SSS Awakening: I Can Devour Gods to Evolve My Goddesses

Chapter 24: Someone Else Lowered the Road. He Devoured Divinity.

Rowan pushed the advance payment to the center of the table.

Cassian’s first thought was simple.

Too little.

Thirty days.

For this small a sum, Rowan wanted the first chance to price whatever safe objects the first-ranked F-tier Lord might produce in the future.

Rich people could even make waiting cheap.

An unreasonable stab of envy tightened Cassian’s chest. He kept it off his face.

”You get the first bid, not first custody,” Cassian said. ”I classify the objects. You only see what I’m willing to bring out.”

Rowan leaned back in his chair.

”What if you bring out nothing for thirty days?”

”The money stays with me.”

”What if I make an offer and you refuse to sell?”

”It still stays with me.”

Rowan studied him for a moment.

”Then all I’m buying is the right to speak first.”

”That box at Graystone paid for the right to grab first,” Cassian said. ”You still touched nothing.”

Rowan did not take offense. The old shed was already gone. Defending a bad position would only make the money he had spent on it look worse.

”I inspect first,” he said. ”I make sure it isn’t scrap you picked off the road. Then you decide whether to sell.”

”No.”

Cassian answered at once.

Inspection before classification would put Rowan’s hand back on the object.

Veyra had added only one boundary before he left the Shrine.

Names were not merchandise.

Neither were military records.

Cassian had originally disliked the exclusion because it narrowed what he could sell. Now he found that he liked it very much.

”Names, identity carriers, military records, and anything I decide needs protection are outside this agreement.”

Rowan’s gaze paused.

”You have things like that?”

”You didn’t buy the answer to that question.”

Silence held the room for a moment.

Rowan tapped one finger against the table.

He was stronger than Cassian. He was wealthier too.

But Cassian’s twenty-six points on the Newcomer Divine Essence Ranking were real. So was Graystone’s failure to receive a single object.

A capped payment for thirty days of first access to any safe object that might appear still had value.

”Reduce the fee by twenty percent,” Rowan said. ”If you accept my first offer, I choose the delivery point.”

”Ten percent. Delivery happens at neutral ground. Nothing can connect it to my territory or let the transport route point toward the entrance.”

”Fifteen.”

”Deal.”

Rowan picked up the pen and pressed his thunder-spear mark into the bottom of the agreement.

No territory coordinates.

No minimum delivery.

No first custody.

Rowan could make the first offer only on safe objects Cassian had classified and chosen to present.

The moment the mark lit, the advance became nonrefundable. Warmth spread across Cassian’s palm as he put the money away.

Rowan had finally bought himself a place in line—behind Cassian’s permission.

Better yet, that money would support a hand Rowan could not even locate.

Cassian was already starting to think he should have conceded half a step less.

—

When Marek finished moving the day’s wooden crates, Joren was still beside the cart counting rope buckles.

”For the next thirty days, I’m buying the first-relay post,” Cassian said, spreading out the agreement. ”I’m not buying you as a person.”

The first three lines listed the three daytime work periods Joren had already purchased. Several blank lines waited beneath them.

”Write down every period you already know you can’t take, along with the rest you need,” Cassian said. ”Those periods remain yours. Outside them, the first relay takes priority over any ordinary work you accept later.”

Marek wiped the wood dust from his hands.

”What if something comes up?”

”Tell me before I reset the warning. An ordinary job can’t displace priority you’ve already sold to the first relay. If you truly can’t take the duty, I find a second person.”

”And after you reset it?”

”That round is yours. You show up.”

Marek watched him for a moment.

”That’s what the retainer buys?”

”Priority, advance notice, and the certainty that you won’t vanish after confirming.” Cassian tapped the agreement. ”Entry, warning, and actually lowering the road are still paid separately.”

”I withdraw if I see danger.”

”Unchanged.”

”I don’t read what you haven’t paid me to read. I don’t fight. I don’t cross the second gap.”

”Unchanged.”

”If you’re on the road, I don’t lower it.”

”Unchanged.”

Joren looked up.

”What about the three daytime periods I bought?”

Cassian pointed at the first three lines of the agreement.

”Already written in. They’re still yours.”

It bothered Cassian more than unlimited priority would have.

It was also more useful than losing to every piece of guaranteed work that appeared.

Marek looked over the thirty-day agreement.

”Can I suggest the second person?”

”You recommend them. You teach them what to watch, when to warn, how to withdraw, and how to lower the road,” Cassian said. ”I pay you a separate training fee. I decide whether they see the real entrance and whether their right palm gets registered.”

