The judgment shattered Javier Jeffrey. Not through weeping or fury. By a definitive quiet detachment. He shifted his gaze from the tablet's display to the sheets of his notebook beyond, to the foggy ravine. The delicate academic who had pursued the mysteries of Calculus had vanished. Replacing him was a seer speaking in a dull monotone.
"They have mastered the reversal " he stated. "Somnum aimed to numb the world. This… this Resonance… attempts to intensify it to levels. Compelling you to experience the shared struggle as your pain. It is empathy turned into a weapon. Bond, as a means of torment."
He shifted his gaze to Devon. "You inquired whether a sanctuary can exist. The response is affirmative.. It is not a refuge of tranquility. It is a realm of denial. The Chapel doesn't provide solace. It gives a way out. The Calculus isn't a supplication; it's a plea, for obliteration.. Belphegor… Belphegor isn't a demon of idleness. It is the eraser."
The chill of the bothy penetrated Devon's bones profoundly, than the Highland moisture. "Flavio's group. When will they arrive?"
"Shortly. They have awaited the judgment. For the government to reveal its nature. Now they possess their martyr and their authorization." Jeffrey shut the notebook holding it tightly against his chest. "Fronie Felicity requires a base. The Chapel's altar stone. Luna Lorelei will guarantee they face no disruption. They will carve the Final Formula. Not a token of defeat. A formula, for reversal. They trust it will create a… a confined void. A pocket of permanent stillborn potential."
". You? What's your belief?"
Jeffrey remained quiet for a moment. The wind whispered through a gap in the rock. "I think that when you gaze at calculus for a period one of two outcomes occurs. You. Lose your mind to the lure of the abyss… or you choose to enter it. I am too weary, for insanity."
At dawn Devon departed the bothy tracing Jeffrey's spoken guidance along a deer path that disappeared into scree and heather. The "Chapel" wasn't an edifice. Instead it was an oddity—a flawless bowl-like hollow, in the glen its edges blanketed with dense moss and its base a ring of unnaturally level, grey rock. It resembled less a location and more a crater, a spot where something had been precisely removed from existence. The silence here was different from the museum, from the archive. This silence was hungry.
He discovered proof of others. A discarded instrument—a laser-etching device utilized for accurate stone carving. A piece of linen the type Fronie Felicity wore. They had been present getting ready.
He only had to wait.
They arrived at midday while the pale sun barely managed to dissipate the fog. Three individuals. Fronie, with a toolbox in hand her artistic intensity now refined into a concentration. Luna Lorelei, gliding with a predator's ease eyes fixed on the forest edge, a small pulse-disruptor strapped, to her side.. Positioned between them Flavio Fergal.
He appeared aged, devoid of his public calmness. His visage was marked by a dreadful determination. This was not the thinker discussing beauty. This was a commander reaching the battlefield.
Devon, hidden among the brambles on the craters edge went unnoticed, by them.
Fronie promptly began working on the central altar stone unpacking her instruments. Luna stationed herself by the bowl's entrance, a formidable guardian.
Flavio remained at the middle raising his head toward the sky. When he spoke his voice rang out distinctly in the air.
"They've turned empathy into a tool of control. They've turned connection into a breach. They will fill Elara with the aspirations of others until her own silence is overwhelmed. They will impose this on anyone searching for a respite. The conflict has ended. The era for declarations for art has ended." He glanced at Fronie's developing marks, on the rock. "At present we provide a form of healing. The sole remedy for a world that never ceases shouting… is ultimate silence, in hearing."
Devon reached for his sidearm, the issue Europol neural-pulse pistol. It seemed tiny like a plaything, beside the metaphysical weapon shaping beneath.
Fronie's craft was captivating. She wasn't engraving; she was undoing engravings. The laser etcher didn't inscribe marks; it appeared to accentuate the stone's cracks outlining the engulfing spiral the intricate twists of the Lethargic Calculus, in its fullest most dreadful manifestation. The emblem started to emit a pearly glow not bouncing light back but apparently absorbing it.
A profound audible drone resonated through the ground. The fog, within the basin started to swirl, around the altar stone.
Luna's head whipped toward Devon's concealment spot. Her gaze, piercing like steel fixed on his. She remained silent. She acted.
Devon tumbled as a burst of force tore through the bracken beneath him. He sprang up shooting. The neural pulse aimed to disrupt motor control—non-lethal and effective. It surged through Luna. She trembled, faltered, yet remained standing. Her determination, her concentration acted as a barrier. She growled, lifting her disruptor more.
Flavio spoke clearly composed. "Luna. He isn't the adversary. He's a manifestation. Allow him to observe."
Luna dropped her weapon. Her eyes foretold aggression.
Devon remained standing pulse pistol raised his heart pounding heavily within his chest. The hum grew more intense a tightness, in his jaw. The mist twirled rapidly.
"It's not late Flavio! This isn't, about looks! This is… this is destruction!"
"Destruction of what Devon?" Flavio opened his arms wide embracing the valley, the heavens the universe around them. "The clamor? The pressure? The agony named life? You sensed it in Rotterdam. You desired it in that archive. You understand this is the genuine liberty remaining." He moved closer, to the emblem. "The Empathy Resonance stands as the evidence. They won't permit us to rest. Hence we will achieve stillness in a manner, beyond their reach. We will create a silence so profound it turns into a barrier."
Fronie completed her flawless stroke. The emblem shone with a iridescent glow. The murmur solidified into a sound, one profound tone that appeared to rise from beneath the worlds foundations. The atmosphere, inside the hollow became dense oppressive. Time itself appeared to loosen, decelerate.
Devon's personal resolve, his anxiety, his intense urgency to act started to fade. It felt tangible, like life ebbing from a cut. A deep alluring apathy murmured to him through the gem. Put down your arms. Put down your responsibility. Put down your identity. It's so tough being Devon Duncan. Why not... Give up?
He staggered. The gun weighed as heavy, as lead in his grasp.
Flavio grinned, a conclusive smile. He moved onto the core spiral of the emblem into the center of the equation. "The initial volunteer, for the refuge. Inform them… inform them I eventually grasped the beauty."
He shut his eyes.
The brightness grew stronger. The pitch lowered. Flavio Fergal did not fall down. He merely… dissolved. Not abruptly, but slowly softly disappearing. The clarity slipped from his contours. The hue faded away from his shape not into grey. Into transparency. Briefly he resembled a human-shaped pane revealing the swirling fog, behind him. Then he ceased to be.
He had vanished. No corpse. No evidence. Just the buzzing. An immaculate, piercing stillness where a man once stood.
Fronie Felicity lowered her head respectfully. Luna Lorelei observed, not with grief but, with a victorious desire.
Devon gazed into the area the handgun hanging from his limp fingers. The oppression of focus had arrived at its dreadful conclusion. Not an uprising. An erasure.. As the resonant tone of emptiness pulsed within the core of his being the most dreadful notion of all emerged, subtle and irrefutable:
It looked like peace.