Chapter 537
Not long afterward, the second pulse was born.
This time, it was accompanied by a bloom of Deep Violet Cosmos, spreading through the air like a constellation of dead stars.
The second little girl stepped out with an expression far calmer than the first, yet the faint smile upon her lips felt strange... far too mature for someone with such a youthful face.
"Intent has come for you," she whispered softly.
Theo merely lowered his gaze for a brief moment before gently patting both of them on the head.
"Good. You still remember your master's voice."
Before the echo of those words had completely faded, an explosion of golden light suddenly split the heavens.
The third figure appeared while spinning playfully through the air, laughing softly as her Molten Amber hair flowed behind her, resembling molten gold infused with the flames of a crimson dusk.
Ambition.
Unlike the other two, this little girl immediately took her place beside Theo, staring directly at the youngest without the slightest trace of fear. Instead, she wore an almost innocent expression of mockery.
"Is he the one who bothered Your Excellency?" she asked casually.
And for the first time since the battle had begun, the youngest instinctively took half a step backward.
Yet even all of these changes were insignificant compared to what appeared last.
For when Theo slowly raised his right hand, every sound throughout the Land of the Gods abruptly vanished.
There were no earthquakes.
No explosions.
No overwhelming radiance.
Only silence... a silence so unbearably heavy that no existence could withstand its weight.
Then, from behind Theo, a little girl around eight years old slowly walked forward, carrying an aura so immense that the very space beneath her feet fractured with every step she took.
Her Crimson Obsidian hair shimmered with a deep crimson darkness, like fragments of infernal stone forged within fire for thousands of years, while her eyes...
They were exactly the same as Theo's.
Resolve had arrived.
"Give us your command," Resolve said quietly.
And when the four little girls stood around Theo—Will, with her Pale Silver Blue hair still clinging to his leg like a child terrified of losing her parent in an overcrowded marketplace; Intent, with her Deep Violet Cosmos hair smiling a smile far too mature for a child her age; Ambition, with her Molten Amber hair still gazing at the youngest with an almost innocent look of ridicule; and Resolve, with her Crimson Obsidian hair, having just uttered the words, "Give us your command," in a voice that neither rose nor fell, flat as the surface of a lake untouched by the wind—the youngest felt something he had never experienced throughout the thousands of years of his reign over the Land of the Gods.
It was not fear.
It was not anger.
It was panic.
Blind panic.
The kind of panic born from the realization that he no longer understood what was unfolding before him.
That these four little girls were unlike any beings he had ever fought.
That they possessed no Sa he could rewrite.
No flesh he could destroy.
No consciousness he could fragment.
"W-What... what is this?!" the youngest screamed, his trembling hand shooting upward as he summoned every remaining fragment of Sa lingering at the tips of his thin fingers.
He invoked Sa: Singularity.
Sa: Reduction.
Sa: Fragmentation.
Sa: Denial.
Sa: Judgment.
Every Sa he possessed.
Every authority he had accumulated throughout thousands of years of absolute rule.
Every supreme power that should have been sufficient to annihilate a thousand universes at once.
He unleashed them one after another, layered without pause, like an endless storm pouring from a sky that had forgotten how to stop raining.
Those attacks surged toward Theo.
Toward the four little girls standing beside him.
Toward the air itself, which had suddenly become far too dense for anything to pass through.
Yet...
Nothing happened.
Will did not move.
Her Pale Silver Blue hair still flowed gracefully to her waist, while her tranquil eyes remained fixed upon Theo without the slightest hesitation.
Intent did not move.
The smile that seemed far too mature for a child still rested upon her lips, while her Deep Violet Cosmos hair reflected a dim glow like a field of dead stars.
Ambition did not move.
She merely tilted her head slightly to the right, like a curious child observing a peculiar insect in a garden.
A soft laugh escaped her lips.
It carried neither ridicule nor fear.
Only curiosity.
A sincere curiosity about why someone would continue fighting when the battle had already ended.
"He... he doesn't understand," Ambition whispered.
Her voice did not emerge from her mouth.
It flowed from her Molten Amber hair itself, from every strand that trembled like violin strings plucked by impatient fingers.
"He doesn't know that Sa cannot touch us. Because we are not part of this game. We are... His."
And Resolve—the eldest among them, eight years old while her three younger sisters were only three or four, whose eyes were identical to Theo's when he still possessed eyes that could truly see—remained completely silent.
There was no smile.
No laughter.
No whisper.
Only her gaze.
A straight gaze.
An unblinking gaze.
A gaze that made the youngest feel as though something that should never have existed within this world was staring directly at him.
Something from beyond.
From the spaces between the pages of books that had never been read twice.
From the silence that followed every word written by the Great Author.
Theo raised his left hand—the hand that retained only two fingers, its palm still stained crimson by blood that had never fully dried, the same hand that only moments ago had gently stroked the heads of Will and Intent—and made a tiny gesture.
A gesture so subtle it was almost invisible.
A gesture resembling someone casually calling their dog back inside after it had spent too much time playing in the yard.
"Come back," Theo said.
His voice no longer resembled a bell ringing within an abandoned sanctuary or a ceremonial drum echoing through a forgotten temple.
It sounded ordinary.
Far too ordinary.
Like the weary command of a homeowner returning after a long day's work, wanting nothing more than to rest.
"Return to My body."
The four little girls did not ask why.
They did not ask what for.
They did not ask whether they would be safe inside.
They simply nodded.
Will nodded gently.
Intent nodded calmly.
Ambition nodded with a faint smile.
Resolve nodded without the slightest expression.
Then they dissolved.
They melted away like morning mist sinking into the earth.
Like water seeping into the sands of a shore untouched by the tides.
Like sunlight slipping into a room through windows that had never been closed.
And when they entered—when Will, with her Pale Silver Blue hair, disappeared into Theo's chest; when Intent, with her Deep Violet Cosmos hair, sank into the emptiness of his open abdomen; when Ambition, with her Molten Amber hair, vanished into his left arm that retained only two fingers; when Resolve, with her Crimson Obsidian hair, was absorbed into his pristine white, pulsating spine—Theo's body changed.
Not a physical transformation that could be perceived by the eye.
Rather, a change felt by the air surrounding him.
By the earth beneath his feet.
By reality itself, which suddenly realized it was standing before something older than itself.
Greater than itself.
Something with far more right to stand there than reality ever had.
To be continued…