[T-minus 33 Days Until Dimensional Event Ritual Completion]

The last street ended at a broken arch.

Carved stone lions flanked the gate, their once-proud faces worn soft by time—and now warped by something older. Moss clung to their jaws like drool. One had grown a third eye. The other had teeth where its tongue should be.

The entrance to Zhaojue Temple, once a peaceful retreat tucked amid trees and temples in Chengdu's northern quarter, now loomed like the mouth of a waiting beast. The original red gate still stood, its lacquered wood splintered but intact but bone had grown through it. Real bone. Curved femurs arched up to reinforce the beams. Veins of fungal coral webbed the stone walkway, glowing faintly underfoot. A soft breath of humidity hissed from deeper within.

Max stepped to the edge.

The air thickened – heat, yes, but more than that. Expectation. The sense of a crowd waiting just beyond sight. Of breath held. Of eyes watching from behind every window in Chengdu.

The temple bell hung above them still, rusted and half-cracked. It hadn't rung in years. But the metal sweated now. It pulsed faintly, in time with the city's new rhythm.

Beyond the gate: no monks. No tourists. No silence.

Zhaojue was alive. Massive. Half-organ, half-monolith – veined in bioluminescence, pumping rhythmically with each whisper from the crowd.

Thousands of kneeling bodies stretched in ordered rows. Veiled. Barefoot. Silent, save for the chant. Not loud. But unified. An intimate dirge of worship that crawled along the floor like fog. Their heads were bowed toward the heart-root, arms outstretched in supplication. Each exhale a verse. Each word a filament feeding the altar.

"She saved us," they murmured. "She forgave. She became."

Max inhaled, then regretted it. The air was sweet with rot and incense. A temple of death that pretended to be holy.

"Don't breathe too deep," Ferron muttered behind him. "She's laced the air with memory."

Chloe stepped forward, eyes narrowed. "I can scout ahead. Phase through the back—"

"No," Ferron snapped. Too late.

She had already touched the root.

It was just a brush – her fingertips grazing the wet fungal surface of one low-slung vine. But it grabbed her. Not with force. With invitation.

Chloe's body blurred – her outline shifting. Her eyes rolled back. Skin flickered translucent. For a moment, they all saw it: her soul being pulled into the biomass. She gasped once, then began to sink—

Max tackled her back, severing contact.

She collapsed into his arms, coughing, twitching.

"What the hell was that?" Victor barked, claws half-drawn.

Ferron stepped forward, studying the vein. "It's not a root. It's a feed-line. She's drawing belief through it." He turned slowly, eyes scanning the kneeling masses. "They're not just infected. They're congregants."

Max's fists clenched. His heart pounded in rhythm with the altar.

Every second they stood there, they were being watched. Not by eyes. By thought.

He looked at the root.

Bad idea.

He blinked – and April was standing there.

Smiling. Alive.

She reached for him, touched his cheek. "You did the right thing," she whispered. "It had to burn."

"No—" he rasped, but his body didn't move.

She kissed his forehead. The temple echoed with psalms.

Then it slipped. A flicker – her smile too wide. Her eyes too green.

The illusion broke. He staggered back, Hellfire flaring reflexively in his hand.

Alyssa caught his shoulder. "Max. You okay?"

"Don't look at the altar," he said, voice hoarse. "It shows you what you want to believe."

Chloe sat up, face pale. "She tried to rewrite me. Not just memories. Me."

Ferron's voice was flat. "The liturgy is power. She's feeding off their faith like blood through an umbilical cord. Every whisper makes her stronger."

Max looked at the heart-root. Watched it pulse with light. And heard it again:

"She saved us," they whispered. "She will save you."

He turned to the others. "We're not here to kneel."

…………………

Dan stepped forward, and the cathedral seemed to breathe.

It wasn't light inside. Not really. The gold didn't glow – it bled, refracted through amber resin that veiled the dome like cataracts. The altar at the heart pulsed in sync with something vast. Organic. The whole place felt like a lung, a stomach, a throat.

