# Chapter 387: The Final Sermon
The scout's words hung in the canyon air, a poison more potent than any Bloom-spore. For a moment, the world seemed to hold its breath. The wind died, the dust settled, and the desperate gravity of Isolde's defection was instantly eclipsed by a newer, more immediate horror. Soren felt the blood drain from his face, the tactical calculations and strategic advantages he'd just gained turning to ash in his mind. Elara. The name was a stone in his gut. The children they had just saved were a counterpoint to the one he had failed, the one who was now at the epicenter of a cataclysm.
Nyra was the first to move, her hand closing around his arm, her grip firm and grounding. "Soren. Look at me." Her voice was a blade, cutting through his rising panic. "Panicking is a luxury we don't have. We need information. Now." She turned her sharp gaze on Isolde, who was still on her knees, the dust of her shattered faith clinging to her fingers. The Inquisitor's face, once a mask of zealous certainty, was now a canvas of raw, unguarded shock. The news of the Sunken City had reached her, too, and it was a language she understood all too well.
"The Final Purification," Isolde whispered, the words tasting like bile. "It's a myth. A bedtime story for the most devout. A prophecy of the day the Remnant would finally cleanse the world of the Gifted's taint by returning it to the Bloom." She looked up, her eyes wide with a dawning, sickening comprehension. "I never believed they had the means. The sheer amount of raw, unstable magic required… it's unthinkable."
"They're thinking it now," Soren said, his voice a low growl. He forced the image of Elara's smiling face from his mind, replacing it with the cold, hard necessity of the moment. "Where is it? The Bloom-heart. What is it?"
Isolde shook her head, a frantic, helpless motion. "The Sunken City… it's built on the ruins of the oldest city from before the first Bloom. A place where the veil between worlds is thin. The legends say a 'heart' of pure, catalytic energy beats deep beneath its foundations. The Remnant has been trying to awaken it for generations. They use their most faithful, their most 'pure'—those whose Gifts are weak or whose spirits are broken—as conduits. They pour their life force, their pain, their very souls into it, hoping to trigger a chain reaction."
"And Elara is their new conduit," Nyra finished, her expression grim. She pieced it together with chilling speed. "Her Gift is healing. It's a Gift of creation, of life. To the Remnant's twisted logic, that makes her the ultimate fuel. They won't just use her; they'll consume her, turning her light into the spark that burns the world."
The scout, still gasping for air, nodded vigorously. "The message said they've taken her to the central atrium. They're preparing the ritual. The whole city is gathering. They called it… the Final Sermon."
The name echoed in Soren's mind, a death knell. He looked at Captain Bren, whose weathered face was etched with a grim resolve. "How long?" Soren asked, his voice dangerously quiet.
"Hard to say," the scout stammered. "Messages from the Sunken City are… unreliable. The magic down there interferes. But the preparations sounded complete. It could be hours. It could be minutes."
Every instinct screamed at Soren to run. To mount a rescue, to charge into the Sunken City and tear it apart stone by stone to get to her. But the strategist, the leader Nyra and Bren had helped him become, knew it was a fool's errand. The Sunken City was the Ashen Remnant's fortress, a labyrinth of madness and faith. A frontal assault would be suicide. And even if they could get in, how could they stop a ritual of that scale? How could they fight a god being born from the earth's own wound?
He turned back to Isolde. Her shock was giving way to a different kind of fire, a cold, calculating hatred. "Valerius," she said, her voice sharp as glass. "He knows. He has to. This is why he's building the Bulwark. Not just to fight a Second Bloom, but to survive this one. To be the only thing left standing when the Remnant unleashes hell."
The pieces clicked into place with horrifying clarity. Valerius wasn't just a paranoid tyrant; he was a doomsday prepper, building his ark while the world burned. The Soulsteel forge, the Divine Bulwark—it was all connected. Two apocalypses, racing to see which would arrive first.
"We have to choose," Nyra said, stating the impossible choice hanging in the air. "We can't be in two places at once. We can either go after the forge, using Isolde's intelligence to strike at the heart of the Synod's power, or we can throw everything we have into a desperate rescue mission in the Sunken City."
Soren's jaw tightened. To choose the forge was to sacrifice Elara. To choose Elara was to sacrifice the best chance they had of crippling the Synod and potentially stopping Valerius's endgame. It was a choice between the person he loved and the future of everyone he was fighting for. He looked at Isolde, at the raw, vengeful energy coiling in her. He looked at Nyra, her mind already racing through the impossible variables. He looked at the faces of the rescued children, huddled together, their eyes wide with a fear they should never have known.
