A chill seeped into Lucien's bones, clinging tighter than the stale alley air. News of the Pantheon's decree had twisted the city into a knot of paranoia. Every shadow seemed to hold an inquisitor, every whisper a denunciation.\n\n"This is a disaster," Lucien muttered, his voice a low rasp against the brick. He leaned against a grimy wall, eyes scanning the street. Silas's words echoed: *Inquisition units are active. They seek unregistered power users, those who 'corrupt the very essence of creation.'* That meant Lucien, first and foremost. But it also meant every F-rank, every soul trying to eke out a living in the forgotten corners of Aetherion.\n\nHis F-rank status, a brand of worthlessness, now felt like a bullseye. His ability, Attribute Archive, the very thing that kept him alive, was the ultimate 'corruption' in the eyes of these divine zealots. He could steal power, bestow it. He was a walking blasphemy.\n\nFear, cold and sharp, pierced through his usual pragmatism. Not for himself, not entirely. He could vanish, hide. But the outcasts, the children, the old men and women who relied on his small, almost imperceptible 'help' – what about them?\n\nHe had given them tiny advantages. A discarded boot, imbued with the *attribute of minor grip* from a gecko. A cracked cup, holding the *attribute of insulating warmth* from a forgotten thermos. He thought he was helping them survive, giving them a tiny edge against a brutal world. Now, those simple trinkets felt like death sentences.\n\nHours bled into one another. Lucien had been observing the city from various hidden perches. Guard patrols were denser, their armor gleaming ominously, their expressions humorless. Their eyes, once dismissive of the F-rank districts, now scrutinized every face, every tattered garment.\n\nHe saw a young girl, no older than ten, drop a piece of bread. A guard kicked it further into the gutter, her eyes widening in terror. Another guard, a hulking brute with a scarred face, laughed. Lucien's jaw tightened. This wasn't just about order; it was about oppression.\n\n"Idiots," he hissed, a bitter taste in his mouth. They were pushing people to the brink. They were creating the very chaos they claimed to prevent. All in the name of some nebulous 'divine purity.' He had to find a way to warn them, to retrieve the dangerous gifts he'd bestowed.\n\n--- \n\nLater that afternoon, a familiar flicker caught his eye. Down a narrow alley, near the public pumps, a boy. Finn. Just a kid, maybe eight or nine, with a mop of unruly brown hair and eyes too big for his gaunt face. Finn was usually scavenging, a tiny, almost invisible presence in the urban squalor.\n\nFinn clutched something in his hand, a small, dull metal disc. Lucien recognized it instantly. He had taken an old, discarded piece of a broken clock mechanism and imbued it with a minute *attribute of minor agility* from a beetle he'd observed. It was meant to help Finn navigate the crowded markets, avoid being jostled, or slip away from bigger, meaner kids. A tiny boost, nothing more.\n\nFinn moved with a slight, almost imperceptible lightness, darting between the legs of vendors and citizens. He was trying to reach a discarded fruit peel, his stomach rumbling audibly even from Lucien's distance. The metal disc pulsed faintly, a nearly invisible shimmer around his small hand. It was beautiful, a silent hum of borrowed life.\n\nSuddenly, two city guards rounded the corner. Not the usual patrol. These were Inquisitors, identified by the stylized eye sigil on their breastplates and the grim, unyielding set of their faces. Their armor was darker, their movements more deliberate, predatory.\n\nFinn froze, the fruit peel forgotten. His small hand instinctively tightened around the disc. The shimmer around it, faint as it was, seemed to catch the sunlight, a momentary glint of unnatural energy. The Inquisitor's gaze, sharp as a hawk's, locked onto it.\n\n"Boy!" The voice was a gravelly boom, cutting through the street noise. "What do you carry?"\n\nFinn whimpered, a tiny sound of pure fear. He tried to hide the disc, shoving his hand behind his back, but it was too late. The Inquisitors were already closing in, their heavy boots thudding on the cobblestones.\n\nLucien watched from the shadow of an overhanging awning, his heart hammering against his ribs. Every instinct screamed at him to act, to intervene. But he couldn't. One move, one flicker of his own power, and he'd be exposing himself, dooming Finn and likely many others. His breath hitched, a knot of dread tightening in his gut.\n\nOne Inquisitor, taller than his partner, reached out, his gloved hand snatching Finn's arm with brutal force. The boy cried out, a thin, desperate sound that pierced the air. The small metal disc fell from his grasp, clattering onto the stones.\n\nThe Inquisitor picked it up, his thick fingers turning the innocuous piece of metal. His eyes narrowed. "An F-rank charm? Corrupted?" He sniffed at it, as if smelling a foul odor. "Such abominations. Tainted magic. A direct affront to the Pantheon's divine order." The second Inquisitor, an older woman with sharp features and a cruel twist to her lips, sneered. "These vermin can't help but defile all they touch. Even their survival is an act of defiance against the natural order." She kicked at Finn's leg, making him stumble.\n\nFinn's face crumpled. Tears streamed down his grimy cheeks. "It's… it's just a lucky charm! It helps me find food!" he wailed, his voice cracking with terror. "Please!" "Silence!" the male Inquisitor roared, backhanding the boy across the face. Finn's head snapped back, a red welt appearing instantly on his pale cheek. He fell to his knees, clutching his face, his small body trembling uncontrollably.\n\nLucien felt a suffocating wave of guilt. His stomach churned. This was his fault. This innocent child, beaten and humiliated, because of a small, well-intentioned 'gift.' His resourcefulness, his pragmatism, had become a weapon against the very people he had sought to help. The irony was a bitter, metallic taste in his mouth.\n\nHis hands clenched into fists, nails digging into his palms. He felt the familiar surge of adrenaline, the desperate urge to protect, to lash out. But he knew, with chilling clarity, that any action now would only escalate the situation, making Finn's fate even worse. He was powerless, trapped by his own calculations, by the need for self-preservation that always seemed to override everything else.\n\nThe Inquisitors dragged Finn to his feet, their grip unforgiving. The boy's legs buckled, but they held him upright, propelling him forward. His whimpers faded into ragged gasps. The taller Inquisitor held up the metal disc, a grim trophy of their 'justice.'\n\n"Another soul tainted by unregistered magic," he declared to the thinning crowd that had gathered, a chilling warning in his tone. "The Pantheon's wrath will cleanse this city of such impurities. This is but the first." He crushed the small disc in his fist, the faint shimmer dying completely.\n\nFinn's head lolled, his eyes wide and unfocused with pain and fear. As the guards dragged him away, his small, bruised face turned, almost by accident. His gaze swept through the alley, through the shadows where Lucien stood frozen, a silent observer in the growing twilight.\n\nThe boy's eyes, those large, terrified eyes, met Lucien's. A silent plea for help, raw and desperate, flashed within them. Then, as the realization of Lucien's inaction solidified, that plea twisted into something colder, something profound and devastating: betrayal.

Sacrifice of Innocence