Chapter 168
Whhhhh!
"There is a request so heavy that my hands tremble to speak it."
Hhhh – hhhh!
"Please… cancel the erasure of my name from the cosmic record, and annul my punishment.
Allow me to return as a part of the universe's memory that once belonged to me."
The false heavenly sky rumbled in silence.
Aldraya, the former Bearer of the First Light, bowed deeply, letting her body—like a sculpture carved from granite—curve before the unfathomable presence.
Her movement was no longer the rigid gesture of a wounded angel, but a repentance shaped by thousands of years of exile.
She released words of reverence, sentences formed from the dust of memory of divine etiquette, expressing gratitude that sounded like a lamentation for being permitted this audience.
The space around her absorbed every syllable; the golden mist stopped pulsing for a moment, as though her own crafted realm held its breath before the origin of all light.
The Avatar, a constantly shifting figure upon the high seat, remained silent with its back turned.
No answer, no nod, only a vast vibration of awareness listening, receiving every ripple of her voice the way the earth receives rain.
In that oppressive silence, Aldraya finally voiced her request.
Her flat voice cracked, fracturing into fragile, stuttering echoes.
The request was simple in essence, yet it contained the entire weight of regret and longing buried across eons.
She asked for her name—already erased from the cosmic record—to be restored.
She begged for her punishment, the eternal exile from the universe's memory, to be revoked.
Not the throne, not power, not the restitution of her former glory.
Only the acknowledgment that she had once existed, that her sacrifice—however flawed in origin—had left a mark worthy of being etched in the narrative of time.
Every word felt like scorching embers spoken aloud, burning the air thick with divine presence, leaving traces of despair sensed even by Theo, hiding far behind the thickets.
"Explain your reason for making that request.
And what necessity binds Me to forgive and revoke the punishment that has been decreed."
Emmmh!
Prrrrk!!
"I beg because it is my right as one of the Highest Angels.
During my time in the mortal world, I lived life after life.
Not one of them brought me true peace or genuine happiness.
And not a single scenario could make me whole again except serving You."
Fhhhh!
"From there I realized that my loyalty to You is the only thing capable of holding my subconscious together and allowing me to breathe properly once more."
The silence that followed Aldraya's request felt thicker than the golden mist enveloping the trees.
The figure upon the high seat still did not move, its shimmering, unstable form seemingly weighing every atom of the words that had been spoken.
Then, without warning, a question echoed—not through the ears, but directly into the consciousness of every entity present in that space, including Theo in hiding.
Its voice was a pure vibration that stripped away all falsehood, questioning the true reason behind the request, and something deeper.
The reason why Quil-Hasa must forgive.
It was not jealousy nor wrath, but a cold inquiry of the highest cosmic law, demanding a justification capable of stirring a heart that could not be moved.
Seeing the Avatar's silence as a challenge, Aldraya's bowed body slowly straightened.
Her left hand clenched tightly, veins beneath her pale skin straining like steel cables, while her right hand hung open and weak at her side—a contrast between tension and surrender.
From her lips, usually sealed rigidly, flowed her self-defense filled with the fire of long-contained conviction.
Her voice, still measured, began to sound layered with echoes of suppressed emotion.
She spoke of rights, of the claim inherent to her as one of the first of the Highest Angels.
Then she described an unimaginable stretch of time—lifetimes lived like a wheel endlessly turning in the mortal world, one cycle of suffering after another, an existential prison endured for a redemption that never came.
Yet amidst the bitterness of her narrative, came a confession that felt like an open wound.
Aldraya declared, with a trembling voice she could barely contain, that in all her lives, through all the misery she faced, not a single moment of true happiness, not a fragment of peace had ever touched her wounded soul.
The only glimmer of joy, the only remedy that had ever lifted her from the abyss of despair, was when she could devote herself entirely to Quil-Hasa.
That loyalty, she claimed, was not mere duty or doctrine, but the only medicine that had ever worked for her tormented spirit.
'Never before have I felt a silence so alive, as if the entire universe held back its words to make room for this moment.'
The false green heavenly field froze in a stillness deeper than the word "silence."
All sounds died instantly, as though the realm itself held its collective breath.
The tall trees with golden-shimmering leaves stopped swaying, frozen in their last positions, forming a living painting—static yet full of tension.
The thick bushes where Theo Vkytor hid fell quiet, and every blade of grass glowing from within seemed to crystallize.
The divine heartbeat that had filled the air with a deep and rhythmic pulse suddenly ceased, leaving a ringing void behind.
Only the cosmic pressure of the Avatar remained—a voiceless weight growing heavier and heavier, crushing every inch of space and soul present.
Aldraya stood rigid in the center of that silent arena, her body like a forgotten statue.
Her hands remained in their positions—one clenched with fragile conviction, the other open in a false gesture of surrender.
But she did not move.
Her eyes, usually as cold as eternal ice, were perhaps fixed on the figure seated with its back turned, yet the Avatar remained an ever-shifting enigma.
No verbal response, no nod, no wave of emotion radiated outward.
Only His boundless presence—silent, contemplative, weighing everything with a scale of time and wisdom unreachable to any being.
Quil-Hasa's silence was not an empty silence, but a profound investigation, a judgment occurring within an eternity compressed into a few moments.
Theo, from behind the unmoving thicket, felt a strange cold crawl up his spine.
His disguise and hundreds of hours of virtual training had never prepared him for a stillness like this.
This was the most active form of silence—a void overflowing with devastating meaning.
Each passing second felt like a century, stretched by the absence of the realm's heartbeat and by the lack of movement from the two entities in the field.
He could sense a battle of will and cosmic deliberation taking place without a single word, a high-tier conversation woven solely from vibrations of consciousness and waves of intent.
"All my experiences in the mortal world were my way of atoning and testing myself, so that as one of the Highest Angels, my devotion to You could become whole again.
Aside from that, the will—"
"So your loyalty functions like the strongest elixir, able to stabilize or alter the turbulence of your soul each time you cross into a different world?"
Time crawled slowly, like honey thickened under the pull of an unseen gravity.
Each passing second added a new layer to the almost solid silence.
To be continued…