Ben acted fast, jumping away and putting his barrier up again, only to immediately turn to see just what happened. Behind him was the apostle Felth, broken spear in hand and a look of confusion on his face as he struggled to understand why his attack failed.

Ben did though and couldn’t be more grateful to his past self for adding all of the defensive enchantments he could to his jacket. He couldn’t be sure if it would have stopped the demigod, but against a warrior of normal strength it seemed to do its job perfectly, keeping the spear from skewering him in the surprise attack.

“Surround him!” The apostle called out, moving past his first failure in favour of another attempt. “We can’t let this act go unpunished!”

The priests nearby shook themselves free of their shock, ready to attack him the moment his barrier went down. They were all assuming he was powering it through his own mana, not relying on a tool powered by a mana crystal, and with barrier magic being rather mana intense they wouldn’t need to wait long as two others went to Ather’s side to begin healing him.

Felth knew he couldn’t allow something so disgraceful to be revealed to the world and was willing to act to ensure it stayed hidden. The boy had come to them alone and challenged a demigod to a fight, it would be no surprise for him to end up dead doing such a thing, and the shame of killing someone so much weaker would be better for Ather than the shame that would come to losing to a complete nobody, but as he stared at the boys face, spears pressed against the barrier, waiting for it to go down, he couldn't help but feel his stomach sink as he watched him break into a deep, wide grin.

Damn, guess he’s mad.

Don’t care. Hey Myriad, you gods have all sorts of dumb rules amongst yourselves that you have to obey, surely there’s something that keeps apostles from murdering each other in cold blood if they don’t like the way a fight where both parties consented to ended, right?

Exactly what I wanted to hear. He thought as he began laughing. He couldn’t help it, things couldn’t have worked better for him if he’d tried.

“Silence!” Felth yelled. “Enough of that disgusting look, do you not see your situation? Face your death with some dignity!”

“Oh Felth, buddy, the best part of this is you don’t know how badly you just fucked up,” He told him, continuing to laugh as he pulled out his card, hiding everything on it but one very important title and holding it out for him to see. “You just decided to murder a fellow apostle, and while I don’t know about your god, mine’s been watching this whole time.”

The words were small but clear and in an instant the fire left the man's eyes, the broken spear fell from his hands as he understood the gravity of just what he’d done. “Wait, everyone back off, I didn’t know-”

“You think I care?” He said, cutting him off as joy sparkled in his eyes. “Would it have been okay to murder me if I wasn’t an apostle? I’ll remind you that your idiot over there challenged me first, I just decided to give my own a bit later on. I didn’t do anything to break the rules of your people’s duel, but you still decided to kill me. Don’t you all worship a warrior god? Is this an approved way to act? Honestly, I can only imagine what the fallout of this is going to be.”

“...What do you want?” He asked, defeat plain in his voice. He knew he was in the other apostle's hand, he needed to act while doing his best to mitigate as much damage as he could.

Surprisingly though, Ben's request seemed mostly reasonable, at least it sounded so to him.

“A statue. Specifically, I’m going to bring one of my god to the church to be displayed. There’s going to be a few rules obviously, you lot are in charge of taking care of it and ensuring it’s in peak condition at all times, it’s to be treated with as much dignity and respect as if it was your actual god in front of you instead of just the figure of mine. If anyone asks about it you and the other priests of the church are to explain who it is and share the good word. You will only talk about him in a positive light, I’ll have some notes brought over when the statue is ready but Myriad will be keeping an eye on you all so if any of you are talking shit he’ll know and act on it. Finally, if anything happens to damage it, your church will be on the line to pay five times its cost to the church of Myriad. The remains of the statue will be gathered and returned to the church and the statue will be replaced at our earliest convenience, with the same rules in place for the new one. I’m going to be very clear about this too. We won’t be keeping what happened here a secret, but we won't demand any sort of punishment for you or Eneth from the other gods, understood?”

As they were at the first church of their god in the world, the location was a major source of faith for Eneth. To let a statue of a foreign god be present was a lot to ask considering such a thing could cost his god some faith, but given the situation he’d created he didn’t have much choice. His thoughts were only broken by the screams of the two healers.

“Why is nothing working!”

“We can’t close the wounds!”

“I just need some time to talk about this with my god,” He begged, getting to his knees. “Please wait until Ather is healed.”

He looked down on the apostle before him, seeing nothing but a cornered man. “No, but as a service I know why your healers aren’t having much luck. Swear to Eneth as the head of his faith, you will agree to my terms and you might just be able to save him.”

“...Fine, I Felth, apostle of the great god Eneth, swear to you that your statue will be displayed following your terms. Now please help him.”

Sure,” He took down his barrier, walking past the horrified priests who had so confidently pointed their spears to him just moments before and reached down to pull out the knife.

“What are you doing!” One of the priests screamed as he saw it, a fact Ben brushed off.

“Well first, this is my knife I’m not leaving it behind; but second, I get that you guys left it in to not have to worry about any more blood loss, but by now everything it touched should be thoroughly cooked and it has a healing suppression effect on it which is why you all aren’t having any luck, I’d grab a few more healers if I were you but for the time being try again.”

With that done he gave a halfhearted wave as he went on his way, not looking back as they dealt with the fallout as Myriad spoke in his mind.

With the little I used I’m pretty sure they’ll only disrupt his mana and vitality regen a tiny bit. As for the blood thinning, well if they close his wounds without taking them out then he might just end up a little anemic if he’s cut, he can deal with it, I only said I’d show why they weren’t having any luck healing him.

Hey, I probably would have done the same thing if he’d done anything that bad to Sonya or Falk or Steph or Will or you for that matter, if he could that is. Besides that, ‘all they’ll see is a statue of me’? You aren’t looking very deep in my mind, are you?

He asked as he felt his apostle’s plans explode across his mind.

Why Myriad, I’m basically just getting started.