Damien stared at the source-light to the south, but refrained from heading towards it. There seemed no point. He apparently lacked the capability to smash the things, and he couldn't rely on Valerie's help a second time. Even the first had been downright miraculous.

Maybe. Yes, she'd aided in the destruction of the source-light, but she was also a living witness that Damien was alive and seeking revenge. Since Thale, the only other human who'd recognised him and survived to tell the tale was Grant. Although if the Five were acting against him, the number of human witnesses probably didn't matter.

He had no knowledge that everyone already knew. Of the crusade, and the fact it had sapped the western source-light of much of its defence. His good luck hadn't started with Valerie's dramatic arrival.

"Even if I max out [Bloodwave], would it be enough?" he wondered aloud. "The thing didn't even creak. Maybe my next feat should be to give it an armour-piercing effect?"

"Or you could, you know, consider asking for help," suggested Grant, directly behind him.

Damien jumped.

"How do you do that?!" he complained. Then, somewhat worse, he realised [Foresight] hadn't warned him. "Seriously. How did you do that?"

Grant gave a self-satisfied grin. "Trade secrets, I'm afraid. I see you didn't take my advice to seek out Ariana, but I suppose that at this point, it makes no difference."

"So, what help have you come to offer me this time?"

"Why don't you stop to think about it for a moment?" suggested the [Tourist]. "What do you know about me, and how does it relate to your current goal?"

Damien was by no means a fool, but there didn't seem to be anything that a rank one [Tourist] could do to aid in the destruction of a source-light, no matter how high their level. [Tourist] wasn't a combat class, or the sort of crafting class that would enable disassembly of divine artefacts.

... And yet Grant claimed to have murdered Murill. Even if caught by surprise, how had he managed that?

"Is this something to do with how you managed to kill Murill?" he hazarded.

"Exactly. You really think someone like me could have done that, however unaware I caught her? No. I had help."

Grant unshouldered a backpack, dug around in it, then pulled out a sheathed dagger and tossed it to the ground in front of Damien's feet.

"After all, with Grungle as my patron, I don't exactly have a shortage of powerful tools at my disposal. He forged that one specifically for you. No good at piercing flesh, but on contact with a source-light, it will... What did he say again? Something about a mana collision, an interference pattern, vibrational modes... Lots of incomprehensible stuff. Anyway, the gist is that if you touch that dagger against a source-light, the source-light will shatter."

Damien grinned dangerously.

---

In the Holy Theocracy of Jurelli, the forces of the crusade were on the move. Not towards Damien, or the remaining source-lights, as might have been expected, but towards a port city towards the north-east, where they laid down a siege. A contingent of high-ranked fighters and priests marched boldly towards the gate, demanding the presence of Arial and Kari.

It seemed that Illumis and Kakkerxat were unhappy about Kari undoing Murill's hard work.

"You heretic and traitor to the Five!" spat a priest of Illumis, standing at the forefront of the besieging group, spittle flying from his mouth as he ranted, staring up at Arial where she had emerged on top of the city wall, above the gate. "How dare you betray your goddess, [Oracle of Gaia]!"

"I betrayed no-one," answered Arial calmly. "I followed Her instructions to the letter."

"You would claim that Gaia has sided with a consort of demons?! Does your shame know no bounds, woman?!"

"No, I would never claim She would side with a consort of demons. I would claim She would take pity on an unfortunate child, used as a pawn of our enemy, who wants nothing more than to make the world a better place. I would claim that Murill, out of fear, acted in our enemy's interest, murdering the boy's family and setting him on a path for revenge. I would claim that Gaia wants to undo the damage, before the boy, driven mad by anger, grows into a demon himself. A true servant of the Other, in heart and mind. Such an outcome would doom us all."

The priest failed to speak, his mouth opening and closing comically as a vein in his forehead bulged, his anger at the sheer audacity of the woman—the supposed [Oracle of Gaia]—pushing his blood pressure to dangerous levels. Speaking such blasphemy in Gaia's name, the priest had no idea why Gaia didn't strike her down where she stood.

After all, it took a very open-minded priest to consider that perhaps the Five might not be as united as assumed.

"Putting aside the Five, and what they have and haven't said, you admit that Damien is powerful enough to pose a risk to the entire bowl?" spoke up the leader of the 'diplomatic' delegation.

"I do."

"Then you can see why we might want to neutralise the threat," he answered.

"Is it wise to state your desire for Illumis's death while standing so close to such a fervent priest?" asked Arial. "Or, indeed, for Gaia's while standing before me."

"Do not twist my words, unless you desire us to come and take you by force."

"But either are powerful enough to pose a risk to the entire bowl, as are any of the Five. Thus you surely wish to neutralise the threat?"

"They are our gods!"

"And yet they have the same desires, the same fears, as us lowly mortals."

"Your repeated blasphemy is starting to irk even me, witch. Do not claim the Five fear a mere mortal."

"Then why aren't they here? Why do they send their mortal servants in their place, while they hide in the shells of space and time they have built up over the centuries?" asked Gaia, suddenly standing next to Arial.

The delegation froze up. The presence of the Goddess was unmistakable. This was no lookalike or illusion. Gaia Herself had descended to the bowl. Even Arial, her face a mix of shock and elation, fell to her knees.