Only then did Marek look directly at him again.

Ordinary hauling outside bought his strength.

Here, his judgment was beginning to carry a price.

”Fine,” Marek said.

There was no oath. No pledge of loyalty. Joren did not lose a single daytime period.

After Marek pressed his palm to the agreement, the first relay stopped being tied to a single temporary wage for the first time.

A thirty-day post now existed on paper.

Beside it, there was still an empty space for a second hand.

Cassian disliked writing so many rights around another person’s hand.

He liked even more that those rights made the hand willing to return.

—

Before the first underground dawn tide covered by the thirty-day post, Cassian personally reset the dark-gold point inside the Chain Gate.

The warning at the first relay could deliver one knock again.

Marek’s right palm was still registered from before. With his short hemp rope, he headed toward the first relay.

Cassian did not follow.

He remained in the Shrine.

The closed main roll lay silent before the divine throne. Orin Hale’s ordinary dark-copper half-mark was still seated in its original narrow slot.

Veyra watched it.

”It used that name to call you last time.”

”This time, the name will only call the road down.”

”The road is yours,” Veyra said. ”The place belongs to the roll.”

Her right wrist was still chained beside the divine throne.

”The enemy still holds his name strip. If it uses Orin’s position, that position can no longer remain in my formation.”

Cassian frowned.

”It isn’t moving.”

”That’s why I’m only asking you to watch it.”

Cassian still placed the iron hammer within reach.

Not long after the underground dawn tide began to rise, a hard, muffled impact came from the east.

Thud.

The warning.

Cassian’s body had already turned toward the Chain Gate. The moment his right foot moved, the bruise in his knee stabbed like a nail. His right shoulder tightened with it.

He could still walk.

He could still reach the near-side control.

Then a second sound came from the Shrine stone.

It was very soft, like a fingernail scraping the edge of a copper plate.

Cassian looked back.

Orin’s half-mark was slowly rising inside the narrow slot.

There was no divinity inside it.

Yet a thread of gray-white material was squeezing out from beneath the slot.

It curled around the dark-copper edge and bent outward into the first segment of a bone hook.

Cassian’s stomach clenched.

Both places were calling for him at once.

His first impulse was ugly enough that it nearly escaped his mouth.

Strike again. Wait for me to confirm.

But the warning worked only once, and Marek could not hear his orders from here.

Another gray-white segment forced its way out. The hooked point was already turning toward the seam of the closed main roll’s case.

The gray-gold light in Veyra’s eyes went cold.

”The name strip in the enemy’s hand is using Orin’s place to drive something into the roll.”

”Who is doing it?”

”I don’t know.”

”The full rule?”

”I don’t know.”

She stared at the rising half-mark.

”Remove Orin.”

Cassian looked at her.

Veyra’s jaw was tight.

”Holding his name does not give the enemy the right to keep his place in my formation.”

From the Shrine to the Chain Gate, then from the Gate to the first relay.

His knee and shoulder would never carry him through the full round trip before the bone hook closed.

Even without the injuries, there was no time.

He could go inspect the road.

The price would be letting this thing reach the main roll.

Cassian remembered Marek’s right palm pressed into the black-gold handprint.

That hand had been paid. It knew which action belonged to it.

Cassian hated that this was all he could rely on in this moment.

He crushed the hatred into a decision.

Two places had gone wrong at the same time.

For the first time, he did not turn away and surrender one of them.

”Marek handles the road.” Cassian turned back to the divine throne. ”I handle this.”

Veyra raised her right hand.

”Six heartbeats.”

”Enough.”

”I decide whether it is enough.”

Her five fingers pressed into the Shrine’s light patterns.

The Eclipse Chains pulled taut at once.

The incomplete Eclipse War Banner unfurled behind the divine throne.

First beat.

The black-gold banner shadow pressed down on the narrow slot. The gray-white bone hook jerked.

Cassian seized the plain test pin and drove its tip under the dark-copper half-mark.

Second beat.

He forced the pin down.

His right shoulder felt as if the old blood-crystal wound had cut through it again.

His arm did not loosen.

Third beat.

The dark-copper half-mark sprang out of the slot.

Cassian caught it and pressed it facedown against the Shrine stone.

He did not open the main roll.

Not a single name was exposed.

But the gray-white thing inside the slot had lost its path back.

Fourth beat.

Three hooked bone segments and a gray-white ring the size of a finger joint forced their way completely above the stone.

A complete target.

It turned toward Orin’s half-mark.

