Rise of the OtherGod Apostle: Not a Cult Leader, but a Serf?!
#169
#169
Talk about OP game mechanics. How were you supposed to counter something this broken?
No wait. I’m playing for Team Order now.
Obviously the Church of Order would have god-tier defensive abilities. The real insanity was that someone had dared attack the Cathedral before the starry sky even opened. It’s like some random dude named Robert from Texas starting a cult in his garage, then nine months later deciding to storm the Pentagon with his followers. The absolute audacity was wild.
The fact that Nyapoleon had managed to paralyze the entire Cathedral—that was the real balance issue here.
An Archbishop’s sanctuary was always designed to be this ridiculously powerful.
“Can you continue?” Athanas scanned my face. “If your legs are giving out, I can carry you.”
“I’m fine.”
I couldn’t become dead weight. Not now. I forced my eyes forward, away from the railing and whatever lay broken below.
“But thanks for asking.”
My garbage mental stats strike again.
Athanas had clearly picked up on my squeamishness around corpses. His careful consideration was eating up time we couldn’t afford to waste.
He’s probably thinking I’ll just get over it eventually.
Moments like this reminded me how young he really was. Twenty-something and still struggling to make the hard calls—to separate actual priorities from everything else.
When someone’s mentally compromised, you leave them behind and move on.
It’s not like I’d die from sitting on these stairs for a few minutes. The sanctuary would protect me just fine while I got my shit together.
His well-meaning concern left me caught between appreciation and frustration. If he’d just ordered me to wait here until I could function again, I would’ve dropped to the floor without argument. Clean, efficient, practical.
But no. He wanted me with him, which meant I had to keep my trembling legs moving whether they liked it or not.
My fingers clamped around the railing, knuckles bleaching white.
Don’t look down.
THUD!
Don’t picture what made that sound. Don’t let your eyes wander over the edge. Don’t think about—
THUD!
THUD!
THUD!
Classic psychological trap. The brain struggles with processing negative commands. Tell someone not to think of a pink elephant, and it ends up focusing on exactly that image.
So I switched tactics. Focus forward. Watch Athanas’s back. Listen to his footsteps echoing against stone. Count the steps. One hundred fifty. One hundred fifty-one…
Following him like this, it felt exactly like the video game—third-person view, protagonist climbing ahead. If the camera would just angle up slightly, giving that top-down perspective, the illusion would be perfect.
Maybe the descent will feel more like a cutscene.
Though obviously, “the ground” will come into sharper focus as we head back down. All those dark shapes becoming more distinct, more identifiably—
I’ll deal with that when we get there. Humans are adaptation machines. We can convince ourselves of almost anything when survival demands it.
The wet impacts from below had stopped making me freeze up. Incredible how quickly the brain recalibrates when there’s no other option.
Probably helps that Athanas keeps checking on me.
Every time I hesitate, he glances back with that worried look. Easier to keep moving than to endure his concerned face on repeat.
I reframed everything as workout symptoms. The nausea, the racing pulse, the burning lungs—just the natural side effects of climbing 600 stairs. My heart rate had to be hitting 150, deep in high-intensity cardio territory. The kind of cardio those fitness influencers claim will “transform your life in just 30 minutes a day!”
When was the last time I pushed myself this hard?
Never, during my time as a serf. Muscle soreness would’ve tanked the next day’s productivity, and I couldn’t afford that. Maybe if I’d forced myself through some high intensity workouts back then, I wouldn’t be wheezing like I’d just run a marathon now.
Should’ve done more cardio.
When we finally crested the last step, my legs shaking like they might give out, Athanas’s face hardened. He was staring at something on the floor—a thick rope, sliced clean through, its frayed end telling us everything we needed to know.
“They’ve cut the bell rope.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, already dreading what this meant.
We have to go higher.
Bell towers had two ways of ringing. The obvious option: pull the rope from below. Made sense, since standing next to a massive bell while it rang would blow out your eardrums. Most towers had long ropes extending down, and some bells small enough that you never needed to climb at all.
