The Smiling Man's arm tore open.
At first, it was just a trickle—a dark ichor seeping from the jagged gash. But soon, the fluid thickened, clinging to his fingers like oil, glistening under the dim torchlight. It wasn't just the liquid that caught their attention. No, it was what followed.
A subtle shift beneath the skin—like something was stirring beneath his flesh, breathing, pushing. The first bulge was small, nearly imperceptible, but it grew.
The skin stretched. Not with the gentle swelling of a bruise, but with the disturbing sensation of something pushing against it—pushing outward, forcing its way to freedom. The pale flesh rippled, the contours of tiny jointed feelers scraping and pressing from inside, groping, searching for an escape. The wound widened, its edges tearing further apart, revealing something far worse than blood.
A slick mass of wriggling filaments emerged—slick and translucent, glistening in the flickering light. They squirmed, curling like worms, slick as oil and cold as night.
The Smiling Man's head twitched to one side in an erratic, jerky motion. His grin—always so tight, so fixed—began to shift. The muscles beneath his cheeks trembled, spasmed, fighting for control.
The cultists stood frozen, their collective breath held in uneasy anticipation. One woman took a step back, her breath shallow, shallow as though the very air had thickened. A man beside her clutched his Ebonmoth sigil so tightly his knuckles turned white.
"Wh-what is this?" someone whispered, their voice shaky.
The Smiling Man did not answer. His gaze remained fixed—unblinking. But his fingers twitched.
Then, he scratched.
At first, it was only a slow drag of his fingers over the torn skin of his arm, a faint motion, almost idle. But then, more—a sharper, quicker motion. His nails dug deeper, tearing through flesh as though it were nothing but paper. With every stroke, more of the skin peeled away, revealing something worse beneath.
No muscle. No bone.
Only shell.
A dull, brittle exoskeleton, the color of decayed ivory, cracked like an ancient artifact, spiderwebbed with tiny fractures. And beneath it—something alive. Something that twisted, shifting, slithering beneath the shell, alive and writhing.
The Smiling Man lurched forward, his body jerking as his shoulders twisted in an unnatural fashion. His lips peeled back, not as though stretching in a grin, but as if the skin itself was parting to reveal something deeper. The grin widened, unnaturally so, exposing teeth that were wrong—far too many, and far too deep. Teeth that seemed to continue beyond his jawline, spiraling into something monstrous.
And then his torso, too, began to shift.
There was no subtlety now. His form buckled as a wave of movement passed beneath his skin—a swelling, then a deflation, a bulge, and another. Something was trying to break free inside him. Thousands of tiny things scuttled beneath his skin, moving, shifting, struggling to escape the confines of his body. His very form was no longer just a man—it was something far more terrible.
And still—
The ground beneath them stirred.
Not with tremors. No, it was something different. A slow, deliberate motion, as though the very earth was crawling. There was something beneath, something that did not breathe, something ancient, dormant, and waiting.
Erasmus had felt it before. But now, the feeling came with weight. It was as if the very stone beneath their feet had begun to strain, cracking in anticipation.
The Smiling Man's flesh bulged once more.
Something beneath his skin pushed outward with a sickening, jerking motion. His neck stretched unnaturally, the veins distending to the breaking point, before—
A parasite crawled out of his mouth.
Small at first—a twitching, chitinous thing, like a beetle, its needle-thin feelers quivering in the air. And then another emerged. And another. Each one smaller than the last, but no less horrifying.
The Smiling Man shuddered, spasming violently, and the parasites came. They poured from him—crawling out of the open gash in his arm, from the split in his stomach, from his mouth. Tiny wriggling masses—too many limbs, too many legs, each one moving with purpose, each one seeking something. Each one hungry.
The parasites spilled to the floor, crawling in every direction. Their multi-jointed limbs scrabbled against the stone, slick and fast, darting toward the darkness. They scattered into the shadows—some burrowing into the floor, but not through it. No, they simply sank, vanishing into the stone as though the very fabric of the earth was bending to their will.
The stone didn't break for them—it opened.
A cultist collapsed to his knees. "This… this can't be…!" he gasped, his voice trembling in disbelief.
Beside him, the woman gagged, her hand rising to her mouth to stifle the bile rising in her throat. The Ebonmoth sigil slipped from her grasp, clattering to the ground, forgotten. She didn't reach for it.
The Smiling Man convulsed once more—his body folding inward, limbs retracting with impossible speed. The skin slid from his frame, peeling away in ragged sheets, wet and sticky. More parasites streamed into the shadows, disappearing into the cracks in the stone.
And then—
Stillness.
What remained of the Smiling Man's body collapsed, a heap of lifeless husk, a shell of what it had once been.
Erasmus didn't move.
He didn't need to.
He watched as the Covenant trembled, their faith unraveling before their very eyes. The foundation they had built their lives upon was cracking, splintering beneath them. Faith could be shattered easily, but the void it left behind needed something to fill it. It needed a new foundation. A new anchor.
Erasmus let the silence seep in. He didn't speak. He didn't have to.
Fear began to spread like a disease among the cultists. They looked to each other, eyes wide, uncertain. Their beliefs, their certainties, had been shattered. They saw what they had followed—and it wasn't the divine. It was something darker, something far older than any god.
The hero spoke.
"This isn't right."
His voice was steady, but there was an edge of uncertainty beneath it. Erasmus could hear the break in his tone, the crack of doubt.
The hero had wanted to believe. He had wanted to see the good in these people, these ideas. But now, he had seen what they truly worshipped. Now, he could not deny the truth.
Erasmus moved.
Slow. Deliberate. Calm.
The hero's gaze flickered to him, searching for something in the depths of his eyes. Erasmus raised a hand, and the golden scale manifested—small, unassuming, but absolute in its presence.
It hung there, gleaming in the dim light, the weight of it undeniable.
The right side dipped.
Divine favor.
The cultists saw it. The hero saw it.
And the parasites—those dark, writhing things—saw it too.
Beneath them, the earth whispered.
Something far larger than the Smiling Man stirred.