The anger did not arrive like an explosion.
It settled.
Silent. Constant.
Present behind every thought, every breath.
Since the bloodbath.
Since the dragon's death.
Siegfried walked through human lands, yet he barely saw them. Villages, roads, fields frozen by a lingering winter… everything felt distant, as if observed through thick glass.
Something inside him growled.
A dull, ancient pressure that was not entirely his own.
He stopped before a temple.
A sanctuary dedicated to the sky gods, built of white stone, adorned with idealized statues—perfect bodies, serene faces, gazes turned toward the horizon as if watching over the world with benevolence.
Siegfried looked up.
He felt disgust.
Not fear.
Not reverence.
Contempt.
"You did nothing," he whispered.
The wind stirred the sacred banners. Bells hanging at the entrance chimed softly, as if warning him.
He stepped forward anyway.
Inside, the air was heavy with incense and ancient prayers. Offerings covered the floor—dried fruits, jewelry, broken weapons given in exchange for protection that had never come.
Siegfried stopped before the central idol.
A god carved in marble, arm raised as if blessing mortals.
The rage surged.
He saw the dragon again.
Invisible chains.
Isolation.
Gods watching from afar… and turning away.
They had not slain the dragon.
They had buried it.
As they had buried everything they refused to face.
"You call this order," Siegfried murmured.
"I call it cowardice."
He raised his fist.
The impact was brutal.
Marble exploded.
Cracks spread across the statue like veins of frost. The blessing arm shattered, crashing to the floor with a dull roar. Shards flew, sharp as blades.
Siegfried did not stop.
He struck again.
And again.
Each blow shook the temple. Pillars groaned. Sacred runes etched into the stone dimmed one by one, unable to recognize what he had become.
When the statue finally collapsed, silence followed.
Siegfried was breathing hard.
His hands were covered in white dust… and blood.
Not his own.
The dragon stirred within him.
Outside, the faithful stared in frozen terror.
Some fell to their knees.
Others cried heresy.
"Blasphemy!"
"The gods will punish us!"
Siegfried turned to face them.
His gaze was not cruel.
It was empty.
"The gods never protected you," he said calmly.
"They protected themselves."
He turned away.
Behind him, the temple collapsed in a cloud of stone and dust.
It was not the only one.
Over the following days, Siegfried walked from sanctuary to sanctuary. Temples devoted to gods of war, sky, fire, justice.
All of them fell.
Not out of pleasure.
Not out of madness.
Out of necessity.
Each shattered idol eased the rage slightly… and sharpened it at the same time.
He understood now.
The dragon's blood had not given him strength alone.
It had given him memory.
A memory of betrayal.
The gods felt the profanation.
Not as a physical wound.
As a conceptual insult.
A mortal.
A human.
Someone who had refused to remain in his place.
Oracles grew confused. Priests lost their visions. Prayers went unanswered.
In the higher realms, gazes turned toward the world below.
"He has gone too far."
"He must be stopped."
"This is a mistake."
Yet no god descended.
Not yet.
Siegfried finally stopped atop a hill.
Before him, a final temple burned slowly, consumed by a fire he had not lit. The flames hesitated near him, as if recognizing something within his presence.
He looked at his hands.
"I never wanted to defy you," he murmured.
"But you forced me to look."
He lifted his eyes to the veiled sky.
"And now… I cannot look away."
The wind rose.
Somewhere, a prophecy fractured further.
And in the shadows of the worlds, ancient entities began to take interest in the man who dared to do what the gods had never had the courage to do.
Siegfried turned his back on the flames.
The road ahead was now clear.
He had committed a crime.
Not against temples.
But against divine order itself.