The group's first collective thought, unspoken but as clear as a scream behind glass, was a single word:
Dangerous.
Not because Erasmus looked threatening—he didn't. He looked like a lost boy playing prophet in a world with too many graves. But that was precisely what made it worse. Who in their right mind would keep following someone who led them from trial to trial, altar to altar, as if suffering were a game? A performance?
Who followed someone like that? Who followed a trail of riddles etched in rot? Who trusted a guide that treated altars like stepping stones and called agony a sacred ritual?
Apparently, they did.
And now they were staring down another crossroads—with him at its center again.
Rei stepped forward, his voice cold, clear, and cutting. "How can we really trust you?" His words hung in the air like blades. "You've led us into every dead end and death trap since the crimson
forest. First the fruit. Now this—this place that reeks of mockery and madness. Even the air doesn't want us here."
His voice echoed across the pond like a crack spreading across ice, the kind that always ends in collapse.
Sir Calden's reply came low and rough, the start of a rumble. "See?" he barked, fists clenched at his sides. "I said it back then—we should've left that kid behind the moment he opened his mouth."
He took a step forward, his voice rising with each word, worn and weathered like a war drum sounding an inevitable charge. "The boy's an attractor for misfortune. Bad luck clings to him like rot to roots. And for what? What are we doing here? Don't we all have families to return to? Are we seriously staking our lives on the whims of a kid who can't even speak three sentences without sounding like he's in a fever dream?"
The silence that followed was deafening in its weight. Mira flinched. Brin dropped his gaze. Even Rei's eyes flickered—just for a second—with hesitation.
But Riven stepped forward, the calm center of the growing storm. His voice was firm, not loud, but it held the finality of judgment. "Enough," he said, and it was enough. "We're angry. All of us. Tired. Hungry. Afraid. But unless you know how to walk across that pond, then he is the only one with a plan."
He turned slightly toward Erasmus, the smallest crack of concession. "So let's hear him out. Just this once."
The others hesitated, weighed the risk against the reality.
Then, slowly, they moved. Mira first, reluctant but composed. Brin, dragging his feet like they were shackled. Even Calden, still scowling but silent, joined the circle that reluctantly formed around the boy seated on the ground.
Erasmus looked up at them, eyes wide with theatrical innocence. Like a child preparing to share a secret he knew would shake the house.
Rei crossed his arms, voice tense. "Explain. And this time—without the cryptic performance."
Erasmus let out an exaggerated sigh, raising his arms like a storyteller denied his stage. "Fine," he said, his tone light, sing-song, still steeped in a mockery of youth. "But first, let's clarify a few things. What happened in the crimson forest?" He put a hand to his chest, as if wounded. "Not in my control, thank you very much."
He stood slowly, brushing moss from his cloak with meticulous drama. "And don't you remember? Hardship is the crucible of survival. My story—my trials—were the path that led me here. The straw bed. The nights without food. The whisper of His voice in the dark, shaping me. Should I remind you of the story again?"
"No," Rei said flatly. "Gods, no."
Erasmus huffed, muttering under his breath—but just loud enough to be heard.
"Ungrateful. Pitiful little souls. If you've survived this long, it's only because of His mercy."
A vein throbbed visibly on Rei's head.
Erasmus smiled, too wide, too satisfied. Then, like a switch flipped, his face sobered into something quieter—something almost solemn.
"The trial," he said, "is actually… simple."
Every head lifted slightly. A shift in the air. The bait has been hooked.
"It's not a sacrifice. Not this time," Erasmus continued, pacing now, hands painting his words. "This is what I meant when I said hardship tempers us. We've endured enough. And now comes the reward—the blessing. The simplicity."
He raised one hand, palm open, as though presenting the cave itself.
"My Creed," he continued, "lets me conjure illusions. Just illusions. One ability. That's what I got from the Trial of Purity when I emerged as a Marked—the second lowest rank. Barely worthy.
Riven's eyes narrowed, thoughts sharpening like a blade unsheathed behind his gaze.
He's from the Court of Faces. Our homeland. The Instructors said only our region had access to the Creed system. So what is he doing all the way out here?
The same question rippled through the others. Mira's eyes were wide with veiled realization. Brin's lips parted, then closed again. Even Calden's sneer faltered, as if the world had just revealed a crack in its skin.
But Erasmus either didn't notice or chose not to. He continued.
"The first line," he said, raising a finger, "'What would you give to reach truth?' That's not about handing something over. It's a metaphor."
He stepped closer to the edge of the pond. "I would 'give up' my illusion ability to reach truth—by using it to reveal the path. The truth is the other side."
Then he turned, and tapped his boot against the cold stone.
"And the second line—'What would you fake to pretend you already had?'" He smiled. "Also metaphorical. I would fake a floor. Conjure the illusion of one. Because I don't have a floor to walk on. Not yet."
He looked back at them, arms spreading as if offering a gift at the altar.
"That's it. That's all."
Inwardly, Erasmus thought about this sacrificial cave.
The most complex problems, he stated, are often the most simple ones.
The group said nothing.
Not a word passed between them.
The lantern overhead flickered again, casting elongated shadows on their faces. Shadows that twitched like they weren't entirely their own.
The stone beneath them groaned faintly, as if reacting to the realization finally blooming among them.
They had expected blood. Fire. Sacrifice. Pain.
But the riddle had been about perception.
Not torment.
And only Erasmus had seen it for what it was.
They stood in silence, caught between awe and dread, unsure whether they were standing before a savior—
—or a serpent who knew how to sing like one.