Chapter 468: The Grave Beneath the Shrine

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Orion and Sophia simply stared at each other.

Then slowly, almost at the same time, they turned back to Eldric.

Orion let out a short, disbelieving breath.

"...Are you playing some kind of joke on us?"

Eldric looked genuinely taken aback. His brows pulled together.

"A joke?" he repeated quietly.

He shook his head once.

"Why would I joke about something like this?"

His voice was calm, but there was a faint edge beneath it.

"This is not something I would ever make light of."

The room fell into silence again.

Sophia’s fingers tightened together in her lap.

She felt like the floor beneath her had shifted without warning.

"I’m confused," she said quietly.

"If the beast we met really was who you say he was... if he was really Dolion..." her voice wavered slightly before she steadied it, "...then how was he still alive until now?"

Her eyes lifted to Orion for half a second.

"Until Orion killed him."

Eldric inhaled slowly.

He lifted a hand and adjusted his glasses, a frown on his face.

"Dolion was in chains when you encountered him, right?" Eldric asked them, and they nodded.

"There is a reason Dolion survived until that moment," Eldric said, not answering their question directly.

His gaze lowered briefly, as if weighing his next words.

"Like I told you... Dolion was the first to ever practice black magic."

Sophia’s stomach tightened.

"He is the reason black magic exists at all."

Sophia lifted her head slowly.

"If he was married to the goddess... and if he was supposed to be the greatest priest to ever exist... then how could he also be the first person to practice black magic?"

Her brows drew together.

"How does someone go from a loving husband and the best priest to a... a beast? One so vicious?" she asked him.

Eldric’s eyes dimmed at that. He looked down at his open hands.

"There’s a thin line between good and evil, just as there’s a thin line between love and hate," he told her, then raised his head and stared back at her.

"A few months into the marriage," Eldric continued, "the Dolion we all knew... changed."

His fingers curled faintly over the arm of his chair.

"At first, it was subtle."

He tilted his head.

"A sharper temper. A deeper restlessness. An obsession with the goddess’s rituals. An obsession with the goddess in general."

Eldric exhaled.

"He began to watch her."

Sophia’s chest tightened.

"Not with admiration, though we all thought it was at first," Eldric said softly. "But it was envy."

"He began to covet her power. He hated that she was the only one who could use magic freely."

Eldric’s voice was low. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

"He hated that the land answered only to her."

He lifted his eyes.

"That she alone could bless the soil."

"That she alone could bless children."

"That she alone could bless our people."

Silence pressed in around them.

"He was a priest," Eldric continued.

"A brilliant one. The greatest of his generation."

A hollow smile touched his lips.

"But brilliance becomes something very dangerous when it begins to feel small."

Sophia swallowed.

"He wanted what she had," Eldric said simply.

"And he could not accept that it would never belong to him."

Orion closed his eyes briefly.

"So he staged an uprising."

"He gathered followers," Eldric continued. "Those who were already dissatisfied. Those who believed the goddess had been given too much power. Those who thought the world should belong to men instead of gods."

Orion’s gaze darkened.

"He convinced them that the goddess was the problem," Eldric said. "That as long as she existed, no one else could ever truly rise."

Sophia felt cold spread slowly through her limbs.

"And what about the people who supported her?" she asked softly. "There must have been people who supported her, right?"

Eldric’s expression barely changed.

But something in his eyes hardened.

"They were few," he said. "And a good majority of us were not warriors. We were farmers and people who simply believed in her. In what she could do. But we could not stand against Dolion. We never stood a chance against him in the first place."

"And it did not take long," Eldric continued, "before the killings began. Everyone who openly worshipped the goddess was slaughtered. Everyone who spoke against Dolion... was slaughtered."

Eldric’s voice did not waver.

"And those who hesitated..."

He paused.

"...were made examples of."

Sophia’s vision blurred slightly, but she blinked it away.

"And he didn’t simply kill them," Eldric said quietly.

"He took from them... from us. He used blood to make himself stronger. He used fear. He even used the dying breath of the people. He was smart. We were all blessed by the Moon Goddess’s magic after all, so he took the magic in our blood, in our veins, and made himself stronger."

"He learned that suffering itself could be turned into power," Eldric continued. "Like I said, he was smart. He didn’t need anyone to tell him before he figured out that he could use the magic in our blood, blessed unto us by the goddess, to become stronger."

Sophia’s fingers trembled faintly in her lap.

"At first, it was crude," Eldric said. "Unstable. Dangerous even to him."

A bitter huff slipped from his lips.

"But Dolion had patience."

"And obsession."

"And time."

Orion stared at him.

"And the stronger he grew, the more out of control he became."

"At some point," Eldric said quietly, "the goddess grew tired of wailing and begging, tired of seeing her people die. And so she approached Dolion herself."

"She walked into his camp alone," Eldric continued. "I am not very certain what the actual details were, only that they spoke for hours, and when she came out, an agreement had been reached."

"She offered him exactly what he wanted."

Orion’s breath hitched.

"She would stop resisting. She would stop gathering what little support remained. She would leave... die and willingly give him the power he sought from her, but only if he stopped killing her people."

Only the faint sound of wind outside filled the room.

"...Why?" Sophia whispered.

Eldric looked at her.

"Because she sincerely believed," he said softly, "that if she was gone... the killings would stop."

"But it didn’t work, did it?" Orion asked Eldric.

"No," Eldric said, shaking his head. "The moment she was buried, he continued his killings."

Eldric inhaled slowly.

Then he lifted his eyes.

And looked directly at Orion.

"You have always wondered something," he said quietly. "Why there is a shrine just outside the pack compound, right?"

"I have," Orion admitted quietly.

Eldric’s expression softened.

Just slightly.

"That structure is not merely a shrine, though, and there’s a reason why it still stands even after all these years," Eldric’s voice was low.

"The shrine is also a grave. It’s actually a grave built like a shrine, so yes, it is both," Eldric told them.