Chapter 116: Chapter 116: All Hail Mother I

The Saintess raised her hand, palm open, the way someone does to quiet a room.

Under Team Zero’s boots, the red marks in the mud brightened. The shrine bell rang once, low and heavy, and the sound rolled down through the empty village and came back off the dead houses a second later, doubled.

Then everything stopped.

The wind. The haze. The faint movement in the doorways. All of it held still at once, like the whole floor had taken a breath and decided not to let it out.

"What’s she doing," Finn said. He kept his voice down without meaning to.

"She’s praying," Maeve said.

"Praying."

"Listen."

They listened.

The Saintess had not moved from the shrine steps. Her lips were moving, slow and even, and the words did not carry far enough to make out. But the marks in the mud pulsed in time with them, brighter on each beat, and the bell gave a second softer ring that lined up with the rhythm.

"Ronan," James said. "Front."

Ronan was already there. He set the shield, planted his back foot, and lowered his stance so the wall of it covered the three of them behind.

"Cillian, on me. Don’t move ahead."

Cillian’s lightning crawled up over his knuckles. "She’s wide open. No guard, no weapon."

"I see that," James said. "Don’t move ahead."

The prayer reached them.

It did not come like a spell. There was no wave, no light, no shove against Maeve’s field. The pale-gold sanctuary held steady around their feet and the prayer simply went around it, under it, found the gaps it left, and slid through.

Ronan’s shield arm dropped two inches.

He hauled it back up. "Something’s pulling my arm down."

"Then hold it up," Maeve said.

"I am holding it up."

Cillian’s eyes had gone to the shrine steps and stayed there. The Saintess stood at the top of them with nothing in front of her. Six strides. Maybe five. A clean line straight to her, no guard, no blade, and his lightning was already hot.

"James." His voice had changed. "I can reach her. Right now. One run."

"No."

"It’s five strides—"

"Cillian." James did not raise his voice. "Look at the mud between you and the steps."

Cillian looked.

The marks along that exact line were the brightest in the square.

He didn’t say anything else, but James saw his weight settle back, and that was enough for now. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

To James’s left, Finn had turned his head toward the nearest house. The door hung open on black. Finn was staring into it.

"Finn."

Finn didn’t answer.

"Finn."

"I heard—" Finn stopped. His jaw worked. "Nothing. It’s nothing."

In his contract space, James felt the python turn over, restless, pressing at the edge of the slot like it wanted out. He left it where it was. The square was too tight and the ground belonged to her. Dropping a disaster beast into that was how he’d bury his own team.

The prayer wasn’t trying to kill all of them. He could feel the shape of it now. It was reaching for one. It only needed one of them to step off the line.

It was Cillian.

He moved before he decided to. One step, weight forward, lightning flaring up both arms — and the second his boot came down the mud under it flared red.

A thread of light shot up out of the ground at his ankle. Thin. Fast. The exact red of the Cross on the shrine.

Ronan couldn’t leave the front. Finn turned and was half a step short. James saw the line and his angle on it was wrong.

Maeve’s hand came up flat.

No sound. No flash worth the name. Just a thin line of gold that crossed the red one and cut it, and the red thread came apart and sank back into the mud before it reached him.

Cillian rocked back on his heels like a hand had grabbed his collar.

He stood there breathing for a second. Looked down at his own boot. Looked at the spot where the thread had been.

"...Right," he said.

"You stepped off the line," Maeve said.

"I know what I did."

"Then don’t do it again." She was already watching the shrine again. "Her whole opening was that gap. She left it for you. The pretty ones always leave a door open for the proud ones."

Cillian stepped back level with the others and kept his eyes off the steps.

"Maeve," James said. "The circlet. Show me the floor."

Maeve raised one hand to the white stone at her brow and pulsed it.

For three seconds the haze thinned and the red lit up everywhere.

It wasn’t just the mud. Lines ran out from the shrine in every direction — down into the houses, out under the square, back up through the steps to the Saintess, and from the Saintess back to the Cross burning over the doors. They pulsed together. When one brightened they all brightened.

James had seen enough floors to know what he was looking at.

It wasn’t a boss standing in a square. It was a circuit, and she was one part of it.

