Dust motes drifted through the dim basement air, illuminated only by the faint, green glow of my Attribute Archive interface. Sweat dripped from my chin, sizzling softly against the cold stone floor. My fingers traced the edge of a rusty gear, extracting a faint glimmer of 'Rigidity' and transferring it into a heavy iron padlock. Silas's hidden workshop was a claustrophobic mess of broken clockwork, copper tubing, and smelling of damp earth. Perfect for a guy whose sole goal was to stay alive while the entire world tried to murder him. Keeping a low profile was getting harder by the day. Rumors about my supposed rise to power as a dark overlord were spreading faster than a plague in a crowded tavern. Some idiot bard in the upper districts had apparently written an entire epic poem about my "merciless intellect." I just wanted a sandwich and a solid eight hours of sleep without dreaming of executioner axes. Instead, I was stuck rigging defensive measures in a damp cellar. My "deterrents" were simple, really. A tripwire connected to a jar of pungent skunk weed oil. A pressure plate that would drop a net of heavy steel chains. To me, they were basic home security. To anyone else, they probably looked like the sadistic machinations of a paranoid supervillain. Especially with the way the ambient magical energy in this basement distorted the visual output of my skill. Blue sparks flickered around the tripwires. It looked downright demonic. "Good enough," I muttered, wiping my greasy palms on my trousers. My chest tightened as a sudden, freezing draft swept through the subterranean room. Every hair on my arms stood on end. Something was very wrong. Fear, cold and sharp, coiled in my gut. It was a familiar sensation, a remnant of a past life where I was always the one left behind, the one who didn't matter. I had promised myself I would never let anyone make me feel that powerless again. But right now, the sheer pressure dropping into the room was suffocating. Heavy footsteps echoed from the stone staircase. They weren't the hurried, shuffling steps of Silas. These were deliberate. Measured. Heavy with the weight of absolute, unshakeable authority. Gold light seeped under the heavy oak door. It wasn't a warm, welcoming light. It was a harsh, blinding glare that burned through the cracks, sizzling against my improvised traps. "Lucien Vale!" a voice rang out, vibrating the stone walls and making my teeth rattle. Elara. A golden girl of the Pantheon, sent to execute me. My stomach plummeted into my boots. Why was she here? How did she even find this place? Before I could scramble behind a heavy wooden workbench, this door didn't just open—it exploded inward. Splinters of oak rained down like deadly shrapnel. Standing in the ruin of the doorway was Elara, her silver armor gleaming with an oppressive, holy radiance. Her eyes were the worst part. They glowed with a pure, solid gold, completely devoid of pupils. Divine sight. She was looking right through the darkness, and right through me. "Your wicked schemes end here, dark one," she declared, raising her glowing broadsword. I swallowed hard, my throat feeling like sandpaper. "Look, can we just talk about this?" I raised my hands, palms out. "I was just doing some light carpentry." "Do not speak your lies to me!" she spat, her voice dripping with righteous fury. Her gaze swept across the room. She saw my skunk-weed tripwire. To her divine sight, it probably looked like a tether of soul-binding agony. She saw the heavy chain net hanging from the rafters. In her eyes, it was likely an iron device designed to crush the righteous. "You have prepared a gauntlet of torment," she whispered, her jaw clenching so hard I heard the bone grind. "You knew I was coming. You rigged this sanctuary of ancient knowledge with vile, blood-drinking hexes." "It's literally just skunk oil and some old chains," I squeaked. My voice cracked. So much for looking like a terrifying final boss. But Elara didn't hear a desperate man trying to defend his temporary hideout. She heard a mocking, confident villain playing mind games. "Your arrogance will be your undoing," she snarled, stepping forward. Her boot clicked against the stone floor. She didn't even look down as she bypassed my first tripwire with absolute precision, guided by the golden light in her eyes. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. She was completely immune to my distractions. Her divine sight allowed her to see the flow of energy, letting her dance around my traps as if they were painted lines on the floor. I backed up, my spine colliding with the cold stone wall. "I don't want to fight you," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "I have no interest in your Pantheon, or your holy crusade. I'm just trying to survive." "Survive?" She let out a harsh, mocking laugh. "The dark lord claims he merely wishes to survive, while his shadows poison the very air of this kingdom. Your existence is an affront to the gods." Her conviction was terrifying. There was no doubt in her eyes. No hesitation. No room for negotiation. To her, I wasn't a human being who had been dragged into this nightmare world against his will. I was a cancer. A blight that needed to be purged with holy fire. I realized then, with a sickening jolt, that my actual intentions meant absolutely nothing. It didn't matter that I was terrified. It didn't matter that I had never murdered anyone in cold blood. Against the crushing weight of divine judgment, the truth was whatever the gods decided it was. And they had decided I was the enemy. "Wait," I tried again, my mind racing. "If you kill me, you'll never find out who actually leaked the coordinates of the temple." I was bluffing, of course. I had no idea who leaked anything. But a good villain always has a hostage or a secret, right? Elara paused, her glowing sword hovering inches from the ground. Her brow furrowed. "You speak of the betrayal in the east," she said, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "You admit to pulling the strings of the heretics." "I didn't say that—" Slamming into me, the force of her voice pushed me back another inch. My heels dug into the dirt. "You spin webs of deceit, Lucien. You whisper in the ears of weak men, turning them against the light. But the light does not flinch." She raised her sword high, the blade erupting into a column of white-hot fire. Blistering heat washed over my face, singeing my eyebrows. I looked around frantically. There was nothing. No weapons. No escape routes. My Attribute Archive was active, but I had nothing powerful stored. Just basic physical concepts I had harvested from random trash around the workshop. 'Density.' 'Sharpness.' 'Lightness.' None of these could stop a literal demigod armed with divine wrath. "Any last words, monster?" she asked, her eyes burning with a blinding intensity. "I really hate this world," I muttered under my breath. My hand brushed against the workbench behind me. My fingers wrapped around something small and rectangular. A block of scrap wood. Leftover pine from Silas's cabinet repairs. It was barely larger than my palm. Using my skill, I frantically dumped every single point of the 'Density' attribute I had stored into the wood. My archive ran hot, a sharp pain lancing through my temples. System warnings flashed red in my vision, but I ignored them. [Warning: Attribute 'Density' (Rank D) transferred to target: Scrap Pine. Material limits exceeded.] This wood in my hand grew impossibly heavy, nearly dragging my arm to the floor. It felt like I was holding a solid chunk of dying star, though it still looked like a cheap piece of kindling. "May the gods have mercy on your soul," Elara declared. She didn't mean it. Her face was a mask of cold, unyielding executioner's justice. She brought the sword down. Oppressive pressure of the descending strike cracked the stone floor beneath her boots. Time seemed to slow down. Individual sparks of divine fire danced along the edge of her sword. I could feel the heat threatening to vaporize my skin. Panic seized me, cold and absolute. My body moved before my brain could fully process the futility of the action. As Elara unleashes a blinding burst of divine energy, Lucien instinctively raises his arm, and a small, unassuming block of wood he'd imbued with 'Density' shatters, leaving a faint, shimmering shield in its wake.

Chapter 16: The Hero's Fury