SSS Awakening: I Can Devour Gods to Evolve My Goddesses

Chapter 7: It Wants to Erase My Name

The hand winch caught on the next tooth.

A heavy vibration traveled up the crank and struck Cassian’s palm. The iron rock bolt on the near side did not move.

Cassian kept pressure on the handle and let himself enjoy it for a moment longer.

The thing was heavy and clumsy. Every turn tugged at his right shoulder. But it obeyed him. Yesterday, there had been nothing on this broken road he could grab. Now, at least, he had a cable that could drag him back from open air.

A soft sound came from the distance.

Not iron.

Bone being wedged into stone.

On the inner side of the first break, a gray-white figure knelt on the slanted remains of the ancient road. It was thin enough to resemble a bare skeleton, yet layered plates of bone bulged over its joints, as though someone had pressed a corpse back into shape with ash.

It drove a pale bone nail into a crack. Then it pinched a trace of black-gold ash from the stone and slowly smeared it across the scorched ritual bone on its chest.

"Third Formation, return to ash."

A sickly white line seeped out beneath the nail.

It licked forward along the old road. Wherever it passed, the black-gold burn scars left on the stone dimmed piece by piece.

The smile disappeared from Cassian’s face.

That thing was not here to stop travelers.

It was erasing everyone who had ever walked this road.

The gray-white figure did not look at him. It simply picked up a second nail, calm and practiced, as if those black-gold traces had never deserved to remain.

Cassian released the crank.

He did not step toward the gap.

A short while later, he had already passed through the east passage and returned to the central temple hall.

Veyra was still bound to the divine seat by the Eclipse Chains. At the sound of his steps, she merely raised her eyes.

"Gray-white bone nails. A scorched ritual bone in its chest," Cassian said. "Every time it drives one in, it says the Third Formation will return to ash."

The chains gave a faint rattle.

"Ashbone Acolyte."

"What is it doing?"

"Erasing the defeated from the road." Veyra’s voice was level. "Banners. Route marks. Names. Anything left as ash is counted as ground Ashbone has walked."

Cassian thought of the black-gold scar disappearing beneath that pale line.

"There are names in it?"

Veyra was silent for half a breath.

"Part of the Third Formation’s roll of the fallen may still be there."

"May?"

"I only saw it when it was whole." The chain beneath her right wrist drew tight, then slowly eased again. "I can tell you what will be lost. Whether you go is your decision."

Cassian looked at her.

Veyra looked back.

"If the old road catches you, come back," she said.

Cassian did not turn away at once.

It was almost as if he were waiting for one more sentence.

Only the faint hum buried deep within the chains answered him.

"Understood."

He left.

By the time he returned to the gap, the second bone nail was already in place. The pale seal had swallowed another sliver of black-gold.

Cassian fastened the second formal rock bolt and the iron hammer at his side. Six meters of thin braided steel line, connected to one test pin, was coiled behind his waist. The twenty-meter coarse cable stretched out from the near-side winch.

It was his only way home.

He leaned his weight back once.

The coarse cable caught him.

Enough.

Golden dawnlight slowly rose beneath the gap. It illuminated the tip of his boot, but not the bottom of the chasm.

Cassian’s stomach dropped first.

Then his right shoulder began to ache, as though the wound already knew what he intended to do.

He drew in a breath of cold air and bent his knees.

Predator Step activated.

The stone edge vanished behind him.

The brief burst launched him over the break. The coarse cable snapped taut at his back a moment later. His right shoulder felt as if an iron hook had ripped through it, and his knee buckled hard when it struck the inner slope.

Cassian failed to land on his feet.

He slid half a step down the stone, pressed his body flat, and jammed five fingers into a crack. Gravel rolled past his boot and disappeared into the golden light.

No echo came back.

He stayed there for two breaths, waiting for his stomach to settle back into his body.

Then he raised his head.

The nearest Ashbone road nail was within reach.

Cassian pulled out the iron hammer and struck the side of the nail.

It tilted.

The second blow snapped the gray-white bone in half.

The pale seal spread across the road recoiled. A sliver of the black-gold burn scar emerged from the ash like a narrow eye opening.

The pressure in Cassian’s chest finally broke loose.

That felt good.

The gray-white figure stopped.

For the first time, it turned its head. There were no eyes in its sockets, only two points of cold white flame.

"Unrecorded one. Turn back."

Cassian rested the hammerhead against the broken nail.

"You haven’t won yet."

He drove the second formal rock bolt into a crack behind him and clipped the six-meter short line to his waist. The short line held him here. The coarse cable led back to the near side.

The Ashbone Acolyte rose.

It did not charge Cassian.

A new bone nail slipped from its palm and drove into the coarse cable crossing the ancient road.

Sickly white spread over the steel at once.

The color crawled toward Cassian along his only way home, much faster than it had moved across stone. Steel touched by it stopped reflecting light. It looked like bone rapidly going cold.

The Acolyte pinched black-gold ash from the cable and smeared it across the ritual bone in its chest.

