A stunned silence descended upon the clearing, thick enough to taste—a metallic tang of disbelief hanging in the damp, chill air. The only sounds were the distant, mournful cries of unseen birds and the soft rustle of the strange, fleshy-leaved trees that surrounded their point of arrival.
Everyone was dumbfounded.
It was a universal truth, as applicable in the Faith Game as it was in the world they'd left behind: a person might be given a wrong name, but a nickname was never earned by mistake.
Within the sprawling, brutal architecture of the Faith Game, the demographic of male players who chose the Path of the Cleric was already a minority. Within that minority, the number of men who pledged their faith to **The Entity** of **Birth** was vanishingly small. It was a niche within a niche, a statistical footnote.
For these two rare choices to not only coincide in one individual but for that individual to then be randomly matched into their party… the probability felt less like chance and more like a cosmic joke. It was the kind of odds associated with winning a lottery, the sort of fortune that usually preceded spectacular misfortune.
'The Child-Granting Guanyin'—that was the players' mocking title for a male cleric of **Birth**. The nickname had roots in a peculiar and infamous side effect. When a cleric of **Birth** channeled their divine power to bless or heal a companion, there was a significant chance the recipient would experience 'conception.'
This side effect, an unintended consequence of the **Entity's Decree**, didn't involve actual biological pregnancy. The 'womb' could be any organ—a lung, a kidney, even the stomach. What it nurtured was seldom a proper lifeform. The possibilities spanned kingdoms, phyla, classes, and orders in a chaotic, blasphemous mix. The results could be anything from a squirming mass of photosynthetic nodules to a crystalline geode that pulsed with a faint heartbeat. The aesthetics were… varied.
It stemmed from the core will of **Birth**, which venerated propagation in all its forms. Using its divine power thus carried the risk of triggering all manner of awkward, laugh-or-cry 'passive pregnancies.'
But it was a mistake to underestimate these accidental 'gestations.' For every new 'life' quickening within a recipient's body, the healing effect they received increased by thirty percent. Consequently, a 'Scion Cleric'—the formal title—was a healer of prodigious, if deeply unsettling, potency.
Song stood frozen, his hands raised in a warding gesture, shaking his head so rapidly it was a blur. The earlier bravado had evaporated, replaced by pure, unadulterated horror.
"Brother, I'm begging you," he pleaded, his voice tight. "Don't heal me. I'd rather take my chances with a cleric from a directly opposing faith. I cannot, I will *not*, tolerate you… *inflating my abdomen*!"
To receive healing from a male Scion Cleric was, in his mind, a fate worse than death. The social ramifications alone were unthinkable. How could he ever show his face again? How would he explain it? *'Oh, this old scar? Yeah, my male teammate once made me pregnant with a larval swarm. Good times.'*
A visceral shudder of revulsion ran through him. *Ugh—*
Nangong was equally astonished. As a cleric herself, she was acutely aware of the ratio of 'male Scion Clerics' within their vocation. To encounter one was indeed a lottery-winning level of improbability. A wry, helpless feeling bubbled up within her, but it was quickly overshadowed by a surge of gratitude toward Chen.
She understood what he was doing. He was attempting to persuade the team to accept her presence by presenting himself as a potentially greater source of discomfort. It was a clever, self-deprecating tactic, and she appreciated the gesture deeply. Yet, with the faiths of the other two still shrouded, she dared not reveal her own allegiance.
Players who walked the **Path of the Abyss** were viewed with profound suspicion and prejudice. The whispers followed them: *corruptors, nihilists, agents of decay.* Even if she and Chen weren't doctrinal enemies, the stigma was a palpable force.
Summer, standing slightly apart with her customary icy detachment, watched the subtle play of emotions on Nangong's face. That visible internal struggle told Summer everything she needed to know: Nangong was no sworn enemy of **Birth**. A tension she hadn't fully acknowledged uncoiled in her chest, a silent exhalation of relief. Yet, her expression remained a frost-kissed mask.
"I am a Genesis Hunter," she stated, her voice cutting through the uneasy silence.
A Genesis Hunter. A hunter who placed her faith in **Birth**.
Another follower of **Birth**.
The revelation sent a fresh ripple of surprise through the group. Summer, with her piercing gaze and aura of glacial reserve, seemed the absolute antithesis of **Birth's** life-bursting, generative fervor. It was a dissonance that made her seem even more dangerous.
Song's face, however, didn't register surprise—it darkened with dismay. He, too, had deduced that Nangong wasn't an adversary of **Birth**. But the **Path of Life** and the **Path of the Abyss** each only had three **Entities**. This meant the unknown cleric had a fifty percent chance of being his direct doctrinal foe.
As he wrestled with the dilemma of whether to conceal his own faith, Hunter raised a hand, his motion casual yet commanding. The simple gesture sliced through the thickening atmosphere of uncertainty.
