One month earlier, in the eastern region, a triumphant Osculi Iudæ departed his audience with the Queen of Sodom, a rare, unburdened smile on his face. The signed unification treaty felt like a physical warmth in his hand. He climbed the creaking stairs of his modest inn, the promise of a united L'uminix making his steps light.
In the quiet of his room, he carefully removed his Paladixtus armor, the scars mapping his torso a testament to his brutal redemption. He picked up the treaty, his voice a hushed, fervent vow. "Finally. I will prove to them all that her faith in me was not misplaced."
A soft, sinister laugh coiled from the shadows, a sound that seemed to poison the very air. "And what if the one you worship," a voice murmured, dripping with condescending amusement, "is the very monster you've all been fighting?"
Osculi Iudæ moved with the speed of a veteran warrior. His sword was in his hand in an instant, its blade gleaming in the low light as he faced the empty room. "Who dares? Show yourself!"
The room erupted. A maelstrom of pure darkness tore through the space, a pressure so immense it forced him to his knees, his sword clattering to the floor as he shielded his eyes. As the vortex vanished, a figure stood in its wake—an old man whose presence radiated an age and power that made the air hum. The Eldest Elder.
"W-who are you?" Osculi Iudæ choked out, scrambling for his blade.
"Titles are fleeting things," the Elder replied, his voice a deep resonance that seemed to vibrate in Osculi's bones. "I have been called the First. The Progenitor. To your kind, I am what you would call a Deity."
"A deity... here? Lies," Osculi Iudæ breathed, his mind reeling.
In a motion too fast to perceive, the Elder was before him. A single, cold finger touched his forehead.
Osculi Iudæ's mind was flooded with a vision of Eden—a paradise of impossible beauty, of Entities whose mere presence was a symphony of light and grace. The sheer, overwhelming majesty of it was a physical blow.
When the Elder withdrew, Osculi Iudæ collapsed, gasping, the ghost of that celestial wonder leaving him shattered and disoriented on the floor. He clawed his way up, using his sword as a crutch, his body trembling but his spirit still defiant. "I don't... I don't care what you are. I will not listen to your lies about her."
"Lies?" The Eldest Elder's smile was a thin, cruel line. "Your loyalty is commendable. And like all commendable things, it makes your fall so much more devastating."
He raised his hand, not to strike, but to present. The air between them shimmered.
"Let us dispense with words. See for yourself the glorious truth of your savior."
The vision did not appear. It consumed.
Osculi tried to turn away, but the world folded in on itself, pulling him under.
---
The night was young—two years after the Great Resurrection. A fragile peace was taking root, the kind that trembled at every breeze.
In a small, struggling hamlet, a young Osculi worked beside his mother, helping her pack their stall as dusk draped its calm across the square.
"Come, Osculi," his mother called, her voice a melody woven from love and exhaustion. "Your father will be home soon. We must have supper ready."
"Yes, Mother," he answered, hurrying to gather the fruit baskets. An apple slipped from his hand and rolled beneath the table. He bent to retrieve it—
—and his fingers brushed the scuffed leather of a boot.
He looked up.
A grinning brute loomed above him. "Get him, boys!" the man barked.
From the alley shadows, more figures poured in. Laughter turned to screams as chaos swallowed the market. Stalls splintered. Flames leapt. The night filled with pleading voices.
But what seared itself deepest into Osculi's memory—worse than the blood or the fear—was the figure in the sky.
There she was.
Ezmelral's lookalike.
Hovering above the terror, white robes bright against the twilight, she seemed an angel descending upon the damned. Hope flared in his chest—his mother's prayers answered at last.
Yet she only watched.
Her gaze lingered over the burning hamlet, cool and unreadable. Then, with a faint shift of air, she turned and flew away.
The screams continued long after her light had vanished.
"No…" the present Osculi whispered inside the vision, his voice breaking, the memory's pain as sharp as the day it was forged. "It can't be…"
---
The scene dissolved, then reformed—
hurling him forward in time.
