The silence that followed Chen's declaration was absolute, broken only by the distant, wet scraping of claws on stone and the low, guttural hisses of the creatures massing beyond the shimmering wall of light. It was the kind of silence that swallowed sound, thick with disbelief and the copper-tang of impending violence.
To be honest, any sane person would need a solid three seconds to process what they'd just heard.
A human male, standing in the corpse-dust of a fallen civilization, surrounded by a teeming horde of sexless, fear-born monstrosities, had just announced his intention to give them a child. The statement was so profoundly, universe-bendingly absurd that it seemed to warp the very air in the ruined chamber. It wasn't just audacious; it was a cognitive detonation, leaving psychic rubble in its wake.
Hunter's jaw was set so tight a muscle ticked in his cheek. Fiona's usually sharp, analytical eyes had gone wide and slightly unfocused, as if her brain had short-circuited trying to reconcile the words with reality. Misty simply stared, her expression unreadable behind her veil of quiet observation. Summer's fingers, which had been nocking another arrow, froze on the fletching.
The Entities' so-called Faith Game operated on a brutal, often paradoxical logic, but this… this felt like a glitch in the system. A bad joke told by a madman.
The *Kongmo*—the Fear-Demons—were not born of flesh and passion. They were the bitter fruit of a cosmic malignancy. Deep in the lightless strata between worlds grew the Dread-Mother Tree, its roots drinking from subterranean rivers of pure, undiluted terror siphoned from every plane of existence. That nourishing dread caused new branches to bud, grotesque and twitching. When they grew heavy and ripe with absorbed horror, they would detach and fall, writhing on the unseen ground until they took the form of a new demon—a walking, clawing embodiment of the fear that had birthed it. They were concepts given claws, nightmares with physical form. The idea of "giving" one a child was as meaningless as offering a thunderstorm a cup of tea.
In the stunned silence, it was Three who found his voice first, the young man's tone hesitant, probing a reality he feared had cracked.
"You're planning to… *heal* them?" he asked, the words sounding alien even to his own ears.
Chen snapped his fingers, the sharp *click* cutting through the heavy air. A grin spread across his face, too bright, too confident for their grim surroundings.
"Bingo. I'm going to cast a healing spell. One big enough to blanket this entire ruin. Every single Fear-Demon out there is going to feel my Patron's gaze. They're going to embrace… proliferation."
Nangong, her face pale as the ash settling around them, shook her head slowly. The initial shock was hardening into a cold, certain dread. The pressure of the horde, the fading light of their only defense, the sheer impossibility of their situation—it had broken him. It was the only explanation that made sense. A pity. He'd seemed clever, even kind in his own strange way. Not bad to look at, either. It was a shame his mind had shattered so quickly, so completely.
"It's not possible," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "No cleric's healing range could ever be that vast… It's a fundamental law of the Paths. Area of effect scales with power, and power has limits."
Chen didn't bother with a detailed rebuttal. His smile merely deepened, taking on a knowing, almost pitying edge. He stood a little straighter, as if gathering an invisible mantle around his shoulders.
"Nothing's impossible," he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur that somehow carried to everyone. "When you think something can't be done, it's only because… your output isn't substantial enough."
His gaze, laden with implication, swept over the group and lingered for a fraction of a second on Nangong. Her brain, still reeling, took a moment to parse the subtext. Then it hit her. Her eyes widened in outrage, and she instinctively glanced down at the tight bindings flattening her chest, a traitorous flush burning through her pallor from her neck to the roots of her hair.
"You…!!" she sputtered, fury momentarily overriding her fear, but the words died in her throat, choked by indignation and the absurdity of the insult given their circumstances.
Chen had already dismissed her. His attention was focused inward, his right hand rising, fingers curling into a deceptively simple, foundational gesture—the opening form for a basic healing incantation. It was humble, unadorned, utterly at odds with the cataclysmic claim he'd just made.
"How long on the Wall?" Chen asked, his voice now all business.
Hunter's face darkened. So the lunatic *had* remembered their shield had a timer. He didn't know whether to feel relieved or more terrified. Trusting this man felt like leaping into a bottomless pit, but the absolute, unshakeable confidence in Chen's posture was a siren's call to the desperate. With a grimace that felt like surrender, he growled his reply.
"Long enough for you to posture for about ten more seconds!"
"Nine…"
Chen began the count, his voice calm, a metronome in the chaos. He closed his eyes, not in meditation, but in intense, focused concentration. The others could feel it now—a gathering pressure in the air, a static charge that made the hair on their arms stand up. It wasn't the warm, comforting promise of Life magic. It was something denser, more potent, humming with a latent, overwhelming potential.
