Chapter 26
What transpired was not merely a violation of order, it was an assault on the very scaffolding of metaphysics itself.
Ophistu did not crumple or thrash. It remained, enduring as tiny wounds sprouted between its feathers, creeping like patient roots into the earth's depths.
Before the prayer was uttered, its body had been a blueprint, a map of suffering unwilling to reveal where it all began.
Every step pulsed with silent agony, a pain insistently ignored, never flailing yet always festering.
Ophistu did not falter, nor did it summon despair.
It nearly surrendered, almost drifted into a resignation so complete it resembled detachment, stripping away the will to fight something that had already slithered so deep into its silence.
And when the prayer took flight, there was no thunder, no omen. No sky cloven asunder, no trembling earth, for suffering does not always demand theatrical redemption.
It left quietly, like a trespasser careful to leave no trace.
Ophistu's body was cloaked in calm, though not relief. Therein lay the irony, the affliction had vanished, but not without cost.
Feathers once gleaming with pride now hung half-withered, like plants defying season.
In healing, loss was born, a price nonnegotiable, as if God Himself decreed that no absolution comes unpaid.
"Come forth, Mala Qudshi.
Do not imagine you can flee, hiding in shadows you do not fully own!"
Hufffffh!
"No need to summon me. I arrive unbidden—"
Sek—
"...What will you hurl at me this time?"
"Cease."
Hussssssh!
"Do not blow it—least of all into my face."
Fuuuuuh!
Dwaaaarrrr!
The heat was that of creation's first torment. Its face felt flayed, as if the very bones of its skull longed to shed their falsehood.
This was no reluctant act, it was an indisputable victory.
Seize its arm. Restrain it now!
We will restore its purity. Again and again, until no stain remains."
Tiiiing—tiiiing!
Buaaaak!
An attack from behind? A nameless, primordial devilry?
Husssssh!
The last intact feathers strained, refusing to yield as they had at the start.
Before Ophistu could voice a name, before tongue could shape rebuke or greeting, intent outpaced speech.
Mala Qudshi, its faith now fractured, revealed itself anew, proving time and distance to be fragile constructs, trivialities folded by the breath of will.
And as its presence fused with the air, something deeper than mere emergence took shape, a creation wrought from older, darker craft.
Then, through a mouth that should have been immaculate, the corrupted Mala Qudshi acted.
It blew.
Not air, but an edict, invisible, inexorable.
The gust struck Ophistu's face.
Magma, not of earth but of something older and crueler, engulfed its visage.
No warning. No mercy. Just fire devouring every layer of beauty Ophistu had ever worn.
The heat denied even a scream, for this suffering stole voices before they could form.
Ophistu longed to claw its face apart, not just to vent the pain, but to mock it—to tear away flesh as if that face had become prison bars for its soul.
Yet in its madness, hands seized the traitor's arm.
This grip was no mere restraint, it was a declaration.
The will to cleanse endures. I have not surrendered to this near-inevitable fall.
But as it drew a weary breath, even that resolve was wounded.
From behind—soundless, unannounced—came a nameless surge of power, born of darkness, demanding no justification.
It struck Ophistu's back with the force of a wrath never recorded in any scripture.
The impact sent its body hurtling forward, flung like a scroll of fate discarded onto foreign soil. Wings once majestic now flailed uncontrollably, churning the air as Ophistu fought to stabilize.
It did not fall. It did not yield. Yet neither was it whole.
Ophistu flew.
Not low, nor too high, just enough to realize silence had replaced all things.
Nothing remained. No trace of the wave that had struck. No sign of Mala Qudshi, its corruption swallowed by irrefutable quiet.
And in that void, Ophistu hovered, torn between the resolve to advance and wounds not yet named.
'Still standing? The incantation was flawless—enough to topple seventy thousand skies in less than two seconds.
The vessel remains intact.
Uncracked. Unshaken. Compelled to listen.
Tell me this is not the work of Nebetu'u, that wretched maggot.
How? She was the one cast out, trapped until the summoning reached completion.
Impossible.
Our consciousness must be under siege. If this is her deception, it means one thing: she has surpassed all understood limits.'
Fuuuuuhhh!
'...Or is there another entity?'
Wufffffh!
'A glance. Nothing more. Just certainty.'
"..."
Stillness returned, not the kind that heals, but the quiet of gritted teeth, festering in its own shadow.
Deep within the castle, that space endured, a reality unbound by logic, pulsing and warping as if dreaming awake.
Its walls peeled like nut shells, dismantled and reassembled at random.
Here, the architects toiled endlessly, weaving layered universes in mimicry of those who came before, the earliest Satanists.
They built their own worlds, tier upon tier, like spinners blind to the loom's end.
Yet their tapestries would never, not for a single second, touch even the castle's outermost soil.
No wonder mortal religions called this place Hell.
Both castle and world—where Ush's family was slaughtered by wings that were entities, beings of identical classification—were siblings in ruin.
Older. Untouchable. Like the first weavers.
A pity only the castle refused communion, rejecting even trivial interaction.
To Satanists, it was mere illusion, a shimmer of delusion, like staring at unreachable starlight.
To the castle, they were ants interpreting the gestures of constellations.
Now, silence nested in that hollow.
Motionless.
Breathless.
Cutting.
To some souls, such quiet might mean peace, absolution, an end to clamor.
Not for Ophistu.
The pain in its wings, charred near to ruin, was no longer flesh-deep.
It spread further, searing the core of its being. What burned was not just feathers, not just the luminous grace that once crowned its back.
It was identity.
In this place, suffering was not merely wounds, it was the erosion of meaning, the question of who still deserved to be called alive.
To be continued…