Rudra sat alone.
There was no ceremony. No symbols. No followers in sight. He was in his apartment, door locked, phone off, curtains drawn. The room looked ordinary — used notebooks stacked near the bed, a kettle still warm, a half-eaten roll on the table.
But the Zix Core was active.
He wasn't looking at a screen. He didn't need to. The data was flowing directly into his mind.
He could see everything.
Every heartbeat in the priestess network. Every shift in emotional alignment. Every target that surrendered — even subconsciously.
And then there was Sanya.
The Core displayed her movements as pulses — radiating slowly across cities like ripples through fog.
She didn't just convert people. She overwrote them.
He hadn't expected it.
When Ratri and Lazara began their network, he allowed it because it was clean. Functional. Built on real-world cause and effect.
But this... this was organic worship.
Generated through trauma, not preaching.
It was raw.
And it was feeding him faster than the other realms combined.
He watched the echo of Sanya's confrontation with Taren. Replayed it twice. Saw how she broke him with no words. How she didn't even ask for loyalty. She simply stood, and people bent.
The Zix Core buzzed.
> Worship Source Identified:
Subject Class: Awakened Priestess
Quality: Unassisted Faith
Yield: 19.6x baseline
Rudra leaned back against the chair. His fingers didn't move. But a thought ran through the Core like a command:
> "Don't touch her. Don't interfere. Let her evolve on her own."
She wasn't ready to be reshaped.
She was still forming — still testing limits.
But the priestess network was reaching its cap.
Faith of pleasure. Faith of submission.
Two streams — powerful, yes. But incomplete.
Rudra's gaze turned inward.
Another alert was waiting.
> Realm: Demon World
Avatar: Kaalkrit
Status: Active
Realm Faith Type: Uninitiated
Opportunity: Harvestable Dominant Faith
Rudra didn't speak aloud.
But the system knew.
He selected Kaalkrit.
And the message was delivered in a single thought.
---
Demon World – Lower Cinder Depths
Kaalkrit felt it — not as a voice, not as heat, but as weight.
It dropped into his spine like molten iron.
His eyes opened. He stood in the volcanic field of his realm, surrounded by dead ash, molten rock, and waiting beasts. Nothing moved. No demon dared draw breath in his presence unless commanded.
Until now, Kaalkrit had only kept control.
He hadn't harvested anything.
The demons under his rule didn't worship. They feared.
But now Rudra had spoken — not with praise, not with promises. Just an order, delivered through the Zix Core, hard and exact:
> "Begin conversion. No rituals. No temples. Take dominance-based faith. Use their fear. Their pride. Their instincts. But it must be faith. Not obedience."
Kaalkrit stared out across the endless stretch of demon camps.
He understood.
These beings didn't kneel. They ruled their own packs. They devoured anything weaker. But deep inside each of them was one truth:
They submitted only to the one who could not be challenged.
That was where the third stream would come from.
Faith of Dominion.
Not given out of love.
Not earned by seduction.
Taken — by force, by presence, by undeniable superiority.
Kaalkrit moved toward the largest southern camp — a pit of mid-ranked generals who hadn't bowed yet. He would break one of them today. Not to kill. Not to destroy. But to turn the moment of submission into faith — traceable and directed to Rudra.
He activated the Zix Core's latent mark. A searing line burned through his chest, visible to all demons in the area — the mark of the Absolute One, hidden in plain form.
They didn't recognize it.
But they felt it.
Some dropped to a knee. Some resisted.
Kaalkrit raised his right hand.
A hulking warbeast — seven feet tall, armored with bone, three sets of jaws — leapt toward him.
He didn't dodge. He didn't strike.
He simply spoke.
"Down."
The air cracked.
The warbeast froze mid-leap — body locked in midair like a puppet dropped. Then it hit the ground, spine shattering, eyes wide.
It wasn't dead.
It was afraid.
And it understood what was above it.
The others around him paused.
Some still growled.
But one by one, the smarter ones began to lower their heads.
Kaalkrit didn't command them to worship.
He simply stood above them until the silence became belief.
And then, finally, one general asked:
"Who do we serve?"
Kaalkrit didn't answer.
He turned and walked away.
The Core picked up the pulse immediately.
> Faith of Dominion: Initialized
Total: 1.4x baseline
Source: Forced Submission
Status: Compatible
Rudra watched the data load.
He saw the waveform.
It was different from Lazara's pleasure faith.
Different from Ratri's emotional bonds.
Different from Sanya's trauma conversions.
This one was clean, raw, binary.
Obey or die.
Serve or vanish.
And demons — for all their power — understood one thing better than humans:
The one who stood at the top deserved their faith.
---
Rudra folded his arms and leaned back again.
Now he had three streams.
1. Faith of Submission – soft, sensual, emotional, tied to priestesses and humans.
2. Faith of Pleasure – born through sex, bonding, devotion.
3. Faith of Dominion – taken by force, absorbed through fear and superiority.
The Core began linking the streams.
> Synchronization: Pending
Avatar Expansion Level: Available
Comic Summoning Tier 1: Near Unlock
Next Threshold: Requires interstream faith convergence.
Rudra didn't rush.
He looked out the window.
The sun was still rising. People were still walking to work.
No one knew the world was changing.
But it was.
Quietly. Completely.
And now, it belonged to him — in more ways than one.
---