The shop fell quiet again. Candlelight flickered like fish-scales in a bowl. Rain kept whispering along the eaves like silk.

From afar, Xian had been sulking like a puffed-up sparrow. The odd hush tugged her like a moth to a flame, so she ran over. Curiosity lit her eyes first, then she sat to the side, all ears like a cat at a mouse hole.

In the end, Hamrus still led Ouyang to the basement, because the path ahead had narrowed like a gorge. He’d watched and waited, yet Xian made no move to back down—she simply gathered a fireball in her palm, bright as a small sun.

The Creed of Fire-Worship: there’s nothing a fireball can’t solve.

Feeling the heat in that orb like a furnace mouth, Hamrus didn’t say another word. He took Ouyang and the others toward the stairs, his steps quick as rain.

“Honestly, if you were going to agree, why the mystery play?” Xian walked in back, fingers hooked around her sister’s hand like a red string. Ouyang carried Loyin like a sleepy cat; the girl burrowed in and refused to move. Bai stayed quiet, a white shadow pacing Ouyang’s side.

On the way, Hamrus explained what this basement meant, words falling like stones into a deep pond.

In an age torn by wars of gods, it’s hard for mortals to breathe. A few centuries ago, a war like a thunderstorm felled too many deities, and only then did this era calm a notch, like winter thinning into spring. Mortals finally got a lungful of air, and many old families—like the Bayat line—dug up scraps about the Void Church like relics from dust. They thought, better than kneeling to fickle heavens, we forge our own sky.

Yes—create one.

Civilization once climbed high here, high enough to know a faith-born god from a mortal-ascended god. They didn’t know what the Void Church’s god truly was, or if that god even existed. But they could believe in a brand-new Void Messenger, a being shaped from their own imagining. When faith beads together like dew into pearls, the phantom takes a god’s shape and steps into the world.

A god born of their belief would be steadier than some distant sky-lord. Most of all, a faith-born god leans on faith like a boat needs water. If the imagined Void Messenger loses his believers, he’ll sink into endless sleep, like a lake sealed in ice—until one day, someone believes, and the thaw begins.

With that premise, a faith-born god will fight to shield his flock like a wolf for its cubs.

So the plan began centuries ago. From old records, they raised the Void Church again, like a phoenix from ashes, but in a new way.

Even Ouyang had to tip his hat in silence, a ripple under calm water. If they’d chosen a mortal-ascended god, that kind of god doesn’t depend on faith so tightly. With faith is good; without it, no big deal. In an era where god-wars flare like brushfires, those gods won’t have time to coddle believers—not like a faith-born god would.

“So this basement is a secret gathering place of the Void Church,” Ouyang said, a smile like a knife’s reflection. “I just wonder if your god has been born from your faith yet.”

At the word “god,” Hamrus shut his mouth like a clam. No matter how Xian threatened, the old fossil wouldn’t crack.

Void Church? Xi blinked at Ouyang, memories rising like mist. In her mind, that man once called the First Demon King had ties to the Void Church… Before Ouyang tricked her into the Void Illusion Realm, she’d heard people whisper “Void Messenger” and mean him.

Feeling Xi’s stare, Ouyang glanced up at the basement ceiling, eyes rolling like tossed stones. Expectation stirred first, then humor. He actually looked forward to this imagined Void Messenger. Through it, he could see what the name “Void Messenger” meant in their eyes.

What did he look like to them? Handsome enough to make sun and moon stumble? Or faceless and blurred, like someone slapped a pixelated censor bar over him? Or a foot-scratching lout, thick as a barrel with a beer belly?

Ouyang waited, a grin like a cat’s. Xian waited too, sparks in her gaze. She wanted to see what kind of Void Messenger mortals would dream up—and how he’d differ from the original.

Of course, all of that assumed the imagined Messenger had already been born.

The basement was a stairwell dropping like a wellshaft, step after step into cool breath. The road stretched long; Ouyang sketched a hundred versions of the fantasy Messenger in his head like clouds changing shape—and only then did they reach the bottom. The floor opened into a wide plaza like a stone lake. Many people stood there, every one cloaked in black like ravens.

What made Ouyang want to laugh and cry were their robes: each had a burning flame sigil, and three blood-red letters blazed bright—FFF.

Gods damn it—idiots.

This wasn’t Void Church garb; this was the FFF Brotherhood’s battle dress. Since when did the Void Church of the Void Messenger become the FFF Brotherhood? The Messenger here has a wife; he’s long since graduated from the singles brigade.

Seeing that, Xian, who knew the inside story, let out a pfft, a laugh like a bead rolling off jade. Bai only stared at her, puzzled as a doe, finding nothing funny at all.

