The purges began at dawn.
High Inquisitor Virelle stood before the golden gates of the Velmire Temple, her blade gleaming in both sun and scripture. No crowd had gathered. No guards volunteered.
They feared her holiness more than any devil.
She didn't shout. She didn't pray.
She simply pointed.
And men began to die.
By sunset, twenty-four had burned.
Among them: two altar boys, an old scribe, and a midwife who once claimed her stillborn child spoke in dreams.
Their screams echoed across the rooftops.
In the silence that followed, the people did not feel peace.
They felt doubt.
Ashen watched from atop the ruined chapel, cloak fluttering like shadowed parchment in the wind. Below, the smoke rose like incense, bitter and choking.
Corren approached from behind.
"You've won," he said. "She's burning her own flock."
Ashen's expression didn't change.
"I haven't won," he murmured. "But she's playing my tune."
Corren rubbed his temples. "I saw three women leave the sermon tonight. One asked who had more mercy: the gods who stayed silent, or the prince who healed with sin."
Ashen turned to face him. "And what did you say?"
"I told her to ask again tomorrow."
The city began to fracture.
Lines appeared—not drawn with swords, but with thoughts.
Some whispered that the gods were testing faith.
Others said the gods had abandoned them.
But a few—quiet, curious, broken souls—began to wonder something darker:
What if the gods had never cared at all?
And into that void… Ashen whispered.
Lira became the silent courier of his heresy.
She carried symbols sewn into her sleeves—glyphs only the desperate could see.
To a grieving mother, she gave a prayer that brought nightmares of a burning throne.
To a dying beggar, she gave a riddle that twisted faith into hunger.
And to a former cleric—one with a missing tongue—she offered a new name:
The Scourged Path.
In the undercity, in rat-worn tunnels and hollowed crypts, the first Scourge Cult sermon was held.
Seven men and women knelt around a desecrated altar made of broken icons and rotted candles.
Ashen stood at the center.
Not as a god.
But as a wound.
"We do not kneel before thrones," he told them. "We rise from their ashes."
Each drank from a cup of soot-stained wine.
Each offered a sin they had once begged forgiveness for.
Ashen accepted them all.
🔸 You have founded the First Cell of the Scourge Cult
🔹 + Echo Rank: C (Apostate – Stable)
🔹 + Corruption: 19.4%
🔹 + Divine Infamy: 11 (Rumors spreading to nearby duchies)
🔹 + Followers: 29 (Cult Initiates + Servants + 1 Noble)
🔹 Cult Trait Gained: "Ashbound"—Cultists do not fear divine flame
🔹 Divine Awareness Risk: Elevated (Watched through dreams)
Meanwhile, Tahlon grew bold.
He defied Virelle in open court.
He argued scripture.
He accused her of weaponizing belief.
And when she tried to silence him, he bled from the mouth—but did not fall.
The people saw it as a trial by divine fire.
Ashen saw it as stagecraft.
Later that night, Ashen bled the prince with a silver needle and performed a Reverse Echo Binding—anchoring his life force to corrupted prayer.
It would keep him alive.
But it would also feed the blight.
In the northern skies above Velmire, a Watcher stirred.
A sliver of light blinked open between realms.
Something old and faceless whispered to Virelle in her sleep.
"The heretic is not near."
"He is within."