"There was no lie in the words of my faithful servant," She continued. "Our home is indeed under grave threat, but that threat was manufactured by Murill. Spurred by fear, she erred in her judgement and so created that which she feared the most. Now Illumis and Kakkerxat seek to protect our home in their own way, while I seek to protect it in mine. I seek to heal the mind of our new enemy, and bring him back to our side, while they seek to destroy him utterly. I will not condemn their decision, but neither will I support it. I freely admit that I fear this 'mortal' myself, but I will not let that fear stand in the way of doing what I believe is best for the people I am sworn to protect, whatever the cost to myself."

The delegation backed away, silent, for how could they argue to the face of a Goddess? The forces of the crusade broke up shortly afterwards, returning to the cities of the gods that had summoned them, but the priests of Kakkerxat and Illumis remained thoughtful. After all, whatever her words, it was obvious that Gaia had let her fear cloud her judgement. Their own gods, who were obviously without fear, had made the correct choice. How could the destroyer of Thale, the scourge of Greenrim, ever be forgiven?

And Gaia watched them leave, knowing their minds, and wondering where it had all gone wrong. Why were they here, threatening her priestess, when they should be defending the remaining source-lights? The road to hell was truly paved with good intentions.

---

Damien had learnt another irritating limitation of [Gate], or, more specifically, of [Pathfinder]: he could only use it to target locations he had previously visited. Yes, that made a sort of sense, but given the shape of the bowl, the position of the southern source-light was clearly visible. He could see it right there. Why couldn't he teleport to it? It meant he was once again forced to fly the distance.

Of course, if he could see somewhere, logic dictated that anyone else there could equally see him. He was quite a lot smaller than a source-light, not to mention he didn't glow anywhere nearly as brightly, but he was well aware of the sort of perceptive abilities his mum had, and it stood to reason the defenders would have lookouts that were just as good, if not better.

His mum used to have, he corrected himself, scowling at the thought.

He dipped downwards, plunging into the sea, relying on [Eternal Flesh] to take the place of breathing. It was uncomfortable, but thanks to his experiences on the Isle of Mist, he knew that it worked. Would any of their scouts have perceptive abilities that could pierce the water? They probably would, but from this distance? Almost certainly not.

Still, it wasn't completely certain. After the destruction of one source-light, they would surely try to increase the guard at the other two. His biggest hope was that by acting so swiftly, he'd reach the next light prior to any reinforcements.

Little did he know that the 'reinforcements' were busy dealing with an imagined internal threat.

Even what guards were still there—positioned on fortress-like boats designed more for sturdiness than speed or manoeuvrability—were distracted.

"I don't care how loudly you claim Gaia's priestesses ordered you here!" shouted a captain. "I wasn't informed of reinforcements, you aren't carrying any of the proper tokens, and you don't know any of the passwords. Just be thankful I'm giving you the opportunity to leave, rather than executing you here and now for entering a forbidden area!"

"For goodness' sake! Just how thick are you?! See that source-light? That one over there? No? That's because it was destroyed. And the one who did it has a fifty/fifty chance of coming here next. I am here to stop them!"

"We are perfectly capable of defending the source-light from an aggressor without the help of a suspicious outsider like you. For all I know, you're the one trying to destroy this source-light. You have ten seconds to leave before I give the order to open fire."

A row of crossbow-wielding defenders levelled them at Shigeo.

"I'm not here to fight. I'm here to talk to my son."

"Five."

Shigeo said a rude word, then punched him in the face.

---

Damien continued his underwater flight, expecting discovery and attack at any moment, but [Foresight] continued to draw a blank. He didn't entirely trust it, given the couple of times it had been bypassed, but keeping his physical eyes open while moving at high speed underwater wasn't practical.

He performed another scan of the future with [Foresight], watching himself burst from the sea between a fleet of battleships.

... A few of which were on fire.

His intentions shifted, the location he left the water moving closer to the burning ships. He saw signs of fighting, the dead laying strewn across the deck.

His intentions shifted again as he inspected the fight, and there he saw the impossible. His father's corpse. But it wasn't at all burnt; he'd obviously died from wounds of sword and arrow. Blood was still pooling around him as Damien stared at the future.

He had only just died in the vision. In the future. At the moment, he was alive.

Uncaring of how such a thing was possible, Damien burst out of the sea. Without the drag of the water holding him back, he accelerated rapidly. Flying straight there instead of following the curvature of the bowl cut down on the distance he needed to travel.

With the ongoing fight, the defenders of the source-light didn't even notice his arrival, and he stared in disbelief as his still-living father fought against a hundred defenders.

"How...?" he asked quietly, hovering unseen and unheard above the battle, before it occurred to him how things would end if he didn't intervene.

"S̵̙͆t̷͔͐o̵̘͛p̵̟̏,̴̦̎" he ordered, and the fighting instantly ceased.

He dropped in front of his father, scanning the frozen face for any sign it wasn't him. Any hint this was some sort of ploy.

"Dad?" he asked uncertainly.

"Yo, kiddo," answered Shigeo, easily snapping the hold [Whispers of the Void] had over him and squeezing his broken child in a hug.