Three nights later, London felt wrong.
Streetlights flickered like dying fireflies, and the air buzzed with a quiet charge. Each evening, the circle in David's chest pulsed harder—answering a whisper under the city's skin.
Curiosity won.
He followed that pulse through the drizzle until he reached an old church near the Thames—abandoned, ivy strangling its stone walls. Inside, dust drifted through moonlight. Beneath the cracked floor, something hummed.
He crouched, palm on cold stone.
| "Resonance… like an energy field," he muttered. "If this were fiction, they'd call it a ley-line."
The moment he said it, faint green light rippled through the floor.
Mana. Real. Flowing.
He stared, half horrified, half fascinated.
| "No way. This shouldn't exist. This—"
The church doors groaned open.
A figure stepped in, wrapped in a dark coat, hood low. His eyes glowed faint gold.
| "So it's true," the man said softly. "The Great Solomon walks again."
David straightened.
| "...Do I know you?"
The stranger gave a short, hollow laugh.
| "No. You were already legend when I was born."
| "Then maybe you've got the wrong guy," David said.
|"Impossible." The man's smile trembled between awe and bitterness. "I studied your circles. Your principles built our world. I became a mage because of you."
| "Congratulations," David muttered. "Now please stop glowing at me."
| "You don't understand," the man said quietly. "You were the reason I believed gods could exist."
| "And you're the reason I'm reconsidering it," David replied.
The air thickened. The hum became a roar. Golden runes crawled across the walls.
Every instinct screamed. David forced mana through his circle, qi through his lungs—fusion by necessity, not design.
Green and white light intertwined, tearing through the golden storm. Windows exploded; rain and glass scattered like sparks.
When the dust settled, the stranger still stood—smiling faintly.
| "You've truly forgotten me," he said. "Perhaps that's mercy."
| "Who are you?" David demanded.
| "Lucien," he answered simply. "The one who once believed in you."
Then he vanished into the rain.
David stood alone, chest heaving, the echo of power still rattling the pews.
| "Great," he muttered. "I'm broke, hallucinating, and apparently someone's religion."
He looked at his trembling hand, faint green veins glowing beneath the skin.
| "...Guess I'd better start training."
Outside, thunder rolled. Beneath the city, the ley-lines answered.