The Smiling Man’s arm had torn open.


    Black ichor oozed, thick and syrupy, clinging to his fingers like it had weight, like it was something more than mere blood. But it wasn’t the liquid that held their attention. It was the movement.


    At first, it was subtle—just a slight shift beneath the skin, a faint pulse as if something was breathing under the surface. Then it became worse.


    His forearm bulged.


    Not like swelling—no, this was something pushing outward. The skin stretched, distended, the pale flesh rippling as tiny jointed feelers pressed against it from within, groping blindly for an escape. The wound widened, and as the flesh split further, a slithering mass of filaments wriggled forth, slick and glistening in the dim light.


    The Smiling Man’s head twitched to the side in a jerky, unnatural motion. His ever-present grin remained, but something about it changed. The flesh of his cheeks twitched, convulsed, as if the very muscles beneath were fighting for control.


    The cultists froze.


    One woman stepped back, her breath shallow.


    A man beside her gripped his Ebonmoth sigil so tightly his knuckles went white.


    "Wh-what is this?" someone whispered.


    But the Smiling Man did not answer. He only stared.


    And then—


    He scratched.


    At first, just a light drag of his fingers over his forearm. Then more. Faster. Harder. His nails dug into the wound, tearing at himself, peeling away not just flesh, but the illusion of it.


    Beneath the shredded skin, there was no muscle. No bone.


    Only shell.


    A dull, brittle exoskeleton, the color of rotted ivory, split with hair-thin fractures that twitched, writhing with something alive beneath.


    The Smiling Man lurched forward. His shoulders convulsed, twisting inward. His grin split wider—not just a widening of lips but a peeling back of skin, exposing teeth that shouldn’t have been there, teeth that seemed to go deeper than his jaw allowed.


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    And then his torso shifted.


    A rolling wave of movement passed beneath his skin, as though thousands of tiny things were scurrying inside him. His stomach bulged, deflated, bulged again as shapes beneath it pressed outward, struggling. His very form was coming undone, a body that was never meant to be a body at all.


    And still—


    The ground stirred.


    Beneath them, the earth moved.


    Not in tremors, not in vibrations, but in deliberate, crawling motion.


    Erasmus had heard it before. But now, he felt it.


    The things beneath.


    The things that did not breathe. The things that had been waiting.


    The Smiling Man’s flesh bulged again.


    Something beneath his skin pressed outward, rippling up his throat. His neck distended, veins stretching to the breaking point, and then—


    A parasite crawled out of his mouth.


    It was small, at first. A twitching, chitinous thing with needle-thin feelers extending outward, tasting the air. Then another pushed past it. And another. Tiny, wriggling masses of filaments, each with too many limbs, too many legs, too much movement.


    The Smiling Man shuddered, his body spasming, and the parasites spilled forth.


    They poured from his mouth, from the cracks in his arms, from the gaping wound in his stomach, dribbling down his frame like crawling ink. They writhed and slithered to the floor, their slick, multi-jointed appendages gripping the stone, skittering away.


    Some of them descended into the ground.


    They did not burrow.


    They simply sank.


    The stone did not break for them—it simply allowed them to pass, as if the foundation of this place was no longer fully real. As if the very walls of their faith, their sanctuary, were cracking at the seams.


    A cultist collapsed to his knees. "This… this can’t be…"


    The woman beside him gagged, pressing a hand to her mouth.


    The Ebonmoth sigil slipped from her grasp.


    She did not pick it up.


    The Smiling Man convulsed one final time, his body folding in on itself. His limbs retracted unnaturally, the flesh sloughing away in wet, peeling layers as more of the parasites scattered into the darkness, slipping into unseen cracks, slipping into the places where they had always belonged.


    Then, suddenly—stillness.


    What remained of the Smiling Man’s body collapsed, nothing more than an empty husk of skin and shell. A suit that had served its purpose.


    And Erasmus…


    He let it happen.


    He did not move. He did not speak.


    Because he did not need to.


    The Covenant was breaking.


    Their faith had bound them, made them strong, made them willing. But faith was a desperate thing. It did not simply vanish. It needed a new foundation.


    Erasmus let the silence choke them. He let their doubt grow. He watched as fear clawed at the edges of their faith, warping it into something fragile, something that could be stolen.


    The hero spoke.


    "This isn’t right."


    His voice was steady, but beneath it, Erasmus could hear the crack of uncertainty.


    He had wanted to believe in these people.


    But now he had seen what they truly followed.


    Erasmus moved.


    Slow. Deliberate. Present.


    The hero''s gaze flickered to him—seeking.


    Erasmus raised a hand.


    And the golden scale manifested.


    Small. Unimposing. But absolute.


    The right side dipped.


    Divine favor.


    The cultists saw.


    The hero saw.


    And the parasites…


    They, too, saw.


    Beneath them, the earth whispered.


    And something far larger than the Smiling Man began to stir.