Cassian slammed the bent broken-chain blade sideways across it.

The flat of the blade pinned the bone ring. Two hooked points still curled toward his wrist.

Fifth beat.

The old wound in his right shoulder tightened hard as he leaned on the blade.

Cassian did not raise his arm.

He dropped his weight, using his knee and the stone together to brace the blade. His left hand closed around the iron hammer.

The first blow fell.

The bone ring cracked.

Sixth beat.

The Eclipse War Banner began to break apart from its edges.

The gray-white bone hook was still moving.

Veyra’s banner had only kept it here.

Killing it still belonged to Cassian.

His second hammer blow shattered the thickest segment of the hook just as the black-gold banner shadow broke apart.

Six beats ended.

The empty slot could no longer give the thing a path back. The bent blade still held the bone ring against the stone.

Cassian did not let it reach another heartbeat.

The third hammer blow fell.

The gray-white light went out.

Cassian did not release the broken blade at once.

No thread remained inside the slot. Nothing clung to the back of Orin’s half-mark. The seam of the main roll’s case was still closed.

Every piece of gray-white bone remained beneath the blade.

Complete.

Divine Devourer opened.

Black-gold lines pierced the bone ring and all three hooked segments, dragging the last trace of hostile divinity into Cassian’s palm.

Heat surged up his arm and struck his chest.

[Complete hostile divinity devoured.]

[Divine Essence: +2]

[Cassian: 2 available / 28 cumulative]

Two points.

Cassian closed his eyes for a moment.

The heat was not enormous, but it was complete.

The enemy had reached through Orin’s name with one hand.

Now that hand had become Cassian’s capital.

He let the two points linger in his chest for another moment. At last, the corner of his mouth lifted.

He did not allocate them immediately.

Twenty-eight points would appear on the public ranking.

Rowan had bought these thirty days when Cassian stood at twenty-six cumulative. The first day was not even over, and the option was already worth more.

The next renewal would not come at today’s price.

Cassian opened his eyes and picked up Orin’s facedown half-mark.

Veyra reached out and touched one spot on the Shrine stone beside her.

”Put it here.”

Not back in the slot.

Cassian left the half-mark where she had indicated.

It remained beside the roll. It remained under her protection.

For now, it no longer occupied the place the enemy had used to drive something inward.

Only then did Cassian head for the Chain Gate.

—

When the Gate opened, the coarse steel cable was already hanging toward the first gap.

The black-gold road lay lowered below.

Marek stood beside the near-side control with his short hemp rope still over one shoulder. The registration light on his right palm had gone out.

The road had gone down without Cassian being there.

Beside the heat of those two points in his chest, a heavier satisfaction settled into place.

”What did you see?” Cassian asked.

”The Bell-Keeper,” Marek said. ”Beyond the second gap. A dark-copper name strip. It struck the strip against the bone bell that can still ring. No complete footprint.”

”Then?”

”Warn. Return. Lower the road.”

Only those three actions.

He had not guessed who Orin was. He had not waited for Cassian to classify the act.

The Bell-Keeper had tried to make one name touch two places at once.

At one place, the lowered road had blocked the attack.

At the other, the hostile divinity was already inside Cassian’s body.

”Where is it?”

”Back beyond the second gap after the tide receded.”

The Bell-Keeper was still alive.

It still held both bone bells, the tension gauge, and Orin’s name strip.

Cassian did not raise the road. He did not chase it into the underground dawnlight.

He recorded the warning and the lowering on the thirty-day agreement.

Marek received exactly the portion they had agreed upon.

Marek could still refuse an unconfirmed round before the warning was reset, but he had to record the gap early.

The thirty-day agreement bought the remaining responsibility windows.

The first relay still needed a second hand for rotation.

Cassian would have to reset the warning and register another right palm before the post could function again.

The second person did not even have a name yet.

But the post had survived its first true two-front crisis while Cassian was absent.

Cassian stood before the lowered road and slowly closed his hand.

Rowan’s money had funded the post.

Marek’s hand had lowered the road.

The boundary Veyra refused to sell had protected the main roll.

Cassian’s hammer had turned the thing reaching inside into two points of Divine Essence.

The money, the time, and the boundary did not need to belong to him.

They only needed to work under the same rules.

Then, the next time the enemy reached inside, Cassian would decide what it left behind.

He liked that feeling very much.

The Bell-Keeper still held the name.

Behind that name, something else had sent the gray-white hook.

Next time, Cassian wanted that hand to reach deeper.

Deep enough that it could never pull itself back out.