This is the real Chapter 21, if you've read the deleted chapter, read the author note at chapter 21 to avoid confusion.
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Aaron was dreaming, he was back in his dorm.
He sat at his desk, headset crooked, eyes ringed with sleep-debt. Grease from a crusted slice of pizza clung to his fingers. His desk was cluttered with paint bottles, loose dice, printed rulesets, most smudged with fingerprints and caffeine.
It was game night.
Open play.
The Trench Crusade Tabletop Simulator Online was in full swing, and the chat window beside his glowing battlefield scrolled with memes, arguments, and questionable homebrew justifications.
His Heretic Legion was doing stupidly well. Too well. He hadn't balanced them, hadn't needed to. This was open play. It was for fun. For chaos.
Across the board sat him.
The Worst Player.
The Antioch Red Brigade guy.
That guy.
The kind of player who talked over people in voice chat, built unkillable homebrew units, and then accused you of not knowing the lore. The kind of guy who used Reddit posts as canon citations. The kind who got kicked from Discord lobbies not for trolling—but for being insufferably sincere.
He was hovering over a unit, trying to cheat. Again.
"Uh... this one has Deep Strike," he said, voice dripping with that sickly, simmering rage that always came before rule-lawyering. "Sniper."
Aaron squinted. "That's a Machine Priest with a flamer."
"Sniper-flamer hybrid," the guy said, licking cheese dust from his thumb. "Homebrew relic. You said we could use homebrew."
"I said we could use balanced—"
"You skipped me last week. I didn't get to play."
"Maybe don't flame the mods?"
The guy moved a unit across the map. No declaration. No dice roll.
Aaron's jaw tightened. "Homebrew? Or just straight-up cheating?"
Then—
The dream twisted.
The voice distorted. The face across the screen began to flicker like old CRT static.
The warboard blackened. Melted.
Miniatures dissolved into ash and pixelated ichor.
The cheeto-stained fingers warped into claws.
"You cheated too," the voice hissed. "You cheated death."
The screen collapsed into flame.
Everything—pixels, paint, plastic—burned.
SAINT GRAVE flashed across the UI like a corrupted killfeed.
Somewhere, a voice whispered, soft as breath on the back of Aaron's neck:
"Wake up."
Then the table caught fire.
Aaron's eyes snapped open.
The sky above him was bruised purple and ash-red. Smoke danced in soft whorls above a trenchline lined with relics and bones. Somewhere nearby, fire crackled. Somewhere far, someone sobbed.
He blinked.
He was alive.
He was... here.
Still.
"So I haven't woken up from this nightmare yet," he whispered to the clouds.
A voice beside him stirred.
"Your Eminence. You're awake."
Aaron turned his head slowly. His neck felt like someone had used it to batter open a relic-coffin.
Aleric sat beside him, wrapped in blood-crusted bandages, holding his Codex like a lifeline. His face was lined with soot, ink, and something that might've been both joy and terror.
Aaron winced. "Dude, can you not. Just talk normal again, like before. Please."
Aleric blinked.
Then grinned.
Casual. Human. A breath of something real.
"As you command, Your Eminence," he said with a shrug. "Guess that means I can stop quoting scripture every five seconds?"
Aaron groaned. "That was fast."
"A Saint's word is absolute."
"I hate you a little bit."
"Good. You're still lucid."
Aaron tried to sit up. His entire torso protested with the force of a dozen minor crucifixions. His back felt like relic slag. His legs were numb. Breathing was like swallowing gravel.
Then a shadow fell across him.
Confessor-General Holwen, trench coat flapping like a half-burned sermon page, dropped into a crouch beside the sleeping Saint.
Ash clung to him like second skin. His eyes were dry and so very, very old.
"Well," Holwen said, brushing a smear of soot from his sleeve, "you're awake. Good. That's one less damn miracle we need today."
He unrolled a parchment scroll, crisp with heat damage, and glanced down at it like he was checking an errand list.
"We reclaimed the fronts. All of them. Blood and faith bought every inch back."
He tapped the parchment with a gloved finger.
"Here's what's left of what we threw in."