"The doctrinal divisions of our Paths aren't of our making, and the burden of them shouldn't crush us," he said, his voice calm and pragmatic. "Since the two clerics aren't opposed, we simply split the healing duties."
He pointed a thumb toward Nangong. "She'll cover me and the mage." Then he gestured between himself and Three. His gaze swept to the others. "As for the followers of **Life**, you'll handle your own."
He then turned his head, his eyes finding Summer. "Since you're one of His followers, I assume you have no objection to Chen?"
Summer's gaze drifted toward the 'Child-Granting Guanyin.' She gave him a cursory, evaluative glance—noting the pleasant enough features, the calm demeanor—and offered a single, slight nod. Her cold face betrayed no hint of awkwardness.
The awkwardness, instead, had migrated. Chen's own expression had grown distinctly微妙—a complex mix of resignation, dry amusement, and mild embarrassment. He had, after all, just been officially assigned as the designated healer for a woman who looked like she could freeze hell over with a glance.
But an even more profoundly微妙 expression was plastered on Song's face. It was the look of a man being asked to willingly board a ship he knew was doomed.
"I…" he began, the word strangled.
In truth, Song wanted to refuse. The very idea revolted him on a primal level. But he wasn't a fool. They had already wasted precious minutes of their preparation time on this theological standoff. If the others had acquiesced to this arrangement, his continued protest would mark him as a difficult, divisive element. A team couldn't afford a major schism before the first blow was even struck.
*Fine,* he thought, a plan forming through the disgust. *I'll just have to make sure I don't get hurt. Stay perfect. Stay untouched. No healing required.*
The alternative—accepting a 'blessing' from the male Guanyin—was simply not an option.
Hunter had assumed leadership of the group with effortless authority. Seeing no further overt objections, he continued, his tone shifting to one of brisk efficiency. "Enough talk. We have between thirty minutes and an hour of preparation before the Trial proper begins. We're still blind to the causes and factions of this war. We won't leave this landing zone recklessly. During this prep time, everyone needs to complete their **Entity's Decree** as swiftly as possible, after which we'll scout for a defensible position to use as a base."
The term **'Entity's Decree'** referred to the ritual by which Believers petitioned their patron **Entity** for blessings and the activation of their divine gifts.
When a player first pledged faith to an **Entity**, they were granted an initial **Faith Talent**. Upon conquering the grueling **Talent Trial**, they were bestowed with additional, more potent Talents. The number of Talents a player could equip was dictated by their score on the **Leaderboard**, the cryptic ranking system that governed all ascension within the Faith Game.
These Talents were the cornerstone of a player's power. They dramatically enhanced combat capabilities and served as the foundational blocks for constructing unique, personalized combat styles and specializations.
Talent came in two forms: Passive and Active. To utilize an Active Talent during a Trial, one first had to fulfill the specific ritual requirement—the **Entity's Decree**—at the Trial's outset.
For the **Entity** of **Birth**, the Decree was: *"Embrace Procreation, Forge New Life."*
In plainer, more mortifying language: copulate.
To grow stronger, one must first engage in the act of creation.
**Birth**, as the premier **Entity** on the **Path of Life**, was both the prelude to existence and the origin of all things. It united opposites, championed proliferation, and sanctified the generative act. To earn its favor, a Believer had to lead by carnal example.
This presented a notorious logistical nightmare. Trials were randomly matched. Teammates were strangers. No one, no matter how pragmatic, was typically willing to overcome profound personal awkwardness and shame simply because "a follower of **Birth** really needs to have sex." Social contracts and basic human dignity tended to interfere.
Therefore, perfectly fulfilling this particular **Decree** was notoriously, infamously difficult. Most Scion Clerics and Genesis Hunters resorted to… workarounds. Symbolic acts. Creative interpretations. Sometimes, if the stakes were high enough and the team cohesion strong, uncomfortable bargains were struck. The memory of such negotiations often lingered longer than any physical wound.
The clearing fell into a new kind of silence, charged with the unspoken implications of Hunter's instruction. Eyes flickered, avoiding direct contact. The damp earth beneath their feet, the strange purple hue of the twilight sky, the distant echoes of warfare—all of it was momentarily secondary to the intimate, absurd hurdle they now faced.
Chen let out a slow, quiet breath, mentally steeling himself. He had been through this before, this dance of implication and avoidance. He met Summer's icy gaze, finding no warmth there, but also, thankfully, no immediate hostility. It was a start.
Song looked like he was trying to become one with the twisted trunk of a nearby tree. Nangong studied the ground, her mind clearly racing through her own doctrinal requirements. Three simply cracked his knuckles, a sharp sound in the quiet, his face unreadable behind his monk-like composure.
