The light atop the Abyssal Clocktower was no longer the same as it had been a few hours ago.
The New Covenant Council spirit-chain rotated slowly in midair. That halo of light was no longer a scattering of isolated seats, but a half-filled ring:
Mortal seats, minor-god seats, non-human seats, noble seats—and even the main-god representatives, who had reluctantly shifted posture and sat down.
In the world of chains, new lines of ink bled across the master covenant and then slowly dried.
[Errors shall not be cleared to zero.]
[Old errors must be kept on record.]
[Recovery Contingency downgraded to backup.]
[All who bear names may participate in the Council.]
[Gods may voluntarily write clauses into their covenants that prioritize the protection of human rights.]
All of this meant the world could no longer wipe itself clean with a single keystroke.
But that wide blank in the very center of the paper was still blinding.
Above that empty space, only one unresolved heading floated:
[Volume IV: On defining the "ultimate relationship between the gods and humankind".]
Beneath it, nothing.
After stepping away from the signing node, Qi Luo was propped up in the Temporary Administrator's Observer Seat, waves of burning pain surging up from his sternum.
"The backbone's been signed," Ruan Ji said quietly. "Recovery's been pushed down to backup."
"But as long as that blank stays unwritten—"
"—the world still won't know how it's supposed to treat you gods," Qi Luo finished for her.
"And you still won't know how you're supposed to treat us."
He lifted his eyes to that empty space as if staring at the soft underbelly of a giant beast.
That was the hardest place to put ink.
The clauses before this—errors, compensation, boundaries of authority—however painful, could still be forced into a "temporarily fair" shape by haggling and ledger-balancing.
Only this one was the spine of an entire world-view.
The mortal seats, minor-god seats, and main-god seats all fell silent.
Everyone knew they'd been circling this topic for two days and two nights:
The mortal representatives said, "The gods live on our prayers—that makes them service providers."
The main gods shot back coldly, "Prayer is grace from Heaven, not wages."
The non-human seats piled up precedent from the Old Covenant to prove, "Gods can destroy us or save us. Their power is too absolute."
The minor-god seats fretted, "If we're classified as 'hired guardians,' won't that make it easier for the High Gods' Group to terminate us like outsourced contractors?"
Round and round, the argument always looped back to the same old question:
—Were gods "Heaven"?
Or were they "employees"?
Outside the tower, the roar of the Divine War had been pushed down a notch for now.
The High Gods' Legion still grappled with Fallen Knights, winged folk, and runic machinery along the abyss's edge, but both sides seemed to be waiting to see how this stroke of the pen upstairs would fall.
The self-check module wrote a line, calm but edged with urgency:
[New Covenant signing progress: core backbone established; only the ultimate relationship remains undefined.]
[Structural status: overall stability hinges on this definition.]
[Reminder: though the Recovery Contingency has been downgraded to backup, its fissures still remain deep within the structure.]
[If the ultimate relationship fails to reach a new consensus, old fissures may crawl upward along the Council spirit-chain, causing unknown consequences.]
The moment this appeared, a very low, very long rumble came from the depths of the abyss.
Not the countdown "dong——" from before, but a ripping sound.
The inner wall of the Clocktower showed its first crack.
It wasn't a physical fracture in stone and brick. In spirit-vision, it was a thin black line stretching up from the abyssal interface, stubbornly climbing toward the council hall along the remains of some old rollback lock-chain.
Everywhere it crept, faint old words resurfaced on the back of the world's paper:
[Eternal obedience.]
["God-first" principle.]
[Mortal names may be rewritten at any time.]
Those words were like old mold—temporarily covered by fresh ink, but still growing behind the page.
"See it?" the Shadow's voice rose from the cracks in the floor. "That's what's left after the Recovery Contingency snapped."
"You just forced the rollback key down, but the old fissure is still there."
"If you don't write a new definition here and now—this crack will crawl all the way up over your heads."
"And then it won't be rollback. It'll be the world itself no longer knowing who is who."
Qi Luo stared at that black line, his knuckles slowly tightening.
"We don't have much time," Ruan Ji murmured. "We need to move while it hasn't reached the spirit-ring."
"While the main gods are still willing to sit and argue, instead of just ripping the chains up and smashing us."
——
On the main-god seats, Yuan Heng was still acting as their spokesperson.
The god-chain at his back was dimmer than before—the downgrade of the Recovery Contingency had hit them hard.
