The telepathic command, "...Do whatever you think you should do," echoed in the minds of the three Elders, hanging in the perfect, monochrome silence of the frozen clearing.
On the ridge, Xiah’s bow was already blazing, her rage barely contained. "Mean?" she spat, her voice a low, furious growl. "It means nothing! It's a trap! I'm ending this now!" She was already preparing to leap from the ridge, a golden arrow of divine wind forming on her string.
"Wait." TatSuet’s voice was sharp.
"An invitation to what?" Yun scoffed, her arms crossed. The former demon princess looked deeply unnerved, but beneath it was a flash of cold, familiar fury. "To act as this creature's puppets? I will not be commanded. This stasis is flawless… and disgustingly arrogant. It's a show of force, meant to put us in our place."
"Precisely," TatSuet said, her mind working with lightning speed. The initial shock of Walker's failed signal and this new player's arrival was already fading, replaced by the cold, calculating mind of a grandmaster. "This is not a trap; it's a gift. This... entity... has given us what we needed most: time. They are holding the entire scene in stasis, observing us. They want to see what we will do."
She turned to Xiah, her starlit eyes intense. "And what we will not do is a bloodbath. Your rage is a liability. Control it."
"TatSuet!" Xiah hissed, her voice a desperate plea. "Cynthia is—"
"Cynthia is frozen. Her pain is frozen. Her life, which was seconds from ending, is now suspended," TatSuet cut her off, her words precise and unfeeling. "She is in no immediate danger. This is our moment to be surgical."
She laid out the new plan, her voice low and rapid. "Yun. Your original plan. Descend and apply your hypnosis to every follower. Their minds must be wiped. They will remember tonight as nothing but a bad dream."
Yun nodded, her hesitation replaced by a grim purpose.
"Xiah. You will be our exit strategy. Go to Cynthia. Be ready to break those vines and retrieve her, but only on my signal. Do not move, do not act, do not even breathe on her until I give the word. We are being watched."
Xiah’s hands trembled, but she nodded, her jaw tight. "And what will you be doing?"
A cold, dangerous light entered TatSuet's eyes. "I'm going to find out how a pathetic, delusional heretic got his hands on the laws of a god."
With a wave of her hand, her pristine white combat tunic shimmered and dissolved, replaced in an instant by a dark, simple, hooded cloak, identical to those worn by the followers below. She pulled the hood low, obscuring her features in shadow.
She stepped off the ridge, her movements calm and deliberate, and began to walk down the incline. Her gaze immediately locked onto the stage, past the frozen followers, past the failed spy, to the small, broken figure chained to the wall.
For the first time in centuries, TatSuet, the Queen from a timeless dimension, felt a cold, sharp fang of failure. The sight of Cynthia—her body bruised and bloodied, her life hanging by a thread that this... insect ... was about to sever—was an indictment. This was the child she had sworn to protect. A cold, quiet fury settled in her heart, far more dangerous than Xiah's blazing rage.
Her gaze then swept over Walker, who was still on his knees, his face a mask of agony from his failed, forbidden spell, a trickle of blood frozen at his nose.
A new voice, dripping with contempt, echoed in her mind. I told you he was a failed relic, Yun's telepathic thoughts sneered. Look at him. Pathetic. He almost cost us everything.
TatSuet ignored her, dismissing Walker from her thoughts as she stepped onto the crude wooden stage. The scene was a horrifying tableau: the mousy-haired girl, her foot raised to kick Cynthia; the string of bloody jewels hanging in the air from Cynthia's wrists; and Marcheal, his face a frozen mask of rapture, holding the ritual dagger out.
TatSuet stopped a few feet from him, her hooded form just another shadow in the crowd. She looked from his face to the generator crackling with its static, black lightning. "A Soul Siphon... and a Heavenly Punisher," she whispered to herself. "Blasphemous."
She could see the threads of Marcheal's life, his ambition, his fear. But she couldn't see the source of this power. So, she would make him tell her.
With a flick of her wrist so subtle it was barely a motion, TatSuet extended her own power. She didn't release the entire scene, only a single, isolated bubble of time, just large enough to contain herself and the cult leader.
For Marcheal, the world snapped back into existence.
One instant, he was in a moment of ultimate triumph. The next, the roar of the crowd was gone, the generator's hum was silent, and the zealous girl at his feet was a grey statue. He was alone on the stage, in a world of silent, grey phantoms, standing face-to-face with a single, cloaked follower.
"Wha—" he stammered, his rapturous smile collapsing into a mask of pure, uncomprehending terror. "What is this? Who are you?! Show yourself!"
TatSuet kept her hood low, her features hidden. She bowed her head slightly, as if in reverence, and made her voice sound hushed and awestruck.