He tried not to look at the figures kneeling in rows. Tried not to see the half-melted faces behind the veils. But they sensed him.

The moment he crossed the threshold, every bowed head turned.

That's when the whispers changed.

"Healer." "Golden Flame." "Saint of Renewal."

His stomach clenched.

The figure stepped forward — towering, robed in moss-threaded silk and plated in angelic armour grown from bark and gold. But it wasn't holy. It was wrong. Sculpted by reverence, not truth. A parody of sainthood. His mouth was gone, stitched shut with root-sinew, yet he smiled – endlessly, obscenely, as if devotion had hollowed him out and filled the gap with obedience.

A once-human priest. A police officer, maybe. He could almost see the old insignia burned into one arm – beneath the bloom of mycelium.

The Deacon bowed low and extended a crown.

Not metal.

A branch. Twisted and damp. Living. Still reaching.

Dan's breath hitched.

His aura flared – unbidden. Gold fire rippled across his chest, down his arms, haloing his spine. The altar behind the Deacon pulsed brighter in response.

And the crowd bowed.

Not to Verrine.

To him.

Something cracked in Dan's mind.

He felt it – like a faultline he hadn't known was there. The raw split between what he'd endured, what he'd survived, and what they saw. Saint. Savior. Lightbearer.

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But he wasn't that.

He was a paramedic who'd failed too many people. He was the brother-in-law who watched April burn. He was the guy who got gutted by a demon in a hospital corridor and would've died screaming if Max hadn't saved him.

He didn't deserve worship.

But God – for one flicker of a moment, it felt good.

The warmth in their chants. The gravity in their eyes. Not fame. Not applause. Need. They needed him to be holy.

And a voice inside him whispered: Maybe if I suffer enough, I could be.

Dan had never said it out loud, not even to Max but every time he used his healing light, every time he burned his own energy to repair someone else, it felt right. It felt like payment. Maybe some part of him had been waiting to bleed out just enough to balance the scales.

Was this what that part wanted?

Was this his price?

He stepped forward. One step.

The crown called to him. No words. Just weight. As if it had already been resting on his shoulders forever, and only now had he noticed it.

He reached for it—

A hand slammed into his chest.

Max.

His eyes were locked – not angry. Afraid. "Dan. Stop."

Dan blinked. The altar wavered.

Then—

CRACK.

A slap across the face.

Real. Jarring. Sharp.

Alyssa. Her hand still up. Her eyes wide and wet. Not furious. Fractured.

"You're not their messiah," she said.

Her voice cracked, and something inside Dan did too.

"You're Dan," she went on. "You're the idiot who makes bad coffee and tells dumb jokes and runs toward people when everyone else runs away. That's enough. That's more than enough."

She swallowed.

"We're not here to be gods."

Her voice dropped, low and shaking.

"We're here to save Liz."

Silence.

Dan looked at the crown. Still pulsing. Still warm.

He reached down.

Then kicked it aside.

It hit the base of the altar and hissed like scorched root.

The crowd wailed – not in protest. In disappointment.

And somewhere beneath the cathedral, the root system twitched.

Dan exhaled, slow. His hands shook.

But the voice inside – the one that wanted to bleed enough to earn peace – went quiet.

Just for now.

…………………

The psalms rose like heat.

Not voices anymore – vibrations. The entire cathedral vibrated with praise, every bone-vein and amber panel singing with a thousand synchronized whispers. Not screams. Not chants.

Worship.

Max's skin crawled as the resonance settled into his spine. It didn't push. It invited. A pressure that sounded like comfort. A lullaby made of doctrine.

The heart-root at the centre of the altar pulsed once – a thunderclap in reverse. Not sound, but silence that bent the air.

And then she appeared.

Not her body. A fragment.

