Chapter 237: New Covenant Cathedral
In the Beginning
They say there was once a void.
Not darkness. Not chaos.
Just… absence.
No stars. No laws. No shape to reality.
And then—he spoke.
A whisper that wasn't made of sound.
A will that didn't come from any god.
A breath that became everything.
And that breath had a name.
Adam.
He didn't come from the void. He wasn't born from it.
He ended it.
He was first—before time, before space, before even the meaning of those things.
From his thoughts came gravity. From his heart came flame. From his hands came soul.
He was the one who shattered the silence and gave shape to the multiverse.
He didn't ask for worship.
He didn't demand it.
But creation remembered.
And so began the doctrine of the Omnicron Flame.
New Covenant Cathedral – Morning Service
Sector 21, Reconstructed City of Uralith
The stained-glass windows shimmered with moving images. They didn't show saints. They showed memories.
Adam standing at the edge of a dying star.
Adam shielding a city from falling space.
Adam—alone—tearing a god apart with his bare hands.
Each image glowed faintly with captured essence, infused into the glass with spells so old they were no longer legal.
The pews were full. Dozens of people sat, young and old, all facing the altar.
A minister stood at the podium. Robes black and silver. His voice calm, low, steady—like the tide.
He wasn't a performer.
He was a reminder.
"Let us return to the Verse of Awakening," he said, flipping to a page in the sacred tome.
His hand hovered over the gold-lined scripture. The lights above flickered in reverence.
"'When Adam first laid his feet upon the silent world, there was no shape. No breath. No song. He did not create it to be praised. He created it to be free.'"
Some of the crowd whispered it with him.
The minister looked up. His eyes scanned the crowd.
"Do you know what that means, children of Flame?"
Silence. Then he answered himself.
"It means choice was born before kings. Before angels. Before gods. Choice came from the first one—who walked alone."
He raised a hand and pointed toward the tallest stained-glass image: Adam surrounded by beings of light and shadow, all kneeling before him.
"But power does not make him divine. His restraint does. His silence. His rejection of the thrones he crushed. The worlds he could have ruled."
The people watched, unmoving. Listening.
A child near the front whispered to her mother, "Is he really still alive?"
The minister heard.
He smiled softly.
"My dear," he said, kneeling a little, "he's more than alive."
He stood again, turning to the full crowd.
"He walks the threads of the multiverse. He sees what the gods ignore. He fixes the cracks we cannot see. And he does it without being asked."
The minister paused.
His tone dropped, like thunder under velvet.
"That… is not mercy. That… is will."
The room held its breath.
He stepped forward again.
"Remember: he did not come with thunder. He came with silence. He did not demand temples. He watched as they were built. He never called himself savior. But when the world burned—he stepped through the flames."
He turned, raising his hand toward a circular device behind the altar.
With a low hum, it flickered to life—projecting a 3D image above the pulpit.
Footage.
Real.
From the earliest breach incident during the Rift Tear.
In it—Adam stood before a collapsing city. Debris everywhere. Beasts of chaos flooding the streets. Humans screaming. Supernaturals torn in half.
And then—
He walked in.
No armor.
No army.
Just him.
He looked up at the monster swallowing the sky.
Then he raised a hand.
And erased it.
Not with light.
Not with magic.
He simply spoke.
The beast unraveled like string pulled from a wound. The sky closed. The city went silent.
And Adam… just walked away.
Back in the cathedral, the footage ended.
The minister let the silence hang.
Then he said, "There are forces that wear crowns. That shout their power. That flash their divinity like ornaments. But Adam… doesn't need to."
A woman in the third row raised her hand. Nervous. Shaking. "Why doesn't he speak to us?"
The minister nodded slowly. Like he had heard that question a thousand times.
"He speaks," he said softly. "Just not with words. The healed know it. The spared feel it. Those who tried to take his throne…"
He looked down for a moment.
"They're no longer here to speak at all."
He turned to the scripture again. A different page now.
"'The Flame does not burn to be feared. It burns to warn. Those who listen are spared. Those who test it… are reminded.'"
He closed the book with a soft thump.
Then stepped away from the podium.
"Today, we do not kneel because he demands it. We kneel to remember what walks with us unseen."
He looked out again.
"And when he returns—because one day, he will—it will not be with trumpets or a choir. It will be quiet. The kind of quiet that comes before storms."
A heavy pause.
"Until then… we remain watchful. We remain just. We remain free."
He stepped down.
The choir stood.
But they didn't sing a song.
They chanted.
Soft.
Rhythmic.
Like waves.
"From Flame, we rise. From Flame, we fall. In his shadow, we burn… and in his will, we breathe."
A Beach Somewhere Else
Adam stood near the edge of the water now.
The sun was lower.
The sky slowly bleeding into amber.
He had heard it.
The sermon.
The chant.
Not with ears.
With something deeper.
He closed his eyes.
The breeze pulled gently at his coat. His feet buried into the warm sand.
"Alfred has played another stunt again, when did I do all those things."
Authors Note
This is the end of volume two, the next volume is going to be in a modern superhero setting and that's where I will introduce Adam's Shadow.