Chapter 41
No blink, no eyelids, no gaze, even.
Only an empty will, taking oral form, as if to prove that reality itself can be a tongue for chaos.
The voice came almost at once, unsynchronized, yet without collision.Two voices, heavy and steeped in suffering, spoke the same sentence.A plea that felt more like a demand, or perhaps a curse disguised as a request.
The sentence rolled like an echo, one that had long lost its center, striking the air not to be heard, but to be planted deep in the consciousness of anyone cursed enough to stand there.
"Forgive all our sins!!"
No silence followed.
No space left for reflection.
The words had never been arranged for an answer, but to cling.
Like a wound that refuses to dry, or a sin too stubborn to be dislodged.
They were not asking.
They were declaring, speaking of something Ophistu had never promised to grant, perhaps only belching out the absurdity of forgiveness, of repentance that would never be accepted.
"Forgive all our sins.
Forgive, all, our, sins.
Forgive—all—our—sins.
Forgive … all … our … sins.
FORGIVE ALL OUR SINS!"
Nebetu'u, through the second of the three angelic heads fused to its body, exhaled, and it was no mere air.
Once known as the bearer of liturgical hymns, that head now unspooled its notes, twisted beyond recognition, resembling a holy recording corrupted, spun in a cursed tempo too swift for even a satanic mind to contain.
The long breath poured out, never losing force, creeping into every corner of the castle and seeping through unseen gaps, as though space and time were nothing but a thin veil willing to be pierced.
The declaration was no longer merely spoken, it was nailed down, hammered without pause, striking through layers of awareness too fragile to hold.
The frequency pierced beyond hearing, vibrating the air, shaking stone, trapping Ophistu in the vortex of a sound devoid of mercy.
The words multiplied, piling up, bouncing off the walls of existence, until the sound had no beginning, no end.
The world around began to shrink, like a wet cloth wrung from every side.
The air lost its coolness, replaced by a heaviness that pressed into the lungs, creating the illusion that every breath was a mistake.
Ophistu still hung in the air, yet his body felt ensnared, forced to bear the gravity of a thousand worlds at once.
Nothing remained but an invisible pulse that bound him, cutting not through flesh but through guilt, coaxed to life from nothingness.
Nebetu'u did not stop.
Its voice, or whatever remained of it, continued to wring the fabric of reality into a single unerasable note.
Amid the waves of agony, the line between meaning and emptiness blurred, as if the world had surrendered its need to distinguish them.
All that remained was the long, drawn-out rhythm, stripping existence away piece by piece until nothing whole was left.
"Using the voice of confession—not for repentance … but to pierce our will.
So brazen.
And so eager for pain from the palm?
It shall be given freely—though what you'll feel is not the palm, but the bitter knowledge, the face of truth buried too long."
Whoooosh!
"Because we know who holds more sin."
Boooom…
Within the cold-trembling frame, Ophistu kept his ember alive, refusing to let it die.
His anger endured, flowing without eruption, a clarity of intent sharpened by an offense driven into the deepest marrow.
Nebetu'u's acts had crossed the bounds of cosmic decorum, tearing at his dignity as an entity entitled to preserve doubt without surrendering devotion.
No war cry, no theatrical movement, Ophistu's right hand extended.
The motion was calm but weighted, reaching toward the castle's lower level, where Nebetu'u stood far below, watching like a spectator far too certain of the performance's end.
Between breaths, the palm began to grow, not by shifting his body, but by an illusion that bent distance to its will.
No steps were taken, no urge to descend from his airborne throne, only a giant palm closing the gap, dissolving the barrier of space, bearing the threat of a slap that needed no physical touch to land.
Nebetu'u, in a silence almost painful, met it without resistance.
A smile rose, not of triumph, but one dangling between folly and conviction.
The eyes closed slowly, as if surrendering to an unavoidable certainty, waiting with a patience steeped in mockery for the exact moment the blow would erase the distance between them.
"What is being planned down there…?
What … is being planned down there?
What is … being planned—down there…?
What is being planned … being planned—down there?"
"Get out of my head."
"Get out of my head!!
Get … out of my head.
Get—out—of—my—head."
Still keeping his gaze fixed on the figure below, Ophistu whispered in his mind, questions too forbidden to be shaped by lips.
They rippled silently within, meant only to understand what Nebetu'u was truly doing.
But before logic could form an answer, the ripple returned, not as memory, but as a perfect echo.
The words that had existed only in Ophistu's heart were now spoken back to him, woven with flawless precision, every inner inflection twisted, every tonal contour replicated, even the faint tremor of unspoken breath stolen without mercy.
Even what no ear should reach was present now.
No meaning altered, no intent rephrased, it was as if the thought had been reborn from the same depth, but carried by an invisible mouth.
Realization struck him like ice water driven into bone.
Something had entered, crawling through the layers of his mind without asking permission.
Not merely listening, but taking up residence within, seated in a space most private, a space no one should ever touch.
Ophistu's eyes went blank, not from disorientation, but from the clarity that now he understood.
The boundary between himself and another had been breached, treated like a door opened without a knock.
Hufffffh!
"Got you…"
"… Glory to the Almighty Sante. Blessed be the feet and praise to those who walk the dark. Praised be the wound, the offering of blood, the very thing that makes the way!"
His original intent was simple, just to drive it out.
Ophistu tried to weave a fragment of prayer, an attempt to sever the thin thread linking his mind to the uninvited.
He hoped the holy words, once uttered, might expel it, shattering the very essence like dust blown from glass.
But before his inner tongue could complete even one full verse, a deeper wave of intrusion seeped in.
Nebetu'u, the puppeteer behind the unseen echo, no longer hid.
From the body already bearing three angelic heads, it revealed the third, sprouting tiny inverted wings from each ear, a symbol of sanctity deliberately betrayed.
The sign could not be misread.
Nothing that flowed from there would be guiding truth, but a whisper to lead astray.
Without pause, the third head recited every word Ophistu had shaped in the depths of his soul.
Each syllable was plucked with a poet's precision, then reversed into something far more dreadful, wrapped in a stench of thanksgiving, laced with blessings not for the light, but for the Honored Sante, Almighty among the congregation who raised the name of the Devil as salvation.
The vibration of speech poured in torrents, mingling Ophistu's words with the reek of cosmic betrayal, until the prayer itself became an instrument of worship never intended.
To be continued…