"They’re feeding her," he said. "All of it. The bell, the marks, the houses, the Cross. Charge her straight on and you’re not fighting her. You’re fighting the whole village through her."

"That’s what killed the others," Finn said.

"That’s what killed the others. They ran at her." James watched the lines fade as the pulse died. "We don’t run at her. We take the floor apart under her first."

He gave it fast.

"Ronan, hold the center, nobody past you. Finn, on Maeve. Cillian, you stop looking at her and you hit what Maeve lights up." He looked at Maeve. "Brand the lines. One at a time."

Maeve’s palm was already turning over. A brand spread from it to the nearest red line and the line went from red to orange. Marked.

"That one," James said.

Cillian put two fingers out and fired.

The lightning hit the orange line and the line cracked down its length. The haze above it stuttered.

On the steps, the Saintess’s lips kept moving, but her eyes had found Cillian, then James, and the smile she wore changed. Not smaller. More interested. Like she’d expected the proud one to die on her steps and was surprised to be watching them work instead.

She raised her voice, and this time the words carried.

"Ronan Cleary." Warm. Unhurried. "How long have you stood at the front?"

Ronan’s shield did not move.

"Years now. In front of people who made their plans behind your shield and never once asked what you thought of them." Her voice was gentle, almost kind. "These ones will do the same. When it goes wrong, you will be the one still standing in front, and they will be the ones deciding who to blame."

Ronan’s knuckles whitened on the grip.

He said nothing. He did not lower the shield.

"Next line," James said.

Maeve branded it. Cillian broke it.

The Saintess turned her face slightly, toward Cillian.

"And you. A-rank at your age." A small laugh, fond. "Taking orders from a boy three floors below you. You felt it a moment ago, didn’t you, when you saw my steps. That was you. That was the part of you that already knows you don’t need any of them."

"Maeve," Cillian said flatly. "Next one."

"He won’t say it," the Saintess said, "but he stepped because some part of him agreed with me."

"Next one," Cillian said again, and there was an edge in it now.

Maeve branded the line. He broke it harder than he needed to.

Then the voice came out of the house to Finn’s left, and it was not the Saintess’s voice anymore.

It was Elliot’s.

Not loud. Not clear. Just a few words, the cadence of someone half-remembered, coming from inside a black doorway in a dead village.

Finn went rigid.

"That’s not him," Maeve said, low and fast. "Finn. That is not him."

"I know it’s not him," Finn said. His voice was rough. He breathed out through his nose and turned his eyes back to the front, away from the door. "I know."

The Saintess watched him do it, and for the first time something flickered across her face that wasn’t pleasure.

She looked at Maeve last.

"And the warden, who only saves the ones who pay." Soft. Almost sympathetic. "How many have you knelt beside, Maeve, knowing the only reason you were there was the size of the fee? Does it still feel like saving them?"

"James," Maeve said, without a flicker. "Third line. East side. It’s the thick one."

James fired Necro Blast at the junction she’d lit.

CRACK.

The junction splintered and three smaller lines feeding off it went dark.

The Saintess looked at James then, and she stopped using the others’ names.

"You refused me once," she said. "On the floor below. You stood in my chamber and you watched and you left." Her smile came back. "And here you are. Back at my shrine, with witnesses, exactly where you were always going to stand."

James didn’t answer her.

He’d watched what answering did to Cillian. He’d watched what almost-listening did to Finn. There was nothing he could say into that voice that wasn’t a door, so he didn’t open one.

"Maeve," he said instead. "How many lines left."

"Two. The center one’s the spine. Crack that and the whole circuit drops."

The center line ran straight up the middle of the path, shrine steps to square, thicker than all the others. It pulsed slower and deeper, like the others ran off it.

"That one drops the prayer?" James asked.

"Drops the pressure," Maeve said. "Doesn’t kill her. But it’ll give you a window."

"How long a window?"

"Seconds."

James looked at Finn. He didn’t need to explain it. Finn met his eyes and gave one short nod.

"I test the timing first," James said.

He pulled two skeletons out of the ground.

[REANIMATED SKELETON WARRIOR — SUMMONED x2]