Hunter, seemingly impervious to the social tension he'd just underscored, scanned the perimeter of the clearing. "We'll use the treeline for cover. Find a private spot, complete your rites, and regroup here in twenty minutes. Stay alert. We don't know what else shares this forest with us."
He didn't wait for confirmation. With a nod to Three, he melted into the shadows between the thick, bulbous trees, the warrior and his silent guardian disappearing from view.
Their departure broke the spell. Summer turned without a word and strode toward the opposite side of the clearing, her form soon obscured by the grotesque, vibrant foliage.
Song practically fled, scrambling away from Chen as if proximity alone was a contaminant.
That left Chen and Nangong standing alone in the center of the clearing. The air between them was thick with unasked questions.
Chen rubbed the back of his neck, offering a faint, apologetic smile. "Well. That was… standard."
Nangong looked at him, her dark eyes searching his face. The gratitude she felt was genuine, but so was her caution. "Thank you," she said, her voice low. "For what you tried to do. It was… tactful."
"Tactful is a generous word for offering myself up as the team's designated nightmare," Chen replied with a dry chuckle. "But you're welcome. We need a healer, and from what I sensed… your faith isn't one that inspires easy trust in others."
Nangong's posture stiffened almost imperceptibly. "You sensed?"
Chen tapped his temple lightly. "**Birth** is attuned to… presences. The potential for life, the echo of its opposite. **Abyss** has a… resonance. Like a quiet hum of dissolution. It's not hostile. Just… different."
He said it matter-of-factly, without judgment. It was a simple statement of perception, like noting the color of the sky.
Some of the tension left Nangong's shoulders. His lack of condemnation was more disarming than any pledge of alliance. "And you don't find that… objectionable?"
"**Birth** and **Abyss** aren't enemies," Chen said, shrugging. "One begins, the other… concludes. Or transforms. It's a cycle. My **Entity** doesn't see yours as a foe. Why should I?" He paused, then added with a wry smile, "Besides, in my experience, the followers of **Order** or **Civilization** are far more likely to cause problems. Too many rules."
A ghost of a smile touched Nangong's lips. It was a small, fleeting thing, but it changed her face entirely, softening its sharp edges. "I should… attend to my Decree," she said, glancing toward the woods.
"Of course. I have my own… logistical puzzle to solve," Chen sighed, looking in the direction Summer had vanished.
They parted ways, each seeking solitude amidst the alien forest to commune with their respective **Entities**, to perform the rites that would unlock the divine power they would need to survive the coming bloodshed.
The Faith Game did not care for comfort. It cared only for faith, expressed through action. And for the next twenty minutes, in the gathering gloom of that otherworldly battlefield, action took on deeply personal, strangely intimate forms.
Chen found a small, relatively dry hollow formed by the roots of a massive tree. The wood felt spongy and warm to the touch, pulsing with a slow, vegetative rhythm. He pushed the sensory weirdness aside, focusing on the task at hand. He had no partner, no willing participant for the literal interpretation of **Birth's** Decree. He never did. Years in the Game had forced him to master the symbolic workaround.
He knelt on the soft, moss-like ground cover. From a small pouch at his belt, he produced two items: a smooth, river-worn stone, dark as obsidian, and a freshly plucked leaf from the strange tree, its surface glistening with a silvery sap. Male and female. Earth and life. A crude, universal symbolism.
Placing them before him, he closed his eyes and began the ritual chant, his voice a low murmur that was swallowed by the living silence of the forest. He focused his will, not on literal procreation, but on the *principle* of it—the merging of essences, the commitment to creation, the channeling of generative force. He visualized the stone and the leaf not as objects, but as concepts uniting. His mana, tinged with the verdant, burgeoning energy of **Birth**, flowed from his hands, wrapping around the two items in a gentle, shimmering aura.
It was a workaround, but a sincere one. The **Entities**,
while bound by their own natures, could perceive intent. For followers of **Birth**, the will to create, to participate in the great cycle, was often enough. The stone and the leaf began to glow, a soft, inner light that pulsed in time with his heartbeat. The silvery sap from the leaf flowed, against all nature, to coat the dark stone, forming a fragile, glistening shell. A new, transient form. A symbolic conception.
As the ritual reached its peak, Chen felt the familiar unlocking within his soul. His Active Talents, dormant until the Decree was honored, stirred to life. He sensed them now, like tools laid out on a mental workbench: **Quickening Pulse**, **Symbiotic Surge**, **Font of Fecundity**. Each one carried the price of his faith, each a potential source of immense healing and profound social awkwardness.
A system prompt, visible only to him, etched itself in cool blue light against his vision:
**[Entity's Decree Fulfilled: Symbolic Union.]**
**[Active Faith Talents Unlocked.]**
**[Blessing of Prolific Vigor Granted: Healing potency increased by 15% for the duration of the Trial.]**
He opened his eyes. The stone lay before him, now encased in a delicate, opalescent casing of dried sap. A tiny, perfect, and utterly lifeless sculpture. He pocketed it, a customary token. The ritual was complete.
