Chapter 534
Cracks.
Not small cracks like those left behind by tree roots searching for water, but enormous ones, deep fissures stretching wider and wider like the gaping mouth of a giant that had not eaten for thousands of years. From those cracks, from the yawning chasms between the marble pillars and the columns of atonement, an earthquake erupted. It was unlike any ordinary earthquake, for it shook not only the ground but also the air, not only the body but also consciousness itself.
"W-What... what's happening?!" cried the right hand. Its shorter body swayed from side to side like a spinning top on the verge of collapsing. Both of its hands were raised in a desperate attempt to maintain balance, its long claws digging into empty air because there was no stable ground left to grasp.
"No, this isn't magic! Not magic at all! This... this is a true awakening!"
The left hand did not answer.
It was far too occupied trying to steady itself. Its long legs were forced apart like the arms of a compass whose hinge was about to snap. Its neatly tied black hair gradually came undone, strand after strand falling over its face like a torn curtain. Reflected in its gray eyes, which were no longer black because it had witnessed something no god should ever behold, was the image of Aldraya floating above with thirteen wings that continued to pulse, to bloom, and to shine like a sun that would never set.
"W-We have to stabilize ourselves!" shouted the youngest assistant. The voice that was usually filled with poisonous whispers now sounded different, louder, sharper, more like the cry of someone screaming in the middle of a raging storm out of fear that no one would hear them.
"Don't let yourselves fall! Don't let yourselves slip into those cracks! If you fall in there, you'll never be able to return! Not because the fissures are deep, but because at the bottom of those cracks, the very concept of 'return' no longer exists!"
The left hand and the right hand nodded in unison.
Not because they understood, but because they had no choice except to trust the assistant, whose face had now transformed into that of a small child with eyes far too large for its skull, a child who was crying without tears because it had cried so many times that none remained.
The two of them concentrated every last fragment of their Authority, the remnants of Sa left after their prolonged battle against the unyielding Aldraya, to stabilize themselves. The left hand drove its claws into the air like nails hammered into an invisible wall, while the right hand spun faster and faster like a top whirling across an uneven surface that somehow refused to fall.
"W-We did it," the right hand said after several seconds that felt like several hours. Its breathing came in ragged, uneven gasps like someone who had just fled from a pursuer they had never actually seen.
"We didn't fall. We didn't slip into the cracks. We're still... here."
But the youngest assistant gave no reply.
It paid no attention to the right hand's words because its eyes, which had until now been fixed on the fractured ground, the groaning marble pillars, and the columns of atonement slowly tilting to the left, were now raised upward toward Aldraya, who still floated above with her thirteen endlessly pulsing wings.
Within its eyes, now bearing Aldraya's own face as a perfect copy that no longer resembled mockery because it no longer dared to mock, was reflected something it had never seen before.
Not light.
Not wings.
Not dazzling beauty.
But something far more terrifying, far deeper, something no logic, no Sa, and no Authority could ever explain.
"Look," whispered the assistant. The voice emerged not from its mouth but from its entire body, from every pore, from every crack within its consciousness that had begun to show signs of surrender.
"Look at her. Look at Aldraya. And tell me... what do you see?"
The left hand and the right hand slowly raised their heads, far too slowly, like someone looking toward the heavens to witness a meteor shower that might never come. When their eyes met the figure of Aldraya floating high above with her thirteen wings fully spread, her silver-white hair flowing in the air, and her unblinking gaze fixed upon them, they saw.
Not Aldraya.
Not the former Highest Angel.
Not Silvia Cantika Putri, known as the Matriarch or the Mother of Angels.
They saw twelve shadows standing behind Aldraya, twelve indistinct yet undeniable silhouettes. Twelve figures stood behind her with their hands raised, their wings spread wide, and their unblinking eyes fixed ahead. They were the other twelve Highest Angels, the twelve siblings she had never hated even after choosing to defect from Quil-Hasa, the twelve Authorities now united in one voice, one resolve, and one awakening.
"Equinox... King of Lucifer," Aldraya declared. Her voice was no longer alone. Behind her, twelve voices echoed like a choir that had practiced for thousands of years to sing a single note, a single harmony that no god could ever imitate.
"Maintain the balance of the Realm of Hell."
Hhhh!!
"Ahael... Michael," Aldraya continued. Behind her, the second shadow nodded, its silver-white wings fluttering gently as though reminding itself to remain ever vigilant.
"Preserve the stability of every universe box."
Shooh!!
"Rearomh... Gabriel," and the shorter right hand felt an unbearable weight pressing against its chest, not pain but heaviness, as though the entire universe had been placed upon it. It knew those names were far more than mere names. They were Authorities. They were the very foundations of everything it had ever known as reality.
"Deliver the Revelation to the faithful."
Fhuuuh!!
"Intercessor... Sandalphon," and the left hand, whose black hair had now completely come undone and cascaded over its shoulders like an endless waterfall, felt its knees weaken. Not from fear, but from reverence, a reverence it had never felt toward anyone since the day it was created. It was born from the realization that it now stood before something greater than itself, greater than its master, greater than the Land of the Gods itself.
"Carry all prayers into the Divine Presence."
The youngest assistant, whose face now changed every passing second, from Aldraya's face to Theo's, from Theo's to the youngest assistant's, from the youngest assistant's to that of a six-year-old boy with eyes far too empty for someone his age, tried to step backward. Yet its legs refused to move. It could not walk. It could not flee from the voices that continued to echo from above, voices that called one name after another, one Authority after another, one awakening after another.
"Warsh... Metatron," and the ground beneath the assistant's feet split even wider and deeper, like the gaping jaws of a giant preparing to swallow something unworthy of standing upon its surface.
"Ensure that the Realm of Resurrection continues to endure."
Haah!!
"Anity... Raziel," and the cracked columns of atonement slowly straightened once again, not by their own will but under the overwhelming pressure descending from above, a pressure that compelled them to bow in reverence, to obey, and to acknowledge an Authority greater than that of any god.
"Safeguard the center of all knowledge."
To be continued…