"Our God—"
"Oue GoD wiLL punish yu—"
Martin Kaiser's hand was elbow-deep inside the priestess's ribcage by the time she spat the last syllable. Her voice warbled, somewhere between a curse and a gurgle, as blood filled her lungs.
"Your belief can't make a spirit, let alone a god." Martin tilted his head, his expression equal parts clinical and disappointed. "Grow up."
The priestess twitched once. Then twice. Then went still.
Martin yanked his hand free, flicking the blood off with a wet snap before wiping the rest on her robes. Around him, the cathedral's sanctum looked like the aftermath of a butcher's convention. Pews were overturned. Candles snuffed out in pools of congealed wax. And the corpses—so many robed bodies—lay sprawled in grotesque prayer poses, frozen mid-invocation.
"You know the real tragedy?" Martin asked no one in particular, adjusting his tie as he stepped over a half-summoned glyph that sizzled at his touch. He paused, glancing over his shoulder at the blood-streaked altar. "Oh right. She's dead."
A wet, gurgling moan rumbled from the center of the summoning circle. The creature—if it could even be called that—shuddered in agony. Translucent and half-formed, it had the vague shape of a serpent with wings made of teeth. Its body pulsed like a diseased lung. Bound in a web of fragmented runes, the spirit spasmed as the glyphs began to turn—slowly inverting, their logic unraveling.
"No, no, no," Martin muttered, crouching beside the circle. "You're not getting out of this that easy."
He pressed his fingers together and performed a brief, snapping hand sign. Magecraft flowed instantly. The air rippled, and a silvery shimmer enveloped the dying entity. Martin inhaled deeply through his nose—once, then twice—and the spirit's essence surged toward him in streams of flickering vapor. Like breathing in static.
His eyes glowed faintly red for a moment as the energy sunk into him. Then it was gone.
Martin stood and rolled his shoulders. "Spirit was bland. Barely a whisper of sentience. But the jewelry on your followers?" He knelt next to a corpse, plucking a jeweled ring from its finger. "Chef's kiss."
Ten minutes later, he was methodically looting the cathedral.
He stripped robes, snapped staves for the embedded focus crystals, and filled a leather satchel with pouches of powder, gold-threaded altar cloths, and a particularly ornate silver candelabrum shaped like a screaming infant. Even the wall sconces didn't escape his notice.
Martin worked fast, efficient, and utterly without remorse. Most of these items would sell well on the black arcane market. The rest could be reverse-engineered into something useful—or at the very least, explosive.
Once satisfied, he gave the place one final glance.
He stood in the heart of a temple-turned-slaughterhouse, with the remnants of a half-finished god still evaporating into ether behind him. The scent of ozone, blood, and melted candle wax filled the air.
"Now to dispose of it."
Martin drew a half-formed sigil in the air with his fingers. Flames burst into existence, dancing up the columns and walls like eager children. The old wood caught fast. Within seconds, the cathedral blazed.
He took a step back, adjusted his collar, straightened his black tie with the precision of a mortician, and walked out through the flaming doorway like a man leaving an awkward dinner party.
Later, Martin sat on the edge of a rooftop overlooking the edge of a sleeping town.
The cathedral was a smoking husk in the distance now, fire reduced to red-glowing embers under a blanket of night.
He lounged back with a greasy box of pizza resting on his lap. One slice already in his mouth, three more in the other hand. Oil dripped onto the suit pants he refused to change out of. He didn't care.
"Fifty-seven rings. Two enchanted daggers. One grimoire with a reinforced spine, and enough ceremonial silver to cripple a vampire's mortgage," he muttered between bites.
Coins and trinkets glinted in the moonlight, laid out in organized rows across the roof tiles like little trophies.
His fingers danced across a rune-carved amulet. Not powerful, but rare. The kind of item a lesser noble would kill to own just for the symbolism.
Martin leaned back with a satisfied sigh.
"Not bad for a midnight cult raid."
For a moment, he allowed silence. The wind was cold but refreshing. His heart had stopped racing hours ago, and the echoes of the spirit's death-wail had faded from his Animus. The sky was clear, stars piercing through like shards of forgotten gods.
He'd gotten good at this—too good. Over the last three years, he'd dismantled six minor cults, each more pathetic than the last. And every time he'd hoped—just a little—that one of them might actually prove difficult. Challenging. Maybe even surprising.
None had.
He chewed slowly, eyes half-lidded. Peace was the goal. That's what he told himself. That's what he wanted—a quiet life, time to refine his own magecraft, away from the stupidity of zealots and nobles alike.
So why did he still feel… empty?
Martin clicked his tongue and reached for another slice. "Nope. Not going there tonight."
He focused instead on the upcoming moon cycle. A new semester at Varncrest was about to begin, and his bribe to get a spot had finally gone through.
A fresh ecosystem. Stronger mages. Political brats. Weirdos with experimental spells.
And a campus filled with sentient artifacts, midnight duels, and no supervision worth a damn.
He smirked.
"Let's see if they're more interesting alive than most cultists are dead."