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The mountain rose from the plains like a divine judgment made stone, a solitary peak that seemed to pierce the very heavens. Wren stood at its base, concealed within a grove of ancient, gnarled trees, and looked up at the temple that crowned its summit. Even from this distance, she could see the white marble walls gleaming in the late afternoon sun. Towers reached toward the sky with pointed accusation, their spires sharp against the blue. The entire structure radiated a consecrated energy in palpable waves, a constant pressure of sanctity that made her skin prickle uncomfortably and the air taste of ozone and prayer. It was beautiful, in its way; a monument to absolute certainty and uncompromising moral rigidity. It was everything she found simultaneously fascinating and repulsive about mortal faith.

The main path to the summit was a wide, well-maintained road designed to accommodate pilgrim traffic. It was far too exposed for her purposes. Instead, Wren circled the mountain's base, her movements silent and fluid as she searched for the alternate approach she had identified in her research. She found it on the rugged eastern slope, where a series of ancient rockslides had created a natural, treacherous climbing route, partially hidden by scrub vegetation and hardy mountain pines. It was difficult, but demons excelled at the difficult. She settled into a concealed position among the rocks to wait for nightfall, using the remaining hours of daylight to study the temple's visible defenses.

Guard towers, their buttresses carved in the shape of praying hands, stood at regular intervals along the high walls. Through a small scrying crystal, she could make out the minute figures of knights moving along the battlements, their silver armor catching the fading light. The main gates were already closed despite the early hour, which was unusual for a religious site that supposedly welcomed pilgrims. This confirmed the merchants' gossip about a heightened alert status.

As the sun descended, painting the sky in fiery streaks of orange and purple, the temple’s magical defenses became visible to her enhanced sight. Layers of shimmering divine wards pulsed around the perimeter, a near-impenetrable shield of consecrated energy designed to detect and violently repel any demonic presence. Getting through them would require perfect timing and absolute precision with her prepared counter-charms. An unexpected meteor shower began to streak across the darkening sky, a rare celestial event. It was a perfect distraction, a welcome complication that would draw the guards' eyes upward and mask any minor disturbances she might create below.

Full darkness fell, a deep, moonless black. Wren waited an additional hour, allowing the mortal world to settle into its deepest slumber. Then, she began her ascent.

The climb was treacherous even with her supernatural agility. Loose rock shifted under her hands, threatening to send a cascade of debris down the slope. She moved with patient, deliberate care, testing each handhold before trusting her weight to it. A single mistake could send her tumbling or, worse, trigger a magical alarm before she even reached the walls.

An hour of tense climbing brought her to a narrow ledge that ran along the base of the temple's eastern wall. She crouched there, catching her breath and studying the protective fields up close. They pulsed with a complex, synchronized rhythm, each shimmering layer slightly out of phase with the others. It was beautiful work, she had to admit. The knights’ ward-crafters knew their trade.

She pulled out the first of her counter-charms, a small, black crystal charged with negation magic. Holding it carefully, she timed the pulse patterns until she found a fractional gap where two layers briefly thinned. The moment arrived. She pressed the crystal against the ward and released its stored energy. The shimmering field flickered violently but held. Wren cursed silently and tried again with a second, more powerful crystal. This time, a small section of the ward dimmed, creating a shimmering, distorted gap just large enough for her to slip through if she moved immediately.

She dove forward, feeling the consecrated energy singe her skin like boiling water as she passed through the outer layer. The sensation was excruciating, and her pain receptors screamed in protest. She bit down hard on a scream and kept moving, already activating the next counter-charm for the second layer. This one resisted more fiercely, shattering the charm after it created only a partial gap. Wren had to contort her body to squeeze through, feeling the ward burn like holy fire across her left shoulder. The scent of her own scorched flesh filled her nostrils, but she refused to make a sound.

Three more layers to bypass. Three more chances to trigger a full alarm or burn herself too badly to continue. The third layer yielded more easily, responding to a charm specifically crafted to counter this particular frequency of divine magic. The fourth required two charms working in sequence. The fifth and final layer was the strongest. It pulsed with a concentrated energy that hurt just to be near. She used her last three charms in rapid succession, layering their effects until finally, blessedly, a gap appeared.

She threw herself through and landed hard on the cold stone walkway behind the wall, gasping for breath. Her shoulder throbbed with agony. A lesser demon would have been crippled. She was merely in significant pain. Worth it, she told herself, rising carefully. Power always costs.

Now she stood within the temple’s outer perimeter. Before her stretched perfectly maintained gardens and courtyards, sickeningly pure in their design. In the distance, the main temple building, a massive structure of white marble, seemed to glow from within. This infiltration was more than a simple theft; it was a statement of her superiority. The weight of her ambition settled on her, a familiar and welcome pressure. She activated a concealment charm and moved into the very heart of the enemy's fortress. The sacrilege had begun, and the anticipation was intoxicating.