What does it take to create a god…?
In this world, it is impossible. Not because humans are incapable of dreaming, but because they are incapable of bearing the price. A god is not made from prayer, nor from pure faith, but from an unending river of blood. From the souls of hundreds… even thousands. From lifetimes torn away as weeds are ripped from their roots. And in the end, a fragment of hell itself, a blessing stolen from paradise, and a human vessel crushed and reshaped until everything within it dies… so that something may be born that claims dominion over the world.
This is what elia saw.
Not a sight of the eyes, but a sight of the soul forced to stare into the abyss until it grew accustomed to its shape.
For two full years long, heavy years stretched like a night without dawn he was trained as an obedient slave. It was not training in the noble sense of the word, but domestication. Systematic breaking. Every small mistake meant a lash that tore flesh, or a shock that set the nerves ablaze as though they were branches of a tree burning from within. Death was not a threat; it was a promise approaching slowly, breathing behind his neck, waiting for a single misstep.
And he had to suppress his anger.
The anger of the warrior he once was… and the pride that flowed through his veins like fire. He had to bow, to lower his gaze, to swallow insults the way the starving swallow a dry crust of bread. Because a corpse does not grow angry, and a corpse has no pride. And he… had already tasted what it meant to be a corpse once before.
During those days, he realized another truth.
There were those called knights… and others who were sorcerers and summoners. They were not weaker than one another as he had first believed. They were merely different shapes of the same power. A filthy power, twisted, yet cohesive. The problem was not them… but the place he had fallen into.
The Temple of Ugliness.
A ridiculous name almost childish if it were not soaked in the stench of blood and rot. They called themselves "Worshippers of the God," but what they worshipped was nothing more than an arrogant deformity, a distorted idea of transcendence. The walls were covered in carvings that twisted like entrails, and the floor was always cold, as though it had never known the warmth of life.
Yet despite the absurdity of the name, what elia gathered was not without value. He listened to every whisper, every ritual, every incantation recited in the dark. He learned that the path to power was not limited to sorcery alone, nor to knighthood alone, nor even to summoning. It was a choice… followed by sacrifice.
But the information he had was not enough. It would never be enough.
"I must become stronger…" he muttered inwardly, his eyes silently observing one of the knights dragging a prisoner toward the ritual chamber. "Whether as a sorcerer… a summoner… or a knight. Whatever the path, I must know it."
He remembered the pain.
The blows he received for nothing more than failing to bow quickly enough. The spells cast upon him merely to test their effects. His body was a map of countless scars, some visible and others too deep to be seen.
But what troubled him most… was his knighthood.
That boy who had chosen to call him by that name as a way of mocking his master. He had not grown even a little. Two years had passed, yet his body remained the same as though time itself had rejected him. As though the current of days had bent around him, leaving him a fixed point in a collapsing world.
The sorcerers here knew what they were doing. Of that, elia was certain. And yet hundreds of corpses had been wasted. Rituals had failed. Experiments had collapsed. Screams had suffocated within the temple's corridors without result. They considered themselves the strongest… and yet they had failed.
So was all this blood… meaningless?
"Lunchtime is approaching."
The phrase echoed through the stone corridor like the announcement of a temporary truce. It was the only time they were treated even superficially as human. The one moment they received the bare requirements of survival: a piece of bread, a watery soup that tasted of rot, and a ration of water barely enough to moisten the throat.
elia sat in the corner of the hall, his back against the wall, his eyes half closed.
'I wonder… what would it take for them to trust me completely?'
The thought was not new, but today it felt more urgent.
'Perhaps I need to prove my usefulness more. To be a different kind of slave. A slave who does not wait for orders… but brings what they need before they ask. Perhaps… a hunter. I go outside and bring them offerings. Fresh blood. Terrified souls. Perhaps then… they will see me as a tool they cannot do without.'
He kept thinking and thinking… until he didn't even notice the piece of bread in his hand. It was dry, cracked, as if it were older than some of the children sitting around him.
To his right, two boys and a girl were fighting over a piece of bread that had fallen to the ground. Their hands were filthy, their nails broken, and their faces pale like the faces of the dead. Each one claimed it was theirs, as if that piece of bread were a royal treasure.
One of them shoved the other violently. His head struck the stone. He didn't scream.
Screaming was a luxury.
As for Frosty… he sat nearby, watching the scene with shining eyes. He didn't intervene. He didn't reach out his hand. He simply smiled a calm, radiant smile that did not belong in this place.
It was the smile of someone who was dreaming.
He focused his gaze on elia, then said in a low voice, yet filled with exhilaration,
"elia… my master has finally decided that I'm extremely obedient. Do you know what that means?"
He leaned forward slightly, as if revealing a sacred secret.
"I'll see the world… at last. Instead of hearing about it through their whispers, I'll touch it with my own hands. I'll see the true light of this world. Even if it's harsh… even if it's broken… at least I'll know I didn't die here without seeing it."
The curve of his mouth deepened, and his eyes filled with a painful sparkle.
"I'll forget… even if only for a moment… that I'm just trash thrown in here."
elia's hand stopped above the bread.
The word "trash" was not unfamiliar in this place. They were called that constantly. But hearing it from Frosty's mouth, with such simplicity… with such acceptance… made something tighten inside his chest.
elia didn't know if the boy's simple dream of seeing the world would truly come to pass. Or if it was merely bait. Another game in their hands. Perhaps he would go out… not to see the world, but to become part of a new ritual. Perhaps he would never return.
