Chapter 18
"Despite His name, this servant surrenders to deeds most accursed. None shall mourn a flawed creation like you—"
"They have come."
"And? No one is willing to exchange ...."
"The time has run out."
Boom!
Huffffh!
Boom— boom— boom!
The sky never ceased to bear witness. Amid the ruins, a place of worship, no more than a crumbling castle erected upon the blood of the Ush family, stood a malformed creature; the body of a boy not yet thirteen, yet bearing two heads.
One female, one male.
They were named Nebetu'u. They were nobodies, and they were never meant to be anybody.
At least, that was the wretched perspective of the angel across from them.
Before them stood Ophistu, unwavering, clad in a purity untouched by time. His gaze fixed upon the small, frail body now hunched in weakness, a body burdened by two voices forever at odds. To him, Nebetu'u's efforts were nothing more than a cosmic joke, an absurd farce too pitiful to warrant mercy.
A trinket resembling a pendulum, yet not a pendulum, and a handful of black dust. Mere trifles, yet they believed such things could banish an existence bound by Heaven's decree.
Absurd.
No permission could be breached without the consent of the All-Encompassing One.
Even when His name had been cursed by history, even when He had once been bested by a creature branded a devil, His majesty remained unchallenged. For minds tainted by darkness could never fathom the path of divine decree.
Such was Ophistu's judgment as he studied the male head of Nebetu'u, deeming its eccentricity a stain, a sheer rejection of reason.
He was unmoved by their whispered pleas, untouched by their pained gasps or the curses spat by two voices warring over one body. Even as the small frame was hurled against the wall, the faint etchings of religious symbols on its back, Ophistu saw only a pitiful spectacle, a triviality he could end at will.
Yet not all yielded in silence.
The female head let out a soft laugh, her grin carving a sly line across her face, retorting with a mockery wrapped in casual disdain. No submission, only scorn for the very concept of reverence. Meanwhile, the male head, unable to contain his disgust, spoke up.
His words were sharp and bitter, laced with fury at being the primary target of relentless assault.
Just as both voices rose in unison, their hatred and derision aimed squarely at the accuser, one smirked in contempt, while the other snarled like a maddened dog.
Ophistu did not flinch.
His voice remained calm, betraying not a shred of emotion. Each word fell like a hammer, slow, deliberate, lethal.
He likened Nebetu'u's existence to dust clinging to the footprints of winged beings, too insignificant to factor into the cosmos' design. Their every action, even this desperate attempt at banishment through a shoddy ritual, was nothing more than child's play, a feeble mimicry of true resolve.
Ophistu prepared to end it all. One hand rose, not merely to kill, but to erase, to ensure the two-headed abomination would leave no trace in any realm. No mark between existence and void, no memory between the two, no possibility of recurrence.
Yet just before his hand reached its apex, something shifted.
A faint sound rippled through the air, too layered to be singular, too real to ignore.
Normally, such frequencies would be heard only by Ophistu. But this time, both heads reacted in turn, their expressions twisting into something unfamiliar.
The female head grinned wildly, her joy teetering on madness. The male head laughed unrestrainedly, like one who knew the tide was turning.
Then, winds—hot and cold—began to slither around Nebetu'u's small frame. Ophistu continued speaking, still convinced of his control. It was imperative to end this now. Yet even he couldn't ignore the unnatural shift in the atmosphere, thickening with each breath. The air hissed violently, striking with disorienting precision.
Both heads of Nebetu'u bowed, their wills merging into seamless unity. The wind coiled around them not as an assault, but as a shroud, a warmth wrapping them in incomprehensible certainty.
The time had come.
The male head smiled, wide and threatening. Fangs glistened, slick with mucus that reeked of death.
The wind detonated.
The first explosion split sky and earth. Ophistu stood firm, yet he knew: something built upon prayers and blood was crumbling. The panorama of sanctity he'd woven unraveled into dust, slowly. The castle shed its form, peeling into ruins, its sacred aura extinguished.
The wind struck again.
Its heat pierced Ophistu's purity, mocking the very notion that holiness couldn't burn. The cold that followed dimmed his clarity, dulled his authority, veiling the boy's body from his sight.
Another explosion. Then three more in succession, shattering all focus. Ophistu wasn't thrown back, but the world around him inverted.
The wind, once spiraling, now raged in chaotic torrents, carrying whispers and power he'd never permitted to exist.
And then, silence.
Not peace. Not solitude.
Just transition.
The castle's remnants hadn't fully vanished. Nebetu'u hadn't fully reemerged.
And Ophistu … still stood there.
Amid the silence, as it suffused everything, Ophistu felt a tremor, the wind's uninvited touch, bearing a strange vibration that unsettled his calm.
He couldn't fathom what had driven Nebetu'u, that two-headed child, to unleash such disruption.
Fortunately, Ophistu wasn't so easily provoked. With trained serenity, he unleashed his vision, scattering it across every corner of existence, tracing the wind's origin, the source of the voices.
In an instant, his consciousness expanded, merging with every detail. He became the earth, the sky, the toxic dust swirling among the ruins of the sanctuary, the very ground where he and Nebetu'u now clashed.
A single breath, and Ophistu transformed into the seer, an eye for every fragment. He dissolved into the world's order, a node in the fabric of perception, a resonance in every space, known or unknown.
This time, time pulsed in his grasp, thick as honey, seeping into scattered memories buried in the ruins of the past. Just as his unification neared its climax, as he almost became the universe itself, he halted. Deliberately.
Not without reason.
A feral truth lashed like lightning, tearing through the reality he'd always trusted. In that searing awareness, Ophistu was wrenched back, ejected from his merger with existence.
His chest tightened, gripped by a revelation that struck like a sledgehammer, altering everything in an instant. Unseen, within the fractured turmoil of time, Nebetu'u had slithered in, slipping through reality's cracks like a shadow, carrying a cunning beyond sight.
To be continued…