The Island of Faith

The kimono-clad elder returned to Tengen's room with documents in his hands.

He knocked and entered.

Then he froze.

The room was no longer empty.

Furniture had appeared. Calligraphy hung on the walls. A cabinet stood near one side. Tatami covered the floor. In the center, a tea table held a small burner whose pale smoke curled upward and refused to disperse.

For a moment, the elder felt as if he had stepped back into his youth.

"Sit," Tengen said.

His voice was richer than before.

The elder bowed deeply and sat across from him.

The pressure he had expected was gone. Not entirely; Tengen still carried the weight of someone above him. But the suffocating divinity had faded, replaced by something closer to a person learning how to live inside a room.

The elder's chest tightened.

"Master Tengen," he said, then began the report.

He summarized the commercial district, the visible Yamata no Orochi, the possible second serpent, and the higher-ups' uncertainty over Ren Zenin's involvement. Then he opened the documents for Tengen to read.

Tengen read them in silence.

The elder watched him and, before he could stop himself, asked the thought in his heart.

"Did you succeed?"

Tengen's eyes lifted.

The elder went rigid.

Tengen did not rebuke him.

"Soon," Tengen said softly. "Soon."

The elder lowered his head, gathered the documents after Tengen finished, and withdrew.

Silence returned.

Tengen looked at the incense burner.

Before the report arrived, God had contacted him again through crude cursed spirits and broken channels. Every word circled the same questions: Yamata no Orochi, Ren Zenin, the source in the mirror.

Tengen had not answered. That silence had enraged God enough to sever the connection himself.

Now the pieces fit together.

Ren had truly absorbed Yamata no Orochi's source.

Then he had released the real thing in the middle of a city.

Tengen closed his eyes.

It was contemptible.

It was also beyond his ability to criticize.

He could not even stand in front of Ren without permission. His strength did not qualify him to offer advice.

Let the higher-ups and the cult tear at each other.

Tengen would remain quiet and preserve himself.

Outside the main hall of the Divine Kingdom Cult, an elderly man holding a black umbrella stood at the open gate.

The noon sunlight was clear, yet the empty entrance carried a chill.

He lifted one foot, then paused.

Something drew his gaze upward toward the high tower behind the hall.

The tower housed the cult's faithful. God's office sat near the top because he enjoyed looking down on the world. The true top floor remained empty, reserved for a future deity.

The elderly man's mouth curved.

His cloudy eyes filled with mockery.

"Good luck."

A gust of wind lifted the umbrella and revealed the stitches across his forehead.

Then he turned and left.

Inside the tower, God stood in his office and stared at the place where his desk should have been.

The furniture was gone.

A square table had replaced it. A glass of red wine rested on top. Ren Zenin sat in God's chair, tasting the wine as if this room belonged to him.

God's face tightened.

He had imagined Ren countless times. He had treated him as an enemy, a target, a material for evolution. In his mind, their confrontation had always been grand.

Now that Ren was truly in front of him, those fantasies seemed unbearably thin.

God touched the wound on his arm.

"How did you find this place?"

The Divine Kingdom Cult had public branches, but the core was hidden on a cluster of islands off Japan's coast. Ordinary believers were contacted through intermediaries. Fanatics with suitable constitutions were transported through ritual. Most people inside never returned to the outside world.

Ren had appeared directly in the office.

"Sit," Ren said.

A chair appeared in front of God. A second glass of wine was already waiting.

God did not move.

If he sat, he suspected he would never stand again.

"Timid," Ren said. "Tengen is braver than you."

God's pupils shrank.

Ren had met Tengen.

Then he knew.

God took one slow step, then another, moving behind Ren toward the stone lion sculpture beside the wall. The path was not for an attack. His chance was hidden beyond that wall.

Ren drank and watched him move.

He had little interest in worms beneath the ground. But after repeated interruptions, even worms could become irritating.

God suddenly burst forward and smashed the stone lion.

A hidden mechanism opened.

Two humanoid monsters rolled out, mouths stretched wide, eyes turned upward, black liquid dripping from their jaws and smoking where it hit the floor.

"I believe in the lord. I believe in God. I believe..."

"There is no god. There is no..."

The tower alarm erupted.

God fled into the hidden chamber.

The two failures charged at Ren.

"You are ruining the mood."

Ren lifted the wineglass and flicked the red liquid outward.

Countless faces appeared in the droplets, howling silently as they struck the monsters. The wine burrowed into their bodies like living acid.

"God, save me..."

Their dry skin blistered, collapsed, and melted into two pools of rot.

Ren left the office.

The corridor outside had already filled with cult guards and evolved fanatics. The moment they saw him, their eyes turned feverish. Saliva ran from their mouths.

"That is Ren Zenin."

"Capture him. Capture him."

"If he evolves, he will be even greater."

"No. He cannot leave before receiving evolution."

Their gazes reminded Ren of Kamon at the school.

Same organization. Same eyes. Same disgust.

"Move."

No one moved.

Instead, they packed the corridor tighter. Some climbed onto others' shoulders just to see him.

"Join us. God will grant you greater power."

"Evolve."

"Evolve!"

Ren's eyes cooled.

He stepped forward.

The people in front smiled, believing they had persuaded him.

Reality corrected them.

An invisible force pressed down the corridor. The white walls turned red. Bodies broke, folded, and smeared into the shape of a warning. Those behind kept pushing, convinced faith would resurrect them if they died for God's purpose.

Ren's pace did not change.

By the time he reached the laboratory door, many of them had become decorations on the tower walls.

The laboratory was empty.

The researchers were still unconscious. The guards who should have watched the door had gone to die upstairs.

Ren entered and activated the screen.

The recording remained.

Three hours of footage became six minutes under accelerated playback. It showed the entire process of selecting materials, gathering faith, shaping the false Orochi, and releasing it. Even the deaths of civilians during manifestation had been recorded as data.

Their success had not been pure luck.

Ren waved a hand.

Locked cabinets opened. Custom locked cases released their contents and delivered the files on Yamata no Orochi to him.

Before he could read far, the ceiling thundered.

Something heavy was coming down.

The roof exploded.

Concrete and twisted steel rained through the laboratory.

God descended through the hole, arms folded over a body that had grown massive and grotesque.

"Ren Zenin," he said, voice neither fully male nor female. "Your arrival became the trigger for my successful fusion."

His mouth spread into a wild smile.

"I will give you one chance. Submit to me, and I will still grant you evolution."

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