"The defeated leave no names."

The white line leaped across a seam.

Something tightened at Cassian’s waist.

No one was pulling him.

The short line was simply holding him where he stood.

The Acolyte was only three steps away.

Two bone nails rose from the old road between them, their points aimed at his chest and stomach. The ritual bone in the Acolyte’s chest was already tilting toward the ground. If it touched stone again, the white line Cassian had beaten back would resume crawling toward the black-gold scar.

Behind him, the coarse cable was turning white.

He could retreat now and gamble on being dragged back. But this position would be sealed again, and the black-gold trace would disappear.

If he stayed—

War Instinct stabbed through the back of his skull.

For half a heartbeat, Cassian saw his own shadow nailed to the stone, white ash covering his limbs and another bone nail driven through his chest.

The image vanished.

His throat remained dry.

He grabbed the short line at his waist.

Thin steel trembled in his palm.

If he released it, he could cross those final three steps.

If he released it, there would be nothing behind him but the chasm and a home cable already turning white.

Cassian’s grip tightened. His knuckles slowly lost their color.

He knew what he had to do.

His hand did not open.

The Ashbone Acolyte tilted its head. Its two points of white flame settled on his fist, as if it were waiting in perfect patience.

A third bone nail struck the old road.

The white on the coarse cable surged closer.

Only an arm’s length remained.

Cassian tore open the clasp at his waist.

The short line slipped away from his side.

Its silver-gray coil unfurled above the golden light, dragging the test pin into the chasm.

Cassian’s right hand reached after it on its own.

His fingers snapped shut.

They caught nothing but cold air.

"Damn it."

He froze for half a beat.

His waist felt naked and cold. There was no second hand at his back, and something inside his stomach felt carved away. The falling steel line grew thinner and thinner until the underground dawnlight swallowed it without a sound.

Six meters of steel line, gone.

One test pin too.

The white line crept another inch closer.

Cassian kept staring into the gap.

Only when bone scraped against stone again did he draw back his empty hand.

The Ashbone Acolyte was pressing the scorched ritual bone in its chest toward the ancient road.

Cassian lunged.

His first step crushed the ash at his feet.

His second forced him between the two bone nails. One point tore through his coat and raked his ribs.

On the third, he swung the bent chain blade and hacked down at the scorched ritual bone.

Clang!

The edge skidded aside, knocking loose only a fleck of charred bone.

The Acolyte slammed an arm across him.

Its gray-white elbow struck Cassian’s right shoulder.

The world flashed white.

The wound beneath his bandage split open. Heat spread through the wrapping almost at once. Cassian staggered sideways, his knee nearly hitting the ground.

The Acolyte did not follow up at his throat.

It turned immediately, protected the ritual bone with both hands, and tried once more to press it against the road.

The closer the bone came to the stone, the brighter the white on the coarse cable became.

Cassian stared through ragged breaths.

Now he saw it.

It did not care how it killed him.

It only cared about erasing every name.

The ritual bone touched the road.

Pale light spread from its chest.

Cassian did not swing again.

He let the color flare, then drove himself low into the Acolyte. His left arm hooked beneath its guard and locked around its chest. His right palm slammed onto the edge where the scorched ritual bone met the road.

Cold punched straight into the bones of his hand.

Fine gray-white lines crawled over the back of it, as if trying to carve words beneath his skin.

For the first time, the Acolyte lost its ritual calm.

Its head jerked up. The two white flames contracted. One hand clawed at the back of Cassian’s neck while the other kept forcing the ritual bone down, trying to press Cassian into the ash with it.

Cassian stared into its empty face and smiled.

"Got you."

Divine Rend activated.

The force did not descend from a distance.

It traveled through Cassian’s hand where he pinned the ritual bone, focusing into one short, vicious tear.

Something cracked between scorched bone and ancient road.

The pale seal snapped.

All the white on the coarse cable went dark at once, leaving behind cold, ordinary steel.

The Acolyte was still alive.

It released its first sound that was not human speech—a piercing shriek. Both arms tightened, almost ripping Cassian’s right shoulder away from his body.

Cassian was not going to force a second Divine Rend through that shoulder.

He did not need one.

His left hand seized the coarse cable, now nothing more than dead weight, and wrenched it sideways.

Steel swept behind the Acolyte’s knees.

The gray-white body lost its balance. For the first time, the ritual bone in its chest came fully away from the road.

Cassian drove it down and planted his knee against the overlapping plates across its abdomen. The bent chain blade plunged through the split in the ritual bone.

Its tip struck something small and hard.

Both white flames turned toward him.

Cassian locked both hands on the hilt and forced his full weight down.

Crack.

The physical core hidden behind the ritual bone shattered.

The Ashbone Acolyte’s hand stopped at the back of his neck.

One bone finger slid from Cassian’s collar, then a second. The entire gray-white body collapsed from the chest outward, its bone armor turning into cold ash.

It was dead.

A mass of dense divinity seeped from the shattered core and began sliding down the slope.

