An Unwavering Craftsman

Pointless deaths. Damien had never shared the secret of his class. There was no greater conspiracy, at least not in Thale. If Murill wanted to know her enemy, it was close to her indeed, among her very own pantheon, and yet she'd acted to obliterate all that Damien had touched instead.

Out of ignorance and fear, she'd turned her believers' malice against the girl he'd saved, and the woman his parents had taken in. Turning otherwise good men into murderers, willing to slaughter the innocent simply because to do so was the command of a god. Grace's plaque didn't even contain a name. No-one had ever asked for it, and no-one had cared. Her crime was simply being present in Damien's house when the guards came. They desired no further knowledge than that. An innocent victim taken, killed, and forgotten. The priests carrying Murill's message, and even Murill herself, had already put her out of their minds.

And so his tears struck the floor. Tears shed for the injustice committed by those who had made themselves his enemy, through no desire of his own. And where they fell, the ground bloomed in blue light.

Shouting came from the wall, terrified guards realising the adventuring family was not as dead as expected. Some formed a line of defence, hoping that numbers would be sufficient to do what a dragon could not. Others tore off armour and uniforms, fleeing into the crowd. Damien paid none of them any heed. Instead, he stooped to touch the corpse of Grace, and commanded all within the city, "R̴͚͠ë̵͖́m̶̜̕ȅ̵͔m̵̨̏b̵̧͑ȇ̷̫ȓ̸͓."

Gasps sounded throughout Thale as foreign memories of fear and pain shoved themselves into people's minds; memories of persecution, of being accused of crimes of which they had no knowledge. And then the gasps turned to screams of horror as the memories turned into torture—punishment for not admitting the non-existent crimes—and then public humiliation and execution.

The row of guards, originally intending to use the walls as a defence, charged forward. Damien didn't spare them a glance. "I'm not done yet, so ẃ̶̡ä̸̱́ī̵̖ť̴̞."

The guards found their muscles seizing up, every one of them falling face first to the floor. Its role in the slaying of Brenhin-Tân was worth more than a few levels, and even seasoned guards failed to resist the [Whispers of the Void].

"You're the one that needs to wait," interrupted Fleta. "I know you're angry, but we need to find who did this, not react out of fury."

"I dunno... I'm pretty furious myself," growled Shigeo. "Given the way the corpses were strung up so visibly outside of town, it's obviously official. Just try not to do anything permanent until after you've hit them all with [Truthseeker]."

"I will," replied Damien, releasing Grace's shoulder and touching Lana's ankle instead, still suspended above the ground, tied to her pole. "But first, I need to ensure the dead are not forgotten. R̴͚͠ë̵͖́m̶̜̕ȅ̵͔m̵̨̏b̵̧͑ȇ̷̫ȓ̸͓."

Once again, everyone in the city got to experience Lana's last moments. Accused of conspiracy with demons to steal a class that wasn't hers. Of course she'd denied it—she had no more idea of how she'd taken the class of her father than anyone else, and [Tears of the Lost] ensured that all within the city knew she was innocent—but despite Gaia's priests being able to use their own version of [Truthseeker], none were ever called. After all, Lana had been accused by a goddess. What room was there for doubt?

And as people remembered, the blue lights grew, floating from the ground and growing into ethereal flowers, drifting around the corpses.

"Now let's go see what the good people of Thale have to say for themselves," he said, turning towards the fallen row of guards and activating [Truthseeker]. "Tell me, how many of you are prepared to kill a complete stranger, simply because one of the Five ordered you to?"

More than half answered in the affirmative.

"[Divine Punishment]," stated Damien, to no apparent effect as he walked past them towards the town of Thale.

"Enough!" shouted Fleta. "Calm down! What did you even do to them?"

"[Poetic Justice]," answered Damien, having seen it available when picking his first feat, and being unable to resist. The feat strengthened [Divine Punishment], widening the possible range of punishments and giving Damien control over what was dealt, as long as the result was 'poetic'. "I gave them all high tier demon summoning classes. The sort that apparently cause the Five to enact scorched earth tactics. Hope none of them have any family or acquaintances they care about. I'd advise them to commit suicide to save them, but I doubt it would help; they came after Grace despite knowing I wasn't home, after all."

"Wait!" shouted Shigeo, spotting a problem despite sharing Damien's anger. "You didn't even ask them what happened! What's this about the Five? Did you see something more with [Foresight]? Why do you think this is about your ability to summon demons?"

"Ah, so you admit it!" spat one of the punished guards.

"As do you, apparently," said Fleta, frowning. "We're well aware of the dangers of Damien's [Gate]. Using it once proved demons could enter the bowl through it. There has not been and there will not be a second time."

"But we deliberately made sure there was no-one for miles around when we tested his skills for the first time. They can't possibly know about it."

"They can if the Five told them," answered Damien, drawing an incorrect conclusion about what it was that had attracted attention to him.

"Regardless, stop for a moment and think about what you're going to do. Will you turn the entirety of Thale into demon summoners? Destroy it completely? Because if that's your plan..."

Fleta gripped the hilts of her daggers, desperate tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

Damien hesitated. There was a part of him—an angry, hate-filled part, responsible for turning his back on the Five during his ceremony—that did want to wipe Thale off the map. The rest of him was screaming that most of the town was innocent. Had coincidence twisted even slightly, anyone living there could be hanging in Lana's place.

Was forcing them to relive the last moments of Grace and Lana not punishment enough? Besides, whatever levels he had gained, he wasn't ready to fight his parents.

"Where did your orders come from?" he asked instead, turning back to the guards.

