Chapter 154
Arya did not answer immediately.
He did not nod or shake his head either, because inside his mind—in the space he had long used to store every report he had stolen from the Temporal Cross-Police servers, all the data he had gathered over the years, all the information he had obtained in ways he had never told anyone—Nirma's voice kept echoing.
A voice that said that Umar ibn Khattab, one of the greatest caliphs in Islamic history, might have unknowingly opened the door to chaos that would become the most fertile ground for the entity they were searching for, that even decisions made with the purest intentions could become weapons in the hands of those who had never known good intentions.
He exhaled.
A long breath, like air drawn from the depths of lungs that had been filled for too long with dust, smoke, and the lingering scent of blood that never truly faded.
And as he released that breath, he raised his hand—slowly, carefully, like someone lifting something extremely fragile, something that would shatter into thousands of irreparable pieces if it fell.
"Maybe you're right," he finally said.
His voice came out in a different tone than before—lower, like someone admitting he might be wrong, that he might have been too fixated on a single perspective, that he might have forgotten there were other perspectives just as important.
"Maybe the era of the Khulafa al-Rashidun is the most fertile ground. Maybe Umar's decision not to record hadith was a door deliberately left open. Maybe that is where this entity will choose to appear—in the gap between what is heard and what is written, between what is remembered and what is forgotten, between what truly came from the Prophet's mouth and what was later claimed by those who had never even seen his face."
He stopped.
He looked at Nirma, his eyes no longer simply black or brown, but something deeper—like someone trying to look inward, trying to measure how much he should say and how much he should keep for later.
And when he saw that Nirma still sat calmly, her hands resting on her thighs, her breathing unchanged, he continued.
His voice became slightly faster, like someone chasing something that might slip away if not grasped quickly.
"But we can't just look at one side, Nirma. We can't only look at Islam and forget Christianity. We can't only look at Umar's time and ignore other eras. We can't just see one open door and ignore the others that might have been wide open at the same time. You said Martin Luther's era was too calm. You said the Protestant Reformation didn't have a single turning point where everything could change with just one precise intervention. You said this entity would choose the most chaotic time—the bloodiest, the most fear-filled. And maybe you're right. Maybe you're right about all of that."
Haaah!!
"But think about it, Nirma. Think about what happened in Europe in the sixteenth century. Not just Luther translating the Bible in Wartburg. Not just Tyndale translating it in England. But the German peasants who read Luther's translation and realized that what the Church had taught them might not have been entirely true. The nobles who used these new teachings as justification to seize lands long controlled by monasteries. The religious wars that would rage for over a hundred years. The blood that would flow across Europe, no less than what flowed in Jerusalem in 1099. The chaos that rivaled what happened in Baghdad when the Abbasid Caliphate fell."
Fhuuuuh!!
"Are you really sure, Nirma, that era was too calm? Are you really sure that when sacred texts—once accessible only to those who understood Latin—suddenly became readable by farmers who had never even sat in a classroom, when anyone who could read began daring to interpret what God meant for them, when there was no longer a single authoritative voice because thousands shouted that they were the most correct, when the Church that had stood as the sole guardian of truth for a thousand years suddenly fractured into two, into four, into eight, into as many as those who dared open the book and read it with their own eyes—are you truly sure there wasn't even a single point where everything could change with just one precise intervention?"
Arya rubbed his lightly stubbled chin.
His eyes stared into an empty point, as if arranging a timeline inside his mind.
"If that Abnormal truly intends to disrupt the two Abrahamic religions," he murmured softly, "then it will definitely target a point capable of influencing future generations.
A point whose impact does not end with a single event."
Nirma tilted her head slightly.
"You mean a key figure?"
Arya nodded.
"Not just wars. Not just shifts of power. But the people who write, record, or spread the very foundations of those teachings."
But before Nirma could respond, a short beep suddenly cut through their conversation.
Both of them fell silent.
Arya's wristwatch, which had been strapped to his left wrist all along, began to vibrate lightly.
A faint blue light glowed from its digital surface—the distinctive sign of the Linear Time Police's internal communication system.
Arya frowned.
"That's… a new message."
Carefully, he raised his hand slightly, making sure his body didn't shift too far from his seated position.
His thumb pressed the side of the watch twice.
Moments later, a small holographic screen opened just above it.
A new folder appeared.
At the top corner of the screen, a short sentence was written:
"PRIORITY ALERT – ANOMALY MOVEMENT DETECTED."
Arya stared at it for a few seconds.
Then he opened the folder.
His eyes widened instantly.
"No way…" he muttered.
Nirma, who had been observing his expression, narrowed her eyes.
"What is it?"
Arya did not answer immediately.
He read the report quickly, scrolling through the data that kept appearing.
The longer he read, the paler his face became.
A few seconds later, he slowly turned toward Nirma.
"He's already moving."
Nirma raised an eyebrow.
"That fast?"
Arya nodded slowly.
"And not just one point."
Now Nirma was fully focused.
"Explain."
Arya took a deep breath before speaking.
"That Abnormal… seems to be targeting the very foundations of doctrinal dissemination."
To be continued…