Chapter 515
He let out a sigh, not one that came from his lungs, but from the place where he had stored every childhood disappointment, every mockery from his siblings, every birthday cake as hard as stone, every cold marble table, and every candle that lit itself without anyone ever saying a prayer for him.
"Interesting. Very interesting. It seems that today I will witness not just one death, but many deaths at once. But..."
He turned toward the open window of the great hall, looking east, toward the gate that, according to the messenger's report, was closer to their position than the western gate.
"You said that 'from the eastern gate' there is another individual approaching. A twenty-year-old human, yet the fluctuations of his energy do not resemble those of an ordinary Human Change. Explain."
The messenger trembled, not because of the cold, but because he knew that what he was about to say would please no one in this room. It would not please the youngest, who sat upon the throne with a faint smile that was slowly losing its subtlety. It would not please the Gods, who had begun exchanging glances with eyes that no longer shone with anticipation, but with something else, something disturbingly similar to concern, even though concern was an emotion they had never allowed themselves to feel because they were gods, because they were rulers, because they were executioners who were never supposed to fear their prey.
"I do not know how to describe it with words, Your Majesty," the messenger replied, his voice hoarse, as though he had only just awakened from a long sleep and still could not believe the world around him was real.
"All I know is... that individual does not radiate power like a god, nor like a demon, nor like an angel, nor like a Disturbers, nor like anything I have ever sensed during my thousands of years guarding the gates of the Land of the Gods. He is like... a hole. Not a hole that absorbs, not a hole that releases, but a hole that... does not care. He walks at an unhurried pace, with his hands in his pockets and his eyes half-closed as if struggling to stay awake. But behind him, Your Majesty... behind him, reality itself looks exhausted. Tiny cracks follow in his footsteps, not because he shatters reality, but because reality no longer has enough energy to remain whole in his presence."
"Impossible," said the God in the dark purple robe who had earlier reported the preparations for the Inverted Crucifixion. His voice had lost all of its clarity, turning into a hoarse whisper choked by something he refused to acknowledge as fear.
"A being we have never recorded in history, a hole walking on human legs, is more dangerous than any group of Disturbers. I will go to the eastern gate."
Yet before his words had even faded into the air, a Goddess with moss-green hair leaped forward from the line on the right, both fists clenched tightly against her chest. Her eyes burned no longer with anticipation, but with panic disguised as ambition.
"No, let me handle it. You are already occupied with the crucifixion pillars. Let me face... that hole."
She could not even finish her sentence without an unnaturally long pause between her words, because the word "hole" felt far too insignificant to describe something that left reality itself sighing in exhaustion behind its back.
From the line on the left, a god wearing a gray robe torn at the shoulder stepped forward so abruptly that he nearly collided with the moss-haired Goddess. His eyes did not blink, yet his pupils narrowed like the gap of a door slowly being closed by an invisible wind.
"I am the oldest among you," he said, his voice as heavy as a gravestone freshly lifted from a grave that had forgotten who lay buried within it.
"I have witnessed a thousand anomalies across a thousand ages, and I tell you this: the young man from the eastern gate cannot be confronted by anyone who still carries fear in their heart. He will not punish fear... he will ignore it, and that is more terrifying than any punishment imaginable. Let me go."
But his voice was swallowed by the growing commotion that shattered the unity of the hall, by robes fluttering in different directions, by eyes no longer fixed upon the youngest but divided between two equally powerful magnets: the western gate with fourteen Disturbers and five walking corpses, and the eastern gate with a single hole that simply did not care.
The youngest observed the small conflict unfolding before him with the same faint smile that had never once disappeared. Yet within his mind, in the deepest chamber where he preserved every memory of birthday cakes as hard as stone and cold marble tables, something stirred.
It was not anger.
It was not concern.
It was something older, colder, something far closer to a long-buried disgust toward imperfection.
The Gods who had laughed together that very morning while imagining the suffering of a girl who did not even know she was about to die were now arguing like children fighting over the last toy in a store that was about to close forever. Their voices rose and fell in turns. Dark purple robes collided with moss-green robes. Torn gray robes were shoved aside by blood-red robes that had only just emerged from the back of the assembly.
"You are not strong enough to face that hole!" one of them shouted.
"And you're too foolish to recognize the real threat!" another snapped back.
"The real threat is the Disturbers bringing back the five corpses we already killed!" screamed the moss-haired Goddess, and for the first time her gentle voice became as shrill as glass scraped by a rusted nail.
"No, no, all of you are blind!" interrupted the God in the blood-red robe.
"The most terrifying threat is neither from the east nor the west, but from within! From those among us who have already begun trembling before the battle has even started!"
And suddenly, the magnificent hall transformed into a chaotic marketplace, into an arena where the gods who claimed to stand above humans, demons, and angels alike lost every shred of dignity they had left. They forgot that they stood before the youngest, who remained seated upon his throne, his slender fingers pulsing in rhythm with a heartbeat that was far too slow, far too patient, far too dangerous.
Then the youngest raised one of his fingers, not high, not dramatically, not like a king silencing disorder by striking his sword against the floor, but only to the level of his head, to the level of his eyes, eyes that no longer reflected anything except a strange weariness, a weariness born from watching the very beings who were meant to be extensions of his own will behave more chaotically than the enemies approaching from beyond.
And the moment that finger rose, the atmosphere within the hall changed.
It did not become cold.
It did not become hot.
It became something silent, something utterly still, something that caused every god who still had their mouth open to argue to lose their voice mid-sentence. Half-open lips sealed themselves shut without permission. Tongues that had only begun to form their protests froze against the roofs of their mouths like wax that had hardened before it could drip.
To be continued…