Part 5: The Cult That Waits
They emerged into dawnlight.
The forest of Holgaris was quiet, but not empty.
Sacha saw it first.
"Campfires," she said. "Too many."
Hundreds dotted the ridgelines.
People.
Not soldiers. Not cultists.
Wanderers. Pilgrims. Exiles.
They had come from different cities, different countries—many on foot. Some still wore the broken sigils of dissolved guilds. Others bore the ash-smears of disavowed clergy. All had followed the rumors. The glyphs in the sky. The name whispered by frightened priests.
The False God of Bloom.
Yuji walked forward, slow and silent.
They saw him.
They didn't cheer.
They didn't chant.
They knelt.
Not all of them.
Some just stared.
One—a boy barely old enough to lift a blade—took a step forward and said,
"Is it true you grew life from a grave?"
Yuji said nothing.
Another voice, older, cracked with fear.
"Is it true you don't die?"
Amelia whispered behind him, "They're not worshipping you."
Siora added, "They're asking if you're the last thing they should believe in."
Yuji looked out over the kneeling mass.
They didn't understand what they were asking for.
But they weren't his enemy.
Not yet.
A girl near the front whispered a name—
Not Kael.
Not Yuji.
"The Bloom That Should Not Be."
Yuji turned away from them.
Did not bless.
Did not curse.
Just said, quietly:
"Then let them fear what grows."