The gray tide slowly settled into stillness, and when it did, the cathedral no longer looked like a place of golden light and divine splendor. It looked like something dragged up from the bottom of the sea.

Every surface, every pillar, every pew, every frozen body had been covered in the same layer of ash and shadow.

I lowered my hand.

The spell had taken its toll. The hydra’s minds were burning themselves out, and three thousand souls pressed against my consciousness with the weight of something living, each one whispering, each one hungry.

Casting two high-level spells at the same time was already enough to drain me, and forcing them both out in less than a second had cost even more.

Still, I remained standing.

And the path to the sanctum was open.

Marcellus, Evelina, and Julius had slipped through the gray before it fully settled, using my spell as cover as they pushed deeper into the church. I could still feel them moving through the corridors beyond, their presence like small points of light against the dark.

They would take care of the ritual.

I had something else to do.

The False Hydra shifted at the back of my mind, curious and impatient. It didn’t understand why I was waiting. Neither did the souls. They could already taste the death hanging in the air, the fear, the blood that had not yet been spilled, and they wanted more.

"Patience," I murmured.

The gray rippled at my feet, answering my voice even without conscious direction. The spell was still changing, still adapting, still becoming something I had never fully intended.

I turned toward the frozen inquisitors, the paralyzed pilgrims, the priests caught mid-prayer like statues in a garden of ash.

They were not dead.

Not yet.

The gray had only... suspended them. Their bodies were locked in place while their minds drifted somewhere between waking and dreaming. They could see what was happening around them. They could hear it. But they could not move. They could not scream. They could do nothing except watch.

If I was about to begin a massacre, it was better to kill them while they were frozen. Easier. Cleaner. And, more importantly... less likely to make me look like a complete psychopath in front of my students.

"I’ll make this quick..."

[Holy Fire Manipulation]

"And I’ll make it feel peaceful. It’s the least I could do."

SNAP!

FWOOSH!

The flames spread in perfect silence.

No screams. No crackling. Just the soft whisper of fire consuming flesh that couldn’t flinch, couldn’t flee, couldn’t even cry out.

The holy light illuminated the cathedral in stark shades of gold and grey, flickering across the frozen faces of pilgrims who would never wake from their waking nightmare.

I watched.

A young woman with braided hair, her hands still clasped in prayer. An old man who had been reaching for a daughter who was no longer there.

A child, no older than seven, clutching a wooden sunburst charm so tightly that his fingers had turned white beneath the ash.

The flames took them all.

Not cruelly. I had meant what I said. The fire was peaceful, almost gentle, the kind of heat that lulled rather than burned.

Their bodies crumbled to ash before their minds could register pain, and their souls rose in silver streams that curled toward the ceiling like smoke.

"The ritual’s still trying to use them?"

[Command Hydra]

"Make a contract with them, and make sure that not even the slightest bit of energy leaves this place."

[Contract: 3,746 → 3,954]

The system panel flickered, and the number climbed.

New souls joined the chorus in my chest, their voices softer than the ones from the cathedral, less angry. These had not been tortured. They had simply been... unfortunate. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

If I were any less used to this. I may have even dropped to my knees in guilt.

The False Hydra shifted, its minds processing the influx of new contracts with mechanical efficiency. It didn’t care about the morality of what I’d just done. It only cared about the calculations, the power, the cold arithmetic of survival.

The souls cared, though.

They pressed against my consciousness, confused at first, then afraid, then slowly, slowly, beginning to understand. That, and the contract’s forceful submission doing the work.

"Should be done right about now."

The silver streams faded.

The holy flames guttered out.

And the cathedral fell back into silence.

I stood alone among the ashes. Thousands of bodies reduced to dust, thousands of souls now bound to my will, thousands of voices whispering at the edges of my thoughts.

This was what the church had wanted, wasn’t it? A sacrifice of the faithful to fuel their ritual. They just hadn’t expected someone else to claim the power first.

"Cael."

Jayden’s voice came from behind me, rough and breathless. I turned.

He stood at the edge of the grey, his sword dripping blood that sizzled where it touched the ash-covered floor. His robes were torn, his face streaked with something that might have been sweat or might have been blood, and his eyes had the hollow look of someone who had just killed a man with his bare hands.

"The High Priest?"

"Dead." Jayden looked around, seeing the outcome of my actions, his mouth twitching at the sight. "Was it hard...?"

I smiled at him.

"No," I said.

Jayden stared at me for a long moment, then nodded slowly, as if he’d expected that answer. He sheathed his sword with a soft click and walked through the grey toward me, his boots leaving faint impressions in the ash.

And the grey parted around him like water around a stone.

"How many?" he asked.

"Does it matter?"

"It matters to me."

I looked past him, at the empty pews, the silent pillars, the piles of ash that had once been pilgrims seeking a miracle.

"Nearly three hundred," I said. "Maybe more."

Jayden’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t look away.

"They would have died anyway," he said. "When the ritual started, when the church drained them for fuel, they would have died screaming. What you gave them was..."

"Mercy?"

"I was going to say ’quick.’" He shook his head. "But mercy works too."

The grey stirred at my feet, restless, hungry. The new souls pressed against my consciousness, still confused, still afraid, but already beginning to settle into the rhythm of the contract.

Three hundred more voices in the chorus.

"Where are the others?" Jayden asked.

"Inside. Heading for the sanctum."

"Should we join them?"

I considered it. The ritual was the heart of the church’s plan, the thing that would kill millions if we failed. Every instinct told me to be there, to fight beside Evelina, to make sure nothing went wrong.

But the cathedral was still standing.

And as long as it stood, as long as the grey held, no reinforcements could reach the sanctum. No one could interrupt Marcellus’s assault. No one could warn the higher-ups that their sacrifice had escaped and their fuel had been stolen.

"We stay," I said. "It’s bad for a person’s development if I always become the problem-solver."

"Are you telling me...?"

"Yes, I’m holding back."

"What brought this on?"

"Nothing, just thinking about the future after all this church stuff."