"You must be from one of those... lesser provinces."
Damien looked up to find himself staring at a boy who resembled a wax doll left out in the sun, melting and deforming its own figure, leaving behind only a glossy exterior that resonated with the sweat he was draped in. Despite a rather tall and slim build, the glamorous amount of clothes he was embroidered in were likely the reason behind the boy's miserable appearance. Damien remembered him being from the House of Virellian, and there was a reason he remembered that name. Even then, he noticed the noble youth being surrounded by a group of boys tirelessly fanning him with crested paper fans. By the looks of it, not much had changed as they stood besides him following the same orders still, as if warding off the slightest discomfort was a matter of royal decree
"If that's what our noble highness chooses to refer to our humble abode as," Damien said, voice level and dry, an awkward smile sewed onto his face, "then yes. I am indeed."
"Ahah, sarcasm at every step. Typical peasant pride." He replied as another drop of sweat formed near his temple.
"Well, that 'peasant pride' is after all what got me to the same stage in life as you. Aren't we both taking the same exam—"
He turned around in disgust.
"Please, have the kindness in your heart to never compare us again. I, the great Maximilian Vireillian, had half a mind to extend to you the honor of serving among my personal retinue. It would have done you better than to face the embarrassment of your inevitable failure here."
He walked away in perfect synchronisation with his lackeys. Damien was amused, but he didn't take his words lightly. The animosity coming from within the doors of that chamber was indeed unknown to even him.
The round arena stood solemn, ceremoniously placed in the center of the capital's most ancient sanctum. Nine great chamber doors, each carved into the surrounding marble wall like celestial vaults, formed a perfect circle around the open floor. Glyphs spiraled around their edges, painting intricate images of wings about to take flight and trumpets locked in eternal blast. The most prominent feature, however, were the eyes, countless eyes, all positioned in a way that echoed the divine hymns of heaven.
'Holy.'
'Holy.'
'Holy.'
Thrones towered highest, etched across the very topmost glyphs like unreachable stars in a winter night shimmering in the eyes of curious children. Dominions and Powers followed downward in perfect spirals.
Upon a quick glance across the arena's rim, sealed behind layers of silence and negligence from the light of the afternoon sun, Damien noticed a few unused chambers. Equal in number to the noble entrances he stood in front of, yet noticeably old, dark, and cold in comparison. Imperial wounds fractured their entrance and inquiring about them felt prohibited.
Other than that, five star shaped murals also stood out ominously. One facing south, another two up North and one each on the Western and Eastern corners.
He also noticed Seraphiel, stood silent before the first chamber. In his right eye blazed a symbol unlike any other: an intricate lattice of radiant letters, spiralling onto each other like prayers being uttered in a holy sermon. It didn't just shine, but commanded the light, as though all illumination bowed inward toward that single divine geometry. Coiled by these angelic scriptures, a turquoise eye sat in the center, flickering like seawater caught between storm and sunlight. Whereas other students bore glyphs that shimmered faintly in their irises, his looked every bit alive. It was a primal glyph. To Damien who's only ever read about them in books and legends, it was a pattern he knew existed nowhere else. A truly unique marble of Genesis, a creation forged for someone special.
Inside the chamber, the faint light peeking through the entrance made way for a corridor stretching far too long, forged from glass-like stone that shimmered with every step. Walls murmured quietly, like cathedral bells ringing just below the surface. Damien knew that this was no ordinary place. Like a sanctuary suspended in divine thought, it felt like a memory of some forgotten cathedral painted into reality by Solence itself.
A voice, clear and without body, resonated from within that corridor. After a while, it became clear what it was trying to sound out.
"Oh my, are you perhaps the child of two tongues?"
Following his steps coming to a halt, the voice continued;
"You know, I have been waiting for you for some time, actually."
Trying to regain his otherwise confident posture, Damien asks her who she is. Without much care for the boy's inquiry, she asks,
"Tell me, which way does your heart truly lie?"
Damien's breath caught.
"I serve the Kingdom. For the future that is to come, whether invited or not."
