The air in the sewers hung thick with the stench of decay and panic. Flickering phosphorescent fungi cast long, dancing shadows on the moss-slick walls, painting the scene in hues of sickly green and deep, consuming black. The sound of their ragged breathing and frantic footfalls echoed against the curved stone, a desperate percussion against the distant, fading roars of the demonic horde they'd narrowly escaped.
Chen acted on pure instinct, a reflex honed by countless close calls. A heartbeat before Summer's body could be torn apart from the inside, his hand shot out. A soft, golden light—warm as honeyed sunlight—bloomed from his fingertips and washed over her. It was a **[Healing Touch]**, a basic spell in the arsenal of many Paths, but in this moment, it was a lifeline.
Because Summer was carrying not one, but multiple nascent lives, the spell found extraordinary purchase. The violent, rippling convulsions wracking her body subsided instantly, the terrifying bulges beneath her skin smoothing out as her pallor regained a touch of vitality. Her ragged screams cut off into a gasp of profound, shuddering relief. She was, for the moment, stabilized, her condition restored to full.
But magic, especially in the **Faith Game**, was a transaction. The energy had to go somewhere. By healing the mother so completely, Chen had inadvertently funneled that vitality into the entities she carried. They would now be born not as weak, premature things, but as specimens of disturbing, robust health.
"Run! Don't stop!" Hunter's voice, gravelly with exhaustion, was a whip-crack in the confined space. He had Three slung over his shoulder like a sack of grain, the mage's head lolling with each jarring step.
The group stumbled forward, a ragged convoy of the damned. The adrenaline that had carried them through the battle was ebbing, leaving behind the bone-deep ache of exhaustion and the sharp, specific pains of their injuries. They hadn't made it fifty yards down the slime-coated tunnel when nature—or rather, the twisted parody of nature governed by the **Path of Life**—refused to wait any longer.
The **[Genesis Pods]** catalyzed within Summer weren't interested in midwives or sterile conditions. As they rounded a bend where a trickle of foul water became a shallow stream, the remaining bulges on Summer's back and shoulders distended grotesquely. With a series of wet, tearing sounds that were more vegetable than animal, they burst.
Not with blood, but with a spray of viscous sap and fibrous pulp. From the ruptures emerged writhing, shrieking things. They were nightmares of hybrid biology: thick, thorny vines tipped with pulsing, meaty buds that resembled underdeveloped organs; tendrils that grasped blindly with woody fingers; stalks that waved eyeless, photosensitive nodules. They hit the sewer water with sickening plops, immediately coiling and seeking warmth, seeking the mother, seeking *them*.
"Contact rear!" Song yelled, his voice tight. The lithe assassin was already spinning, his twin daggers—still stained with demonic ichor—flashing in the fungal light. Fear was replaced by a cold, professional assessment. "Low threat! Contain them!"
The good news was that Song was right. These newborn horrors were aggressive but disorganized, more terrifying in concept than in combat capability. They lashed out with thorns and tried to entangle limbs, but their movements were sluggish, uncoordinated. Song became a whirlwind of precise, brutal efficiency. He didn't waste energy on flourishes. A dagger would sever a grasping vine; a kick would crush a photosensitive nodule against the wall; a low sweep would tangle several together before he finished them with a decisive stab. In less than a minute, the twitching, sap-leaking remains of the pod-creatures floated in the stagnant water, dissolving into motes of faint green light that were absorbed back into the environment.
The immediate threat was over. The bad news, however, was now undeniable.
Nangong was dying.
She had collapsed against the curved wall, her breathing a shallow, wet rasp. Her eyes were half-lidded, glazed with fever. A sheen of sweat made her pale skin gleam in the gloom. The wounds on her ribs and lower abdomen, gifts from a **Chaos**-tainted恐魔's claws, were not just deep. They festered. A visible, sickly green-black aura—the signature of **[Decay]**—clung to the torn flesh. The edges of the wounds were necrotic, crumbling like rotten wood, and the foul, sweet smell of advanced gangrene cut through the sewer's baseline stench. Each breath she took was shallower than the last, a grim rhythm counting down to silence.
"She's not going to make it," Fiona whispered, her voice hollow. The scholar's robes were torn and smudged, her usual air of detached curiosity utterly shattered. She stared at Nangong with a kind of horrified fascination. "The **Decay**… it's in her bloodstream. It's systemic."
Hunter came to a halt, his broad shoulders slumping for a fraction of a second before he straightened with renewed resolve. He lowered Three to the ground with more care than his brusque manner suggested. The mage groaned, clutching his head, but was coherent enough to understand the situation.
"Her body can't take another **[Birth]**," Hunter stated, his eyes locking onto Chen. His gaze was intense, probing. "The shock would kill her outright. Can you… redirect? Heal the mage. Let him use a temporal trick. Slow her time, freeze the decay. Anything to buy us minutes."
