Chapter 127: Void II
One camp knelt to the Serpent of Rivers, painting its scales onto their skin before crossing waters. Another bowed to the Flame-Crowned Titan, swearing oaths of war before crude altars of bone. Others sang to the Forest-Antlered Stag, leaving food in the roots of new trees.
The lattice did not deny them. Each devotion stirred the air, shaping fragments of possibility into echoes that answered back. Sometimes as whispers in dreams. Sometimes as storms that bent to prayer. Sometimes as monsters half-born from worship and fear alike.
Aria’s roots trembled, reaching through the soil as offerings seeped into the ground, growing wild in response. Her voice shook. "They’re writing gods from their hunger."
Fenric’s silver fire flickered pale. He watched the Titan’s constellation blaze as a warband roared its name, the heat in their blood catching like wildfire. "No... not writing. Calling. And the lattice... listens."
Laxin’s grin twisted into something half-wild, half-worried. Crimson sparks crackled off his scars. "Hah. So this is it. The first faith. The first blades raised for something bigger than themselves." He spat blood and laughter both. "Let’s see if they can bear it."
The codex stirred, faint glyphs flickering across its sealed cover. Not commands. Not laws. Merely reflections: prayers, sacrifices, promises etched in living ink. It was no longer a book of beginnings. It had become a mirror of faith.
Above, the constellations burned brighter, as though satisfied with their naming. Each star tethered to a prayer. Each prayer tethered to a people. And through it all, the lattice hummed with a dangerous new truth:
The world had chosen to believe.
Aria pressed her hand to the soil. "The Fifth Path has found its name."
Fenric bowed his head as the codex warmed in his grasp. "Not our name. Theirs."
And Laxin, iron-red light dancing over his grin, whispered what none dared say aloud:
"Now let’s see if they survive the gods they’ve just made."
The sky did not wait.
From the Serpent’s constellation, rivers swelled beyond their banks, coiling through valleys in sudden torrents. Villages that had painted their skins with scales found themselves untouched, waters parting as if honoring its mark. But those who had sworn to the Titan drowned screaming, swept away with no shrine to cling to.
The Flame-Crowned Titan’s answer came next—a storm of fire spilling from the mountains, molten veins erupting as if the earth itself bled. The warband who bore its banners howled in triumph, their blades glowing red-hot, but the forests shuddered, burned, and shrieked as Aria’s roots recoiled in pain.
And in the silence between flood and flame, the Forest-Antlered Stag stirred. Winds bent through branches not yet grown, carrying spores that rooted overnight. From those roots, beasts rose—half-formed, crowned in horn and bark. They moved not with hunger, but with judgment, culling both man and beast that stepped without offering.
Faith had birthed power. Power had birthed terror.
Aria staggered, clutching at her chest as if feeling every tree’s cry. "They’re not just prayers anymore. They’re contracts. The lattice is answering them as truth."
Fenric’s silver fire guttered, then steadied into a pale, unwavering flame. "Every belief... every oath... is a spark. Enough sparks, and the world itself bends." His gaze lifted to the constellations, sharp with both awe and dread. "They’ve made gods real. But not whole. Not yet. They’re still hungry."
Laxin barked a laugh that broke too close to a snarl. His scars burned crimson, his blood answering the roar of faith like iron to a forge. "Hungry gods? Hah! Then their believers better feed ’em well—or choke on their own prayers."
The codex quivered in Fenric’s grasp. Its pages did not open, but one glyph burned through the cover, black edged in silver:
"Every faith carves its price."
The Trinity stood in silence as the first wars of belief began. Armies marched under new banners, rivers twisted against enemies, forests strangled those who scorned them.
The Fifth Path had not just found its name.
It had declared its gods.
And now, for the first time, the Trinity were no longer just witnesses to a dream—
they were witnesses to a reckoning.
The reckoning arrived not gradually, but all at once.
Rivers writhed like serpents possessed, twisting between mountains and cities, carrying both life and death wherever the Serpent’s mark had been invoked. Flames surged from the Titan’s peaks, rolling down hillsides in molten cascades that warped the earth itself. Forests of the Stag erupted into motion, branches snapping like whips, roots lashing at intruders, the wind carrying cries of judgment across the plains.
Villages trembled. Soldiers faltered. Children screamed—not in fear, but in awe—watching as their prayers summoned realities more potent than any elder had dared imagine.
Aria fell to her knees, hands digging into the ground as her roots tangled with the awakening forests. "They’re... learning the weight," she whispered. "Every act of devotion shapes them. Every offering... every prayer... becomes a blade, a shield, a law unto itself."
Fenric’s silver fire flared outward, dancing along rivers and rooftops alike, as if trying to trace the boundaries of the chaos. "This is no longer a world we can touch," he said, voice raw. "It bends to its own will... its own faiths. And faith is a power more dangerous than any sword or spell."
Laxin’s iron-red scars glowed, sparks trailing like fiery comets from his hands. He grinned, teeth glinting in the fractured light. "Hah! Let ’em fight! Let ’em burn! Let them bleed for their gods!" His voice carried across the lattice, a challenge thrown not at mortals, but at divinity itself. "Every prayer comes with a price—and I want to see who pays!"
From the horizon, the first clash began. Serpent priests and Titan-warriors met on a valley plain, water and fire colliding in boiling clouds of steam, the lattice bending to accommodate the violence. Stag-bearers moved between them, forest-born beasts and twisting winds raining judgment on those who faltered, reshaping terrain with each strike.
Above it all, stars shimmered as though observing, counting, weighing—each belief, each victory, each death recorded in constellations that had only just begun to exist.
Aria rose slowly, eyes luminous with both sorrow and resolve. "We... we can’t stop them. We never could. But we can watch, learn, remember. Every story here... every faith... it’s theirs to bear."
Fenric closed his eyes briefly, letting the silver fire settle into a calm glow, yet his voice held steel. "And when the lattice punishes them... we’ll know what it means to be witnesses to power that has no master."
Laxin laughed, low and wild, crimson sparks crawling up his arms like veins of fire. "Hah! Then let the first gods bleed, and let their believers scream! We’re watching history being born... and I wouldn’t miss a second for all the silver in the skies."
The Fifth Path groaned beneath the weight of gods in the making, twisting and rippling as if alive—and the Trinity, silent but unflinching, stepped further into the lattice, not to guide, not to interfere... but to see just how far a world could shape its own faith before the price came due.
The first divine war had begun.
And the Fifth Path was listening.