Chapter 528
An empty stomach, bones that had become muscle and muscles that had become bone, two eye sockets staring in different directions, arms whose skin peeled away like burned paper, fingers reduced to only two. All those wounds, all that destruction, all of the youngest one's absolute conviction that this body no longer deserved to remain whole suddenly became irrelevant.
Because Theo stood.
Not with the slow, painful movement of someone awakening from a long coma, but with a firm, immediate motion, like a tree that, even after its roots had been severed, still chose to stand because it knew no other way to be a tree except by standing upright.
"Ah," Theo said as he stretched both arms above his head, arms with only a few fingers remaining, palms still stained crimson with blood that had never truly dried, hands that only a second ago had been folded between two prostrations like a prayer that had never reached its destination. From his empty abdomen came the cracking sound of his spine realigning itself, one vertebra after another, as though someone were carefully arranging books on a shelf that had been left in disarray for far too long.
"It's been a long time... a very long time since I did something like this. Usually, I just sit back and let them keep talking until they grow tired of hearing themselves. But today..."
He lowered his head as though inspecting the gaping hole in his stomach, a hole that still exposed his spotless white spine, faintly pulsing beneath the air. Then he chuckled softly, a laugh born not from joy but from relief, a strange relief that came from the decision to stop enduring and finally begin moving.
"Today, I feel... rather excited."
The youngest one, who only moments earlier had stood with both hands raised and countless layers of Sa prepared to be unleashed, slowly opened his mouth.
Not to speak, but because words had abandoned him. Never had he imagined that this young man with an empty stomach and missing eyes would stand again, especially after every layer of Sa he had stacked upon him, after every authority of existential suppression and the erasure of will that had been unleashed one after another like an endless succession of tidal waves.
"You... you can't..." he finally managed to utter. Yet before the sentence was even complete, he had already cast "Sa: Reduction," "Sa: Denial," and "Sa: Fragmentation" all at once, three authorities powerful enough to reduce a dragon to dust, to erase entire armies of angels from existence, powerful enough to force reality itself into surrender and acknowledge that it could never oppose the decision of a god.
Yet Theo, whose hands were now raised slightly above his head, neither dodged nor rolled to either side, nor crawled like a spider with three broken legs.
He simply clapped.
A single clap, not loud, not thunderous enough to shake space itself, but gentle, almost impossibly gentle, like someone patting the shoulder of a grieving friend to reassure them that everything would be alright.
And from that clap, from the air surrounding the palms that now possessed only a handful of fingers, dozens of shadows were born.
Not dark shadows cast by objects blocking the light, but radiant shadows, shadows woven from ink, paper, and dreams that had never slept, shadows that spoke with voices emerging not from throats, but from the essence of their own existence.
"Praise be to the Most Honorable Great Author," declared the first shadow, taking the form of an elderly blind woman whom Aldraya had once encountered in a universe long since erased.
"The One who brought us forth from nothingness," continued the second shadow, shaped like a young boy whose smile was far too wide for his face.
"The One who inscribed our names upon pages that shall never fade," said the third shadow, which possessed no form at all, for it was merely a mass of wandering light moving aimlessly yet with perfect awareness.
The youngest one stumbled backward three steps, his feet dragging across the cracked marble floor, leaving behind long claw marks and streaks of gray blood flowing from the palms of his tightly clenched fists. Before him, from Theo's single clap, not merely dozens, but hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of shadows began filling the air, flooding the spaces between the pillars of atonement, occupying every corner of the Land of the Gods that had once been filled only with suffocating silence, restrained breaths, and faint smiles that never truly reached the heart.
Dozens of lights followed those shadows, lights that came neither from the sun nor the moon nor the stars, but from prayers that had never been answered, tears that had never been dried, hopes that had been severed before they could bloom. Every fragment of light that had remained buried within the darkness of the horror novels written by the Great Author now burst forth from Theo's clap, flooding the Land of the Gods with a radiance that no one had ever requested, yet no one could possibly reject.
"Our hopes and prayers are offered to the Most Honorable Great Author," said the first light, its voice as gentle as a mother's whisper to a sleepless child.
"May Your words continue to flow, continue to resonate, continue to remind the world that horror is not about ghosts, demons, or gods, but about human beings who have ceased to be human," continued the second light, its voice as sharp as a freshly unsheathed razor.
And between those countless shadows and lights filling the air, dozens of universes began to take shape, miniature universes spinning upon Theo's two remaining fingertips, worlds containing mountains, oceans, and cities whose names had never been spoken, inhabited by beings unknown to any god because they had been born not from power, but from imagination, from fear, from the most fertile darkness.
"Woe to anyone who dares obstruct the path of the Most Honorable Great Author!" cried the first universe, and from within it erupted a thunderous roar that shook the pillars of atonement until their wooden frames groaned like bones on the verge of breaking.
"Woe to anyone who doubts His words!" declared the second universe, its voice louder, deeper, and more terrifying than every laugh the youngest one had ever unleashed throughout the hall.
"Woe to anyone who believes that power, Sa, and authority can protect them from the wrath of an author whose works have inspired millions of people to lose sleep throughout the night!"
The youngest one clenched both fists.
Not out of anger, but because he needed to make sure they were still there, that he could still feel something other than the strange tremor spreading from his fingertips to his wrists, from his wrists to his elbows, from his elbows to his shoulders, from his shoulders to the heart beating far too fast, far too chaotically, like a bird trapped inside a cage far too small for its outstretched wings.
"You think you can defeat me with... with a clap, a few shadows, and those cheap lights?" he screamed, his voice rising far higher than he intended, sharper, sounding more like a child throwing a tantrum after having a favorite toy taken away by an older sibling.
"I've destroyed your body! I've emptied your stomach! I've torn your eyes apart! And you're still standing there, smiling as though none of those wounds mean anything at all!"
To be continued…