"Eight…"
Summer didn't wait. Her movements were a blur of practiced efficiency. From a small pouch at her belt, she pulled a handful of glistening, pea-sized seeds that pulsed with a faint green luminescence—**[Seeds of Proliferation]**. Without hesitation, she shoved them into her mouth and swallowed, her face contorting briefly at the bitter, earthy taste. Then her right hand swept through the air, and where there was nothing, six arrows materialized, woven from shimmering spores and hardened intent. She nocked them all on her bowstring at once, a feat of impossible archery, and drew aim not at the horde, but at the cavernous space above their heads.
"Seven… Six…"
The Fear-Demons beyond the luminous barrier sensed the shift. Their scrabbling became more frantic, a frenzied drumming against the dying light. The wall of **[Order]** flickered, its golden hue dimming, bleeding to a weak, translucent yellow. Cracks, fine as spider silk, began to web across its surface.
"Five… Four…"
"Now, Summer!" Fiona barked, her strategist's mind seizing the timing.
"Three!"
Summer released the string.
There was no thunderous twang, only a soft, wet *swoosh* as the six spore-arrows streaked upward. They didn't fly far before exploding in a silent, expanding cloud of iridescent filaments—a beautiful, deadly pollen. The filaments, each thinner than a human hair, glimmered as they drifted down, seeking connection.
"Two!"
The **[Aegis of Order]** didn't so much shatter as dissolve. It gave one final, pathetic flicker and winked out of existence, the last of its sacred light consumed by the oppressive gloom of the ruins. The demons pressed against it—dozens of them—suddenly had no purchase. They tumbled forward in a shrieking, flailing avalanche of chitin and shadow.
From the periphery, the rest of the horde, seeing the barrier fall, let out a collective, ear-splitting shriek that vibrated in their teeth and bones. They surged inward, a tidal wave of malice and claws.
This was the moment of catastrophic collapse they had feared. But something unexpected happened.
The drifting spore-filaments found their medium. In the confined space of the ruin, the Fear-Demons were packed so tightly there was scarcely air between them. A single, drifting filament touched one demon, then another, and another, creating a conductive chain of organic matter. They began to stick, their limbs tangling, their frantic charges impeded by sudden, unexpected connections. It was impossible to tell if it was the spore-webs doing their work or simply the nightmarish traffic jam of dozens of creatures trying to occupy the same space at once, but the result was the same: the tsunami of fangs and claws slowed to a chaotic, stumbling crush. The wave broke upon itself. The one second they had bought stretched into two, then three.
It was a reprieve measured in heartbeats, but it was enough.
"ONE!"
Chen's eyes snapped open. They were no longer their usual color. They blazed with an inner, platinum fire. The humble gesture of his hand was now the focal point of a gathering storm of radiant energy. The air around him warped and shimmered with heat haze, though the light was cold and pure.
"Let me show you all," he roared, his voice resonating with a power that was not entirely his own, "what a *truly substantial output* looks like!"
He thrust his palm forward.
The spell wasn't cast so much as it was *unleashed*.
"By the Spheres of Creation…"
A bolt of solid, blinding radiance lanced from his hand. It struck the nearest Fear-Demon, the one already halfway to the ground from its fall. The creature's shriek was cut off, not in death, but in a bizarre, choked gurgle. The light didn't stop. It pierced through the demon's torso and forked, not randomly, but with a terrifying, intelligent precision, seeking the next closest viable target. Then it forked again, and again.
"...DIVINE BLESSING!"
It was a healing chain, yes. But it defied every known principle of healing magic. In the Trials, healing spells that jumped between targets—**[Chain of Renewal]**, **[Echoing Mend]**—were common enough. But they suffered from attenuation. Each jump diminished the power, the healing effect growing weaker with each subsequent target. By the tenth link in the chain, a spell that could close a grievous wound might only soothe a mild bruise.
The number of enemies facing them was in the dozens, verging on a hundred. By all logic, a healing chain of this magnitude, even if it could somehow connect to them all, would do nothing more than maybe make their chitinous hides glossier. It would be a spectacular, suicidal waste of energy.
And that was the second layer of their terror. The Faith Game was no gentle simulation. It was a razor's edge of translated reality. There were no game-like protections here. If you swung a sword at an ally, you cut them. If you poured healing magic into an enemy, you *healed* them. You restored their strength, mended their wounds, and empowered them to rip you apart with renewed vigor. Several of the veterans in the group had seen foolhardy or desperate Believers try it. The results were always the same: a briefly confused monster, followed by a swift and brutal death for the healer.