"My apologies, great leader," she whispered, her voice trembling with false emotion. "I... I was just so overcome. The power... the entity that just stopped time... was that the new god you spoke of? He has truly blessed us!"
Marcheal, who had been bracing for an attack, faltered. His terror was momentarily eclipsed by his own vast arrogance. He looked at the trembling, devout follower before him and puffed out his chest.
"Of course," he boomed, though his voice was shaky. "He has seen our work. He has granted us this moment of peace to complete our sacred task."
"It is a true blessing," TatSuet breathed, stepping closer to the generator. She reached out a trembling hand, as if afraid to touch it. "And this... this divine machine! To channel the art of the gods themselves... it is a miracle." She turned her face up to him, her features still hidden in shadow. "How did you receive such a holy gift, Leader? How did he… how did the new god… teach you how to use it?"
Marcheal’s eyes narrowed. The fawning, awestruck tone was exactly what he expected from a follower, but this situation was still deeply wrong. The world was frozen, and this woman was not.
"You are... very curious," he said, his voice hardening with suspicion. "I have not seen you at our inner circle gatherings before. What is your name, follower?"
TatSuet didn't flinch. She knew her name was a meaningless string of syllables to a Neo-Human, a whisper from a world he couldn't even comprehend. It was the safest truth to tell.
She bowed her head again, a perfect picture of humility. "My name is TatSuet, leader. I am just a humble servant, like all the others, drawn to your sacred light and your divine mission."
The name meant nothing to him. It was strange, foreign, but her reverent posture was what he focused on. His suspicion began to fade, replaced once more by his towering ego. This woman was clearly just a chosen witness to his glory.
He mistook her calculated questions for innocent awe. His confusion at the frozen world was now reframed as a holy, divine intervention, and he was at the center of it. He began to brag.
"He found me," Marcheal said, his voice dropping as he looked past her, a fanatical, faraway look in his eyes. "Years ago, I was dying. The sickness of the old world was rotting my lungs. But He... He came to me in a vision of pure, dark light. He saved me. He gave me purpose."
He turned, gesturing with the dagger to the entire frozen scene. "He showed me the truth! That the 'elders' are liars! Hoarding their power, keeping humanity in this stagnant, broken world, afraid of their own destiny! He gave me these divine gifts," he said, patting the generator. "He taught me how to use them. He told me the prophecy!"
"He told me that I, Marcheal, would be the one to find the Key," he hissed, his eyes locking on Cynthia's frozen, bloody face. "That I would be the one to sacrifice it... to shatter the chains... and to finally, finally , unlock the gates to the underworld and restore the sacred cycle of life and death!"
A cold, knowing smirk touched TatSuet's lips, hidden deep within the shadow of her hood. He was bragging, just as she'd hoped. And in his arrogance, he was confirming her worst fears.
So, the truth is twisted, she thought, her mind racing, connecting the pieces. This 'prophecy' is a half-lie. The girl is the Key... that part is correct. And sacrificing her would indeed shatter the seals to the underworld. But this 'mysterious god' he speaks of...
Her gaze drifted to the generator, crackling with its stolen heavenly power. This was the real question. What kind of being had the power to grant heavenly magic but simultaneously desired the underworld to be opened? The two goals were a violent, cosmic contradiction.
This puppet was convinced a 'god' was guiding him, a demon so powerful and so clever it could disguise its own aura and grant him the forbidden arts of its greatest enemy. Why? To what end?
The 'who' was the only question that mattered.
"A... a holy mission," TatSuet stammered, her feigned awe unwavering. "To restore the sacred cycle... you are truly his chosen, great leader. But... to be given such power... such trust ... This god... who is he, that he would bless us with his divine presence and his wisdom?"
Marcheal seemed to swell with pride, but he also held up a hand, a gesture of suspicious secrecy. "His name is not for the uninitiated to know. He is a 'god', beyond our mortal understanding."
TatSuet pressed, her voice a breathy whisper of devotion. "But you have seen him? In your vision? What did he look like?"
Marcheal’s eyes glazed over, his expression turning inward as he recalled the vision that had saved his life. "He... he does not show his face," he admitted, his voice taking on a distant, reverent tone. "His form is... fluid. A figure of pure shadow and blinding light, taller than any man. And his skin... it was like polished obsidian, yet it burned with a cold fire." He shook his head, as if awed by the memory. "He uses me as his instrument. My faith is my bond, and his will is my command. That is all I need to know."
TatSuet nodded slowly, her mind filing away every detail. Polished obsidian. A cold fire. No face. A master manipulator.
He was a pawn. A true believer, given just enough power and a warped prophecy to set him on a collision course with the Elders. He didn't even know the name of his own master. This "god" was being careful, hiding his true nature while using this cult as a disposable tool.
But she had what she needed. She knew the motive, the means, and the vague, contradictory nature of the mastermind. It was enough. For now.