After Dagel dies, the world does not improve.
It only becomes honest.
The sky remains in its place, but feels empty, not because it has lost light, but because there is no longer any lie holding it up. The ground no longer trembles, yet every step feels like walking on something that listens.
Artor Conan Davil stands alone.
The crowds that had just filled the world, the Musalmi forces, the remnants of Gog and Magog, the refugees praying while shouting, slowly disappear. Not vanishing by magic. They simply are no longer relevant to what is about to happen.
That silence is not a gift.
It is a turn.
The ground before Artor cracks open.
Not a violent rupture like before, but a gap that opens slowly, like a mouth that has held words too long. From that gap, Dvatol Ard emerges.
He is not large.
He is not frightening.
He is only precise.
His body resembles a being too simple to be called a symbol, too real to be called a dream. His skin is the color of old earth, like dust that has witnessed many burials. His eyes are open without expression, without hatred, without curiosity.
He looks at Artor.
There is no light from the sky.
There is no sound from the earth.
Dvatol Ard does not roar.
Does not threaten.
Does not raise his body.
He only says, with a voice that does not come from a mouth:
"Now."
Artor wants to step back.
His feet do not move.
He wants to speak, to explain, to defend himself, to remind that he has worshiped, that he has feared, that he has regretted. But all those sentences collapse before they even become thoughts.
Because Dvatol Ard continues:
"You know who you are."
There is no accusation there.
There is no judgment.
The sentence works like a mirror that reflects not a face, but memory.
Artor sees his own life, not as a sequence of events, but as intention. Sins he once considered small stand equal beside the great ones. Prayers spoken with trembling lips now appear transparent, revealing the fear beneath them.
He remembers his guiding principle:
If the world will end anyway, why be holy today?
Now the world truly is near its end.
And that sentence no longer sounds clever.
Dvatol Ard draws closer. Each movement displaces no air, as if he does not need the medium of the world to exist. From his body, a sign appears, not light, not fire, not a symbol that can be memorized.
The sign is a sensation.
A sensation of being recognized.
A sensation that cannot be refused.
Artor feels the sign touch his chest.
Not hot.
Not painful.
Too light instead, like something that has always been there, waiting to be acknowledged.
He wants to ask:
Is this a sign of faith?
Is this a sign of disbelief?
Can I still change?
But Dvatol Ard does not answer questions.
He only completes his task.
The sign settles.
Invisible to the eye.
Unable to be washed away by water.
Unable to be exchanged by intentions that come too late.
Dvatol Ard looks at Artor once more, then says:
"I do not write anything.
I only reveal."
The ground closes again.
The creature sinks without sound, as if the earth itself withdraws its testimony. The world remains quiet, but the silence is now different.
Artor Conan Davil falls to his knees.
Not because of bodily weight.
But because there is nothing left to deny.
He does not know whether the sign means salvation or ruin. He is given no good news, nor a threat. What remains is only the certainty that there is no longer any version of himself that can hide.
He whispers, almost without sound:
"אַלְלָה…"
There is no answer.
And for the first time, he does not demand one.
He only submits, not to be saved, but because there is no longer any reason to stand.
In the distance, the sky begins to lose color.
Time prepares to be stopped.
And Artor Conan Davil, bearing the sign that cannot be washed away, waits, not for a verdict, but for the end of self-justification.