So when Three saw the brilliant chains of light erupt from Chen's hand and begin their rapid, branching dance through the horde, his heart didn't just sink—it plummeted through the floor of the ruin and into the abyss below. A cold, numbing despair washed over him. *This* was the grand plan? A light show? He'd followed a charismatic madman to his doom.
But even disbelief had its limits, and survival instinct ran deeper. Teeth gritted in a snarl of resignation, Three acted. As Chen's spell erupted, Three slammed his hands together, then thrust them outward, palms facing the encroaching horde. The air around his hands distorted, vibrating at a frequency that hurt the eyes.
"SECTOR…" he screamed, pouring every ounce of his will, every shred of his affinity for the Path of **Time**, into the casting. It was an "Overload"-tier spell, one that would drain him to exhaustion, maybe burn out his talent permanently. But if they were going to die, they'd die buying time for one last, futile strike. "...ACCELERATE!!!"
The effect was disorienting, a schism in reality itself.
*Outside* their immediate, small circle, time seemed to lurch forward on fast-forward. The stumbling, tangled Fear-Demons suddenly moved with jerky, unnatural speed, their claws becoming blurs, their gaping maws snapping shut with the force of sprung traps. The world beyond a ten-foot radius became a frenetic, silent film.
*Inside* their circle, time congealed. The air grew thick as syrup. The drifting motes of dust and spore-filaments hung motionless. Hunter's grimace, Fiona's calculating stare, Misty's poised readiness, Summer's follow-through from her shot, Nangong's furious blush—all were frozen, captured in a single, stretched moment of terrified anticipation. They were statues in a gallery of impending death, their minds screaming inside paralyzed bodies.
And in the center of it all was Chen, a beacon of furious, branching light, and the spell that was now weaving its way through every single Fear-Demon in the ruin.
The light touched them, and it did not heal wounds, for most had none. Instead, it did something far more fundamental, far more horrifying.
It made them *fertile*.
The Divine Blessing of the Entity of **Life**, when applied not as a restorative but as a catalytic, proliferative force, bypassed biology and acted directly on the concept of existence. The Fear-Demons, beings born of fallen branches, suddenly experienced a violent, internal *urging*. Their formless, fear-based cores resonated with the Blessing, interpreting its overwhelming imperative to *create, multiply, expand*.
The first demon Chen had struck began to swell. Its chitinous plates creaked and strained. A grotesque bulge pulsed along its back, throbbing with the same platinum light of the spell. All across the ruin, the same phenomenon repeated. Demons stumbled, their attacks forgotten, their singular focus on the prey before them shattered by the incomprehensible transformation happening within their own bodies.
A low, subsonic hum filled the air, building into a chorus of distorted clicks and wet tearing sounds.
Then, the first one burst.
It wasn't an explosion of gore, but a release. From the ruptured carapace, a dozen smaller, half-formed replicas of the original Fear-Demon spilled forth, slick with phosphorescent fluid. They were the size of large dogs, misshapen and shrieking with newborn rage. They did not look at the Believers. They turned on the nearest source of fear and life—their progenitors, and each other.
The chain reaction was instantaneous and apocalyptic.
Where there had been a packed, unified horde, there was now a seething, self-cannibalizing maelstrom. "Children" tore at "parents." Demons swollen to bursting point were mobbed by their newly-born kin before they could even finish their own violent reproduction. The Blessing didn't stop; the healing chains were still active, jumping to new targets, triggering new rounds of catastrophic, forced propagation. The cavern became a womb of nightmare, giving birth to generations of terror in seconds.
The spell of accelerated time compounded the horror, making the gruesome multiplication play out in a dizzying, silent-film blur of snapping limbs and spraying ichor. Within the bubble of slowed time, the Believers watched, their minds struggling to process the scale of the biological cataclysm unfolding before them.
Chen lowered his hand, the light fading from his eyes. He was pale, sweating, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The casting had taken everything he had and more. He swayed on his feet, but a grim, satisfied smile touched his lips. He looked at the frozen faces of his companions, their expressions locked in various stages of shock, terror, and dawning, horrified comprehension.
The **[Divine Blessing]** had not been a heal.
It had been a plague.
A plague of life, unchecked, unfiltered, and unleashed upon the unliving. It was the sacred made profane, a perversion of a Path meant for preservation turned into the ultimate weapon of chaotic, annihilating proliferation.
The Faith Game had a new rule, written in the ichor and shattered chitin of a hundred Fear-Demons: Beware the healer whose blessing is a curse. Beware the man who offers children to monsters.
The **[Divine Blessing]** had descended. And all it had left in its wake was a thriving, screaming, self-consuming hell.