The world beyond the walls was vast, without a doubt.
Vast… and lonely.
And perhaps…just perhaps even crueler than this temple itself.
elia raised his eyes toward the narrow window high in the wall. A thin thread of pale light slipped through it, barely visible amid the dust hanging in the air.
'If I go out…' he thought slowly, 'I will not go out as a slave.'
But before he can become a master…
First, he must survive becoming a corpse once again.
...
The world… had never been beautiful.
It was not merely cruel, but deliberate in its cruelty, as if pain within it was not a side effect of life, but its true essence. And that was what Frosty realized during his short journey beyond the walls a journey that did not last long, yet was enough to tear apart the last remnants of illusion inside him.
The air outside was not pure as he had imagined, but heavy, carrying the scent of something that had burned long ago. The sky was not blue, but pale, sickly… like the skin of a corpse left too long beneath the sun. Even the light was not warm, but sharp, cutting, as if it revealed ugliness rather than dispelling it.
When he returned, he had changed completely.
elia noticed Frosty's gaze.
It was rigid.
Not the gaze of fear, nor astonishment… but the gaze of someone who had seen something a human being should never see. His eyes were opened wider than they should have been, and his pupils were fixed as though caught upon an image that would not fade.
And he was whispering.
"Why… why… why… why… why…"
A cold repetition, without tone, without rise or fall. As though it were a question born dead, yet refusing to be buried.
elia approached him cautiously.
"Frosty… what happened?"
Frosty had never been weak minded. He was not one of those who collapse at the first shock. He always smiled, even amidst rot and blood. That was why this collapse… was unnatural.
elia reached out his hand to grab his shoulder.
Frosty suddenly trembled, then slowly turned toward him, as if his neck were rotating on rusted joints.
"They know everything…" he said in a low voice, but clear as a slap.
elia froze.
"They know everything we've done… everything we've thought… every moment of happiness we stole for ourselves. And they just… let us live it."
His lips trembled.
"They let us live moments of temporary happiness… before returning us to our place."
His eyes widened further, and his trembling hand rose toward the stone wall.
"The entire temple… the entire temple is made from our flesh and blood. From people like us. Have you ever touched the walls and felt their warmth? Have you felt them… beating?"
He fell silent for a second, then whispered, like someone confessing a sin:
"I can still see what they did… there… in the face of the wall. The faces that screamed until their features melted… they are the foundation we stand upon."
elia stepped back.
He knew the temple was a cursed place. But that it might be… alive?
He swallowed, trying to keep his composure.
"The outside…" Frosty continued, his voice becoming more fragile, "isn't safe either. The gods abandoned this world long ago. They left us… the way a wounded animal is left to bleed until it dies."
He laughed a short, broken laugh.
"And those sorcerers? They're nothing but slaves to a desperate desire. They want a perfect god… a god that answers them. They think blood is enough. That pain is enough. That if they gather enough corpses… something will descend from the sky."
His voice dropped to a whisper that could barely be heard.
"They tried to make me die out there. They let me fight… not to win, but to die slowly. I could hear their laughter… their laughter rising the closer I came to death."
He stopped, his breathing quickening.
"The sun… did you look at it closely, elia?"
He didn't wait for an answer.
"It isn't a sun. It was black. Black like an eye that never blinks. As if it were crying for us… crying without tears, because even the sky has dried from mercy."
Then he looked directly at him.
"elia… we're finished. All of us."
The words fell heavily.
No one else heard them. The whispers were meant for him alone, as if Frosty was emptying whatever remained inside him before collapsing completely.
Slaves to desire…
That, he already knew.
But that they knew everything?
That they let them move, smile, dream… only to increase the pleasure of crushing them later?
That meant only one thing.
The execution… was approaching.
If they truly knew every step, then escape was not a risk… but a necessity. The only chance.
But Frosty…
Had almost shattered that hope.
And what is a human in hell without hope?
Nothing.
A corpse walking before it falls.
Hope was what remained for elia. The last spark that had not gone out. The final lie he chose to believe so that he would not go mad.
He looked at the other faces around him.
Pale faces. Empty eyes. Bodies waiting for their turn whether in the rituals… or in the pits.
'They are all a burden.'
The thought was not merely cruel… it was clear.
Survival is not given.
Survival is taken.
And only the strongest survives.
He leaned forward slightly, his hands slowly clenching until his knuckles turned white. Every piece of this hell must be prepared. Every possibility calculated. Every movement planned with precision.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow was his only chance.
He would not escape with anyone.
He would not carry anyone.
Because those who carry others… slow themselves.
And because thrones are not built with mercy.
His eyes glimmered in the darkness.
It was not the glimmer of madness… but the glimmer of a decision.
The oldest, truest, and cruelest human instinct… survival. No matter the cost. Even if the price was a friend. Even if the price was what remained of his soul.
For the decisions that build a nation… are not merciful.
They are harsh.
Bloody.
But they create continuation.
They create the throne upon which humanity stands… even if it is made from the bones of those who fell along the way.
elia slowly raised his head.
If the world had abandoned its gods, then perhaps the time had come…
for humans to create their own monsters.