SSS Awakening: I Can Devour Gods to Evolve My Goddesses

Chapter 21: When the Bell-Keeper Stepped onto His Watchpost, He Lowered the Road

Thud.

A muffled knock came from the inner face of the closed Chain Gate.

Cassian’s hand landed on the dark-gold point at once.

There was no second knock.

No name. No direction. Not even Marek’s voice.

The first relay had truly sent a warning back while Cassian was somewhere else.

The warning had not been a waste.

It had bought him a few breaths to choose.

Nothing more.

Today was the final day of Marek’s seven-day appointment. Marek was at the first relay, and the warning was only a sound. It had no hand to act for Cassian.

Cassian grabbed the bent broken-chain blade and iron hammer, then opened the Gate.

He accelerated along the eastern passage.

His right knee stabbed on the second step. The weight of the blade pulled at the old wound in his shoulder.

Predator Step could make him faster.

His wounds merely named the price of that acceleration.

Whether to pay it was still his decision.

Cassian held his strength to a pace that still allowed him to change direction and kept moving toward the first broken span.

Footsteps came from the passage ahead.

Marek appeared.

His face was not the first thing Cassian checked.

There was no blood on his coat.

Both hands were still there. The short hemp rope hung intact from his shoulder, its end stained with dust from the first relay.

He had made it all the way back to this side of the black-gold plate.

Only then did Cassian ask, "What came?"

"The light rose at the second gap." Marek was breathing hard. "Something was walking over it. Tall. Gray-white. Wearing a mask."

"How many bells?"

"Two. One can ring. One can’t."

The Bell-Keeper.

Not the Ashbone Claim-Weaver that had climbed up through the blank tag.

The intact enemy that had carried off Orin Hale’s name and lost the main roll to Cassian.

"Its path?"

"Only beneath its feet. Every step pressed a patch of golden light solid. The moment it lifted its foot, the patch behind it broke apart."

Just like last time.

That path recognized only the Bell-Keeper.

"How far from the first relay?"

"Seven or eight steps when I pressed the handprint."

"Then?"

"Called stop. Untied the rope. Came back."

Marek tapped the short hemp rope on his shoulder.

He had not waited for Cassian to send permission back from the Gate. Nor had he stayed to prove he was worth his pay.

Warning. Stop. Withdrawal.

Cassian had promised all three, and Marek had used every one.

So what returned was not a dying man’s final report, but a man without blood on his coat who could still decide tomorrow whether his eyes were for sale again.

An observer who died at the first relay would only prove Cassian had purchased a one-use tool.

He did not like using useful things only once.

"Want the road plate clear?" Marek asked.

"Fall back toward the Gate."

"Today’s trip counts as an entry."

"It counts."

Marek turned and continued retreating.

Cassian passed him and reached the near side of the first broken span.

Underground dawnlight was already rising through the cracks.

The black-gold plate still bridged the near side to the first relay. Beyond it, a small shelf of intact stone stood inside a sharp ring of golden light.

The Bell-Keeper was stepping up from the second gap.

A bone boot came down. A narrow golden footprint solidified beneath it.

It lifted its foot, and the print behind it shattered back into light.

One step.

Only one remained at a time.

There was no expression behind the gray-white mask. It held an intact bone bell in its right hand. The cracked, mute bell still hung at its left, with Cassian’s lost tension gauge lodged against its clapper.

Both bells were still there.

The Bell-Keeper was still intact.

Cassian tightened his grip on the blade.

He wanted to cross.

His name was on the iron marker. Orin’s name was still in the Bell-Keeper’s possession. The tension gauge remained lodged in that cracked bell.

The marker. Both bells. The gauge. Orin’s name. An entire hostile divinity.

He wanted all of it.

Predator Step could put him on the black-gold plate first.

War Instinct I drove a broken half-beat into his mind.

He took a second step. The functioning bell turned. The bent blade pulled outward, and the old wound in his shoulder tore open in the same instant. His knee failed. The edge of the road plate rolled up beneath his feet.

The vision broke.

The Bell-Keeper had a path that recognized only it and a bell that could drag metal—and his balance—outward. Cassian had only a narrow plate that had never borne two people fighting on it.

Right now, he could not kill an intact Bell-Keeper.

The calculation was clear.

But admitting the numbers did not mean letting the other side set the price.

The Bell-Keeper had chosen the rising dawn tide, the narrow stone of the first relay, a bell that could pull Cassian’s weapon aside, and an iron marker bearing his name. It was waiting for him to put the Gate, the main roll, Veyra, and his own retreat on the table.