Three pushed himself up on trembling elbows. His face was etched with pain and frustration. "I… I wish I could, Hunter. My Path is **Annihilation**. My 'tricks' are about unraveling, not preserving. I can make time *hurt*, not make it *heal*. I don't have the auxiliary spells. I'm not a chorister or a cleric."
A heavy silence descended, broken only by Nangong's agonized breathing and the constant, maddening drip of water. They were all looking at Chen now. Summer, leaning against the wall and trembling from her ordeal; Song, wiping his blades clean, his expression grim; Fiona, wringing her hands; Hunter, his jaw set; Three, helpless.
Chen met their eyes, one by one. He saw the shared history of the last few hours reflected in them—the claustrophobic terror of the ambush, the desperate fight in the chamber, the mad dash through the dark. Nangong had held the line with them. She had taken wounds meant for others. To lose her here, not in the heat of battle but to a slow, ignoble rot in a filthy tunnel, felt like a profound insult. It was a waste. The Trials had half a day yet to run. A team missing a member was a team already crippled.
With a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of difficult choices, Chen reached into a small, seemingly ordinary pouch at his belt. His fingers dipped into an extradimensional space—his "little vault," as he called it. When his hand emerged, it held a small vial.
The liquid within was not the vibrant red of a typical health potion. It was a deep, venous crimson, so dark it was almost black at the edges. It seemed to swallow the faint light, and a subtle, cold vapor coiled inside the glass.
"What is that?" Song was at his side in an instant, his assassin's senses keen. He leaned in, then recoiled slightly, his nose wrinkling. "I smell… **Death**. But not peaceful rest. It's… contemptuous."
Chen nodded slowly, his expression unreadable. "Grade-A potion. '**The Scorn of the Departed**.' It's harvested from the most devout followers of the **Entity of Death**." His voice was low, almost scholarly, as if giving a lecture under vastly different circumstances. "Its Executors believe some souls are unworthy of the final embrace of death. They extract this sentiment—this pure, distilled scorn—and distill it into this."
He uncorked the vial. The air around them grew several degrees colder. A faint, whispering echo, like the distant sigh of a scornful crowd, seemed to emanate from it.
"It's used to punish the most heinous oath-breakers," Chen continued, his eyes on the trembling liquid. "It doesn't heal. It doesn't soothe. It simply… forbids. It tells the body, 'You are not permitted to die.' The wounds remain. The pain remains. But the final threshold is barred."
Before anyone could react, he tipped the vial over Nangong's worst wound. The dark liquid didn't splash or bead. It flowed like living shadow, seeking out her blood. Where it met the seeping crimson, it dissolved instantly, vanishing into her bloodstream without a trace.
"As long as it's mixed with her own blood, even mortal wounds won't be fatal," Chen said, tossing the empty vial aside. It shattered on the stones with a crystalline tinkle. "It's a suspension. A stay of execution. Pure, expensive life-support."
"Whoa! Hold on!" Song's hand darted out, not toward Nangong, but toward a single hypothetical droplet that might have fallen. "That's… can I just get a sample to—?"
*Smack!*
Chen's hand moved in a blur, swatting Song's away with sharp authority. "Back off, you magpie. A single drop missing and the binding fails. You want her to die for your curiosity?" His tone was sharp, but a flicker of dark amusement was in his eyes.
Song jerked his hand back as if burned, his face flushing with a mixture of embarrassment and chagrin. "I… I've never seen… Nangong, I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"
The pale woman on the ground didn't have the strength to acknowledge him. Her entire being was focused inward. She felt the cold spread from her wounds, a chilling numbness that fought back the fever's fire. The agonizing, creeping advance of the **Decay**… halted. It didn't recede. The necrosis didn't heal. But its progression froze solid. The pain was still a white-hot brand, but the terrifying sense of her body unraveling, of her life force leaking away, ceased.
She drew in a breath. It was still shallow, still painful, but it was a breath that led to another. And another.
"It… it works?" she managed to grate out, her voice a dry leaf rustle.
Chen glanced down at her, his expression one of mock-sternness. "It works. And it's very, very expensive. When you can stand without whimpering, you owe me. Don't think I'll forget."
Nangong clenched her teeth, a spark of her old defiance returning to her glassy eyes. She gave a single, sharp nod. "Understood."
With one crisis artificially paused, Chen turned his attention to Summer. She was bleeding from the burst pods on her back, shallow but messy wounds. As a follower of the **Path of Birth**, however, her constitution had a natural resilience to the traumas of "creation." For her, the standard remedy would suffice. He raised his hand again, the golden light softer this time, and cast another **[Healing Touch]**. The lacerations on her back knit together cleanly, leaving only faint pink scars.
A collective, unconscious tension they hadn't even registered released from the group. The dice-roll of her **Path's** side-effect had been in their favor this time. No new "life" was sparked by the healing.
Hunter watched the entire sequence, his analytical mind processing the implications. He waited until Summer had nodded her thanks and Nangong's breathing had stabilized into a rough, but steady, rhythm. Then he stepped closer to Chen, his presence imposing even in his battered state.
