Alias did not stay by the edge of the salt flats. He knew he could not close the massive rift before him, because his structural awareness told him that this crack was merely a symptom.

The void had penetrated the lower foundations of the earth. If he spent his time trying to sew this single opening shut, a dozen more would tear open behind his back.

He needed to see what these things did. Of course, it could not be any good given how ominous they were, but what would happen when these creatures encountered human settlements?

He needed to find out.

Alias shifted his weight, dropping through the layout of the world, and reappeared on the muddy ridge overlooking the eastern valley.

The heavy rain he had called down only an hour prior was still falling, but the joy of the villagers had turned into a slaughter.

The air was thick with the stench of burning wood, wet ash, and scorched flesh. Black smoke rose from three collapsing huts, the thatch roofs caving in as a purple-black fire consumed the timber.

These fires did not smoke like regular wood; they smelled of sulfur and rancid grease.

Two of the faceless creatures had crawled out of a fresh fissure in the village center. They were larger than the ones on the salt flats, their segmented limbs dripping with a fluid that hissed as it touched the mud.

A hunter from the village, a man with wide shoulders and a face wet with rain, stepped forward with an iron boar spear. He took courage and lunged forward, driving the metal tip straight into the chitinous chest of the lead demon.

But the iron did not pierce the shell. The moment the metal made contact, it began to sizzle, softening into a useless, melting slag. The creature moved with a sudden, jerky speed, its vertical maw opening to reveal rows of needle-sharp teeth. It clamped down on the hunter’s shoulder.

"Ahhhh!" The man screamed as his skin blackened, the flesh dry and withered in an instant, as if the life force itself were being vacuumed out of his bones.

The demon visibly grew, its dark shell hardening and glossing over as it fed on the man’s agony.

Alias stood at the edge of the village square, his divine silk robes remaining perfectly dry despite the downpour. His heart gave a heavy, irregular thud. It was a thoroughly human ache, a weight in his chest that made his lungs feel constricted.

He could step forward and crush these two creatures with a burst of light. It would take less than a second.

But as he looked at the sky, his mind began to calculate the numbers. There were thousands of villages across the continents. There were cities, nomadic camps, and coastal towns. If Norx was releasing these things from every corner of the abyss, Alias could not be everywhere at once.

A god could not act as a personal shield for every mortal on the planet. If the humans remained entirely helpless, relying solely on his intervention, they would be wiped out the moment he looked away.

What can rival the darkness? Alias thought, his silver eyes tracking the movements of the second demon as it shattered a wooden door frame. Light. Only light can dissolve the void. But I cannot divide my own essence into millions of pieces without tearing my physical vessel apart.

He needed an infrastructure to work with. In order words, he could not do it himself, so... he looked towards the scattered, scared and screaming humans... he would need to turn the humans into containers for the light.

Alias walked into the center of the square, the mud splashing beneath his bare feet. The remaining villagers were cowering against the stone well, mothers covering the mouths of their crying children, their faces twisted in absolute despair.

That despair was actively feeding the air pressure around the demons, making them click their teeth faster.

"Stand up," Alias said. His voice was not a roar, but it carried an absolute authority that cut through the noise of the crackling fires and heavy downpour.

The villagers looked up, their eyes widening as they saw his glowing silver hair and the white silk of his robes. The village elder, an old man with a scarred face and hands calloused from decades of farming, crawled forward through the mud.

"Save us," the old man wheezed, his hands reaching for the hem of Alias’s robe. "Great God of Light, destroy them."

"I will not save you," Alias said flatly.

The elder froze, his face blank with shock.

"If I destroy them today, more will come tomorrow while I am gone," Alias explained, his eyes fixed on the advancing demons. "I cannot be your shield. If you want to live simply to be protected, you will die. The light will only belong to those who want to use it to protect others."

The second demon lunged, its segmented legs driving it forward over the body of the fallen hunter.

Alias raised his right hand, but he did not point it at the beast. He turned his palm toward the village elder and the three younger men standing behind him with broken fence stakes.

He accessed the reservoir of light within his core and altered the internal composition of their mortal souls, forcing a permanent conduit between his divine energy and their clay bodies.

"The darkness is a hunger," Alias said, his voice steady as the demon reached within three paces of his position. "The only thing that can kill hunger is a fire that does not consume. Focus on the people behind you. Do not fear the teeth of the monsters and defend those who are weak."

The village elder looked at the children behind him, his fear suddenly locking into a hard, desperate focus. He didn’t want to die in the mud, but more than that, he didn’t want the wood of his home to become a grave.

If whatever this god has given to him can help him protect, then he will protect them all until his last bitter breath.

The moment his intent solidified, a brilliant, warm golden glow erupted from the old man’s calloused palms. It wasn’t an external weapon; it was his own life force, filtered through Alias’s conduit, turning into pure, defensive light.

Driven by instinct, the elder shoved his glowing hands forward, pressing his palms flat against the lead demon’s faceless head.

A sharp, wet hiss filled the square. The creature did not bleed; its chitinous shell began to turn to white ash the moment the golden light touched it. It let out a silent, bubbling screech, its segmented limbs thrashing violently before its entire mass dissolved into a pile of harmless grey dust in the mud.

The second demon stopped, its vertical maw twitching as the air pressure around it suddenly thinned. The three younger villagers, seeing the dust, stepped forward, their own hands beginning to flicker with faint, unsteady sparks of gold.

Alias watched them, his mind logging the results of the strategy. It works, he thought, though his heart remained heavy. But it is a mirror. The conduit relies entirely on the purity of their intent and their faith. If they use it for greed, or if their faith falters into selfishness, the circuit will break instantly. It is a fragile defense. What can harden it?

Before he could calculate an answer, a sound reached him.

​It was not a physical noise carried by the wind or the rain. It was a low, resonant frequency that vibrated directly into the channels of his divine light, humming inside his ears like a transmitter.

​A few paces away, near the caved-in roof of a burning hut, two men who had not been part of the initial group fell to their knees in the mud. They were not looking at Alias. Their heads were bowed, their eyes tightly shut against the falling rain, and their hands were clenched together so hard their knuckles were white.

​They were praying.

​For the first time since descending to the earth, Alias felt the full, unfiltered weight of a mortal prayer lock into his consciousness.

Because he had opened his divine channels to the humans, a direct line of communication had been established between his essence and their spirits. He didn’t just hear the words they muttered; he saw into their chests.

​He felt the shape of their hearts. There was no greed there, no frantic desire to simply be spared while others died. He heard their desperate, internal wishes echoing through the light—a shared, fierce demand to be given the strength to protect their families, to hold the line, and to rebuild what the fire had taken so that when the demons came again, they would not be helpless.

​The sheer purity of their collective will acted like a hammer against the fragile conduit, hardening it, anchoring the light deeper into the village’s collective soul. Faith was not just a condition; it was the fuel that stabilized the infrastructure.

​And so, Alias granted them divinity.

​He didn’t speak. He simply focused his gaze on the two kneeling men. Instantly, the warm golden glow ignited beneath their skin, spreading from their chests down to their fingertips, answering their prayer with the raw power of the sun.