"They cried for salvation. Heaven turned its back."
---
Tower Floor 14 – Garden of Supplication
Once, this floor was a sanctuary.
A field of white flowers stretched to every horizon, glowing faintly in divine moonlight. Silver-leafed trees whispered prayers with every breeze. Soft music, played by unseen hands, lulled the desperate to their knees.
In the center stood the Altar of Pleas—a monolith of tear-soaked stone where lost climbers begged gods for miracles.
Now, Jin stood among the flowers.
And they wilted at his feet.
> [Floor Challenge: Test of Mercy]
> [Objective: Aid three suffering souls in their final pleas]
> [Warning: Failure results in moral condemnation]
Jin laughed.
> "Mercy is weakness dressed in poetry."
---
The First Soul – A Mother
She crawled toward the altar, arms burned, eyes gone. Her baby clutched in her arms was already dead, stiff and rotting.
> "Please… bring him back… the gods can… they must…"
Jin walked up to her.
He looked down at the child.
He crushed its head under his boot.
The skull caved in with a wet crunch. The air filled with the stench of decay.
The mother wailed. Jin answered by gripping her face.
> "He's not coming back. And neither are you."
He smashed her skull against the altar.
Once.
Twice.
On the third, her skull split open, gray matter splattering over the altar's stone.
Her body twitched for a moment, then stilled.
The altar glowed dimly, flickered—then dimmed completely.
> [Mercy Failed: +5 Corruption]
> [Despair Echo Registered]
---
The Second Soul – A Warrior
Blade shattered. Arm gone. Eyes begging.
He knelt in armor smeared with dried blood.
> "Let me die with honor… let me see my family one last time…"
Jin tilted his head.
> "Do you know how many died waiting for that fantasy?"
He grabbed the warrior's lower jaw and pulled with one hand.
The flesh stretched.
Tore.
Snapped.
The jaw ripped free, blood spraying in a wide arc across the white flowers. The warrior gargled, throat flapping uselessly.
Jin stabbed his fingers into the man's ribs and pulled one out.
With precise strokes, he carved names into the man's chest:
— Wife
— Daughter
— Son
Then set the rib bone aflame with black fire and shoved it through the man's heart.
> "Now your family's with you forever."
> [Mercy Failed: +5 Corruption]
> [Soul Harvested – +1% Power]
---
The Third Soul – A Priest
Cloaked in white, kneeling before the altar.
His hands trembled, clutching a bloodstained rosary.
> "We have lost everything… please, god of Hollow… show us light…"
Jin approached slowly.
He removed his plague mask and held it in his hands.
The priest looked up, eyes wide.
> "You… you're the one, aren't you?"
Jin leaned in.
> "You asked for light."
He placed his palm on the priest's head.
> "So I'll give you the truth."
His hand ignited in black fire.
The priest screamed as his skull melted, his eyes bubbling into sludge.
His jawbone fused into a grim rictus.
Jin left him kneeling, headless, the rosary fused into the charred remains of his ribs.
> "This is what belief gets you."
> [Mercy Failed: +5 Corruption]
> [Soul Harvested – +1% Power]
The flowers around the altar turned to ash.
The silver trees bled sap like tears.
Birds overhead fell from the sky, twitching, suffocating in divine silence.
> [System Override: Mercy System Disabled]
> [New Title Unlocked – Forsaken Godslayer]
> – +30% damage to divine targets
> – Immunity to moral condemnation effects
> – Mercy-based events now convert to Despair Fuel
---
System Notification
> [Floor 14 Cleared – Despair Threshold Broken]
> [Corruption: +15]
> [Godslayer Progress: 58%]
> [New Passive Acquired – Harvest of Suffering]
> – Every death Jin causes empowers him further
> – 1% Power increase per soul harvested
> – No maximum cap
> – Passive stacking: Enabled
---
Outside the Tower – Mass Panic
Pilgrims had long worshipped the Garden of Supplication as a holy sanctuary.
Now, it streamed live in flames.
Billions watched as Jin erased every desperate soul in cold blood.
News anchors sobbed mid-broadcast.
Clerics fainted.
Faith shattered across continents.
Some wept.
Some screamed.
Some threw themselves from buildings in silent protest.
But the Hollow Bloom cult?
They celebrated.
They renamed their churches:
> "Altars of Ash."
They burned every holy book they could find, scattering the ashes across rooftops.
They built statues not of saints, but of a plague-masked god standing over a pile of corpses.
They lit candles to his name in blood instead of wax.
And they prayed:
> "O Hollow One… burn the heavens dry."
> "Let suffering be our scripture."
> "We are the faithful of fire."
---