Chapter 188
She imagined Theo Vkytor's face if he were to hear her entire story.
Not a melodramatic expression of pity, nor a blaze of righteous fury.
Perhaps, after listening calmly while casually cleaning the blade of his sword, Theo would let out a thin sigh.
Not a sigh of sympathy, but the sigh of someone who had seen this pattern many times before.
"So, after all that," Theo would say in her imagination, his voice flat but not cold, "the best solution you can think of is to kill him?"
Aldraya realized, in this moment of clear reflection, that Theo would most likely not support her intention.
Not because Theo would defend Quil-Hasa—certainly not.
But because the intention itself was simply another form of enslavement.
By killing Quil-Hasa, Aldraya would still be acknowledging the Almighty as the center of her universe, as the source of the problem that had to be eliminated so she could feel relief.
Her life would still be defined by that figure, even if now it was powered by hatred rather than love.
Theo, who always spoke of freedom, would surely see that as just another chain.
"You're only changing masters, Aldraya," he might say.
"From a slave who loves, to a slave who hates. You're still obsessed with him. You're still not free."
On the other hand, Aldraya also sensed that Theo would not simply say "no."
Theo was not a moralist who saw the world in black and white.
He might nod, acknowledging the source of such deep anger.
"It's natural that you want to kill him," he might admit.
But that would be followed by a sharper, more piercing question.
"And then what? What will you do when that empty throne stares back at you?"
Will you sit upon it and become the new Quil-Hasa?
Will you create new slaves, because that's the only form of power you know?"
And finally, Aldraya reached a conclusion.
What Theo might support was not the act of killing itself, but the reason behind it.
If the killing were the final step toward complete liberation, toward severing the chains forever and then truly walking away to become someone new, perhaps Theo would nod in respect.
But if the killing were to become a new obsession, a vortex that consumed what remained of her identity, then Theo would refuse.
Theo supported journeys toward "meaning," not journeys toward blind revenge.
So the answer depended entirely on Aldraya herself.
Was killing Quil-Hasa an exit from the cage, or merely the act of moving the cage into her own heart?
In that silence, the question meant for Theo transformed into a question for herself.
And for the first time, she began to seek an answer that did not come from dogma, but from the freedom she had only just begun to glimpse.
'Vengeance against Him may remain lodged in my chest, settling like a poison long crystallized.
For that is a private matter between me and him.'
Hoooh!
'But if the motive that drives me back to my homeland is left unchecked, it would be like allowing a rotting corpse to fester among other bodies, destroying my home from within.'
Huaaah!
'I will not bring that decay home.'
Aldraya's body rose from the ground with a decisive motion, no longer trembling or hesitant.
Her wounded hands, still wet with blood, pressed firmly against the barren earth, becoming solid supports to lift the full weight of her body.
Dust and tiny grains of soil clung to her open wounds, yet the physical pain seemed to have transformed into fuel.
Her knees, once bent in humiliation, now straightened, bringing her body upright in a posture no longer of divine arrogance, but of a warrior who had chosen her purpose.
Her first step left a mark of blood upon the ground, but the steps that followed grew swift, steady, and full of momentum.
She walked as if chasing something long delayed, cutting through the silence of nature that still stood frozen, witnessing her transformation.
In the midst of her accelerating stride, her hands clenched once more.
Not with the blind fury from before, but with a cold, sharpened focus.
She now saw her hatred of the Almighty as a massive, rotting carcass, foul and all-consuming.
Yet there was another carcass—smaller, more concrete—rotting within the ruins of her home.
And that carcass was Ilux's insult.
To leave it untouched would be to allow that disease to decay alongside the rest, poisoning every corner of what remained of her dignity.
She would not allow that carcass to remain.
Her reason was now clear and sharp as a blade.
No longer about seeking the impossible recognition of Quil-Hasa, but about honor—or more precisely, retribution—for the only thing she still considered her own.
Her dogma.
Faith, piety, and betrayal.
Those three pillars may have led her into a cage, but they had also shaped who she was all along.
To hear Ilux mock them was not merely an attack on her beliefs, but a tearing apart of her life's history, trampling every night she had spent in the pavilion, in prayer and solitude.
It was an assault on the only certainty she had ever held, even if that certainty was false.
And for that, Ilux would pay.
She knew exactly what had to be done.
The intent to kill Quil-Hasa, though still burning in a corner of her soul, was postponed.
That was a greater war, one that required preparation.
But Ilux was a clear enemy—tangible, immediate, his words still echoing with pain.
Aldraya would kill him.
Not in a frenzy, but with the precision of an executioner carrying out a duty.
And before or after Ilux's life was extinguished, she would force him to retract every word of contempt directed at her dogma.
She wanted to hear the acknowledgment from Ilux's own mouth that Aldraya's faith, piety, and betrayal were not a joke, not something to be trampled upon.
That might be the only form of "recognition" she could obtain now, and she would seize it with blood.
Her steps grew faster, leaving behind trails of blood and resolve upon the barren land, moving toward a confrontation smaller in scale, yet one that might become the first foundation of her new life—one defined by violence and self-assertion.
"My steps must not slow."
Aldraya's pace quickened further, piercing the thick fog that cloaked the wasteland, as if even nature were reluctant to clearly reveal the form of what she was becoming.
The fog was not merely vapor, but something denser, more intimate, like an extension of the inner darkness beginning to boil within her.
Behind that pale gray veil, something alien began to seep from her body.
From the outer skin of her arms, legs, neck, and along the firm line of her jaw, something pitch-black began to evaporate.
Not like smoke, but more like a thick shadow-fluid, emerging from every pore in response to hatred, wounds, and a resolve for vengeance that had reached its boiling point.
The black substance did not drip, but coiled around parts of her body like slow, living smoke, dancing in chaotic patterns before merging with the surrounding fog, further thickening the oppressive gloom that accompanied her journey.
The fog, now mixed with the pitch-black emanation from Aldraya's body, began to live in its own way.
From within the rolling darkness, screams could occasionally be heard.
Not human screams, nor the howls of beasts, but distorted, agonized sounds, as though unseen entities—or echoes of the subconscious itself—were being tormented by her transformation.
The screams rang out briefly, shattering the silence, before sinking back into the hissing fog.
At times they sounded like severed cries of pain, at others like whispered curses heavy with vengeance.
To be continued…