Eternal Master: Path to Godlike Status-Chapter 33: Seal Part 4

Alicia clapped her hands together.

The sound rang through the area like a struck bell.

"HOLY PRESENCE."

The air compressed. A wave of invisible weight rolled outward from her body, pressing against every surface, every person, every shadow in the room.

Her eyes shone white, irises swallowed whole by light, and her aura doubled in an instant — not gradually, not with any warning. It simply was, the way a sunrise was.

She wasn’t done.

"I SUMMON THE SERVANT OF AETHELON—"

The giant translucent hand dissolved.

"—REXER."

Something tore through the ceiling of reality above her.

It descended without a sound.

A wheel. Enormous, cast entirely in metal so pale it looked carved from frozen ice, turning slowly on an axis that didn’t seem to exist.

From its rim spread four wings, vast and white — and very creepy.

Dozens. Hundreds. Golden irises, all open, all aware, all looking at something slightly beyond the visible world.

Even the dark serpent seemed to feel it. It began to waver at the edges, its mass thinning, darkness pulling inward like smoke retreating from heat.

Not from any direct attack — simply from the pressure of what arrived.

"So, this is your trump card," he scoffed. "The power that lets you wield such authority despite being only a high priest."

"Don’t misunderstand me." She flipped her hair. "I didn’t summon it because you deserved to be taken seriously. I only wanted to show my man a glimpse of my true power."

The old man was quiet for a moment.

Then he laughed.

"Show your man." He repeated with a hint of sarcasm "A high priest of Aethelon, and that’s what moves you."

"People are allowed to have priorities," she replied without a trace of embarrassment. Pride glinted in her eyes instead.

"Yes." He looked only at her face — that calm, ivory-perfect face "They are."

He took a single step forward, as if to make a point.

"You know, when I was young, I believed in the church. I believed—in the doctrine, in the mission, in the idea that Aethelon’s and Aeterna’s will move through those who carried their names."

"How nostalgic of you," she said, lips curling in amusement.

"I met a priest back then too," he continued, ignoring her interruption. "A man with a face like a saint. The villages near his parish adored him—brought him food, named their children after him."

He paused. "Do you know what he did to the ones who couldn’t pay their tithe?"

Alicia said nothing.

"Of course you do. That’s the thing, isn’t it. You all know. Every cardinal, every high priest, everyone sitting comfortable in that white marble city knows what the lower clergy does in the name of keeping order."

"The missing people. The burned villages that get called ’purging of heretics ’ in the official records. You carry your god’s light, yet you let the rot spread beneath you."

His voice didn’t rise. It stayed level, which was somehow worse.

Alicia responded. "You speak of corruption as if it belongs only to us. Every institution that has ever existed—"

"Don’t." For the first time, his voice turned sharper. "Don’t give me the speech about human nature. I’ve heard it. I’ve lived long enough to have heard it from people far more eloquent than you, and it has never once made a mass grave smaller."

Silence stretched between them. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"You’re not wrong," Alicia admitted.

The old man blinked in surprised. He didn’t expect her to agree.

"The church is exactly what you described," she continued, conversationally, as if discussing a topic with a student.

"It has been for at least a few hundred years, if you’re being generous. The rot isn’t beneath the institution."

She smiled faintly. "It is the institution itself. The marble and the doctrine and the charitable deeds are just the parts that face outward."

"Then why—"

"Because our gods are real." Her voice lost its lightness. "The corruption of the people carrying their names doesn’t change what the names means."

He stared at her for several seconds. Then he shook his head and tapped his cane.

The floor split.

A translucent beast came up from beneath it.

It carried no elegance, no beauty. A worm as wide as a house, its segmented, slick body pushing upward through the broken stone.

Where its head should be, only a mouth remained: round, cavernous, lined with jagged, overlapping teeth that spun like a machine.

The massive worm rushed toward the serpent. Its cavernous mouth opened wider, devouring the dark beast with ease.

Across the chamber, Rain watched without moving.

The scale of what stood on both sides of this fight amused him greatly.

He wondered how on earth they could summon such creatures. There had to be some explanation—some clue that might at least help him understand.