"Murill's temple," they all answered in perfect synchronisation, wearing expressions ranging from fear to anger. "You won't get away with this, heretic," snapped one of the angrier ones.

"You know Grace and Lana were innocent," pointed out Damien. "What, exactly, do you think I'm getting away with?"

"Their deaths are on your head," spat another guard. "You corrupted them, through no fault of their own."

"S̸̲̓h̷͉͗ṳ̸̆ţ̶͊ ̸̱̍u̴̟͆p̷͚̓," snapped Damien, forcing the row of guards into silence. He knew full well what [Tears of the Lost] had shown them, because it had shown him, too. And yet they justified their murder. "Shall we visit Murill's temple, then?" he asked his parents.

"By all means," grunted Shigeo, still almost as angry as Damien.

"Wait," said Fleta.

"Knock it off," growled Shigeo. "Our own town guards have murdered innocent women, and we're damn well going to get to the bottom of why."

"No, it's not that," answered Fleta, staring into the sky. "We have incoming."

Shigeo and Damien looked up, but their weaker eyesight failed to pick out anything unusual. "How long, and what is it?" asked Shigeo. "Please don't say more dragons."

"I... don't think so. Looks more like a fireball, but at the speed it's going, it's only a few minutes away."

"A person," answered Damien, cheating with [Foresight]. "Female. Looks in her mid twenties. She doesn't introduce herself, just moves straight to attack. She's strong, but she exclusively uses fire and physical attacks."

"Hah, how unfortunate for her that we're still equipped for dragon hunting, then," grinned Shigeo. "Let's put a bit of distance between us and the town."

Damien was still staring at nothing, trying to parse what [Foresight] displayed. The short, fractured images hid it well, but in each image she looked pristine—albeit naked—despite other images showing her taking blows. Not to mentioned the damage to the landscape. "She can regenerate, or negate damage somehow," he added.

"Advanced information is nice, but we're out of time," said Shigeo, grabbing Damien and dragging him back away from the city, the approaching meteor now clearly visible to them both.

As Damien had warned, their aggressor wasted no time with introductions. She pulled out of the ball of fire, but the fire itself continued on, bending towards the family as they moved and forcing Shigeo to block it with his shield. Forged from dragonscale and enchanted to resist flame, it blocked the magical assault unscathed. Even Valerie Spiratine—Murill's [Angel of Flaming Judgement]—couldn't match the fires of Brenhin-Tân.

Such was the fear of Murill at Damien's presence that she had dispatched her most powerful servant even before Brenhin-Tân's defeat. She had seen one gifted power by the Other on the same level as her own, and had instantly reached the correct conclusion; that the ones he was to judge were the Five.

Valerie wasted no time with words, ordered by her goddess to close her ears to the heretics. Never had she considered the name of her class, and how her actions denied its very nature—never did she once pass judgement of her own, content instead to act merely as an unthinking finger of her divine patron. And so she attacked from the sky, launching attack after attack, but her assault achieved nothing. Equipped to defend against the fires of a dragon, the high-tiered family could weather her flames.

Perhaps she could have worn them down in time, but Murill had ordered her to purge the threat quickly, and ranged attacks were not her speciality. Drawing her sword, she dived from the sky.

"F̷̍ͅa̷̧̿l̴͎͂l̸͓̆," demanded Damien as she approached, and for a moment she lost control of her flight, ploughing straight into the ground at full speed, her head bursting like ripe fruit and body crumpling behind it.

"Well, that was anticlimactic..." muttered Shigeo.

"No, this isn't over," answered Damien. "S̷͇͒t̴̨̉a̷̯̕y̵̥̓ ̵͚̈d̶̻͊e̵͔͐a̶̹͒d̶̰͂," he ordered, but in this, his voice was outclassed. Perhaps he delayed the resurrection by a second, but nevertheless, the corpse burst into flame, the surrounding blood and viscera burning up with it. And from the flames, Valerie emerged unblemished.

"Well, this is going to be a pain..." Shigeo complained as Valerie formed a sword of fire, driving it into his shield and pushing him back.

Fleta blurred behind her, slicing with her daggers, but Valerie twisted. She didn't bother dodging completely; when small wounds healed instantly, she had no need to. And then she burst with flame, the shockwave catching Fleta and throwing her through the air.

Damien's tendrils of blood—carefully snaking across the ground to catch her unaware—were taken by the inferno, too.

He knew fear himself. [Foresight] wasn't at its most useful in the middle of battle, where the possibilities changed so rapidly, but so far he hadn't seen a single future in which Valerie remained dead. Against an immortal opponent, how were they supposed to win?

And then Valerie grunted with effort, her sword of flame solidifying, and Damien saw all the possible futures converge. However he attempted to dodge, or whatever skills he used, it would make no difference to the outcome. And so he did nothing, smiling as he let Valerie drive her sword through his heart.

The white-hot blade pulsed, and Damien fell, a circular hole burnt through his torso, the rim charred and smouldering.

"Damien!" screamed Shigeo, throwing his shield aside to make one last desperate attack against the murderer of his child.

"Evil witch..." muttered Fleta, but unlike Shigeo, she kept her wits about her, refusing to be ruled by emotion. She'd seen the way Damien hadn't resisted, but he hadn't looked like someone who'd given up. He'd been smiling.

And so, rather than joining Shigeo's desperate charge, she shoved him out of the way as Valerie scythed him with fire.

And while the combatants weaved around each other, the corpse of Damien twitched as [Eternal Flesh] kicked in, its use required for the first time. Unbeknownst to Murill's angel, their similarities didn't end merely with the names of their classes.