But on this final question, every main-god projection was unnervingly unified.
"We can discuss whether errors need to be kept on record."
"We can discuss whether the future needs more mortal representatives."
"We can allow individual gods to write 'protect humans' into their own covenants."
Yuan Heng enunciated each word:
"But this one."
"You want us to admit on the world's paper—that we are 'employed'?"
"Key." He looked down at Qi Luo. "Do you have any idea what those four characters mean?"
"They mean we are no longer 'masters of the world,' but merely 'employees of the world.'"
"They mean your prayers, offerings, sacrifices are no longer 'nourishment of grace.'"
"They become—wages."
Someone on the mortal seats snorted before being shushed.
"What are you laughing at?" The old priest glared at the Rust Street craftsman who'd let it slip. "Keep it down."
The craftsman held the laugh in, but his eyes stung. "I just… suddenly thought, turns out what we always thought was 'paying taxes' might actually have been paying salaries."
"If this gets written in, that bishop who wanted to charge tenfold 'tithes' will have to erase that word."
The cluster of light on the minor-god seats swayed uneasily.
"Employed guardians…" the little disease-reminder god whispered. "It sounds nice."
"Better than being called 'tools'."
"But if it's written in, then we'll be bound by some kind of… employment contract." The wind minor god grumbled. "We don't have the capital to butt heads with the High Gods."
"If they get annoyed, they'll just call it 'dereliction of duty' and… recover us."
"They already could recover you," Qi Luo said. His voice wasn't loud, but several glow-balls flinched.
"You just never had a clause you could point to and say 'no'."
"Now at least you can point at a line in the contract and say, 'who we guard' is something both sides wrote down."
"You won't just be knives in their hands. You'll be gatekeepers taking a wage."
"A broken knife can be tossed and replaced. A guardian who fails their post has to be asked why first."
The minor gods fell silent.
It wasn't that they weren't afraid of responsibility.
It was just… this was the first time they'd ever had the option to choose who they were responsible to.
A main-god projection on the high seats let out a cold snort. "You're sowing discord."
"You're pushing these lower gods to question a structure they should simply obey."
"Structures are written," Qi Luo shot back. "Not carved into stone."
"If the old structure has already cracked, then it has to change."
He pointed at the black line stretching up from the abyss.
"Look at it yourselves."
"If we don't make this clear today—whether gods are 'sovereigns' or 'employed guardians'—"
"That crack is going to keep climbing along every fuzzy boundary it can find."
"The world won't know what you are."
"And you won't be able to say what you are."
"When that happens—every time you act, you'll be acting in a structural error."
Yuan Heng's projection was quiet for a while.
He lowered his head to look at the world's paper.
The self-check module laid out a conclusion no system liked to see:
[Current status: "god–human relationship" definition is ambiguous.]
[In the Old Covenant, gods were treated as "supreme sovereigns," mortals and lesser gods as attachments.]
[In New Covenant drafts, there are numerous descriptions treating gods as "bearers of duties".]
[Without a new unified definition, the system will apply different logics in different scenarios:]
[——At times treating gods as "sovereigns";]
[——At times treating gods as "guardians".]
[Consequence: increase in logical conflicts, faster accumulation of errors.]
[In severe cases, may result in spontaneous structural collapse.]
The world was honestly admitting: it was stuck between two versions.
The gods stared at that line—"the system will apply different logics in different scenarios."
They did not like it.
They liked answers. Either "eternal obedience," or "total rollback."
Ambiguity was the thing they were worst at handling.
——
"So," Qi Luo said, lifting his gaze to Yuan Heng, "we have to write it."
"Write what?" Yuan Heng asked.
Qi Luo pointed at the blank space.
"Write that gods are 'employed guardians'."
"Employed in name by the world and all races."
"Bound by clauses that define their responsibilities and boundaries."
"You're free to refuse to sign. You're free to bargain over whom you guard and how far your guard extends."
"But you can't keep taking wages while calling it 'Heaven's grace' and claiming 'we bear no responsibility'."
The proposal itself wasn't new.
Back in Rust Street, he'd turned it over in his head again and again—he'd just had no paper then, and the world wasn't listening.
"I'm submitting a proposal," Qi Luo said. "The general clause of Volume Four will read—"
The world opened a light-screen above the speaking platform, waiting for the words.