The underground dawnlight brightened beneath it.

Cassian’s heart clenched.

Don’t even think about taking it.

That was his.

He threw himself down and drove his left hand into the searing light.

[Divine Devourer Activated.]

Divinity poured into his body through his palm.

Heat.

Not fire burning his skin. This was something heavy being forced into his chest, hammering through his blood and into every limb. His right shoulder still throbbed. His knee still shook.

Cassian laughed anyway.

Moments ago, this thing had tried to write him into the road as another layer of ash.

Now it had not even left ash behind.

[Divine Essence +4]

[Available Divine Essence: 6]

[Cumulative Divine Essence Acquired: 15]

Six points.

Cassian sat on the cold ancient road, his palm still pressed against stone that held nothing now.

The heat in his chest did not fade at once. He closed his eyes and let the satisfaction sink slowly into his body.

None of it had been divided away.

None of it had fallen into the underground dawnlight.

All six points were in his hands.

He liked that number.

Enough that he almost did not want to open his eyes.

Every beat of his heart carried heat, as though those four points of divinity were still struggling inside him. Cassian let them struggle. The harder they fought, the more certain he became that the gray-white creature from moments ago no longer existed.

It had not escaped.

It had not retreated into the dark.

It had not left some fragment waiting to return.

He had eaten it clean.

That fact made the pain in his right shoulder easier to bear. Cassian ran his tongue over his dry lips, and the smile returned.

If Veyra could see him now, she would probably think he did not look much like someone who had just protected a roll of fallen soldiers.

Good.

He had not sacrificed himself for anyone. The black-gold scar still existed because it and those four points of divinity had both happened to lie on the road he wanted.

Of course he was pleased to keep them both.

But the cold of that empty grasp had not gone away.

Cassian curled his right hand without thinking. His palm still seemed to remember the thin cable vibrating against it. When his fingers closed, there was nothing there.

He stared at his empty fist for a while before slowly opening it.

That curse was still lodged in his throat. Winning would not make the equipment he had lost fly back to him.

He did not hurry to dress the loss up with a clean explanation.

Instead, he leaned his head against the cold stone and listened to his breathing slow. With every exhale, the heat inside his chest felt a little more like it belonged to him. Eventually, even his fingertips grew warm.

Cassian chuckled under his breath.

The sound was not for the road.

It was not for any of the dead.

He had won, and he was full.

There was nothing noble about that satisfaction, and no one was there to witness it. Cassian did not need an audience. He rested the back of his head against the stone and enjoyed three full heartbeats before making himself sit up.

He could decide what those points would buy him later.

Several breaths passed before Cassian rose.

The sickly white left by Ashbone had retreated from the road. The black-gold burn scar had not fully emerged. It remained farther ahead in broken fragments, like an old wound that had yet to be read.

Pieces of shattered bone nail lay around his feet. The scorched ritual bone that had been smeared with ash again and again had also crumbled into powder. Black-gold ash leaked from its cracks without covering anything else.

Cassian pushed the ash aside with the toe of his boot. The old marks beneath were slowly recovering their color.

He did not know whether the line he saw was one stroke of someone’s name.

At least it was still there.

He did not go closer.

It remained beyond the first relay.

Cassian picked up the coarse cable and secured it to the formal rock bolt he had driven into the relay. He pulled hard. The winch on the far side answered with one slow, distinct click.

Click.

He still had a way back.

His gaze dropped to the empty space at his waist.

A six-meter coil of short line should have been there.

The corner of Cassian’s mouth twitched. In the end, he said nothing.

A faint tremor passed through the stone beneath his boots.

Ancient lines buried under ash lit up one by one. They were not sickly white, but old gold worn dim by time. They wound around Cassian’s boots and gathered before the second iron rock bolt, forming two lines of text.

[Current Seal-Breaker: Cassian Vale]

[Reassessment: Next Underground Dawn Pulse]

No ownership.

No recognition.

The old road had merely recorded the living man still standing here after killing the one who sealed it.

Cassian pressed a hand over his name.

Ancient gold warmed his palm. It was nowhere near as hot as the divinity he had just swallowed, but it felt more direct than any proof issued by someone else. No one had entered his name for him. No one had given him permission to stand here.

The road had only looked at the result.

Cassian liked records kept that way.

But the second line still glowed beneath his fingers.

He read it again. The satisfaction in his chest remained, but now a needle-thin countdown had lodged inside it.

Before the next underground dawn pulse.

He was about to look up when something scraped in the darkness.

Far away.

Like bone slowly pulling free of packed ash.

A second scrape followed.

Then a third.

Beyond the black-gold burn scar, a pale road nail that had been lying flat rose upright.

Another followed.

Then another.

One by one.

They stood in the darkness along the broken ancient road. None advanced. Nothing behind them revealed itself.

Every bone nail made only one movement.

They slowly turned toward the name newly written on the relay.

Cassian Vale.

This time, Ashbone knew whose name to erase.

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