At his words, the watching statues patiently arranged across the hallway closed their eyes, and their gems that served as pupils dimmed.
"Spoken with caution," the voice said.
"But threat not. The gaze of the administrators cannot pierce the length of this corridor. This is a sanctum sealed from imperial gaze. Speak freely, for your glyph and the truth it reveals will live and die by my will."
Damien lowered his hood. The Sanctiglyph of Veiled Light shimmered openly now, casting ripples of silver light behind him.
"You already know my truth. So I suppose trusting you is my only choice."
A pause, then a soft hum.
"An angel sees more than you let on. The second glyph… the one tucked in your eye. The one that stirs when you dream."
His jaw tensed. She was speaking of the Witherglyph. He asked,
"How far can this mortal seek to know when compared to the prying eyes of an angel?"
"You walk a dangerous convergence," the angel said gently. "One day, your allegiance must be declared. But that day is not today."
The light softened, awaiting a response from him.
"And when will the day I am tested come to fruition? What purpose do I serve?"
"Rest assured, boy! Your path is not like the Sainted One's, no need to be so tense!"
The angel, with a slightly hesitant tremble in her voice, whispered further,
"You will not bend the world by existing, but you may still shape it."
She paused, then asked, "The journey ahead will be tiring. Tell me, how far into the circles have you come?"
Damien blinked, followed by a sigh, as if to proclaim disappointment.
"I stand in the Third. But I've begun my push into the Fourth."
Unlike the Wither, Solence Circles were layered glyphic constructs that channel divine mana in ascending complexity, each higher circle unveiling a deeper law of celestial order.
"You sure are a quick learner to have mastered the fundamentals to such a degree."
"I accept your compliments with great humility."
Diving in her thought briefly, she asked cautiously,
"Curious. And the other…?"
He smiled faintly, evasively. "Should an angel ask questions the heavens will deem unholy?"
The sound went silent. He understood that she was indeed overstepping her purpose.
Damien crossed his arms. "Tell me," he said, voice casual, "do angels ever get bored?"
There was a pause. A low hum of static rippled through the floor.
"Boredom is a mortal affliction," the angel answered, her voice layered, like the flow of water in a forgotten meadow.
He tilted his head.
"Must be fun, acting like you truly stand above these earthly laws while trapped inside a gilded cage."
For a moment, the air burned colder.
She replied, slower now, with the brittle weight of restraint: "Purpose is not confinement. I am bound to divinity."
"The same divinity that got you where you are now? Was this another one of your people's divine contracts? "
Silence.
Paying no mind to her stillness, he asks,
"Tell me, can an Angel die?"
The voice chuckled, ancient and musical.
"You sure have your queries, bearer of the twin-star. Alas, our little conversation must draw to a close here, for time awaits for no one. May fate permit us to cross paths once again, Damien."
The voice faded into the distance, leaving the boy rather amused and more curious than ever.
———————————————————————
The hallway gave way to a massive chamber shrouded in shadows and echo. Stained-glass stars flickered above, resembling constellations unknown. Damien stepped into that room, a cathedral without a ceiling. His boots resonated softly against the polished floor. Dozens of statues lined the walls yet again, winged and watchful, this time with their eyes wide open. Every now and then, he could feel their blinks, never at once, with someone always looking.
The grand chamber pulsed with stilled time, its air weighing down the silence with arrested motion. Faded light spilled from above, not from any star, but from flickering rings of glyphs sketched into the air itself.
Glowing circles with spiralled patterns and interconnected vectors appeared mid-air, symbols Damien recognised as summoning seals. A low, grinding clock noise resonated across the room, followed by a nauseating sound of metal grinding against bone.
Then it emerged.
A creature, hunched and malformed, with a body patchworked with broken timepieces. Old brass clock hands stuck from its joints like thorns. In its face was a warped clock, endlessly stuck at high noon, smiling a blood-crested grin. Two long, blade-like hands spun from its wrists-sundials forged in torment.
Damien recognised this infernal demon. A herald of Belphegor, it was a manifestation of the sin of Sloth.
