Chapter Twenty: A Blade Among Shadows

Sora moved like smoke unseen, unfelt, unheard.

She had shed her Trial robes for the garb of the enemy: crimson sashes, dark silks, a mask marked with a fractured crescent. Her own blood had once sanctified it in a false initiation. Now, she wore it as a weapon.

 She was inside the cult, still.

And they didn’t know she was burning them from within.

Nightfall, Beneath the Temple of Embers

Sora slipped through a hidden corridor lined with flickering glyphs some drawn in chalk, others etched in blood. Her contact, a mute acolyte named Len, waited in the dark, hands trembling as he handed her the ritual scroll.

 Fifth Trial Directive Ascension Through Flame

She unrolled it carefully.

The plan was written in two layers: the public trial description for the Seers… and the true blueprint of the cult’s ritual embedded in code beneath it.

Her eyes narrowed.

 Phase I: Ordeal by Fire – Remove all non-viables.

Phase II: The Emberlock – Trap the twins within the inner pyre.

Phase III: Awaken the Vessel using "Grief-Tethered Flame."

“Still chasing the same lie,” she muttered. “Still trying to force godhood.”

But something else caught her eye. A name. Not a concept. A real person.

 Vessel Identified: REN KAZE.

Sora froze. They had chosen.

 Ren would be the one to ascend.

Kaede would be the one to die.

She crushed the scroll in her fist, heart thudding.

“No,” she breathed. “Not this time.”

Elsewhere, in the Crypt of Wounds

Sora met with her final asset.

A defected Seer Maari, stripped of her title, exiled for heresy. She had seen through the cult’s illusions long ago, but no one had listened. Now, Sora was her only ally.

“They’ve twisted the entire Trial framework,” Maari whispered. “Even the Fifth Trial’s arena has been altered. They’re building it around the kiln.”

Sora’s breath caught. “The broken one? I thought we shattered it.”

“You damaged it,” Maari said grimly. “But it’s still alive. And it’s been fed.”

Sora stepped back. “With what?”

Maari hesitated. Then:

 “Dreams. Regrets. Dozens of failed contestants who disappeared after the Third Trial… they weren’t exiled. They were drained.”

Sora felt sick. “It’s no longer a god they’re building. It’s a parasite. A corpse given power.”

Maari nodded. “And if it bonds with Ren, it won’t be him anymore. It’ll be… something wearing his face.”

Sora stood at the edge of decision.

To burn the cult from within, she would need to destroy the Fifth Trial itself before it even began.

But doing so would expose her.

And there would be no returning from that fire.

She turned to Maari.

 “Call in the last favors. I want schematics, movement patterns, guard rotations, glyph-layering codes. Everything.”

She drew her dagger, the edge still stained with ritual ash.

 “We’re going to ruin their god and every bastard who kneels before it.”