[New Covenant · Volume IV · On defining the "ultimate relationship between the gods and humankind" (draft):]
Qi Luo spoke slowly, word by word:
"——The gods of this world shall no longer regard themselves as 'natural sovereigns'."
"In terms of clauses, their status shall be that of 'employed guardians' hired in name by the world and all races."
"Their powers shall be treated as delegated duties, not unconditional sovereignty."
Line by line, the words appeared on the light-screen.
On the mortal seats, many found themselves holding their breath.
They had been taught since childhood that "the gods are sovereign."
Now, for the first time, they were about to see someone erase "sovereign" from the world's paper and replace it with "employed guardians."
The main-god projections went utterly still.
"You're de-throning the gods," one of them finally said.
"You're trying to rewrite us from 'lords' into 'servants'."
Qi Luo shook his head. "No."
"I'm acknowledging a fact—"
"—you've always done the job of 'guardians', but you've been taking the title of 'sovereigns'."
"That's unfair."
"To you as well."
The god-shadow paused.
This was the first time anyone had framed it that way.
"Unfair how?" Qi Luo continued quietly.
"Because—"
"When you truly stand in harm's way for mortals, you can call it 'grace'."
"When you slack off, neglect your duty, abuse your powers, mortals have no right to demand you 'fulfill the covenant'."
"Because in the Old Covenant, you're 'lords', not 'employees'."
"When a lord errs, he can rewrite history and press rollback."
"When an employee errs, he has to pay compensation, have it logged in the ledger, and get it written into his record."
"So do you want to keep being the kind of 'lord' who never has to admit mistakes?"
"Or—become a 'guardian' who can negotiate terms and choose whom to protect, but must accept responsibility for those choices?"
Somewhere on the mortal seats, someone almost laughed again but choked it back.
It sounded disturbingly like he was asking:
"Would you rather stay a blame-dodging boss, or become an employee with a job description and KPIs?"
On the minor-god seats, the light-clusters were trembling.
"Employed guardians…" the disease-reminder god whispered. "If that goes in—"
"Then when the High Gods try to make us 'purge the weak' or run 'city-scale test-runs' again—"
"We can write in our covenants: 'This command falls beyond the scope of contracted duties and is refused.'"
"And the world will recognize that line," the wind minor god added.
"Because earlier volumes already say—'Gods may write clauses prioritizing the protection of human rights'."
"Add this 'employed guardian' status, and we actually get…"
It searched for the words. "A job description."
On the mortal seats, the Rust Street craftsman couldn't help it—he snorted again before catching another smack to the back of the head from the old priest.
"Shut it," the priest scolded, though for once there was no real anger in his eyes. "What're you giggling at?"
"But…" The craftsman's eyes were red. "A job description."
"We never even had one for ourselves."
On the high seats, the gods' faces only grew uglier.
"You're smooth with words," Yuan Heng said coldly. "You're painting us as 'contracted guardians who can negotiate terms'."
"It sounds like you're fighting for 'reasonable responsibilities' on our behalf, but in truth you're dragging us out of 'divine sovereignty' and into 'employment relations'."
"From now on, mortal prayers become wages, faith becomes contract, and breaches demand compensation."
"You want the world to see us like that?"
"The world already runs that way," Qi Luo replied.
"You think you 'simply exist,' but your power—prayers, offerings, covenants—every part of it is transaction."
"Up until now, the trade has only been written on one side."
"You've taken the 'wages', but only ever wrote mortals in as the party who 'must fulfill their duties'."
"Now—we write the other half too."
——
The draft on the light-screen continued to unfurl:
[New Covenant · Volume IV · On defining the "ultimate relationship between the gods and humankind" (draft):]
[1. The status of the gods of this world within the clauses shall be defined as "employed guardians," not absolute sovereigns.]
[2. The source of divine authority shall be treated as duty-rights granted by the world and all races in light of the need for protection, regulation, and structural maintenance, rather than unquestionable, innate sovereignty.]
Qi Luo paused and raised his eyes to Yuan Heng.
"Up to here," he said, "you can negotiate."
"You can ask—'who is the employer, exactly?', 'how wide is our mandate?', 'how is compensation calculated?'"
"We can write all of that, line by line."
"But there's one thing—"
He raised his hand again and traced a blank slot on the light-screen.
"—that's non-negotiable."
"And that's: when a dispute arises between the employed guardians and their employers—who judges it."
Yuan Heng's gaze sharpened. "What knife are you hiding there this time?"
