Ash drifted through the grey air under gathering clouds. The surrounding wilderness had gone completely still, holding an oppressive silence that made even breathing feel heavy.
Members of the Knight Order were scattered across the clearing. Some inspected the collapsed stone walls, while others searched the rubble in low-voiced groups. Around the perimeter, guards stood with their hands resting flat against their swords.
From beneath his black umbrella, Lucien’s golden eyes tracked their movements. His gaze lingered on their heavy armor, plates of blue obsidian etched with silver branches. Despite the immense weight, these men pivoted and shifted with a fluid, frictionless grace. They weren't here on a standard patrol; the Knight Order was explicitly geared for high-tier combat.
The wind picked up, swaying strands of his golden hair beneath the deep shadow of his umbrella. A few paces away, a group of knights muttered over the dry grass, their voices carrying just far enough for Lucien to capture the frequencies.
"The captain forced us all the way here for this?" one knight said, brushing ash from his shoulder plate. "He said this place felt wrong."
"It's because of the Heretic," another replied.
A third knight shook his head. "No. The captain said this isn't his style. The Heretic leaves total annihilation. This doesn't match his signature."
Beneath the umbrella, the corner of Lucien’s mouth twitched into a cold line.
An accurate assessment. Had Lucien designed this destruction, he would have vaporized the place entirely. The presence of standing arches and half-shattered pillars meant this wasn't an attack at all; it was a diversion.
Remaining hidden any longer would be dangerous. His vision was already beginning to tingle at the edges, a familiar, hazardous signal. Adjusting his grip on the umbrella, he waited for a pair of patrolling guards to pass, then stepped across the dark threshold of the temple.
He gave the umbrella a light sway.
Crackle.
A thin pulse of distorted magic rippled outward from his boots, bleeding across the floor like static. For a fraction of a second, the gray stone walls flashed with impossible, unnamable hues before snapping back to reality.
The interior was entirely hollow. Lucien walked down the nave, the sharp click of his heels sounding crisp against the bare floorboards. Even a sanctuary built for a forgotten deity usually carried residual imprints, wax stains, grooves from kneeling believers, or fragments of cheap grain offerings.
Yet this floor was immaculate. The stone was unmarred, completely devoid of historical grime or human residue. Someone hadn't broken the temple; they had systematically uninstalled its history.
He reached the steps of the central sanctuary, his eyes tracking the bare podium as the air around him began to warp. The quiet grew heavy, carrying a rhythmic, hollow thrumming that vibrated behind his eyes, pulling a thread from his locked memories until the void itself whispered his name.
Lucien.
He halted mid-stride. The absolute calm on his face fractured, his pupils contracting into sharp golden pinpricks. His left hand instinctively tightened against the fabric of his dress. There was no shifting of air currents behind him, and no secondary echo off the stone walls; it was just a memory, triggered by the specific spirituality of the hall.
Lucien exhaled a quiet breath. Stepping up to the altar, he ran two bare fingers across the top of the stone slab.
There was no dust on the surface, and no magical signature. Normally, when a god died, their divine corpse left a massive weight of residual ether that poisoned the soil for miles. Here, the etheric reading was a perfect, absolute zero.
The deity hadn't been slaughtered. It had been erased from existence.