Elsewhere, Nangong stood in a small circle she had cleared of the fleshy ground-cover. Her ritual was quieter, more inward. For a follower of the **Abyss**, the Decree was not about creation, but about *acknowledgment*. *"Embrace the End that Precedes the Beginning, Honor the Silence that Holds the Echo."*
She drew a small, wicked-looking dagger from her sleeve. Its blade was not metal, but a shard of something dark and non-reflective, like a fragment of a starless night. Without hesitation, she drew the blade across her own palm. The cut was precise, deep enough to well blood but not to disable. The blood that flowed was a shockingly dark crimson, almost black in the low light.
She let the blood drip onto the exposed, dark soil, each drop sinking in without a trace, as if the earth itself was thirsty for it. She didn't chant. Instead, she focused on the feeling—the pain, the fleeting vitality leaving her, the absolute certainty of mortality. She honored the small end contained in a drop of blood, the silence that followed its absorption. She embraced not death, but the *truth* of it, the necessary counterpart to the cacophony of life Chen venerated.
Her blood was the offering. Her acceptance was the prayer.
Within her, a different set of locks disengaged. Her Talents awoke, cold and profound: **Touch of Atrophy**, **Whisper of the Void**, **Embrace of Final Rest**. Powers that could wither, nullify, and grant a merciful, if permanent, end to suffering.
Her system prompt was a stark, violet text:
**[Entity's Decree Fulfilled: Sacrificial Acknowledgement.]**
**[Active Faith Talents Unlocked.]**
**[Blessing of Abyssal Resonance Granted: Detection of mortal wounds and failing life forces enhanced.]**
She bound her hand with a strip of dark cloth, the pain a grounding, familiar sensation. Her expression was serene, a calm that ran deeper than the forest's silence.
Meanwhile, Summer's ritual was one of stark efficiency. She had found a small, clear rivulet of water, cold and sharp-smelling. A Genesis Hunter's Decree for **Birth** was similar but oriented toward the hunt: *"Seek the Spark, Claim the Potential."*
She crouched by the stream, her eyes sharp. She waited, perfectly still. A small, many-legged creature, like a cross between a shrimp and a centipede, scuttled over a rock. In a motion too fast to follow, her hand shot out, snatching the creature. It writhed in her grasp. She held it, feeling its frantic, alien life force. This was the spark. The potential.
With her other hand, she took a single, razor-sharp arrow from her quiver. She pressed the creature against the arrowhead, and with a whisper of power, its essence was drawn out—not killing it, but extracting the raw potential of its life, its vitality, and transferring it into the arrow. The creature went still, not dead, but emptied, and she released it back onto the rock where it lay dormant. The arrowhead now gleamed with a faint, predatory bioluminescence.
**[Entity's Decree Fulfilled: Essence Claimed.]**
**[Active Faith Talents Unlocked.]**
**[Blessing of the Proven Hunter Granted: First strike against a new target deals 10% increased damage.]**
She stood, nocking the now-empowered arrow onto her bowstring, a hunter primed and ready.
Song and Three, in their own secluded spots, performed their own rites. Song's involved a brief, fervent whisper and the lighting of a small, incense-less candle that burned with a pure, golden flame—a petition to **Life** or one of its allied **Entities** for preservation and growth. Three's was likely a meditation, a hardening of will, a silent oath to the principles of **Order** or **Civilization** he served.
One by one, they completed their obligations to powers beyond mortal understanding. The clearing slowly filled again as they returned, each carrying the subtle, newly awakened aura of their divine gifts. The atmosphere had changed. The initial shock and social anxiety had been subsumed by a grim, focused practicality. They were no longer just strangers; they were armed Believers, their divine tools now unlocked, ready to be tested in the forge of war.
Hunter and Three were the last to return. Hunter's eyes swept over them, assessing, noting the subtle changes in bearing. He gave a single, satisfied nod.
"Good. Now, we move. We find high ground, we observe, and we learn what game The Entities have arranged for us this time."
He looked at each of them—Chen, the reluctant Guanyin; Summer, the icy hunter; Nangong, the secretive cleric of ends; Song, the nervous mage; and Three, his silent pillar.
"Stay sharp," Hunter said, his voice low and carrying the weight of imminent violence. "The Trial begins now."
Together, a fractured coalition bound by chance and necessity, they moved out of the clearing, leaving the site of their awkward introduction behind. They ventured into the twisted, breathing forest, toward the sounds of distant thunder that were not thunder, but the drums of god-wrought war. The Games of Gods were underway, and they were now unwilling players on its blood-stained board.