Qi Luo met his eyes and spoke slowly:
"I want to write—"
"—that any dispute over 'whether gods have fulfilled their guarding duties' or 'whether mortals have reasonably fulfilled their obligations of offering' must be submitted to mandatory arbitration by the New Covenant Council."
"Neither side may unilaterally handle it by their own logic."
The world immediately expanded a new clause frame:
[3. When disputes arise between "employed guardians" and the "races under their guard" concerning performance of duties, use of powers, offerings, or recompense—]
[the "New Covenant Arbitration Procedure" must be initiated.]
[Judgment shall be rendered jointly by multiple representatives within the New Covenant Council (including humans, gods, non-humans, and the self-check module).]
[Before a ruling is made, neither side may, based solely on their own interpretation, carry out extreme measures (including but not limited to "Name-Erasure," "mass punishment," "recovery of background structures," etc.).]
[Actions in violation of this shall be recorded by the world as "grave breach of covenant," and accumulated in subsequent clauses as cases of "abuse of authority" or "malicious evasion of obligations".]
As this segment surfaced, every chain in the Clocktower shook.
This was a mandatory arbitration clause.
It meant—whether god or mortal, neither side could keep saying "I'm right because I say I am."
They would have to explain themselves before this circle of chains the world had bound together, and accept judgment.
The mortal seats erupted in hushed whispers.
"Mandatory arbitration…" the craftsman croaked. "So from now on, if a main god says, 'You're not devout enough, I'll burn your city,' we get to say—'invoke the arbitration procedure'?"
"The world will have to put down on paper who breached first," the old priest said gravely. "At the very least, it leaves a record."
"The gods won't be the only ones holding the pen anymore."
On the minor-god seats, some glow-balls shivered; others slowly brightened.
"If someone prays for something way beyond my mandate," a little rain god said softly, "I can file for arbitration too."
"The world will decide—whether I truly failed my duty, or their demand was unreasonable."
"I won't just be the kind of being who can be told from above, 'You're lazy, you're derelict,' and then erased on the spot."
Yuan Heng's expression was black as the deepest sea.
"Mandatory arbitration," he repeated under his breath.
"You want every conflict between gods and mortals dragged here to be argued out?"
"Not every conflict," Qi Luo said.
"Only the ones where both sides claim they're right, where one side insists on being both player and referee."
"Until now, gods have been party, judge, and executioner."
"Now—we're taking the judging power out and putting it into a multi-sided structure."
He lifted his head to the world's paper.
"And that includes you, world."
"You sit on the arbitration panel too."
The self-check module seemed momentarily wrong-footed at being called out, then wrote coolly:
[If the New Covenant Arbitration Procedure is elevated to backbone level, the self-check module shall participate as "recorder" and "structural evaluator".]
[Its duties: provide factual data and structural risk assessments; abstain from emotional judgments.]
[These duties will increase system load, but aid in reducing repeated errors.]
[Recommendation: accept.]
Loyal as ever, it had just volunteered itself more work.
On the high seats, the main gods fell quiet again.
They realized, all at once, that this clause wasn't entirely against their interests either.
"If mortals breach maliciously, refuse offerings, or abuse prayers…" a god projection said slowly, "we can go to arbitration too."
"Let the world write down—that they were at fault as well."
"Then they won't be able to cry 'the gods are unjust' at every turn."
Qi Luo nodded. "Exactly."
"This clause isn't for mortals alone."
"It's for both employers and employed guardians."
"You can sue us for sloth, for failing our end of the deal."
"And we can sue you for abusing faith and power."
"The Council will judge."
"The world will write."
Yuan Heng looked at him, his expression so layered it was hard to name.
"Back there with the Recovery Contingency," he said slowly, "you used 'errors shall not be cleared to zero'."
"And now you're using 'disputes shall not be unilaterally judged'."
"You're taking divine authority apart, piece by piece, into powers that can be argued about."
"You know many gods will hate you for this."
Qi Luo smiled faintly.
"Let them."
"They were either going to grind me to dust in rollback, or write me in as 'deletable name' in the New Covenant anyway."
"If I've lived this long and still have the strength to write a few more lines—I'm already ahead."
——
The black crack on the inner wall of the Clocktower kept crawling upward.
It reached a stone slab beside the mortal seats.
On that slab, an old clause from the previous age had once been carved:
[Mortals shall unconditionally trust in divine arrangement.]
