The chopper cut low over the Church district, and the landscape unfolding beneath us was something else entirely from the glittering towers of Sector 1’s rich zones — white spires instead of steel, gold-leafed domes catching the light, banners bearing sun-and-flame sigils hanging from every wall.
I looked down at it and felt something old surface, uninvited.
I remembered a priest showing up in our village once, robes clean and pressed against all that dust, carrying vials of "blessed water" he swore could cure anything. My mother had paid everything she had for one of those vials — every dollar we didn’t have to spare — convinced it’d save what medicine couldn’t. It hadn’t worked. Nothing about it had ever worked. Just a con dressed up in gold thread, preying on people desperate enough to believe in miracles because the real world kept failing them.
This felt personal in a way the arena hadn’t.
We touched down outside the cathedral gates, and the scale of the place hit different up close — towering white stone, stained glass catching the sun in fractured colors, and stretching out from the entrance, a line of worshippers so long it curled around the block twice, people waiting patient and reverent just for the chance to kneel at the altar inside.
Viperess’s eyes swept the crowd, calculating. Frostine studied the architecture like she was picking apart its weaknesses. Demitress just stared at the cathedral itself, flame simmering low behind her eyes, drawn toward whatever was caged somewhere inside.
Seraphina stepped up beside me, voice quieter now. "This isn’t Vince and a spear, Jake. This is thousands of true believers, an entire institution built on centuries of authority." She glanced at the line, then at me. "How do you want to play this?"
I look at the line stretching out, and something clicks — the fee posted at the entrance, some "donation" required just to step inside and pray. Same trick as that priest in my village, dressed up different. Money first, faith second, no matter how much gold leaf they put on the doors.
So I decide to make the point loud instead of quiet.
I pull up the wealth interface and pay the entrance fee — not once, not for just us, but a hundred times over, for every one of us, flooding straight into the Church’s own collection system in one lump transfer that must’ve made whatever ledger they’re running light up like a fire alarm.
The effect is immediate.
A guard posted at the gate practically trips over himself hurrying toward us, robes swishing, expression shifting instantly from the bored gatekeeping he’d been giving everyone else in line to something fawning, eager.
"Ah — honored guests," he says, bowing slightly, already waving us past the velvet rope separating the paying line from the entrance. "Right this way, please, no need to wait."
The murmurs start immediately — worshippers who’ve been standing in that line for hours, some clearly for days judging by how worn they look, watching us get waved through without so much as a glance at credentials. Grumbling ripples down the queue, quiet, resentful, but nobody actually says anything out loud. Nobody ever does, not to the people with money, not in a system built on exactly that hierarchy.
I glance back at the line as we pass through, at all those patient, faithful faces still waiting their turn behind a fee they probably scraped together with real sacrifice.
"Convenient," I say, low, mostly to myself, "how fast ’sacred’ turns into ’skip the line’ once enough zeroes show up."
Seraphina catches my tone, walking close beside me now. "You wanted them to see it," she says quietly. "The hypocrisy."
"Yeah," I say, gates swinging open ahead of us, cathedral interior gleaming gold and marble beyond. "I wanted them to see exactly what their faith’s actually for sale for."
We touch down on the Church’s private landing pad, the cathedral looming even bigger up close, marble columns stretching high enough to make the chopper feel like a toy parked at its feet.
Seraphina steps out beside me, tablet already pulled up, scanning through whatever intel she managed to gather on short notice.
"Jake, before we go further in — you need to understand what we’re actually dealing with." She turns the screen toward me. "The Phoenix isn’t just some captured beast like Frostine or Ignis was. She’s the literal object of worship here. Billions of believers across sectors treat her as divine, a living deity. The entire Church’s power, funding, political influence — all of it’s built on her existence, her captivity being framed as ’sacred communion’ instead of imprisonment."
She pauses, choosing her next words careful.
"And she’s conscious. Fully aware, fully lucid — unlike Frostine’s rage-state or Ignis’s desperation. Which means she’s not going to react to fear or suffering the way the others did. If she’s been complicit in this arrangement, or simply resigned to it, she’s not going to just accept an offer to leave and become someone’s Maiden. Not without a reason that actually means something to her."
I look up at the cathedral spires, gold catching the afternoon light, thinking about billions of people out there who’d probably riot in the streets if they knew what I was about to attempt.
A slow grin spreads anyway.
"So you’re saying," I say, "she’s the hardest one to convince yet."
Seraphina gives me a flat look, like she already regrets phrasing it that way. "That is not an invitation, Jake—"
"Challenge accepted."