The wager it had chosen cost it far too little.

Cassian refused.

The Bell-Keeper’s final step came down.

It stood on the first relay.

The Graystone iron marker was wedged into the seam beside its bone boot. One corner had been scraped white by the Ashbone Claim-Weaver. On the side facing Cassian, both rules remained clear.

Hostile divinity was Cassian’s to handle first.

Names and old military records stayed sealed and could not be taken outside.

The Bell-Keeper turned toward the black-gold plate.

Behind him, Cassian heard Marek’s footsteps continuing to recede.

Alive.

Already clear of the plate’s edge.

Cassian placed his left hand on the near-side black-gold palm mark.

The Bell-Keeper raised its functioning bell.

Cassian pressed down.

Heavy grinding rose from the abyss.

The black-gold road plate sank.

The Bell-Keeper stepped forward.

Its bone boot stopped at the edge of the first relay.

Where its next step should have landed, there was only rising underground dawnlight.

The plate dropped below the broken span. Golden light surged up on both sides, cutting the intact Bell-Keeper off on the far side.

It did not step back.

It did not move forward.

The functioning bell slowly turned toward the open span.

Then the gray-white mask and the bell’s mouth lifted together and turned toward Cassian’s hand against the black-gold palm mark.

It watched for one breath.

Not in shock.

Not in anger.

It was reassessing the road.

Cassian kept his palm down, and a slow smile rose at the corner of his mouth.

Today, Cassian decided how far it could go.

After studying his hand, the Bell-Keeper turned the bell away.

The bell’s mouth pointed at the Graystone iron marker.

The bent blade jerked in Cassian’s right hand. He immediately pinned it behind him.

The shriek of metal scraping stone came from across the span.

The iron marker wrenched toward the second gap. Stones burst from beneath its lower edge.

Cassian could raise the road again.

He could cross and fight for the marker—and accept the Bell-Keeper’s wager after all.

He looked back toward the stone passage leading to the Gate.

Marek had already disappeared into the dark. The Chain Gate remained closed. Behind it, Veyra, the main roll, and Orin’s seated half-mark remained untouched by the bell.

One ordinary iron marker could not pay to bring the road back up.

Cassian kept his palm pressed against the black-gold mark.

"Take that as payment," he said quietly.

The bell’s pull intensified.

The Graystone iron marker tore free of the seam and slid over the first relay’s broken edge. Its whitened corner flashed through the golden light. Cassian’s name and both rules fell with it into the underground dawnlight.

No echo returned.

The road stayed down.

The Bell-Keeper’s bone boot remained on the side Cassian had assigned it.

The underground dawn tide began to recede.

Beyond the second gap, the golden footprints shattered one by one.

The Bell-Keeper looked once at the shallow hole left by the marker, then back at Cassian across the span.

Then it withdrew.

Its first step landed on newly solidified golden light.

When the second rose, the previous footprint had already shattered.

The functioning bell, the cracked mute bell, the tension gauge trapped inside it, and Orin’s name all retreated beyond the second gap.

It was unhurt and left no spoils behind.

Cassian did not pursue.

He watched the last golden footprint break apart before lifting his hand from the black-gold mark.

Not getting them today did not mean he no longer wanted them.

Once the underground dawn tide had fully receded, Cassian pressed the palm mark again.

The black-gold road plate slowly rose and locked against the first relay.

He crossed alone.

There were no bone fragments and no message waiting on the first relay.

Only a shallow hole remained where the Graystone iron marker had stood. The black-gold warning handprint beside it was still there.

Cassian brushed the stone dust from the edge of the hole.

He glanced at the remaining warning handprint, then turned back to settle Marek’s account.

Before nightfall, Cassian paid him in full outside the Chain Gate.

Not a single coin was missing.

He deducted nothing for the iron marker.

Marek looked at him once before slipping the money into his pocket.

"Seven days are up."

"Tomorrow?" Cassian asked.

"Tomorrow’s separate."

Marek retied the short hemp rope at his shoulder.

Cassian nodded.

Today’s price had bought entry, observation, warning, and withdrawal. Marek had delivered all four. The last was himself.

"Settled," Cassian said.

Marek turned away to take work elsewhere.

The Chain Gate closed again.

Cassian returned to the first relay and placed his hand on the near-side black-gold palm mark.

The missing action was clear.

Lower the road.

But if Marek could press the control before Cassian returned, then he could also sink Cassian’s retreat into the dawnlight while Cassian was still on the far side.

An action could be bought.

The road could not be sold.

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