He had to save them all. There was no other option.
***
Deep within the Sunken City, the air was thick with the scent of ozone, damp stone, and unwashed bodies. The grand atrium, a cavernous space that had once been the hub of a thriving metropolis, was now packed to the brim with the faithful of the Ashen Remnant. They stood shoulder to shoulder, a sea of grey robes and gaunt, fervent faces, their bodies swaying in unison. The only light came from the pulsating, sickly green veins of Bloom-infused crystal that grew in web-like patterns across the ancient architecture, casting long, dancing shadows that made the crowd look like a single, writhing organism.
At the center of it all, on a raised dais of cracked marble, stood The Voice. He was a tall, skeletal figure, his robes the color of dried blood. His face was obscured by a mask of polished obsidian, featureless except for two narrow slits that glowed with a faint, internal luminescence. He did not need to shout; his voice was amplified by the chamber itself, a resonant, commanding baritone that seemed to vibrate in the bones of every listener.
He raised his arms, and the crowd fell silent, their collective breath held in anticipation. The news had spread through the city like wildfire. The Inquisitor, Isolde, had fallen. The children, the future of their cause, had been stolen by the Unchained. It was a blow, a test of their faith. And The Voice was here to deliver their final test, their ultimate purpose.
"My brothers! My sisters!" he began, his voice echoing through the vast chamber. "They tell us we are defeated! They tell us our light has been stolen! The Synod's lapdogs and their rebel puppets believe they have won a victory today!" A low growl of anger rippled through the crowd. "They speak of rescue. They speak of freedom. They speak of a world where the Gifted are allowed to fester like a wound upon the earth!"
He paused, letting the anger build, feeding it with his own palpable contempt. "They are wrong. They have not won a victory. They have merely hastened the dawn! The loss of our children is not a tragedy. It is a sacrifice! A holy offering that has tipped the scales! Their theft has purified our resolve, and in return, the Bloom has granted us its final blessing!"
His voice rose, taking on a feverish, ecstatic quality. "For too long, we have chipped away at the edges of corruption! We have cleansed caravans and purged settlements! We have pruned the branches of the poisoned tree! But the time for pruning is over! Now, we strike at the root!"
A tremor ran through the floor, a deep, resonant hum that vibrated up from the very bedrock. The green crystals flared brighter, bathing the atrium in an eerie, emerald light. The crowd gasped as one, a wave of awe and terror washing over them.
"The Synod has built a tower of hubris! They call it the Divine Bulwark, a fortress of steel and stolen light, a monument to their arrogance! They believe it makes them gods! They believe it makes them untouchable!" The Voice's voice was a shriek of pure, unadulterated loathing. "We will show them the folly of their pride! We will bring their false temple crashing down around them!"
He gestured to the far side of the dais, where a massive, spherical object rested on a wrought-iron stand. It was a bomb, a crude but terrifyingly effective device. Its core was a chunk of raw Bloom-heart, a seething knot of unstable magic that throbbed like a diseased heart. It was wrapped in thick chains of scavenged metal and etched with runes that seemed to drink the light from the air. This was their masterpiece. Their final sermon.
"The Final Purification is at hand!" The Voice roared, his voice cracking with the sheer force of his conviction. "No longer will we fight in the shadows! We will deliver our message directly to the heart of the enemy! We will take this vessel of pure, unbridled destruction, and we will bring it to the very gates of the Bulwark! We will tear down their false temple and salt the earth with their light!"
The crowd erupted. It was not a cheer of joy, but a roar of pure, suicidal devotion. They screamed, they wept, they beat their chests. They were a single entity, united in a glorious, terrible purpose.
And there, at the very front of the crowd, stood Elara. Her hands were bound, but her posture was straight. Her face was pale, her eyes wide, but they were not filled with terror. They were filled with a terrible, heartbreaking resolve. She had listened to The Voice's sermon. She had seen the bomb. She understood her role in this. She was not just a catalyst; she was a willing participant. They had broken her, but in the breaking, they had reforged her into their ultimate weapon. She looked at the seething heart of the bomb, her expression a mask of grim determination. She would see this through. For the children they lost. For the world she believed needed to be cleansed. Her sacrifice would not be in vain.