Chapter 532
One of the Sinners, whose laughter always echoed like a thousand panes of glass shattering from the same height, whose sins could never be counted because even he had forgotten which acts were sins and which were merely ordinary foolishness, raised both of his hands toward the sky. For a brief moment, he felt like a child waiting for rain during the dry season, waiting for something that might never come, yet continuing to wait because there was nothing else more worthy of waiting for.
"I have committed countless sins," the Sinners said, and his voice was no longer filled with laughter, but with surrender, a surrender born not from exhaustion, but from acceptance, from the realization that while he could never change his past, he could still choose how to face his future.
"But today... today I want to commit one more sin. The greatest sin of them all. A sin that no god could ever forgive. I want to... believe. Believe that a young man with an empty stomach and eyes that are empty no longer can change everything. Believe that hope does not always end in disappointment. Believe that... perhaps... perhaps I deserve to be saved."
The moment the Sinners spoke those forbidden words, words he had never uttered since the very first time he had fallen into a sin he had never regretted, the POV screen witnessing everything from afar, from the space between pages of books that were never read twice, from the eyes of readers who never truly slept, slowly faded into darkness.
Aldraya lay flat on his back, not because he had chosen to rest amid the whirlwind of battle that still carried the scent of blood and the thickening presence of Sa in the air, but because his body, which had been forced to divide its consciousness into twelve parts by the right hand's "Sa: Segmentation," whose memories had been erased and recreated over and over by the youngest one's personal assistant through "Sa: Iteration," whose bones had been battered by the undeniable pillars of judgment created by the left hand's "Sa: Throne," had finally surrendered to the gravity that favored no one.
"I... can still hear," Aldraya whispered to himself, and his inner voice sounded like someone drowning while still able to see sunlight from the bottom of a murky pond, a light too faint to save him, yet bright enough to keep him from losing his way.
He closed both of his eyes, not because he was tired, but because he needed to gather every remaining fragment of consciousness to listen, to immerse himself in the tiny vibrations spreading through the fractured earth, through the trembling air, through the aura that blanketed the battlefield from afar.
And there, amid the noise of the three gods drawing ever closer, the left hand with neatly tied black hair, the right hand with the shorter body spinning like a top with a broken axle, and the youngest one's personal assistant whose face changed every thousand heartbeats, Aldraya heard other voices, voices that were deeper, heavier, and more rhythmic, like a war hymn sung by a thousand voices that had never rehearsed together, yet somehow achieved perfect harmony.
"Lilith... Asherah... Mammon... they're all moving," Aldraya murmured inwardly, and the corner of his lips, cracked from the previous assault, rose ever so slightly. It was not a smile, but something closer to certainty, like someone finally hearing good news after days of hearing nothing but despair.
"And the four factions... they're moving too. They're not fleeing. They're not hiding. They've chosen to fight."
The three gods, the left hand, the right hand, and the youngest one's personal assistant whose face now resembled that of a blind old woman, failed to notice what was happening inside Aldraya's mind. All they saw was a former Highest Angel lying helpless upon the ground, his silver-white garments torn in several places, his once-pristine hair now hopelessly disheveled, his breaths short and shallow like those of someone running out of time.
"Take him before the Master," the left hand said in a voice as emotionless as a gravestone. He stepped forward once, then twice, then a third time. Only a few meters remained between the tips of his long fingers and Aldraya's neck. Just a few more steps. Just a few more seconds.
"The Master will be pleased to have another sacrifice for the Inverted Crucifixion. Erietta Bathee may already be more than enough, but Aldraya Kansh Que... his name alone is enough to make the Twelve Highest Angels tremble."
The shorter right hand merely nodded. The meaningless smile remained upon his lips, but his eyes, which only moments ago had been as empty as glass marbles, now gleamed with something resembling excitement, a hollow excitement born solely from carrying out orders without ever asking whether those orders brought death or salvation.
"He won't resist anymore," the right hand added, and although his tone sounded certain, it was, in truth, hope, hope he had never acknowledged because he had never realized he possessed such a thing.
"His body is broken. His consciousness has been fragmented. He's only... waiting."
The youngest one's personal assistant, whose face had now transformed into Aldraya's own, a perfect copy with the same silver-white hair and the same unblinking eyes, yet with something different lurking behind the pupils, something older, hungrier, more impatient, slowly raised his right hand. His slender fingers curled into claws, ready to seize Aldraya's wrist and drag him before his master, who was still occupied confronting the Great Author with empty eyes.
"The Master will give him a beautiful gift," the assistant whispered, and unlike before, his whisper did not dissolve into the air. It tore through the air, shredding it into tiny fragments, each fragment carrying a single word.
"Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Unlike the pain felt by any other creature. A special pain. A pain that only the Master can bestow."
Yet just as the assistant's hand was about to touch Aldraya's wrist, when only a few centimeters separated those thin fingers from his silver-white skin, when both the left and right hands were already preparing to lift Aldraya from the ground and bring him before the youngest one, who was perhaps still preoccupied with the four symbols inside Theo's eye sockets, Aldraya opened his eyes.
Not both at once, but one after the other, with measured intervals, with a strange rhythm, like someone performing an ancient ritual that had never been written in any book because it was known only to those who had stood upon the threshold of death and chosen to return.
"My left eye... I shall keep closed," Aldraya whispered within his heart, and his left eye, which only moments ago had been wide open, still gazing toward the sunless sky of the Land of the Gods, now shut tightly, too tightly, like the gates of a fortress closing before an invading army.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. Four seconds. Throughout those four seconds, his right eye remained open. It neither blinked nor moved, nor did it show any sign that it was observing anything in the physical world. For in truth, he was no longer seeing with his eye. He was listening with his entire body, with every bone, with every remaining fragment of consciousness left after being shattered by "Sa: Segmentation," "Sa: Iteration," and "Sa: Throne."
He listened to Lilith raising her sword above her head. He listened to Asherah gently arranging her radiant hair. He listened to Mictlantecuhtli speaking of faith for the very first time. He listened to the voices of the four factions, the Rebels, the Hypocrites, the Liars, and the Sinners, opening their eyes one by one and realizing that they had never been blind. They had simply never found something worthy of seeing.
To be continued…