Chapter 493
"They are like shadows of shadows," Mammon murmured one day, staring at one of the Sinners floating before him with a body that was nearly transparent, nearly weightless, nearly unreal.
And the Sinner answered, its voice sounding like wind slipping through the crack of a door that had never truly been closed.
"We are those who have undergone rituals of purification until our entire physiology was declared nonexistent. We emerged from Hell—not because we fled, but because there was nothing left within us that could still be burned there. We are empty. Hollow. We are nothingness that learned how to walk."
Asherah, upon hearing that, immediately fell silent, her eyes—usually overflowing with curiosity—suddenly turning sorrowful.
"So you are not from us," she said, more as a statement than a question.
"That is correct," the Sinners replied.
"But we were born from your sister's sweat—from the Rebel whose feet never stopped moving. And because of that, we owe our existence to all of you. Even though existence itself is a debt we never asked for."
Lilith, who overheard the conversation from afar at the time, could only let out a long sigh.
"So now we are not merely creating one race we never asked for," she whispered, her voice carrying a tone difficult to interpret—whether it was laughter, despair, or something entirely new.
"The Disturbers gave birth to the Rebels. The Rebels, through the sweat of their feet, gave birth to the Sinners. And now I wonder… what will be born from the Sinners? Or from whatever comes after them?"
Fwoosh!
Just when Lilith thought the strangeness had already reached its limit—that the Rebels and Sinners were more than enough to make her head throb for an entire century—the memory of another event resurfaced, of something else that had once begun moving from within her own body.
Not from behind her back, not from sweat falling onto the ground, but from residue.
From the hollow spaces within her stomach that she had never realized contained anything at all, from the sediments that had accumulated over thousands of years of her existence as a residue of the Nothingness, emerged creatures unlike any before them.
They were not born quietly like the Rebels.
They were not born vaguely like the Sinners.
They were born laughing—a laughter bursting from Lilith's stomach like something that had long been buried beneath the deepest layers of her boredom.
"What is it this time?" Ashmedai complained from afar back then, his tone filled with exhaustion—an emotion that, for a being like him, was rare, almost luxurious.
Lilith lowered her head, staring at the small creatures emerging one by one from her navel.
And for the first time in the long history of her existence, she felt disgusted with herself.
"Name yourselves," she commanded, her voice cold like ice that had remained frozen for thousands of years.
And the creatures answered in unison, their voices not echoing, yet still far too loud for the fragile space surrounding them:
"We are the Deceivers. And we were born from the remnants you never discarded, Lilith HaRish'a. From ideas you never expected to exist. From concepts you kept buried in your stomach because you were too lazy to think about them."
Lilith clenched her fists, but there was nothing she could do except stare—because the Deceivers, from their very first breath, already possessed something that was the most fundamental nature of the Disturbers.
The ability to destroy order without leaving traces behind, to corrupt grand concepts down to their roots, to erase something as though it had never existed in the first place.
"We are not ordinary liars," said one of the Deceivers, whose body lacked any fixed form, yet whose eyes—those eyes saw things no creature should ever be capable of seeing.
"We are lies that became real. When we speak, we do not merely deceive the ears that hear us. We deceive reality itself. We whisper falsehoods into the pores of the universe, and the universe—foolish and obedient as always—accepts them as truth."
It smiled, and it was the most spine-chilling smile Lilith had ever seen—even though Lilith herself possessed no spine to chill.
"Do you know what is most fascinating? We do not need reasons to lie. We lie because that is what we are. And when we lie about destruction, that destruction truly happens. Not physical destruction—that is too primitive. But the destruction of concepts. We can make 'love' become something no one has ever known. We can make 'truth' into a meaningless word. We can erase the very foundation of the universe with a single sentence that was never true from the very beginning."
Mammon, hearing that, immediately cried out, his voice carrying a panic he rarely displayed.
"Lilith, you must do something. These creatures are more dangerous than anything we have ever imagined."
But Lilith remained silent, her single eye staring at the Deceivers with an unreadable gaze—whether it was fear, admiration, or acknowledgment that she, the Troublemaker herself, had finally discovered something too wild to control.
"Let them be," Lilith finally answered, her voice flat—too flat, like the surface of a lake concealing an abyss beneath it.
Then, from another kind of residue—not from the stomach, but from around the chest of each Troublemaker, from the place where a heart should have beaten had they possessed hearts—emerged the fourth race.
They did not laugh like the Deceivers.
They did not whisper like the Rebels.
They did not float like the Sinners.
They simply stood there.
Upright.
Silent.
With eyes that never blinked and lips that never opened unless speaking was truly necessary.
"Who are you?" Rahab asked at the time, and her voice, usually filled with hatred toward all living things, now sounded cautious—like someone realizing that what stood before them could not be fought with anger.
"The Hypocrites," one of them answered, its voice no louder than a whisper yet still perfectly clear, like a knife deliberately scraping against glass.
"We are the accursed race. Not because we were cursed by anyone. But because we chose not to follow the laws of God Quil-Hasa—the God acknowledged by the twelve Archangels as the creator of all that is obedient."
Lilith frowned.
"God Quil-Hasa? I have never heard Matriarch mention that name."
"Because Matriarch never truly knew Him," the Hypocrite answered, and for the first time, there was something resembling pity within its eyes—even though pity was an emotion that should not belong to creatures born from the remnants of a Troublemaker's chest.
"She only knew His laws. But she never asked why those laws existed. We, on the other hand, questioned them. And because we questioned them, we chose not to follow. Not because we hate those laws. Not because we wish to destroy them like our Deceiver brethren. But because… we are tired. Tired of the same narrow bridge path walked by everyone else, while the river beneath it is vast, deep, and promises something that can never be discovered by those who only walk straight ahead."
Baal-Zevul, hearing that from his hiding place on Earth, interrupted with a voice that sounded almost angry.
"You sound just like the Rebels. What makes you any different from them?"
And the Hypocrite smiled—the strangest smile imaginable, because it revealed nothing at all.
Not happiness, not sadness, not satisfaction, not disappointment.
It simply existed, like a smile carved upon a nameless gravestone.
To be continued…