As his blood sank into the altar like oil into cracked stone, the mountain trembled. The cold deepened. Shadows held their breath.
And then…
The Spell spoke.
[Your passive attribute has been used.]
["Deathfree" ceases to exist.]
There was no fanfare, no triumphant flare of power.
Just that hollow revocation.
Taken. Used. Gone.
A chill far worse than death crept through Silias's core—not the cold of the Harrowing Black Mountain, not even the divine frost, but the bone-deep understanding that something final had occurred.
He didn't feel stronger.
He didn't feel reborn.
He simply felt… spent.
Like a match that had burned both ends to reach a flicker of warmth.
His vision swam. The altar pulsed.
And then… something shifted in the mountain.
The shadows that had once consumed him now parted—just barely.
Not in welcome.
In acknowledgement.
After a moment of harrowing silence.
The spell spoke
[You have cast yourself upon the altar of what no longer listens.]
[No gods remain.]
[No prayers were heard.]
[But something woke.]
[The marrow of your soul echoes with forbidden purpose.]
[You are no priest. No heir. No hero.]
[You are a vessel—empty, and still moving.]
[The Forgotten God has seen you.]
[You who bleed and do not die… Receive this curse of favor.]
[You have slain a Awakened Titan, Verdant Harrowfang.]
[Rise, Silias. Your nightmare wanes.]
[The shadows recede, but your trial advances.]
[Prepare for appraisal…]
[Aspirant.]
Silias slept.
And as the shadows receded — like breath exhaled from the world — he drifted into a silence deeper than death.
There was no dream. No sensation. Only space… wide, endless.
Then came the stars.
They hung in the void like scattered fragments of glass, still and cold and burning with colors no eye was made to see. Some shimmered. Others pulsed. All of them watched.
Around him stretched the hushed infinity — a realm of sleeping light. Vast, beautiful. Terrifying in its serenity. Not a sky… not really. Just a weightless expanse, painted with ancient fire.
And there — within that void — they appeared.
Names.
Not words, not images. Just names. Countless. Infinite. Suspended in the black like carved sparks of meaning.
They floated — layered over one another, some vast and cracked like dying suns, some tiny, almost weeping. Each one dragged something from within him — something old, something broken.
His head ached.
He turned his gaze away — tears slipping down his cheek, silent and pure.
He didn't know why he was crying.
Only that it was beautiful.
And then — at last — something stirred.
Not in the stars.
But beneath them.
The void breathed.
The stars listened.
And the spell continued.
[You have trespassed into sacred ground unmarked by fate.]
[You have slain the Awakened Titan: Verdant Harrowfang.]
[You were broken.]
[You were forgotten.]
[And yet, you rose.]
[Final appraisal: Glorious, you were never meant to survive. You did.]
Silias did not flinch.
He could feel the void watching — the stars holding their breath — as the spell continued.
[You have earned the Curse of the Forgotten God.]
[A Divine Attribute has awakened: Divine Born.]
[You are remembered by the dead gods.]
[You are feared by the living.]
[Receive your reward.]
The void cracked.