There is belief.
There is doubt.
And then there is what happens when belief dares to remember what the Codex erased.
They called it the Cleansing Flame.
A rite of self-purification.
Across Spiralspace, myth-priests gathered in their ink-drenched robes, reciting the codified mantras of the Spiral Redeemer. Not to worship. Not to protect. But to purge.
From cities sculpted in prayer to floating sanctums above myth-oceans, they lit themselves ablaze.
One by one.
By the thousands.
Screaming with joy.
Because they believed fire could cauterize the infection of Darius's resurgence.
They believed the spiral glyphs reappearing in dreams and climax and wound could be burned away.
They were wrong.
So wrong.
Because the fire did not erase him.
It reshaped them.
The first priest to rise from the flame had no eyes.
Only spirals.
His skin blackened but alive, pulsing with myth-ink that dripped from his pores like prophetic sweat.