The demon raised its crooked arms, and with a guttural laugh, etched a fractured sigil mid-air, clock hands spiraling wildly as corrupted wither surged outward in jagged waves. The glyph pulsed, warping the chamber's light and slowing time in bursts, as if reality itself was drowsing off. The dust flying through the flickers of light entering through the window outlooking an unpleasant dimension paused in its unfiltered chaos.
As the demon raised its arms again, it summoned another glyph, one meant to halt Damien's movement entirely.
In response, Damien narrowed his eyes. His palm glowed.
A first-circle glyph spun above him like a halo: the Circle of Revelation.
He let it hover, watching how it interacted with the glyphs etched onto the ceiling. Then, with a breath, a second circle ignited around the first, forming a radiant spiral—a greater understanding coalescing. Threads of Solence flowed into his vision, overwhelming him slightly but it was nothing unbearable for his trained mind.
He wasn't interested in just overpowering it.
He was going to cancel this very summoning.
Damien extended his hand, glyphs dancing in his iris.
"So time is your gimmick, is it?"
The air bent. As the demon's sigil neared completion, Damien analysed the weave, the counterflows of divine logic, and struck the unstable nexus at its center with his own glyph.
"Let's see you deal with this then."
With a shattering sound like glass and chimes collapsing, the demon's summoning failed.
The spell imploded in on itself, the glyph erased from existence mid-cast. It howled in a noise that bent time itself, but it was too late.
Damien stepped forward, another second circle blooming above his head, its rings spinning faster. With visible excitement in his face and a large grin making him resemble a demon in one's own regard, the boy's intentions burned with confidence. Chains of gold light erupted from the floor, wrapping around the creature's legs, then chest. He thrust both hands forward, releasing a concentrated beam of Solence from the circle itself. A transparent sphere formed around the monster now screaming in agony. Within seconds, everything stopped, as if time itself had ceased to pass inside that realm.
Taking the form of a flaming arrow, glowing with the divinity of Solence, a beam of gnosis pierced the demon's core, burning through his rusted gears and ancient fear.
The time-fiend collapsed, its body disassembling into broken fragments of memory and dust. The statues blinked, and the chamber shook.
Damien had passed the first trial of this examination.
But more importantly—he had cancelled a demon's magic, one from the second circle of hell; something few Exorcists at his level would dare attempt.
"Proceed," the walls spoke, the voice now only a whisper in the stone.
———————————————————————
Each step Damien took towards the next stage of his trials left him swallowed by breathless silence. There was no sign of life in this almost artificial ecosystem covered in moss and worn out grass peaking through concrete slabs. Ancient stones faded of their past, as if their history dared not linger too long. Faded prayers read like forgotten memoirs of the grand souls that left their mark here. Rows of light masqueraded the high arches above in the form of a pale, sourceless luminescence, pulsing with the rhythm of a distant, sleeping heart. The air was chilled and unmoving, tasting faintly of ash and old incense burned in secrecy.
The new arena was narrowed at the entrance but widened into a long, unending stretch of marbled floor upon pacing a few steps. Its pillars were painted with crystalised scriptures. From the ceiling hung hundreds of silver bells, displayed in the most fabulous latticework of unnerving beauty. The floor beneath his feet was a mosaic of sacred scripts and runic tongues, none of which mirrored another. The glyphs swirled in contradiction, each spell etched into stone the hushed madness of a hundred prophets, layered and layered until meaning and sense felt buried under needless complexity.
Once he looked further into that void of ritual glamour, he finally saw it.
Looming far above where the bells tolled, woven between the ceiling itself, hung a creature beyond mortal comprehension. Its limbs were impaled by wooden swords crafted from holy wood. From its chest protruded a rusted cruciform stake, anchoring it to the high floors like a marionette of divine punishment. Its eyes were shut close, yet Damien could feel its senses. It was aware of an intruder.
He froze. The weight of the monster's very presence pressed into his lungs. It was something far more terrifying than what he was capable of dealing with. To see a being like that, alive, breathing, tolerated, within a temple bearing Solence's name curdled something in his gut.
"Remember this Damien, nothing about them could ever be deemed holy."