Then there was option two.
Ring it manually. From the top.
I tilted my head back, following the tower’s interior up to where the bell hung in shadow. Another 150 steps, minimum. Worse, the path ahead was clearly meant for maintenance staff, not visitors—narrow, steep, and unforgiving.
In the game, this section was completely walled off.
Athanas had been forced to scale the exterior instead, free-climbing stone with nothing but grip strength and pure stubbornness. The image of him power-napping mid-climb—one foot balanced on a tiny ledge while saving before a boss battle—had become legendary among players. Someone had screenshot it and the “Mountain Goat” meme was born.
At least this time we can use the interior route.
Video game parkour was one thing, but attempting those exterior stunts in real life guaranteed a ragdoll physics death. Though I suppose we could always tie a rope around Callister and use him as a human grappling hook—
A grinding noise cut off my climbing plans. Stone scraped against stone as a section of wall pivoted inward, revealing a passage that definitely hadn’t existed thirty seconds ago.
“How did you…?”
“The holy relic.” Athanas nodded toward the Astrolabe. “It responded to its presence.”
Of course it did.
For such an OP artifact, the Astrolabe seemed suspiciously easy to trigger. You’d think the Church would’ve reclaimed something this powerful before Antonio went walking off into the middle of nowhere with it. The exploit potential was off the charts.
And he just gave it to me. Something this important…
“I should continue alone from here,” Athanas said, already moving toward a ladder I hadn’t even spotted.
“Perfect!” Callister chimed in. “Just you and me, Fabio. We’ll have such a nice—”
“Callister, hush.”
“I’ll be quick.” Athanas gripped the rungs and began climbing, all efficiency and purpose.
Watching him ascend triggered the most random thought. Wonder if he’ll do the thing on the way down. That signature ladder-slide where you grip the sides and just let gravity do its thing. It’s basically mandatory in every action movie sequence.
Within moments, he’d vanished into the shadows above.
I reached out to test the rungs. The metal was rough, borderline serrated. Anyone trying that stunt without gloves would end up with hands shredded to ribbons. How did Athanas manage it in the game without gauntlets?
Ah, right. Classic video game logic. Physics need not apply.
“Fabio.”
Callister stood in the doorway, arms spread wide to block it.
“Thinking of climbing up?”
“No?”
“Then you’re trapped.” His grin was insufferable. “I’m blocking your only escape route.”
Is this guy for real?
I could slip past him through half a dozen openings without breaking a sweat. But that was exactly what he wanted—for me to make the first move, to initiate contact.
Childish bastard.
“Move.”
“Not until you listen to what I have to say.”
“I said move, Callister.”
“You need to hear this. About Athanas—”
“Stop—”
CLANG!
The bell’s voice didn’t just ring—it erased every other sound from existence. The vibration hit like a wrecking ball, slamming through my bones, rattling my teeth, and punching straight into my skull.
I clamped my hands over my ears, pressing hard. Useless. The sound didn’t need a path—it tore through the stone, the air, me, like my body was just another rung in its echo chamber.
CLANG!
My knees buckled. The floor surged up to meet me as the entire tower convulsed with the impact. Cold sweat splashed against the stone as my body locked up, overloaded by the sheer violence of the noise.
CLANG!
Nausea rose fast. I gagged. I’ve always had sensory processing issues—even with industrial earplugs, shooting ranges leave me nauseous for hours. But this? This was a full-body assault. A personalized circle of hell, tuned to the frequency of suffering.
CLANG!
Twelve. It’s going to ring twelve damn times.
At this point, death was starting to sound like a mercy. My eardrums felt like they were bleeding, and I knew anything over 120 decibels fries your hearing in seconds. I had to get out. Now.
Downstairs. Just get downstairs.
I tried to stand. My legs wobbled like I was on the deck of a ship caught in a hurricane.
CLANG!
The floor lurched up to meet me again. I barely caught myself before my face met stone.
White-hot flash of rage surged through my chest. Athanas could have done this alone. He chose to drag me up here. Chose to make me endure this torture—
CLANG!
