After this revelation, a heavy silence fell over the room.
A silence so dense it seemed to freeze the air itself.
Erasa was the first to break this muteness.
"So..." she said slowly, "you don't know what Azazel really was before his appearance in Hell?"
Leon nodded.
Erasa lowered her gaze.
She immediately thought back to Lucifer. Every time she mentioned Azazel in front of him, he simply remained silent. No anger. No judgment. Just a heavy silence.
She understood then.
Azazel had perhaps never been a monster.
He was a ticking time bomb.
A tragedy in motion.
Someone who had been afraid.
Afraid of losing his identity.
And who had been ready to do anything to save himself.
Leon slowly turned his gaze toward Sakolomeh.
"I've often thought that you could have saved my father."
He paused.
"As the first son of Azazel and Lilith... I never really had a proper form." His voice grew graver. "My form appeared for the first time when I pierced Hinata's belly."
A shiver ran through the room.
"The echoes of Sakolomeh... shaped me. In a way, they gave me an existence." He lowered his head slightly. "I don't resemble him completely... but I am still like him."
Leon exhaled deeply. "I am exhausted."
Bakuzan broke the moment more abruptly.
"Anyway. After everything you've just said, it's interesting, fine." He crossed his arms. "But we mainly have souls to recover."
Leon immediately raised his head.
"Precisely. On that subject..." He shook his head slowly. "The souls are not in Hell. Don't be mistaken."
Everyone froze.
Leon turned his gaze toward Salomeh. "It was she who found me."
He paused, then added calmly: "Yes, I know everything about Sakolomeh's entourage. Father and I observed him constantly."
His gaze grew distant. "Salomeh took me in after I fell from the sky... like a dead star." His voice grew lower. "I was completely weakened."
He breathed. "It's not trivial. When my father's body began to move against its own will... it displaced the souls and beings." He raised his eyes. "It sent them to the vestiges of Galaad."
Erasa widened her eyes.
"Ga... Galaad?"
Sakolomeh turned toward her. "You know Galaad?"
Erasa nodded slowly.
"It goes back extremely far..." Her voice was grave. "Galaad is a god I killed."
Time seemed to stop.
Ravena, in shock: "You... you've already killed gods? It wasn't just a legend then?"
Erasa sighed softly. "It's a long story."
Leon resumed, imperturbable:
"Technically, Galaad may be dead... but not completely." He raised a finger. "The titanic echo that Erasa faced once wasn't even the true Galaad. It was a fraction of him."
He continued: "Galaad wanted to die." A silence. "He had served the Pact of Men."
The gazes crossed.
"He had served Boaz's mother for years." Leon gritted his teeth slightly. "For a divinity, it was an unbearable stain."
He concluded: "He demanded his own destruction." He turned toward Erasa. "And in reality... you saved him."
A respectful silence followed.
Leon finished, in an almost solemn voice:
"When a god—or an entity—disappears completely, even a mortal deprived of their being returns to the Original Void of the Madhurya." "Where a new identity can emerge... according to the laws of meta-concepts and the Great Morlük."
Salomeh nodded slowly, confirming Leon's words.
As an apostle of Morlük, she already knew this truth. She wasn't discovering it: she recognized it.
Leon resumed:
"Gods are, at origin, voids.
Fragments of the Madhurya emanating from the Chōshinku."
He paused.
"They are voids located above all realities. To interfere with existence, they fragment and project aspects of themselves into the worlds."
He raised his eyes.
"When a god dies definitively, when its fragment of the Madhurya is destroyed... it is not truly annihilated."
A silence.
"What is destroyed is the identity of its Chōshinku."
Erasa frowned.
Leon continued, implacable:
"A dead god simply returns to the Madhurya. Its Chōshinku consciousness, stripped of identity, returns there in its original state, exactly where it resided before any manifestation."
Erasa felt something tighten within her.
"So..." she murmured, "that would mean that Galaad... and all the gods I've killed are actually..."
Leon nodded.
"Alive."
He added immediately:
"Some have chosen to remanifest. Others not." He paused. "Galaad, however, has very probably chosen to remain a void."
Everyone listened without breathing.
"It's not that he can't." Leon closed his eyes slightly. "It's a personal choice. His."
He explained calmly:
"Galaad has become a void that ignores reality.
A void that lets nothing manifest through it.
A void that doesn't even dream, unlike other gods."
He insisted:
"Not because he can't... but because he refuses to do so."
Leon opened his eyes.
"In the eyes of those who act in reality, he may seem nonexistent." A brief silence. "But it's perfectly logical."
Then he changed tone.
"Now, let's return to the vestiges of Galaad."
He breathed.
"When my father died, I decided to go there to free the souls and beings that had been displaced there." His voice grew graver. "But I failed."
A shiver ran through the assembly.
"There is... something in those vestiges." Leon gritted his teeth slightly. "An entity that prowls. And that protects the souls."
Sakolomeh widened his eyes.
"It has to be an entity created from magic linked to Absolute Resonance!" He raised his head. "Azazel had lost his will."
Leon shook his head slowly.
"Not exactly." He thought. "I think Father hadn't lost it in the strict sense."
He explained:
"He wanted to get rid of the souls." A silence. "And his frustration engendered something."
Leon raised his hand slightly.
"An entity born from that frustration... linked to what he carried within him."
Sakolomeh placed a hand on his chin, pensive.
"An entity capable of defeating an Ineffable..." He breathed. "That's not trivial."
He added, graver:
"If it was born from Azazel's frustration, fed by the creature he contained..." He paused. "Then that might mean that..."
Sakolomeh abruptly widened his eyes.
"That entity..."
His voice grew lower, almost incredulous.
"...what if it was Azazel himself?"
Leon remained frozen.
"What...?"
Sakolomeh breathed deeply.
"I know it may sound insane. But hear me out."
He raised his hand slightly, searching for his words.
"Azazel was already losing his autonomy. His will was crumbling little by little. It wasn't a natural weakness... it was because something sought to manifest through him."
A heavy silence fell over the room.
"What if, to manifest fully, that thing had to expel Azazel from his own body?"
Sakolomeh clenched his fists.
"Azazel would then have come out... emptied. Dispossessed of his identity. Wandering like a creature that no longer knows what it is, trapped between fear, madness, and residues of what it once was."
Bakuzan widened his eyes.
"It's... maybe not wrong."
He crossed his arms.
"Besides, Absolute Resonance, as the Exentity described it, perceives itself as an absolute All."
He thought.
"Intentionally destroying someone to manifest... it doesn't fully fit with its nature."
He added, graver:
"Even if for it, the notion of individual life has no real value... it has no reason to kill. Distinctions don't exist for it."
Erasa frowned.
"But would Azazel truly have the capabilities to defeat an Ineffable?"
Sakolomeh shook his head slowly.
"No. Not normally."
Then he raised his eyes.
"Unless remnants of Absolute Resonance remained within him."
He paused.
"Exactly like me..."
A breath.
"...and like Sakolomeh-My0x."