Forces:
Redemption Soldiers (33rd) [Deployed 3,400]
[Casualties: 2,600]
[Survivors: 800]
Trench Pilgrims [Deployed 1,300]
[Casualties: 1,000]
[Survivors: 300]
Crucible Walkers [Deployed 600]
[Casualties: 420]
[Survivors: 180]
Torch-Bearers [Deployed 250]
[Casualties: 160]
[Survivors: 90]
Third Psalm Host [Deployed 300]
[Casualties: 90]
[Survivors: 210]
Gloried Dust [Deployed 300]
[Casualties: Unknown]
[Survivors: Est. 210–270]
"Total?" Holwen muttered. "Ballpark four thousand dead, maybe more. We started with just over six. Ended with under two."
Aaron said nothing.
He just stared up at the sky, lips parted, soul curling in quiet revolt.
Holwen continued, softer now:
"Saint-Father Dren's gone. Red Choir Butcher split him like communion bread. His people are relic harvesting now. Crucible doctrine."
Aaron didn't move.
"Lueth's still walking somehow. Burned half his own flank to do it. And Hema..." Holwen paused. "She may have actually become a martyr. Not metaphorically."
He let out a breath, wiped grime from his mouth with the back of his hand.
"We're still holding. Just barely."
Aaron coughed dryly. "That guy had cheeto fingers."
Holwen raised an eyebrow. "Come again?"
Aleric glanced over, confused. "Your Eminence?"
"Nothing," Aaron mumbled. "Just… memory bleed."
Holwen straightened again, his silhouette framed by smoke-streaked dawn.
"Rest while you can, Saint," Holwen said, his voice like gravel dipped in ash. "Tomorrow this front gets reinforced. Fresh Redemption blood. Third Company and the Virex Penitents."
He ticked names off on his gloved fingers, like listing saints from a sermon or weapons from a rack.
"Couple of War Prophets. Unstable but loud. Couple Castigators—old ones, from the Vraes Rift detachment. Heard they bring their own flensing bells now."
Aaron just blinked at him.
"Anti-Tank Communicants from the Cruciform Archive—walking vox-lances, mostly machine now. Might hum the psalms backward if you don't keep their antennas stable."
Holwen pulled out a slip of crumpled parchment and squinted at the bottom.
"Shrine Anchorite. Doesn't talk. Lives in a tomb-box. Supposed to bless ammo just by touching it."
He folded the paper.
"Oh—Mendelist Ammo Monk. They're... helpful. Sort of. They'll resupply your relic bandoliers while asking if you've made peace with your ancestral sin-pile."
Aaron stared at him like someone trying to parse an instruction manual written in blood and sarcasm.
Then Holwen added, far too casually:
"Also, congratulations. You've been cleared for public display."
Aaron squinted harder. "…Like, medically?"
"Parade," Holwen said flatly. "In Virex-Cathadralis. Relic capital. The Ecclesiarchal Directorate says the front needs a morale spike and apparently you're it."
Aaron paled. "Oh no."
"Too late. Someone already gilded your name into a cathedral wall. You're on the schedule between an arch-saint's jaw unveiling and a mass relic burning. You're slotted right after the noon bell."
"You've got to be kidding."
"I never joke about ecclesiastical scheduling. That's a mortal sin in four dioceses."
⚠️ Command Note — Sector Theta-Seven
Saint Presence Disruption Risk: HIGH
May awaken dormant war-machines housed beneath the cathedral spires
Relic-core reactors may overheat under proximity to recently resurrected souls
Pilgrims may spontaneously ascend or experience mass hysteria
Parade is mandatory, sacramental, and statistically classified as a Tier-VI Mass Casualty Potential Event
Recommend anti-miracle field stabilizers and additional confession staff
Security Clearance: Liturgical Tier IX
Later, as the sky cooled and the trenches quieted, the three men walked together along the lip of their line.
Aaron limped, supported by Aleric, his half-wrapped body aching under every gust of wind.
Holwen lit a relic-cigarette and passed it between stained fingers, the smoke mixing with the burn haze still crawling from the soil.
They didn't speak much.
Didn't need to.
The fronts had held.
Somehow.
Fires guttered low behind them.
Wounded slept where they could.
Pilgrims sat in rough circles, whispering half-songs, names of the dead, psalms cut with grief and grace.
And etched into the scorched wall of one trench, amid blood-tallies and broken rosaries, a young soldier dragged the edge of a bayonet across the stone and carefully carved:
THE SAINT OF THE HOLY SPEW
—Tally: 4,106 souls—