Chapter 43
"Silence the voice."
"Voice, be silent.
Silence—silence the voice.
Voice, cease—silence the voice."
"Touching the tenderness of the mind without permission.
Not with strength, but with depravity."
The impact spread without mercy.
It was not merely an illusion forced into the inner sight, raising the fine hairs on Ophistu's nape without restraint, but the deepest core within him also shuddered.
The Olyspharta, the pure and sacred essence that formed the foundation of being, the untarnished emblem of majesty—trembled as though the world had found a crack to split it open.
This tremor was not just a ripple.
It climbed all the way to the root of existence, carving a coldness no light could ever warm.
For a moment, Ophistu could only gaze inward.
Not through a mirror, not through reflection, but through the awareness of every pulse of the Olyspharta slipping from stability.
What he had guarded with near-reverent pride now stood on the brink of collapse, quivering without a hint of halting.
The tremor filled every inch of his inner space, driving out any vestige of the safety he once knew.
Worse still, his physical body began to give way.
There were moments when his entire frame stiffened, like a vessel beginning to crack under repeated strikes.
Even the smallest motion became a struggle, for each unexpected wave of trembling struck without warning, and his muscles seemed to forget—become amnesiac—about how to obey his will.
He was forced to bear not only the dread in his mind, but also the physical burden, binding him in the midst of an invisible onslaught.
"Boundaries … have been slighted, and there is no room for tolerance."
BOOOM!!
"Choose your path, Nebetu'u.
For there is no place left for those who stand in the middle."
"Did you think that blending light and darkness would make you whole?"
Hhhhuuffffhh!!
"Vanish into a color beyond comprehension.
And know—this is not forgiveness."
DUARRR!!
Realizing this could not be allowed to continue, Ophistu acted, taking a path rarely walked.
His left eye closed slowly, sealing half of his vision as if locking a gate to guard something behind it.
His right eye remained wide open—staring straight ahead, unblinking, holding a gaze that no longer merely saw, but pierced.
Silence crept in, swallowing every echo and every breath from the air.
In that stillness, time below seemed to pause, making space for the tension swelling between the castle walls.
Then, without warning.
The world shuddered with a blast, surging from nowhere, shaking the very bones of the structure.
The sound split the air, striking the foundations with such force it nearly severed the bond between stone and the earth beneath it.
The shock traveled outward, reaching the stones encircling the nameless castle, cracking them, breaking them loose, nearly sending them plunging into the bottomless void.
For a fleeting moment, that blast was more than physical collision, it was a declaration that the boundary long defended had been shaken, and whatever caused it no longer cared for the form or history of what it struck.
The instant the rumble subsided, something deeper than mere sound began seeping into Ophistu.
From his left side came a current of unmatched purity.
Not just pure, absolute, like an outpouring from a source never touched by stain since the dawn of creation.
Light not only touched his skin, it soaked into the marrow of his being, carving anew feelings once buried, restoring layer after layer of what had been shaken.
Meanwhile, the right side of his body remained a field of shadow.
The darkness there was dense, bearing the signature of an ancient demon that had endured a forced sanctification, now lodged deep, like an ember impossible to extinguish.
No longer wild as before, yet still retaining traces of pride and savagery that could never be wholly erased.
Here, the darkness waited, lingering beneath the surface, watching the light across from it with patience … and vengeance.
And now.
Ophistu stood between those two poles.
The left half of his body shone bright, radiating white brilliance, reflecting only grandeur and steadfastness.
The right half was cloaked in unmatched darkness, like the night's mantle refusing to be torn.
He was the embodiment of paradox, a being carrying two eternities in a single form, suspended over the gulf between salvation and ruin.
Nebetu'u stood unmoved, maintaining a calm that seemed immune, absolute against every wave of colliding auras above.
Before him, the fusion of the most exalted light and the most suffocating gloom took shape, composing a landscape of power that could stir the hearts of any living being.
And yet, in Nebetu'u's eyes, it was nothing more than a phenomenon, an occurrence worth observing, not avoiding.
He did not move, did not extend a hand, did not summon power in reply.
His whole frame was like a statue, carved from cold certainty, letting his eyes be the only thing that spoke.
From below, he looked up at Ophistu, suspended in the air, studying every second of change in the half-light, half-dark form above him.
The silence between them was more than physical distance, it was a space charged with an invisible duel, one waiting, the other weighing.
Nebetu'u remained at ease, confident that time would work for him, that each passing moment would draw out what he wanted from Ophistu.
A heartbeat ago, Ophistu still hung among the castle's arched ceilings, blending like a shadow with its ancient architecture.
The next heartbeat.
He was behind Nebetu'u's left flank, emerging at a slight angle, like a predator aligning its strike, its path carefully measured.
Without leaving room for reaction, a shroud of mingled black and white—pulsing like a cosmic heartbeat—unfurled from Ophistu's body, enveloping Nebetu'u entirely, swallowing him whole.
No trace of movement remained, only the disappearance of the figure into the vortex, giving no sign of where he had been taken.
The stillness shattered with Ophistu's cry, loud, yet carrying a tone utterly inhuman.
From his right hand, he began gathering two forces that should never merge.
Holy energy, blazing like a merciless sun.
And profane energy, thick, heavy, carrying the mark of an age too ancient to count.
The two forces entwined, devouring and feeding each other, forming a pulse that felt like an unborn explosion.
With a motion both deliberate and unhurried, Ophistu thrust his palm forward, aiming the strike directly at the point where the black-white shroud had sealed and consumed Nebetu'u.
The space around the target pulsed, tightened, then received the blow, just as the earth might receive the fall of a meteor.
"Almighty, Love, and Shatter!!"
Duuuffffffhh!!
Ophistu stood in the middle of the rippling force that still throbbed, then began reciting verses, drawn from sacred texts of many worlds.
A strand of words that, in mortal hands, might have been mere prayer or praise.
But on his tongue transformed, becoming law that summoned ancient power.
Each syllable fell with precision, melding into a tone not entirely recognizable.
As though languages were merging, serving a single current never recorded on mortal parchment.
The utterance did not last long, cut short by a deafening scream erupting from his throat, a cry more like the fracturing of dimensions than the voice of any living creature.
His right eye—wide open from the start—now burned, casting a deep, unyielding black light, marked with undefined symbols that spread across the entire right side of his body, sharpening the darkness into an absolute void.
Meanwhile, his left eye, still closed as if guarding a secret, now radiated a sacred brilliance, spilling across the whole left side of his body, strengthening the white already dwelling there.
To be continued…