A stained-glass avatar, projected across the cathedral dome — Verrine's face sculpted from coloured panes, shifting with kaleidoscopic grace. Red lips. Green eyes. A smile that bent toward sorrow, like she pitied everything she saw. Behind her, veils of gold-threaded light poured through like grace made visible.

She turned her gaze – not to Dan.

To him.

Max stiffened.

He knew that look. Had seen it in preachers and predators. In demons who whispered mercy while gnawing at souls. But this was softer. Deeper. Designed for him.

"You can end all of this."

Her voice didn't echo. It didn't need to.

It unfolded inside him – warm, honeyed, human. Like April's laugh through the wall. Like Liz's baby cries when she still needed him. Like something he hadn't felt in years: being forgiven.

"I don't want your death, Max Jaeger."

"I want your faith."

He clenched his fists but the fire stayed dormant, coiled beneath the skin like it was listening too.

The cathedral dimmed. The worshippers knelt in perfect rhythm, every breath aligned, every eye turned up toward him. Not Verrine.

Him.

"Let them believe in you," she said, her voice sweet as blood in milk. "Let them love you. Let them kneel, and you will become holy."

"Worship shapes reality," she breathed. "Not just this temple. The soul. The world."

And Max felt it. The promise. Not a threat. Not even a lie.

If he said yes – if he just let them worship him – the city would stop shifting. The mist would clear. The pain would end. He wouldn't need to fight. He could burn clean again. Not as a sinner. As a saint.

No more contracts. No more deaths. Just faith.

A wave of warmth pushed against his chest, and for a moment, Max saw it— —Liz awake, whole, smiling. —Dan radiant, Alyssa laughing beside him. —Victor in a chair, unscarred. —A world healed.

Not real. But possible.

The kind of possible that rots the soul.

Max's breath hitched.

Dan stood pale and unsteady, aura flickering like a candle in wind.

Alyssa's jaw was set, eyes locked on him like she could drag him back by will alone.

Chloe hovered behind her, silent, unreadable – like even her shadow was holding its breath.

At the edge of the temple threshold, Ferron had gone still, hand on the hilt of his kusarigama.

Alpha and Omega flanked him like statues – one rigid with calculation, the other humming with barely-leashed violence.

None of them moved. All of them waited.

The stained-glass eyes widened, waiting.

Max said nothing for a long moment.

Then, softly – almost a whisper:

"No more false idols."

And his chest ignited.

Soulfire roared through him. Not wild – anchored. Focused. It coiled around his ribs, bloomed in his spine, and poured from his eyes as a low orange glow.

And it hurt.

Agony flared through every nerve like razors dipped in flame. His skin blistered beneath the surface, bones grinding with pressure. The pain-dampening reflex kicked in – dulled it just enough to stand. But not enough to forget.

He clenched his jaw. Let it burn. Let it carve him clean.

The avatar faltered.

The cathedral flinched.

And the worship cracked – just a little.

Max stepped forward, fire curling around his fists.

"You want faith?" he said aloud. "Earn it."

And the first flame struck the altar.

…………………

The hymns changed as they advanced – no longer Latin, not Mandarin, not anything human. Just truthless sound, layered and rhythmic, vibrating the marrow in Max's teeth. A choir of lies dressed in beauty. And every note clawed at memory.

Chloe gasped behind him. "Jack?"

Max turned, startled but she wasn't looking at him. Her eyes were wet, distant, staring through a memory that didn't exist.

Alyssa stumbled too. "Liz? Liz— wait—" Her voice cracked.

The cathedral shifted with their thoughts. Stained glass wept light across the pews – and in each shard, Max saw different lives. Dan as a saviour in white robes, Alyssa on a throne of gravity and gold, Chloe radiant and healed, the world safe. Whole.

False futures. Worship fantasies.

The psalms swelled louder.

Max gritted his teeth. "Focus. It's not real. It's not her."

