Chapter 579: Tower of God

"We’ve seized control of the Angels of War," Calistes said, unleashing a wash of green light to tear free from Snow, "but the other angels were still under Blattier and Platini’s control."

"Now... nothing can stop what’s coming."

Snow watched Calistes flee, bewildered. He sprang toward Uriel, trying to reach her—

but a wave of golden force threw him back.

As Calistes had said, there was no longer any way to halt it.

In that very instant, people everywhere lifted their eyes to the sky, staring at the tablet’s image.

Uriel opened her mouth to speak—and her voice came out of the mouths of every angel at once, amplified to the world.

"O faithful of the Church, noble souls who give yourselves for what is right—

"The demons and the darkness have massed at our gates, threatening all that we hold dear. But their fate is sealed: they will fall before the power of true believers!

"The Lord of Light has not abandoned us! Behold—He now sends down His blessed words, the command that will lead us to salvation!

"The Lord of Light commands you: Pray, my righteous servants! Pray! Etch these words upon your own skin—upon the skin of your loved ones, your children, and their children too!"

"Pray, and consecrate your faith! These few words will bring you deliverance and end your suffering!"

The saint cried out, and the angels cried out with her, broadcasting those strange scrawls to the entire world.

Symbols none could read, none could comprehend.

And yet—across the world, in the same heartbeat—

the Church’s followers moved as one, answering the call of the being they revered as their god.

"The Lord of Light!"

"The Lord of Light will protect us!"

All who carved those words into their flesh would be shielded by the God.

That was the message—the revelation laid before them.

They did not understand it, but the name of the Lord of Light alone was enough. Millions of the Church’s faithful took up knives—any sharp edge at hand—and began engraving those words into their own skin.

At the same time, Frey and Snow lunged together to stop Uriel, but the Tree’s power flung them back.

It was a might so vast that even Frey couldn’t pierce it.

That force wrapped Uriel completely, and Frey realized he would have to strike to kill if he wanted to break through something like that—

—but even he couldn’t bring himself to kill Uriel.

That single hesitation let the rite complete. And that was the beginning.

The beginning of the catastrophe.

Across the world, the Church’s faithful carved those letters like mad—into their own skin, the skin of their children, their loved ones, their families.

Cursed words were now etched onto the bodies of millions—millions of innocent souls who had followed the Lord of Light in sincerity.

Once they carved them, they prayed.

They prayed as their lord had commanded.

They prayed for themselves, for deliverance, for the protection they’d been promised.

In answer to their prayers, the sigils on their bodies began to glow—and joy washed over them.

But it lasted only a few heartbeats.

The moment the rite ended, one man collapsed dead in a strange, inexplicable way.

Then a second. A third. A fourth.

People began dropping one after another as blood poured from their eyes and mouths.

A sudden, sweeping die-off tore through terrifying numbers of lives—victims of their own faith.

And that was only the first tremor of the chaos sweeping the world, as fear and death spread everywhere.

The strength of a religion isn’t in how mighty its adherents are, but in how many.

Most who belonged to the Church were ordinary folk who lived quietly. They had no place among the great noble houses or the powerful guilds.

So they chose the faith they believed was right.

For that reason, the dead in those moments numbered... in the millions.

In mere minutes, more died than in the entire war to date. Panic gripped the world as people screamed, watching each other perish one after another.

All of them were sacrificed by a demonic rite that burned away their life force—offered up to someone else entirely.

Before the stunned eyes of Frey, Snow... and even Aegon, they witnessed a spectacle:

thousands—no, millions of lights streaking from afar toward this very place.

That night, "orders" from the Lord of Light drove thirty-five million people to offer themselves, unaware of what they were doing.

Thirty-five million souls. Thirty-five million sacrifices.

All that power flowed to a single point.

Millions of lights tore the sky and fell like meteors onto the body of the man who had died minutes earlier ..

the man who had given his entire life to this twisted religion:

Joseph Blattier, the High Bishop.

"If I live, the Church lives with me. If I die, it dies with me."

Those were his words—and he carried them out to the letter.

All those sacrifices, that vast power, were now in the hands of one man.

Light swallowed Blattier’s body for long minutes while everyone present froze beneath the crushing weight of the aura.

The head Frey had lopped off earlier evaporated completely.

Blattier no longer needed it.

From within that column of radiance—

a different being stepped forth.

"Is that... Blattier?" Snow whispered, unable to take in what he saw.

What emerged was something grotesquely transformed: a body of pure white, laced with hundreds of golden and blood-red sigils in equal measure, all hidden beneath a colossal suit of golden armor.

His face was sealed behind a golden helm.

A massive spear in hand, he set his first step out of the light—and a tyrannical pressure slammed into the onlookers, forcing them to stand only by will alone as the power demanded they kneel.

"This pressure... this power..." Calistes stammered, lips trembling.

Such is the yield of millions of lives sacrificed at once.

"Joseph Blattier... Aspect: Tower of God."

Blattier had kept his vow: the Church would live through him—or die with him. That body had become the vessel for those countless souls that burned and perished.

The explosive power born from it was enough to place Blattier at the pinnacle of humanity ..

assuming he could still be called human at all.

"A calamity has befallen us," Aegon said, a crooked smile edging onto his face.

The tide of battle flipped in an instant. The whole world bled with Blattier—the man who alone had become the cause of millions of deaths.

His appearance made one thing clear: the real battle was only now beginning. Everything before had been child’s play.