The mark had been given.
Not to him.
Artor Conan Davil saw it on other people, on their foreheads, on their hands, in the way they looked at the sky. A certainty that did not shout, yet could not be denied. After Dvatol Ard returned to the belly of the earth, the world did not become more chaotic.
It became calmer.
And that calmness was what was terrifying.
People began to worship without announcement. Mosques filled not because of a call, but because of a tightness in the chest that could not be named. Prayers were spoken in low voices, as if God were very near, or very far.
Artor bowed with them.
His body memorized the movements. He knew when to stand, when to fall, when to be still. Yet between his forehead and the ground, there was no meeting. There was only a distance that grew more tangible.
He worshiped out of fear.
And that fear was honest.
More honest than the faith he had once spoken without consequence.
On the seventh day after the mark appeared, the sky changed.
Not its color, but its posture.
The clouds hung too neatly. The wind stopped midway. The birds fell silent as if waiting for their turn to speak. The world did not collapse; it restrained itself, like an audience that knows something is about to happen.
Then Dagel spoke.
He did not descend from the sky.
He did not rise from the earth.
He appeared among humans, in public squares, on screens, on pulpits that had previously stood empty. His voice was one, yet sounded different to every ear.
"I do not come to force," he said.
"I come to explain."
And the world listened.
Dagel did not deny God. He justified Him, then stepped further. He spoke of cosmic order, of laws that never fail, of cause and effect too precise to be called coincidence.
"If the law is perfect," he said,
"why do you still seek That which lies beyond the law?"
Then he displayed his power.
The sky opened without thunder. Rain fell on one city and avoided another with mathematical precision. The sick were healed not because of prayer, but because of a single gesture of his hand. The ground split, then closed again, as if the earth were learning obedience.
He said,
"I rule the upper world and the lower world.
What you call miracles are merely laws you do not yet understand."
Some people bowed down.
Others trembled while chanting remembrances.
Artor Conan Davil stood in the middle.
He did not believe.
Yet he did not dare to refuse.
Dagel looked at him, not with eyes, but with memory. He recited the arguments Artor himself had once used, on nights when he postponed repentance with the excuse of time.
"Did you not always say," Dagel spoke,
"that God is Most Forgiving?
Then what is the difference with me, if I give you a world that works without guilt?"
Miracle after miracle occurred.
Water became fire without burning.
Fire became light without heat.
Voices from the sky answered questions before prayers were finished being spoken.
And in the midst of that ordered madness, Artor worshiped more intensely.
He rose earlier.
He prostrated longer.
He wept without tears.
Yet every prayer felt like a plea for protection, not devotion.
He did not say, "I am Yours."
He said, "Do not take me."
On the night when Dagel declared the sentence that would never be withdrawn, the sentence that made the earth seem to hold its breath,
"I am your God."
Artor Conan Davil did not faint.
He did not scream.
He simply realized, with a painful clarity:
His fear was not because Dagel might be right.
But because, if Dagel was wrong, then he himself was still not right.
And there he understood:
Fearing the apocalypse is easier
than submitting to God.
His prayer that night was not shouted. Nor was it displayed. He simply sat, lowered his head, and for the first time did not defend himself.
The sky did not answer.
The earth did not react.
Yet something within Artor Conan Davil began to collapse, slowly, without sound.
And that collapse was more terrifying
than all of Dagel's miracles.