Dan suddenly straightened. His golden aura pulsed like a heartbeat, then exploded outward in a cleansing wave. The dream-faces in the pews staggered. Veils dropped. The crowd of worshippers blinked – dazed, human again. The Deacon collapsed to his knees, golden bark flaking off in dead sheaves. His sewn mouth burst open, coughing spores and silence.

Ferron charged past, uncoiling his kusarigama like a whip. "Cover me!" he shouted.

Max and Victor flanked him as Ferron drove the sickle-blade into the pulsing altar root. With a guttural breath, Ferron shouted an ancient rite – syllables honed in mountain monasteries, bitter and iron-rich as blood.

The cathedral screamed. The stained-glass avatar of Verrine writhed above the altar, its face flickering between mother, god, and queen. She opened her mouth to speak but what came out was music. The song hit Max like pressure inside his skull, trying to rewrite something vital.

Soulfire roared up Max's spine. It hurt. Always.

The pain-dampening held – barely. His veins burned. His ribs clenched. But he held it.

"She's not a goddess," Max snarled. "She's a parasite."

He hurled the fire into the altar. The flame touched. Then sputtered.

Snuffed.

The choir's harmonics ate it alive.

Ferron recoiled. "The songs – they're binding our souls. Feeding on belief!"

"We have to break it," Max growled. "Rip the damn faith out of the room."

Victor leapt up, claws shredding an organ pipe. Alyssa cracked a statue in two with a focused density blast. Chloe hurled a mirror through the stained glass above the altar.

Together, they struck the avatar. The false face of Verrine cracked, fractured — and screamed.

Light burst from the altar. The root shrivelled. The cathedral groaned like it was exhaling its last lie.

And then it shattered.

Glass rained down. Veins of gold peeled from the walls. The holy glow died.

For one breathless moment, there was only dust and silence.

And then – a real sound. The groan of wood. The creak of stone.

Zhaojue Temple remained.

Fungal flesh gone. No more worship. No more gospel. Just the bones of an old world, still standing. Still waiting.

Max staggered back, panting, watching the last of the stained glass melt like wax.

"Worship ends here," he whispered.

Somewhere beneath the rot and ruin, his daughter was still holding on.

And as long as she was, he couldn't fall apart.

…………………

Max stood at the threshold, the cracked altar smouldering behind him. Smoke curled from his fists. Not from exertion. From Soulfire. It had bitten deep this time – into his ribs, his nerves, the edge of something sacred he didn't believe in anymore.

His legs trembled. Pain suppression dulled it, but not completely. It never did. That was the price.

Dan leaned against one of the crumbling pews, trying to steady his breath. The gold in his veins had dimmed to a low ember.

Alyssa hovered close, one hand on his shoulder – not for show. Not anymore.

Chloe traced the hem of a shattered veil, eyes shadowed. She hadn't spoken since they shattered the avatar. She didn't need to. The look said everything: We're not done yet.

Victor limped toward the edge of the nave, claws still wet. "Whatever that was," he rasped, "it wasn't a god."

Ferron checked his kusarigama, still crusted with root flesh. "It was worship," he said. "Raw. Blind. The kind that poisons truth."

"That kind always needs a god," Ferron added, voice low. "And someone willing to bleed for it."

From deeper below, the ground groaned – roots snapping beneath stone, faith untethered from form.

Max turned back once. Just once. The cracked glass still shimmered faintly in the collapsed sanctuary, like a memory trying to rebuild itself. Every step lit pain in his ribs. The fire hadn't left. It just burned quieter now, waiting.

He felt her then. Not Verrine.

Liz.

A thread. Weak, but holding.

Still beneath them. Still fighting.

Still Liz.

He looked ahead. The mist had receded, baring the next path – veins of gold woven through the broken street, leading downward. Toward the fourth circle. Toward hunger.

He said nothing.

He just walked.

And the others followed.

And somewhere below, Liz kept breathing. So he kept moving forward.

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