The crack brushed over it. The words flared briefly, then were covered by the newly written "Errors must be kept on record":
[Error: absolute trust makes errors difficult to detect.]
[Recorded.]
The crack bent, then kept climbing, reaching toward the council's spirit-ring.
"We're running out of time," Ruan Ji said, her voice tight. "If you drag this out any longer, the crack is going to hit the ring."
"Once that happens, even this Council will be sitting on top of a fracture."
Qi Luo looked up at the high seats.
"High Gods' Group," he said.
"You can reject the term 'employed guardians'."
"You can propose alternatives—'entrusted guardians', 'covenant guardians', call it what you like."
"But two points have to go in."
The world highlighted the word must on the light-screen.
[Mandatory clause candidates:]
[1. The position of the gods is not that of natural sovereigns, but of beings jointly entrusted by the world and all races.]
[2. When major conflicts arise in the rights or duties between gods and humans, the New Covenant Council must trigger a mandatory arbitration procedure; neither side may unilaterally issue a final ruling.]
"You can debate how to make them sound nicer," Qi Luo said.
"But the meaning doesn't change."
"Otherwise—"
He pointed at the crack now licking the edge of the spirit-ring.
"—the world will keep running on two logics at once."
"In some places, it'll treat you as 'employees'. In others, it'll give you 'sovereign' powers."
"Every step you take, you'll be fighting your own shadow."
"You think you'll win?"
"Or lose your minds?"
The gods on the high seats said nothing.
It wasn't that they couldn't see the crack.
That black line passed under their feet and dragged old-era images up behind it:
Recovered cities, erased races, "reset" buttons slammed down.
Those methods they had once treated as "necessary evil" were now being caught by "errors shall not be cleared to zero," sinking into the paper as lines of dull ink.
Yuan Heng lifted his head. The crack was a single step away from the spirit-ring.
"And if we refuse?" he asked.
"If we would rather see the world torn between two logics, rather see the structure collapse, than write down that we are 'employed guardians'?"
Qi Luo looked at him.
"Then you gamble," he said.
"You gamble on which side the world falls toward when it tears."
"You gamble on whether it decides to scrap your old god-authority structure, or sacrifice this generation of mortals and the New Covenant."
"You gamble on whether, at the moment you refuse to sign—"
"—it writes you in as part of the error and files you under 'Old Covenant backlash'."
The words were too heavy. Heavy enough to make some mortals go pale.
But the self-check module was as blunt as ever:
[If the ultimate relationship remains ambiguous long-term and is never rewritten, the system may correct more aggressively at a future node, including but not limited to—]
[——large-scale structural collapse;]
[——the entire old god-authority structure being marked as "primary source of error";]
[——replacement by newly formed structures of authority.]
[This is a long-term risk assessment.]
[Not a threatening statement.]
Yuan Heng stared at the line "old god-authority structure being marked as primary source of error."
He knew—the world wasn't trying to scare them.
It was doing what it always did best: tallying the ledger.
"The longer you struggle," Qi Luo murmured, "the more likely that line is to come true."
"If you step back now, admit on paper—you are 'entrusted', not 'innate'—"
"Maybe you still keep your seats in the New Covenant."
"If you don't—"
He raised his head to the heights.
"—then sooner or later the world will put you under 'Old Covenant backlash' with the rest, in the error ledger."
"And when that day comes, even if some god wants to stand with humans, there won't be any gods left standing."
——
The black crack reached the edge of the spirit-ring.
It hung there, like a hesitant serpent circling the halo, not daring to dart in.
The self-check module blared urgent warnings:
[Warning: fissure from former rollback structure is approaching the core of the New Covenant Council.]
[If the ultimate relationship clauses remain unwritten, the fissure may classify the Council itself as "abnormal noise" and attempt to devour it.]
[Recommendation: promptly establish a unified definition for the "ultimate relationship between gods and humans".]
The air in the council hall drew tight.
The mortal representatives clenched their fists. The minor gods trembled in their seats of light. On the non-human seats, beasts, people, and sigils alike held their breath.
On the main-god seats, every projection turned to Yuan Heng.
He was their proxy and the one most skilled at wrestling with text.
In this moment, he felt a crack inside himself too.
He knew where he stood. But he could also clearly see—
If they kept clinging to "sovereign", the structure would very likely end up like a hollowed-out tower the world would knock down with its own hand.
After a very long time, he spoke.