“S-sorry… I… I couldn’t hold it,” Xian stammered, then broke again when she saw Ouyang’s face darken like a stormfront. If the folks on the Eternal Sleep Continent ever heard of this, it’d be a meme hard as granite—good for a hundred years.

Her laugh tugged every eye. The ‘FFF Brotherhood members’ turned, gazes like thrown knives. In a place this solemn, someone dared to laugh out loud—blasphemy against the divine.

At the central altar stood a stone statue. No features could be seen; everything blurred, like frost over glass—no, like a column with a pixelated censor bar slammed on it. Around that pixelated pillar, crowds bowed like ripples in a pond.

“Who dares make noise in the Void Temple?”

“This is sacrilege!”

From the worshipers, a man in red strode out, color bright as fresh blood. By his garb he stood higher than the rest, and those words were his, sharp as a bell.

“Archbishop, that woman,” a black-robed man said, finger stabbing toward Xian like a spear. “She’s desecrating the divine!” It was his chance to earn merit, and his eyes gleamed like a magpie’s.

The archbishop swept his gaze over Ouyang’s group, cold as a blade. He saw Hamrus, and his arrogance melted like wax. He bowed to Hamrus. “Elder.”

Hamrus gave a token nod, calm as an old pine. The face wasn’t the same one Xian had just bullied. He could only puff himself up before this archbishop; facing Ouyang’s crew of riddles, he had no bottom to stand on.

The crowd caught on at once, enlightenment like lamps lighting in a row. No wonder the ones without church robes got in—the Elder Council had brought them. In the new Void Church of this world, the Elder Council holds power heavy as a mountain; they can even depose the Pope.

That’s how it was in the Void Church of the Origin world, at the start. As members of the Elder Council, Devila and the others could oust Collin, the Pope. As it grew, the Elder Council dissolved into dust, and oversight passed to each division’s Mystic Priestesses and witches, a web like constellations.

Hamrus waved to the archbishop, a wind-scattering gesture. “Leave us. I’ll take these guests to face the god.”

To face the divine—besides the Pope, only Elders could do it. Even then, they needed meetings like storms of papers. Not even the Pope was exempt.

Yet what stood before them broke those rules like a branch under snow. Which meant this old man was…

“Grand Elder. We withdraw at once.”

The archbishop understood. Grand Elder: founder of the Council, a relic from war centuries past, and a pillar holding up the hall like a dragon column.

Once they learned who he was, the believers filed away like a tide retreating. In moments, the plaza grew still, quiet as a held breath.

“I don’t really get it,” Xi said, head tilted like a curious bird, “but from how they acted, you must sit pretty high.” The others didn’t bother to answer; their silence was a fan closing.

Xian just snorted, a spark from flint. “He’s just a Demigod.”

Bai looked everywhere, eyes bright as spring water, taking in the basement with interest.

Loyin reacted the most. Held in Ouyang’s arms, she never looked away from that pixelated pillar, gaze sharp as a blade. From the crowd’s behavior, if she wasn’t wrong, that pixelated post was the statue of the so-called Void Messenger.

Shame.

Loyin’s first thought was to cut down the lot of them, and throw that imagined Void Messenger into the pyre for good measure. Ouyang might not care, but Loyin had ten thousand reasons to hate it, like thorns under silk.

“Since I can’t see through your strength,” Hamrus said, smoothing his tone like sanded wood, “you must be close to mine…” If Ouyang hadn’t stayed her, Loyin would’ve taught him how a look can kill. “Experts at our height get special attention from gods. Most are conscripted by force, then die in god-wars like sparks in rain.”

Demigods look glorious, but in an age of wars they’re meat for the grinder. Gods don’t start by trading blows; first they drive their believers like waves, and only after the tide breaks do they clash in thunder.

To gods, Demigods are priority recruits. If they find you, they draft you. Refuse my banner, and you might join an enemy one; that won’t stand. Those who won’t bow are first to be erased, like chalk in rain.

Most Demigods now serve some deity’s camp, enjoying the trappings like banners in breeze. When war starts, living through it is another matter—dice on the table. Only a few hide their strength among the crowd like fish in a river, or hole up where gods never pass, dust to dust in dark corners.

Hamrus’s point was simple. As a Demigod, if you want to walk openly under the sun, you need a god over your head like an umbrella. Mortal-ascended gods are unreliable; they don’t cherish believers. So a faith-born god is the best shelter.

Ouyang stared at the pixelated pillar, feelings knotting like vines. As a Demon King whose believers spread across countless worlds, this was his first time being sweet-talked into a church—one that worshiped a figure modeled on his own title, the Void Messenger.