The Cult of Four, Zenith Cathedral.

According to The Tetrarch Codex, the Zenith Cathedral was the final mortal dwelling of the four gods, originally perched atop a towering peak. Before ascending to the Divine Mantle, the deities joined forces to banish the cathedral into the void, anchoring it within the primordial sea of an unknown world to preserve it for eternity.

Within the void, the Zenith Cathedral was borne aloft by four distinct Divine Idol. Below these colossal statues hung four floating structures of wildly different architectures. Massive pillars, carved with ancient runes and blazing with divine fire, shot up from these structures to pierce the heavens. Chilling whispers bled from the flames, shrouding the sky.

Inside the Zenith Cathedral, Archbishop Kysar manifested upon his seat. His throne was framed by the morning light, shifting clouds, stained glass, and angelic reliefs. Weightless matter drifted around him—The Tetrarch’s Scales, holding the Devotional Shards. These were the tributes he owed to the four gods.

"Lord, I beg You to forgive the transgressions of others." A benevolent, gentle voice echoed from the Archbishop’s seat opposite Kysar. The man sat with his hands clasped, head bowed in devout prayer.

"I thank my Lord for His grace, allowing The Order to bear such unparalleled fruit!" Another phantom figure materialized to Kysar’s left. The man’s eyes and hair burned with platinum-gold fire, radiating an untouchable, sacred aura.

"Kysar, lend us your strength. Let us permanently cast off the shadow of death!" The final Archbishop of the Cult of Four arrived on the right-hand seat. He didn’t offer prayers to the gods; instead, he stared at Kysar with a burning intensity.

"Thanks be to the Four Gods. I beseech the great gods to grant me faith, to lead me toward hope, to let me step into the light!" Kysar ignored his peers. He brought his hands together, weaving a series of complex, ceremonial gestures over his chest.

The other three didn’t interrupt. They had waited in the shadows for countless eons; a few extra seconds meant nothing.

"No one realizes that the four Archbishops—the mortals closest to the gods—are actually just the four sacrifices closest to death," Kysar murmured, his hands never breaking their rhythmic gestures. Even as he feigned devotion, his personal law seeped out to saturate the cathedral. His audacious, treasonous words echoed through the sacred hall. "Are you truly willing to return to the embrace of the gods?"

"By the gods, I have yet to gather enough Devotional Shards!" Archbishop Maximilien declared without skipping a beat. He reached out and casually pocketed eighty percent of the Devotional Shards from the tray before him, using his law to blind and deceive The Tetrarch’s Scales.

"Lord, grant me supreme divine power. Let me fend off mighty foes, keep me from falling, and prevent me from becoming a lost lamb!" Archbishop Kendry, wreathed in fire, continued his prayer while simultaneously incinerating the Devotional Shards in his scales with his golden flames. He didn’t extinguish the fire until eighty percent of the shards were consumed.

"I’ve never seen the gods’ true faces. I’ve never visited their Divine Kingdom. I certainly have no desire to ’return to their embrace,’" the final Archbishop, Eryx, whispered. His voice lacked volume and confidence, laced with a deranged desperation. Yet within that desperation lay boundless hope. "The truth is, I’m at my limit. Even nourished by divine power, I can’t hold on much longer. Unless... unless the gods return to my embrace!"

With a sharp inhale, Eryx swallowed every single Devotional Shard from The Tetrarch’s Scales, leaving absolutely nothing for the gods.

"Kysar, I am out of time!"

Kysar glanced at Eryx, a profound, unreadable light flickering in his eyes before he bowed his head and resumed his prayers.

Eryx wasn’t lying; he truly had no time left. By draining the scales dry, he guaranteed the gods would notice the discrepancy and unleash their wrath. When that happened, if old age didn’t kill him, the gods would consume him alive. Eryx had burned his bridges.

"Don’t bother leaving a backdoor for yourselves either," Eryx warned. "Think about it. The moment the gods successfully descend, the first things they’ll absorb will be the believers of the Cult of Four. You, me, the flock—we are the ultimate tonics in their eyes."

It was a brutal, undeniable truth.

To outsiders, the Cult of Four appeared to possess unfathomable depth. Beyond the four Archbishops, the world assumed they harbored countless ancient Zealots in seclusion—super-entities at the fifth or sixth stage of the demigod realm.

But only the insiders knew the rotting truth.

It was a secret guarded exclusively by the four Archbishops: every powerhouse who had stepped down from active leadership, every Ascetic who had transitioned into a Zealot, had already "returned to the gods’ embrace." They had been harvested as fuel to awaken the gods.

This was the real reason the Cult of Four never dared to openly clash with ancient powerhouses or rival factions. Their foundation was hollow. The only true pillars holding up the Cult were the four Archbishops sitting in the room, all of whom were entities bound to Demigod Artifacts.

Eryx’s words struck a chord. After a moment of grim contemplation, Maximilien and Kendry snatched up the remaining twenty percent of the Devotional Shards from their scales. With the deed done, the three Archbishops, led by Eryx, locked their eyes on Kysar.

"Excellent. Our wills are finally united," Kysar said, ceasing his prayers at last. He reached out and methodically picked off the remaining Devotional Shards from his own scales, one by one.

"I can sense powerhouses of our caliber descending upon the other three continents. This isn’t the end; it’s merely the beginning," Kysar declared, pocketing his final shard and looking up at the vaulted ceiling of the Zenith Cathedral. "The four of us aren’t enough. We need allies."

"This cathedral is a divine artifact left by the gods. We can neither take it nor tame it," he continued. "While it still slumbers, we must work together to strip it bare. We’re migrating everything of value here to the Titanion Realm. We aren’t just stealing their worldly inheritance. We are hijacking all of their faith."

Kysar’s eyes burned with cold ambition. "We will drag the other three factions down into the mud to fight the gods with us. If possible, we’ll knock one or two of those deities right off their pedestals. When that happens, even if the Titanion Realm fails to manifest a Divine Mantle natively, a fallen Divine Mantle will be up for grabs. Those ancient relics hiding in the Titanion Realm won’t be able to resist taking a shot."

Buffalo Bastion, Titanion Realm.

This was the fiefdom of the Buffalofolk Race, granted by Orion as a retirement sanctuary for Earthshaker. Since Buffalo Bastion was part of the Stoneheart Horde’s original Ten Cities initiative, it was once the most prosperous commercial hub in the western continent, boasting a massive canal that ran straight through its heart.

The cataclysm had erased the canal, but that hadn’t slowed the bastion’s growth. In fact, a sprawling mountain loaded with extreme mineral wealth had violently erupted from the earth just a few miles outside the city limits, driving Buffalo Bastion’s prosperity to unprecedented heights.