"Employed guardians," he repeated. "Your phrase."
"Too ugly."
"We can negotiate another term."
Someone on the mortal seats almost shouted, "Call it whatever, as long as the meaning lands," and promptly had their mouth clamped shut.
Yuan Heng went on, "But—"
He exhaled slowly.
"But we will concede one thing."
"We are not born as the world's sovereigns."
"Our authority to govern this world comes from the clauses, from the world's authorization, from the prayers and offerings of mortals, minor gods, and all races."
"We are not Heaven."
"We are beings jointly entrusted by the world and its races."
As the words left his mouth, the black crack stopped.
The self-check module scrambled to record:
[High Gods' Group proxy · Yuan Heng: in the New Covenant Council, has acknowledged that "divine authority derives from entrustment by the world and all races," and denied the concept of "innate sovereignty".]
[This statement shall serve as important basis in drafting the ultimate relationship clauses.]
Qi Luo looked at him and gave a slight nod.
"We can change the name later," he said.
"You can call yourselves 'entrusted guardians'. Or 'covenant guardians'."
"But these two lines—"
He tightened his hand around them on the light-screen:
[The position of the gods is not that of natural sovereigns, but of beings jointly entrusted by the world and all races.]
[Major disputes in rights or duties between gods and humans must be submitted to mandatory arbitration by the New Covenant Council.]
"—don't change."
Yuan Heng closed his eyes for a moment.
"…Fine," he said at last.
"We accept those two points."
"We reserve the right to contest the terminology."
"But these two lines you've written—shall be treated as jointly signed by us and the world."
The self-check module immediately popped up a confirmation:
[New Covenant · Volume IV · Ultimate Relationship Clauses · Core section:]
[1. The gods shall no longer be treated as innate sovereigns; their authority and status derive from structural authorization by the world and joint entrustment by all races.]
[2. When major conflicts arise in rights or duties between gods and humans, the New Covenant Council must trigger mandatory arbitration; neither side may unilaterally render a final judgment.]
[Status: backbone-level · passed.]
The black crack shuddered along the outer edge of the spirit-ring, as if pinned by something unseen.
That force was not Qi Luo's.
Nor any mortal's or god's.
It was the world's new backbone itself.
They reached out from both sides of the crack like fresh-grown sinew, gently binding and stitching the black line in place.
The fissure did not vanish.
It remained a terrible scar.
But it was anchored where it was. It did not break into the newly woven spirit-chain of the Council.
"Ultimate relationship," Ruan Ji murmured. "It's written."
"Gods can't keep saying 'we love mortals' while always standing on their own side."
"They've just admitted on paper—they are hired, entrusted beings."
"Next time someone tries to crush mortals under 'Heaven's will'…"
The light in her eyes turned colder. "——they're going to have to show the contract first."
Qi Luo let out a long breath.
The pressure on his sternum didn't ease. It only grew heavier.
[Cost of the New Covenant: 9… 10…]
Every new backbone line made the New Covenant weigh more heavily on the world's paper—and made that carved "this name may be deleted at any time" in his bones hurt all the more.
Far away, the self-check module quietly wrote its conclusion:
[Core clauses of the New Covenant:]
[On errors; on recovery; on participation—established.]
[On the ultimate relationship between gods and humans—established.]
[Old rollback fissure: partially stitched by new backbone clauses; currently unable to invade the Council's core.]
[Recovery Contingency: remains in backup status.]
[Subsequent tasks: refinement and enforcement of New Covenant details.]
Qi Luo leaned back against the stone wall and slowly sat down.
"The last clause," he said under his breath. "It's done."
Ruan Ji crouched beside him, a hand on his shoulder.
"The last?" She glanced up at the halo of chains and let out a faint laugh.
"No."
"For the world, maybe it's the final clause of Volume Four."
"For us—"
She looked at the fresh lines of text still drying in the air.
"—it's just the first sentence of 'how to make theology apprentices memorize a new textbook'."
On the high seats, the god-shadows silently watched the chapter that should have been theirs.
—They were no longer the only ones allowed to write it.
—They were no longer the only ones entitled to "interpret Heaven's will."
In the abyss, the Shadow let out a slow breath.
"The fissure's stitched for now," it said.
"The Old Covenant hasn't been cleared to zero."
"And it hasn't managed to tear the New Covenant apart."
"From here on—"
"It's on you lot, figuring out how to live on this new sheet you just wrote."