Chapter 35
Even before the nameless castle was first built, the two had already walked side by side. They guarded one another, completing the system of reality that had not yet fully arrived, making creation not merely appear, but become meaningful.
So it is written in Scroll 9999, Verse 9999 of Mugeosanthus: only through their joint presence could the universe be understood. Without Rayshi, goodness had no meaning. Without Chukora, goodness had no limits, no counterweight upon which to perch, no trial that could challenge even a single grain.
In a silence older than time, before the first pulse echoed, a single name was carved, split into a thousand meanings, yet no one had the power to hear it.
Ishkarakarta.
It was not a god, nor an entity to be worshipped through symbolic forms. It was neither one nor two, but everything, and thus refused to be divided.
Therefore, when they spoke the name Rayshi or Chukora, they were in truth speaking of the same face, only reflected in a mirror so warped it seemed wholly other.
There was no loneliness in light, nor alienation in darkness. The two were joined, leaning upon one another's meaning. And from there, the notion of "reality" began to stir, forming patterns of order so fragile they merely imitated harmony, carved first into inscriptions not yet worthy of being called scripture.
This was long before the first page was written by the Almighty, before the first angel interpreted a command, and before any law was given. Ishkarakarta had already walked, calmly moving through corridors without walls, keeping balance between what deserved to be created and what must be left absent.
The universe was the child of impatience. It yearned for form, demanded a name for far too long. Thus earth and sky took shape, not because they were commanded, but because of the tendency to unravel the un-unravelable. Yet understanding proved fragile. Even the most brilliant of border-keepers never truly grasped that all things persisted only because the wholeness of Ishkarakarta stood unbroken.
And if even the smallest tremor were recorded, born from a misplaced whisper, the universe would respond, not with rage, but with destruction: seeping in quietly, dissolving slowly, like poison in a prayer.
The eras before the rise of the satanists are recorded truthfully, folded away so they could not be read by just anyone. Those who trespassed were not killed immediately, but made to live, forced to go on far too long, to watch and witness the gaping anatomy of reality.
In the pores of time, still kept sterile and intact, there is a record of those who once tried, tried to distort the meaning of Rayshi, quoting a single verse of love without bringing its counterpart, Chukora.
Thus the pulse swelled, bursting the knots of light into shards, refusing return. And then the other side acted with intent, willing to reduce Chukora to pure hatred, stripping away the logic and composure that followed, and reality grinned its horrific grin.
It did not laugh, nor weep, only remained silent in a form beyond comprehension, and then collapsed.
But collapse was not the climax. It was merely a reminder.
For those born of Ishkarakarta could never permit anything to endure too long in a lie disguised as balance.
Existence would be pulled back.
Nonexistence would be allowed to gape open.
The two would wait, faithful in forms no longer recognizable, in a will that could not speak.
Behind all of this, Ishkarakarta did not demand worship, but understanding.
And that was the greatest curse for those who tried to unravel it.
For to understand Ishkarakarta was not to know two faces, but to merge with indifference, losing all boundaries, becoming a definition born not from logic, but from the sacrifice of meaning.
And in the end, meaning itself ceased to matter.
For all was for the One, not the One for all.
And so came the moment that should never have been written, yet still occurred.
Ophistu still stood, not because of strength, but because of the awareness that all the pressing uncertainties had met, taking shape in a way that could no longer be denied.
Before him, the entity, once meant to be an ambiguous child with two heads, now bore only one.
Male.
Without doubt.
Without the compensating presence of the female side.
Only the male head remained, whole, facing forward with eyes so empty, as though celebrating a betrayal long in the making.
Then its body began to change.
Shifting, flickering, transforming.
Each transition not only shook the space within the castle, but sliced and shredded Ophistu's memories without consent.
Deliberately, the figure began to act, aligning itself with the four images planted in Ophistu's mind as the terrors that would unravel reason itself.
The first: Ophistu himself, multiplied into a hundred, forming a tight ring of encirclement, forcing every fragment of consciousness to clash.
The second: the return of Mala Qudshi, but not in holy form, defiled, no longer deserving the name of light's messenger.
The third: Ophistu's own image, yet not as himself, but as a failure—a cheap imitation of the Cursed One, the Supreme Divine—untouchable by even the faintest mimicry.
And the fourth … not yet revealed.
Its shape still veiled in blackness, hanging in the center of the castle hall, still, yet pulsing.
But truth can never be hidden forever, for floors cannot keep shadows.
And that shadow slowly appeared.
Nine heads.
Each head sprouting another—budding endlessly—a pure repetition without end. A structure of existential horror needing no form, only an idea, negating the notion that all things must grow in the right direction, showing instead that growth can be utterly wrong, fatally so, if left too long without meaning.
At this point, Ophistu understood, he had been deceived.
Not once, not twice, but for all time.
Every moment he thought was chance had been a shard, a fragment of a plan older than his own fears.
Nebetu'u did not merely bring terror.
Nebetu'u was terror itself—designer, executor, the shadow that had slipped in from the very beginning to this very point, acting without ever being faced in full.
And anger, here, was not an outburst.
It emerged as light, so pure, without contamination of emotion.
Then, from Ophistu's eyes, golden rays burned the air.
They did not destroy the room, nor break its walls, but aimed directly, unerringly, at the center point.
Nebetu'u.
The gaze was not an attack, but a declaration.
Ophistu refused to be a victim, a pawn in a narrative he wholly rejected.
In that gaze, Ophistu did not retaliate, but erased, crossing a name off the ledger of will, nullifying a role once believed to be an ally.
The orange mist that hung there, once like a faint stain on a somber painting, slowly began to reveal itself.
Not as part of the atmosphere, nor merely a magical effect of the place, but as an opening layer, the first veil of something far deeper, older than Ophistu's own desire to understand.
He had stood calm, not because he was fearless, but because he thought—he believed, that all the spiritual understanding he had gathered, all the banishing spells, the sacred words uttered with conviction, would be enough to hold back every form of filth.
Ophistu had believed that all evil could be torn away, separated from this world through confession, or at least through judgment.
But calm was never meant to last, never meant to be the final defense.
The figure before him, once still in the form of his imitation, had now shifted into something that could no longer be mapped.
Not wholly transformed into something else, but rather severing its loyalty to any form, discarding patterns, rejecting the logic that had always been the backbone of reality.
To be continued…