Chapter 447
Within that silence, within the emptiness of his mind that he had deliberately created as a space to contemplate without disturbance, there was nothing but pure consciousness floating among layers of overlapping dimensions.
Three seconds passed in absolute stillness.
Three seconds in which the evolutionary process continued without pause.
Three seconds in which Xavier allowed himself to think of nothing, feel nothing, and desire nothing.
And when those three seconds came to an end, when the silence began to feel too long to maintain, Xavier once again spoke within the deepest recesses of his heart, continuing the murmur that had briefly been interrupted, adding new layers of thought upon the foundation of the hypothesis he had previously constructed.
He explained that there was a reason why he equated Theo's essence with a fragment of Quil-Hasa that had disguised itself in this world.
Not because of coincidence.
Not because of intuition.
Not because of blind suspicion without foundation.
All of it came from the observations he had carried out over time, from small details that might escape the attention of other beings but could never evade the awareness of an eternal wanderer like himself.
There was something different within Theo.
Something unusual.
Something that should not exist within someone who claimed to be an ordinary human.
And that difference could not be explained with normal logic.
It could not be placed within the framework of understanding that Xavier had long used to read reality.
More than mere difference, there were four strange things that constantly surrounded Theo wherever he stepped.
Four invisible entities that moved around the young man like satellites faithfully orbiting their parent planet.
Four presences that could not be detected by ordinary sight but were clearly sensed by Xavier's consciousness, sharpened through thousands of years of wandering.
They never left Theo.
They never drifted away.
They never grew careless.
They were always there, always watching, always prepared, like loyal guards whose sole duty was to protect their master from whatever threat might appear.
And the existence of those four foreign entities, the way they moved, the way they interacted with the reality surrounding Theo, all sent faint signals that continuously reminded Xavier of something from a very dark past.
Moreover, a small trace of aura that Theo revealed after the bombing carried out by Aldraya in the library of the Star Academy became evidence Xavier could not ignore.
When chaos erupted.
When dust filled the air and obscured vision.
When panicked screams echoed throughout the room.
Theo briefly lost control over something he had been hiding all this time.
And in that fleeting moment, in a fraction of a second almost too short for a blink, Xavier felt an aura that was both eerily familiar and deeply terrifying.
That aura resembled Quil-Hasa.
The God who had been the most insane opponent Xavier had ever faced during his long wandering.
The being who had nearly caused him and the thirteen Highest Angels to lose everything during the Second Heavenly Betrayal in the Heavenly Land.
The same vibration.
The same intensity.
The same madness.
All of it radiated from Theo during that brief instant before the young man managed to regain control and tightly seal whatever had momentarily been exposed.
"I can transcend causality. I can destroy cause and effect. But if what stands before me is even a fragment of a God and reality itself, then even nothingness is not enough to hide."
Yet instead of calming his mind and attempting to relax before truly arriving at the Land of the Gods, Xavier was suddenly struck by an uneasiness he could not control.
Amid the ongoing process of evolution, at a moment when the nature of his existence was transforming toward a higher level of being, a terrifying scenario suddenly crossed his mind and caused his anxiety to surge far beyond anything he had experienced during thousands of years of wandering.
He imagined that his words to Ilux some time ago, his statement that the current Xavier was far stronger than Aldraya, had truly been conveyed by that child to Aldraya.
He imagined the innocent Ilux, unaware of the consequences of his words, casually mentioning that information in front of Aldraya.
Perhaps during an ordinary conversation.
Perhaps without malicious intent.
Perhaps simply driven by the desire to share what he knew.
And within that imagined scenario, Xavier clearly saw how quickly the information would reach the right ears.
How quickly Aldraya would react.
How quickly the fallen highest angel would take action.
Clearly, if Ilux truly delivered that message seriously, it would be the same as bringing death upon Xavier XVII himself.
Not death in the ordinary sense.
Not the end of a journey that could be accepted peacefully.
But total destruction.
Absolute annihilation.
Permanent erasure from every remaining record of existence.
For the closeness between Aldraya and Theo could no longer be denied.
A fact that became even clearer when Xavier recalled the encounter between Ilux and Aldraya in a school corridor some time ago.
At that moment, when two beings with intertwined destinies crossed paths, Xavier witnessed something that caused his cosmic heart to stop beating for a moment.
The four strange things that usually clung to the aura of Theo Vkytor's existence.
The four invisible entities that constantly surrounded the young man wherever he went.
To Xavier's surprise, they were also circling around Aldraya's aura of existence at that time.
They appeared.
They moved.
They revolved around Aldraya in exactly the same manner as when they orbited Theo.
As if the two beings were connected by a thread of fate that no power could sever.
And through that encounter alone, even without anyone telling him anything, Xavier became deeply convinced that Aldraya, after being demoted from teacher to student at the Star Academy due to the bombing of the library, had reached a level of power far beyond what he possessed during his time as one of the Highest Angels.
Not an ordinary increase.
Not a normal evolution.
Not a development that could be explained through typical logic of power growth.
Aldraya had leapt forward.
He had surged ahead.
He had reached a dimension of power that could no longer be measured using the old parameters.
As for the exact scale, Xavier could not determine it with certainty.
Perhaps five thousand times stronger than Aldraya's former Highest Angel version.
Or perhaps comparable to the weakest fragment of Quil-Hasa, what was often referred to as an avatar.
A leap that made no sense.
An increase that seemed impossible.
A transformation that could only be explained by the intervention of forces far beyond the understanding of ordinary beings.
Although Xavier did not know what those four strange things surrounding the aura of Theo and Aldraya truly were, although he could not identify those mysterious entities that loyally accompanied the two wherever they went, he was absolutely certain of one thing with a conviction that no doubt could shake.
That the faintest resonance they emitted, spreading through the aura of Theo and Aldraya's presence, contained the core, the idea, or the fundamental concept necessary for the continuation of reality in this world.
Not merely power.
Not merely energy.
Not merely the ability to destroy or create.
But something far more fundamental.
Something that served as the foundation of everything that exists.
Something which, if disturbed, would cause reality itself to collapse like a house of cards losing its balance.
To be continued…