Now he was a prisoner. The years had turned those same bandits into an army, their cruelty refined into a system.
A whip cracked across his back.
The pain burned white, but he did not cry out. Brick by brick, he lifted and stacked, his body shaking under the weight of labor and hatred.
And there she was again.
A pale silhouette above the camp—the same white robes, the same stillness. Her eyes swept over the suffering below, cataloguing it like numbers on a ledger.
She did not move. Did not speak. Did not save.
Then, just as before, she turned and disappeared into the clouds.
That final, deliberate retreat broke something that pain alone could not.
The last thread of faith snapped, and in its place, a hollow certainty took root—
the gods do not answer.
He was alone.
---
A year later, the bandits had festered into something far worse. Warped by the spreading tide of corruption, they became warlords—and from their ranks, a new horror was born: a PraLumunix Overlord, its very presence a blight upon the land.
Osculi Iudæ watched his past self—thin, broken, suspended in the Heartmash's fetid air. His corruption meter crept toward a horrifying 89%. His eyes were vacant, his soul moments away from dissolution.
Then, a miracle.
A pure breeze cut through the rot. The air cleared, the filth receded, and his bound body descended slowly to the ground. Around him, other southerners—hollow, half-lost—were also lowered, the illusion fading from their glassy eyes.
He blinked through the haze.
Below stood a woman in white, flanked by two Paladixtus warriors.
"You are free," one said, extending a hand.
Osculi's dazed gaze swept the cavern. The PraLumunix, their commanders, even the Overlord itself were being dragged screaming into the earth by colossal roots, swallowed whole as the ground sealed shut like a healing wound.
He turned toward the white-robed figure, his voice raw and trembling.
"Did you… save me?"
A silent nod.
Overcome, he stumbled forward, collapsing to his knees before her. "Please," he begged, "teach me to fight."
She studied him—unflinching, detached. Her gaze was not cruel, but clinical, as if measuring the balance between risk and necessity. After a moment, she gave a small nod to one of her subordinates.
Then she ascended, her blade flashing once. A single, perfect arc of silver carved through the Heartmash's wall, opening it to the light beyond. As daylight poured in, the freed captives erupted in tears and praise.
Osculi wept with them.
He thought he had witnessed the hand of salvation.
---
The vision quickened.
He saw himself older—stronger, battle-scarred—enduring the brutal initiation of the Paladixtus. His instructors were merciless, their discipline sharpened by whispers of the "tainted recruit." He felt every stare, every cold shoulder, every unspoken question. Why him?
He turned scorn into purpose. Every insult was another weight he learned to lift. And through it all, her presence haunted him—Ezmelral's lookalike gliding through the halls, her gaze passing over him like the shadow of judgment itself.
Years later, he stood at last in the sacred hall reserved for the Consilium Disciplinae. The air was still, scented with aged stone and sanctity. He knelt before her, head bowed.
The ceremony was not long, but every moment was etched into his soul. The cold, flat touch of her sword on his shoulder. The weight of the words as he recited the Ten Disciplines, his voice the only sound in the hall, each principle a vow that reforged his very identity.
When the final echo of his vow faded, a profound silence returned. He remained on his knees, the formalities complete, but the true purpose of this moment now pressed upon him. He had earned his place, but he needed the answer to the question that had burned in him since the day she saved him—the question that was the foundation of the temple of his devotion.
"Why me? Why did you take me in?"
Her reply was calm, measured—
—and in hindsight, merciless.
"To combat a weed, you must pull it from the root.
To end prejudice, you must prove its foundation false."
Only then did he understand.
He was her experiment.
The Paladixtus was filled with the pure, those who saw corruption as an absolute evil. And she—believing in redemption—had brought him, the most tainted, into their inner circle. To prove that a fallen soul could rise again.
Tears welled in his eyes. "I will not let your faith be misplaced," he vowed.
She gave a silent nod of acknowledgment, then turned and left him alone in the sanctum—
the redeemed sinner, the proof of her philosophy,
and the unwitting instrument of her ruin.