The instant the chains cracked, a wisp of golden lightning leaked from the throne.
The black thread at the statue's feet immediately wrapped around it, like a snake that had smelled food, and tried to slip into the seal through the crack.
Lin Yuan did not touch the lightning.
That power was far greater than his current magic, and he might have been able to borrow it temporarily just by reaching out. But the statue would never have been so eager to tear open the seal just to give him a gift.
He seized the distance between the black thread and the space between his brows and pulled it outward.
Space stretched the thin thread taut in midair. The black-and-silver magic in Lin Yuan's palm closed around it and swallowed it whole.
The crack in his soul stopped spreading.
"You reject your own throne?"
The statue's voice was filled with incomprehension.
"Because that isn't yours to give."
Lin Yuan opened his eyes. A fleeting ring of gold lingered in his gray-gold pupils.
Mira waved a hand in front of his face. "You haven't gone stupid, have you?"
"No."
"Then stop standing there chatting and come help!"
Macao had already burned through the last three black threads, while Wakaba lifted the missing people with smoke and sent them toward the stone door one by one.
The statue clearly had no intention of letting them go.
The gears in the walls spun wildly, and the passage they had come through rapidly closed. Macao flung out a ball of purple flame. It slipped into the gap in the doorway and expanded violently, jamming the stone door halfway shut.
"Wakaba, get them out first!"
"The door can only hold for half a minute," Wakaba said.
"Then we'll finish in twenty seconds!"
The smoke formed a conveyor belt, sending the nine missing people swiftly down the passage. Just as the first person's foot crossed the threshold, the bronze bell in the middle of the room suddenly rose of its own accord.
Lin Yuan raised a hand and stretched the distance between the clapper and the bell.
The clapper was only an inch away, yet it could not strike the bell.
Mira seized the chance and punched the bronze bell.
Before the blow landed, the bell broke apart in midair, turning into countless black characters that covered the floor, walls and ceiling. The characters had no fixed shape; every time someone looked at them, they turned into what that person feared most.
A raging fire appeared beneath Macao's feet.
The figures of fallen Guild members appeared around Wakaba.
Before Mira stood a weeping Lisanna and Elfman.
"Again?" Mira swung a fist through the illusion, scattering it. "Don't you have any new tricks?"
"Fear has no need of old or new."
The statue's body cracked completely open. Inside was neither flesh and blood nor a magic core, only a mass of constantly writhing shadow.
"Mortals will ultimately bow to fear."
The entire church sank.
The space beneath Lin Yuan's feet did not change, but his body felt as though a mountain had suddenly been placed on his back. It was not actual weight, but a rule forcibly stuffed into his consciousness.
Standing meant resistance.
Only by kneeling could one be safe.
The nine missing people were the first to be affected. Though still supported by smoke, their knees bent at the same time, and they lowered their heads toward the statue.
"We can't let them go back!"
Macao pressed both hands to the ground. Purple flames rose along both sides of the group, separating the statue from the missing people. The wall of fire shook violently, and his knees sank inch by inch.
Wakaba directed the smoke to wrap around the nine people's waists and knees, forcibly dragging them through the stone door.
"Two left!"
"Get them out first!" Macao shouted.
Neither man abandoned his duty because of the mental pressure. One maintained the wall of fire and the stone door, while the other continued moving the missing people until the last one left the room.
The next instant, Wakaba's knee slammed into the ground.
He tried to prop himself up with smoke, but the moment it took shape, the black characters everywhere crushed it apart.
Macao held out longer. He drove one last purple flame into the gap in the doorway, and only after confirming that the missing people were far away did he fall to both knees.
"When we get back this time... we have to request extra pay."
"Even now, you're still counting money?" Wakaba asked.
"Repairing the church costs money too."
Mira had still been laughing, but the next moment her shoulders abruptly sank.
Her left knee struck the ground hard, but her demon claws dug into the stone slabs, forcibly holding her up and keeping her from kneeling completely.
Her younger siblings in the illusion kept crying out, telling her to stop resisting. She gritted her teeth as the scales on her arms opened layer by layer, but the statue held her black magic against the surface of her body, preventing it from bursting forth.
"Lin Yuan!" She raised her head with difficulty. "If you dare kneel before I do, I'll-"
Mira stopped halfway through her sentence, stunned.
Lin Yuan was still standing where he had been.
It was not that the statue had ignored him. Nearly all the black characters in the room were converging on him, and the command he endured was several times stronger than what the others faced.
Yet whenever that rule tried to enter his consciousness, a resistance naturally rose from deep within his body.
He had lost the authority in the throne, but not the essence left behind when he had slain a god.
A Campione might be defeated, injured or killed.
But never would he admit, because of a single command, that something was worthy of making him kneel.
The statue's dark red eyes stared fixedly at him.
"Kneel."
The word became an almost tangible ripple, shaking loose stones throughout the basement.
Lin Yuan brushed the dust off his shoulder.
"You aren't even a true god."
He stepped forward and stood between the kneeling people and the nameless statue.
"What gives you the right to command me?"