Chapter 164
The silence he maintained was not merely an empty space, but a dark chamber where the seed of the bitterest truth finally found its voice.
In that calm stillness of waiting, beneath a sky that watched without expression, Theo's thoughts wandered toward the final core of all abnormalities.
The Second Heavenly Betrayal, with all the majestic drama of Aldraya's sacrifice, indeed had a mastermind far stranger and more fundamental than the betrayal itself.
It was true that the external trigger was Aldraya Kansh Que, the Mother of Angel, a figure known in other layers of reality as Silvia Cantika Putri.
Her immense love for Quil-Hasa, to the point of bearing the sins of all her siblings, was the outward reason why the twelve Highest Angels rebelled against the fate of the Most High, who could potentially die in the future.
It was an epic narrative, a touching tragedy of a celestial family.
However, Theo realized that a trigger is not a cause.
Behind the defiance of the Angels lay a fundamental flaw at the heart of their own reality.
The news whispered by Xavier after Aldraya's defeat—that Quil-Hasa would eventually be "consumed by her own emotions"—was not an empty prophecy.
It was a diagnosis for a divine illness.
The final truth that surfaced in Theo's mind was this.
'Quil-Hasa, the Creator, the source of all authority and light, is not perfect.'
In fact, she was not a singular, fully stable entity.
Quil-Hasa, in essence, was merely a girl.
A consciousness trapped in double roles far too heavy for her to bear.
As God as well as the Revered Goddess.
'From the beginning, Quil-Hasa restrained feelings that should have flowed like breath.
She loved all living beings with an intensity no one else had ever possessed, yet she sealed every overflow tightly out of fear of hurting her own creations.
One could say that she loved Aldraya, the Highest Angels, and the entire universe with an emotion that could destroy if released without control.'
Sssiiih!
'That restraint became shackles that accumulated over eras, preventing her from undergoing the cycle that should have preserved her sanity and balance.
Love that was never allowed to escape transformed into pressure that eroded her awareness, slowly pushing her toward the brink of madness.'
Hooooh!
'This was the anomaly that no one had ever known.'
Theo's silence deepened, like a well piercing through layers of reality.
The information settling in his mind was the final key, a truth that even Xavier XVII—the heir of heroism who defeated Aldraya—would never know.
It was an innate flaw of the Creator, a paradox that shattered from within.
All beings thought Quil-Hasa's absence after creating the thirteen Highest Angels was a mystery, a waiting for a grand moment of revelation.
They were wrong.
That absence was not strategy, but escape.
Fear.
Quil-Hasa, the girl trapped upon the throne of divinity, trembled at the thought of appearing before her most beautiful creations.
Not out of arrogance, but because her love was too vast, too blazing, too uncontrollable.
Imagine a sun that loves its planets so deeply that even its normal warmth is enough to burn them to nothing.
Such was Quil-Hasa.
Her love for Aldraya, for the twelve Angels, for every atom in existence, was a pure and overwhelming force.
And in her paralyzing fear—fear of hurting, of killing by accident, of destroying the beauty she had just birthed—she chose to hold it all back.
Every surge of affection, every whisper of pride, every desire to embrace, was locked away deep within her consciousness.
This was the most sublime form of self-torture.
Emotions that should have flowed, that should have been released bit by bit like a river nourishing a valley, were instead dammed into a churning ocean within herself.
The natural cycle of a Creator expressing love toward her creations was completely obstructed.
And that trapped ocean, without channels, without release, began to ferment.
The pressure did not explode outward but corroded inward.
Quil-Hasa's consciousness, isolated in her silent throne, was driven "madder and madder" by the flood of unshed affection.
Madness was not hatred but love turned into illness.
The unrest, anxiety, and unending fear weakened the foundation of her will, obscured her judgment, and created metaphysical cracks through which poisons like Sacci's influence on Equinox could seep.
'I will never describe what that love looks like, nor how it flows within Quil-Hasa.
There is a reason why such feelings must never be explained, even to those who claim to understand the history of the Codices.'
Fhhh!
'What is certain is that the force was enough to make Quil-Hasa wary of herself.
She feared that a single pulse of her emotions could wound every creation born from her being, including the thirteen Highest Angels who carried fragments of her Essence.'
Hiiih!
'When the time comes in the second arc, episode six, the world will understand why Quil-Hasa stands as a mid-level boss.'
Theo exhaled slowly, a breath bearing knowledge almost too sacred to remember, let alone speak aloud.
He was reluctant—deeply reluctant—to define the nature of the "love" that haunted Quil-Hasa.
Not because he didn't know, but because he understood completely how much that concept had warped into something extraordinarily dangerous in the context of the Creator.
It was no longer nurturing love, but a gravitational pull capable of destroying planets, a nuclear fusion happening far too close to tissue paper.
What could be stated with certainty was that Quil-Hasa's feelings toward her creations—especially the thirteen Highest Angels formed from her own essence—were consumptive and permeating.
Not in an evil sense, but in the most literal and metaphorical sense.
Her love was not merely a desire to protect, but an almost irresistible instinct to reabsorb, to draw back the fragments of herself she had granted separate form and consciousness.
Every glance toward Aldraya, every attention toward Michael or Raziel, could trigger a wave of desire to merge them back into herself, to erase the pain of separation in a way that would annihilate their individuality and existence.
That was what made her tremble with vigilance.
The awareness that her most sincere affection, if unleashed, would essentially be a final dissolution—a form of extinction through inevitable reunion.
That final information, tied to the future, ticked like a clock inside Theo's mind.
All of this—Quil-Hasa's internal torment, her repressed emotional instability, her paralyzing fear—was not the end of the story.
It was preparation.
It was the fundamental reason why, in the second arc, episode six, Quil-Hasa would intervene not as a helping deity, but as a mid-level boss who must be defeated.
Theo pictured the scene again.
The Creator, her consciousness eroded by an ocean of love turned toxic and perhaps tainted by outside influence, finally reached the peak of instability.
She would not appear as a villain, but as a divine natural disaster, a storm of sorrow and yearning for unity manifesting as a cosmic battle.
'Five thirty. Morning light begins to rise and reveal whatever was once hidden.
If my eyes can see it clearly from here, then she can detect even the slightest change if I become careless.'
Exhausted after hours of whispering cosmic secrets to the night wind, Theo fell silent.
To be continued…