I gave up and let gravity take over, collapsing completely. The vibrations were so brutal, I could barely breathe. Every inhale snagged halfway, like my lungs had forgotten how to function.
Just survive. It’ll stop eventually.
Eventually. What the hell did that mean? Was that the sixth ring? The seventh? Time had disintegrated into a blur of sound and agony. How many more—?
CLANG!
[SYSTEM: アタナスあなたがすきです (I love you Athanas) has sent you a message.]
Reyes?
Why now? Of all possible moments—
CLANG!
“Aaagh!”
Thought splintered like glass. My skull felt like it was cracking open along invisible fault lines, each blow of sound driving the fractures deeper. I’d completely lost track. Fifth ring? Tenth? Time didn’t exist anymore. Just pain.
CLANG!
And now I got it. Why those creatures had thrown themselves off the stairs. They had ears. They could hear. And hearing this was worse than falling to your death.
CLANG!
Go back go back go back go back go back—
The words weren’t mine. They pinged around inside my skull like panicked wasps, frenzied and directionless.
Shut up.
CLANG!
Go back where? Where was there to even go? I didn’t want to be here either, didn’t sign up for this, didn’t—
CLANG!
If there’s nowhere to return to… then what?
The thought slipped away before I could hold onto it. My lungs had given up on their job. It was easier to stop fighting—to just freeze, shut everything down, and wait for—
Silence.
Impossible, holy silence.
Is it over?
The vibrations ebbed like someone yanking the cord on a feedback loop. All that remained was the shrill ringing in my ears and the metallic tang of blood coating my tongue.
I slowly peeled my hands from my ears and pressed a palm to the floor, trying to push myself upright—
Shit.
My hand slid straight through something warm and slick, and I nearly kissed the stone. I caught myself just in time, then looked down.
A dark puddle was blooming across the floor.
Oil?
No. That coppery stench was unmistakable.
Everything around me had taken on a reddish haze. The world tilted, swayed, distorted. Classic concussion symptoms—every blink a struggle, every second awake a punishment. Phantom lights danced at the corners of my vision like dying stars.
I squeezed my eyes shut, and instantly, a notification flickered to life behind my eyelids.
[SYSTEM: アタナスあなたがすきです (I love you Athanas) has sent you a scheduled message.]
「Fabio!」
「I have a present for you!」
「Come down to Basement Level 4 of the Main Building.」
「It’s a gift, so you can do whatever you want with it ♥」
「You won’t be able to reach me for a while!」
「Bye! Bye, bye!」
What the hell?
Reyes? No… that wasn’t right. There was another name. Something important. It hovered just outside my grasp—on the tip of my mind.
“Fabio.”
Fingers like ice brushed against my forehead.
“Fabio, can you hear me?”
Callister.
That name landed with the weight of certainty. I knew it was him because I had given him that name.
My Callister.
And when he said my name, I had no choice but to answer.
That was the nature of our contract.
“Where’s Athanas?”
“Seriously? That’s your first question?”
What else was I supposed to ask?
“First, get rid of that halo.”
“What halo?” I said, confused.
People don’t just spontaneously sprout glowing halos. That’s not how this works—
“Oh. It’s gone.”
Relief flooded Callister’s voice.
At the same moment, text blinked across my vision:
[SYSTEM: Due to the effect of ‘Heaven Above, Earth Below, I Alone Reign Supreme,’ the ‘Gaze of Order’ has been nullified.]
I blinked, and the window vanished.
It’s quiet.
The silence hit me like a slap. I hadn’t realized how much noise had been drilling into my skull until it stopped. The ringing, the pressure, the unbearable presence… all gone. My lungs suddenly remembered how to breathe properly.
Wait. Gaze?
The system message finally caught up to me, slicing through the fog in my brain.
Someone’s gaze did this to me?
That unbearable weight… the bell’s sound cranked up to apocalyptic levels… my body breaking down like it was trying to escape itself…
All because something looked at me?
UH OH, that’s not Good.