"Chen," he began, his voice devoid of its usual commanding edge, replaced by pure, sober gravity. "What's your real score?"
Chen opened his mouth, a practiced, easy lie on his tongue.
"And don't say 1501."
Chen closed his mouth. He looked around the circle of faces. Fiona's scholarly curiosity was alight. Song's earlier embarrassment was gone, replaced by naked intrigue. Three was watching him with a mage's assessing gaze. Summer looked grateful but puzzled. Even Nangong's pained eyes held a question.
They didn't believe him. The facade, carefully maintained, had finally cracked under the weight of evidence.
He tried anyway, offering a weak, almost sheepish smile. "It really is 1501."
Hunter didn't blink. "You think I'm a fool?" he said, his voice dropping. "That healing chain you pulled off back in the chamber? Sustaining multiple targets under that assault, prioritizing, managing cooldowns in your head? That's not B-grade talent. That's the spatial awareness and mana efficiency of an S-grade. And now this?" He gestured to the spot where the dark vial had shattered. "*Two* vials of a Grade-A **Death**-attribute potion? The resource cost alone… Your starting capital had to be immense."
He took another step forward, his shadow falling over Chen. "The **Path to Ascension** starts everyone at 1000. Fall below, you die. Above 1200, you can draw B-grade talents or items. Cross 1600, A-grade becomes possible." His eyes were like chips of flint. "S-grade only enters the pool for those who break 2000 on their opening draw. You… you are *not* below 2000."
The numbers hung in the damp air. Two thousand. It was a legendary threshold. Most **Believers** ground through dozens of **Trials** to approach it. To start there was to be marked, to be a potential protagonist—or a prime target—in the **Entities'** grand, cruel **Game**.
Chen held Hunter's stare for a long moment. Then, he simply shrugged, the motion effortlessly breaking the tension. He bent down and, with a surprising gentleness, slid his arms under Nangong, lifting her. She was light, almost insubstantial.
"Yeah, yeah, sure," he said, his tone shifting back to one of casual, slightly annoyed pragmatism. "Two thousand, ten thousand, whatever makes you happy. You want to stand here in the smell and debate my leaderboard position, or do you want to follow me to someplace that might vaguely resemble safety before the next wave finds us?"
He didn't wait for an answer. He turned and began walking down the tunnel, Nangong held securely against his chest.
The others exchanged a look—a complex mix of frustration, awe, and resignation. What could they do? The man was an enigma wrapped in a mystery, but he had just saved two lives with resources and skill far beyond his stated level. In the **Faith Game**, competence was the only true currency. If the powerhouse wanted to be coy, you let him.
With a collective shrug of their own, they fell in behind him. Hunter took point again, his senses straining against the oppressive dark. Fiona helped Summer along. Song flitted ahead as a scout, his form blending into the shadows. Three brought up the rear, muttering incantations under his breath to ward off scrying.
The tunnel began to slope gently upward. The air grew marginally less foul. The silence, however, was soon broken.
"So, Chen… can I call you Chen-ge? Brother Chen?" Song's voice piped up from the darkness ahead, his innate restlessness overriding any sense of decorum. "That talent of yours, the healing… it's not just standard **Life** channeling, is it? There's a synergy there. A… a resonance. You wanna clue us in?"
No answer, just the steady sound of footsteps on wet stone.
Undeterred, Song tried another angle, dropping back to walk beside Chen. "Okay, forget the talent. The score. Just between us. Two-one? Two-two? You can tell me. I'm great with secrets."
Chen kept walking, his eyes fixed on the path ahead.
"The potion, then! That 'Scorn' stuff. You got any more? I've got… well, I've got some interesting toxins from a **Deception**-aligned spider-thing. Paralytic, hallucinogenic. Great for crowd control. A straight trade? Volume for volume?"
On and on it went. Questions, speculations, offers. A constant, buzzing stream of curiosity.
Finally, Chen stopped. He didn't look at Song. He just stared straight ahead into the gloom, where a faint, grey light—real, surface-world light—was beginning to filter down from a grate far above.
"...Shouldn't assassins be the strong, silent type?" he asked, his voice flat with exhausted exasperation.
Song grinned, a flash of white in the darkness. "Who told you that? Old storybooks? Silence gets you killed. Information keeps you alive. And you, Brother Chen, are the most interesting piece of information I've stumbled across in a long, long time."
Ahead, the tunnel opened into a larger, drier cistern. The grate above promised an exit, a way out of the suffocating underworld. For the first time in hours, they had a clear goal, a literal light at the end of the tunnel. They had survived the恐魔, the forced birth, the decay. They had a moment, however fragile, to breathe.
But as they paused beneath that grate, listening to the distant sounds of a strange, alien city above, they all knew the same truth. The respite was temporary. The **Trials** were not over. The **Entities** were still watching. And the most inscrutable variable in their struggle for survival was walking among them, carrying their wounded, guarding his secrets, and leading them, for now, into the uncertain light.