a doubt—this blood thrall was his now.
Adel struggled to his feet, only to freeze when the man spoke in a raspy voice:
"You may call me Naether. Naether Riggs."
That was Adam's true name in this world. And the moment he spoke it aloud, his presence surged—as if the name carried weight, power, a history too vast to be ignored.
By speaking first, Adam had also thrown Adel a lifeline—giving him a way to steady himself, to play along, to fall further into his control.
"Adel Lien... Is there something you need of me, Mr. Riggs?" Adel mumbled as he stood, his eyes locking with Adam's calm gaze. Without realizing it, his back hunched in submission. His entire posture shrank, making himself small.
This was his house—yet somehow, it felt like Adam's domain now.
"There is something, actually," Adam replied casually, not even looking at Adel. His gaze wandered lazily around the wooden cabin, as if inspecting it for the first time.
Eventually, his eyes settled on a worn copy of Divine Word lying nearby.
"Mr. Riggs, I didn't mean to— I thought you were..." Adel stammered, eyes flickering toward the robe. His head lowered slightly.
"A church brother?" Adam said, chuckling softly. "I was, once."
He brushed a hand along the fabric of his robe, his voice colored with a strange emotion—as if recalling a life he had truly lived.
That made Adel's head drop even lower. He stood trembling in front of Adam, hunched even further.
Almost no church allowed for formal resignation. To join was to surrender your life: in life, you were of the church; in death, your soul belonged to it.
But churches weren't immune to internal conflict. Some grew disillusioned and chose to abandon the faith. And those who left—were labeled heretics. Traitors.
Even non-human species could be tolerated by the church. But a defector? That was an unforgivable blasphemy. The church would stop at nothing to track them down and destroy them.
The fact that Adam still wore the robe meant something. He wanted that implication. Adel had traveled—he understood what it meant to be a rogue cleric and still be alive.
Combined with the psychological torment he'd already suffered, this was enough to completely break Adel's resistance.
Adam stood slowly, and Adel flinched—instinctively stepping back.
"Relax," Adam said, his tone mocking yet calm. "If I meant to kill you, you'd be dead already. I still have a use for you."
He picked up the Divine Word, flipping directly to a specific passage:
"The wheat withers, the fruit is filled with worms, the cattle die by the herd.
The Second Son has seen suffering—and now fears his father's shepherd's rod.
Fear unmasks the sinner.
What was once hidden is now exposed—ugliness unveiled, unable to be hidden again.
'Second Son,' whispered the shadow-dwelling demon beside his ear,
'There is a lake, hidden in the heart of prosperity. Its waters shimmer like a mirror.
Look into it—and your ugliness shall be veiled.'"
— Divine Word, Era of Revelation
Adel had no idea why Adam recited that passage. But Adam sat down again, as if delivering a sermon, his voice low and deliberate:
"Even those beasts who defied the gods... When they died, the gods wept for them."
"That was divine mercy. And some say, the beasts' salvation."
"In the face of divine radiance, the beasts—about to turn to ash—could rise again... if they caught even a single tear."
Adam's voice took on a strange edge, somewhere between reverence and contempt.
"Too bad, by then, most of them were already gone. Those that remained had lost their bodies—hiding in darkness, terrified of the light."
He paused.
"So tell me... What do you think that demon really was? And what was that lake he tempted the Second Son to find?"
In this world, the gods written about in Divine Word had once truly existed. No one knew if they created the world—but many of their deeds were real.
And Adam, it seemed, intended to make those myths part of something far more dangerous.