Chapter 529
He unleashed "Sa: Judgment," "Sa: Singularity," and "Sa: Elimination" all at once, three Sa that should have been enough to erase the entire timeline from existence, enough to force the world of Flo Viva Mythology to restart from the very beginning without ever saving its progress, enough to ensure that nothing remained of Theo except dust that no one would ever remember.
And for a brief moment, the air between them turned dark, empty, stripped of everything worthy of being called reality, because those three overlapping Sa attacked not only the body but also space, time, cause, effect, and every concept that had ever served as the foundation of existence.
Yet Theo, whose eyes were still nothing more than two gaping crimson sockets, whose optic nerves remained severed, whose gaze still pointed both left and right at the same time, slowly opened his mouth.
No sound emerged.
Only the movement of lips torn in three places, moving slowly, far too slowly, like someone whispering a prayer inside a dream they would never remember upon waking.
And from those silent movements, from that silence containing nothing except vibrations no ear could ever hear, the youngest one read the very same words that had been sung moments earlier by the shadows, the lights, and the universes.
Praise be to the Most Honorable Great Author. Hope and prayers of gratitude be offered to the Most Honorable Great Author. And woe to anyone who stands in His way.
The youngest one's knees buckled.
Not because he intended them to, but because something pressed down upon him from above, a pressure that could neither be seen, felt, nor smelled, yet undeniably existed, like the gentle weight of a giant hand resting upon his shoulders, impossible to resist, like a destiny written long before his birth, one he could never rewrite despite possessing Sa capable of changing anything.
He fell, not face-first to the ground as Theo once had, but onto both knees upon the cracked marble floor, his left hand supporting part of his weight while his right remained raised, still holding the Sa he had not yet fully released. For one impossibly long second, far too long, he could only remain silent, his chest rising and falling unevenly, gasping like someone who had just fled from a pursuer he had never actually seen.
"I... I'm still standing," he whispered, forcing both legs to support his body once again, his thigh muscles taut, his shins trembling, his knees feeling as though impatient hands were crushing them. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he managed to stand upright, even though the soles of his feet felt as if they were planted upon eternal embers, even though gray blood poured more heavily from the palms he had torn apart with his own fingernails, even though, deep within his mind, in the place where every memory of lonely birthday celebrations had been buried, a voice whispered.
"You will never win. You never have. Ever since I blew out my birthday candles alone at the age of six, you had already lost."
He shook his head, not to answer the voice, but to drive it away, to prove that he was still the sole ruler of the Land of the Gods, still the youngest sibling who had conquered every one of his brothers and sisters.
And when he lifted his head to face Theo once more, preparing to unleash a fourth Sa, then a fifth, a sixth, without limit, without pause, until the young man was utterly destroyed and could never rise again, his blazing crimson eyes, filled with hatred, fear, and a loneliness he had never admitted, met the two empty sockets upon Theo's face.
But those empty sockets were no longer empty.
Within Theo's eyes, within the cavities that should have contained nothing but dried blood, severed nerves, and withered flesh, something shone.
It was not the gentle light radiated by the shadows, nor the warm glow carried by the prayers of gratitude, but a dim radiance, resembling tiny engravings carved upon retinas that no longer remained whole. Engravings beyond the comprehension of logic, Sa, or any authority, for they had not been created from code, magic, or divine will, but from something older, more primitive, more profoundly human.
Memories.
Four symbols.
Three of them looked as though they had been carved by the hands of a child, uneven strokes, crooked angles, interrupted lines that faded halfway through, like the work of small hands still too weak to press a pencil firmly against paper.
The first symbol resembled an uneven eye, its left side larger than its right, with eyelashes drawn far too thick on one side and completely forgotten on the other.
The second symbol resembled a heart that was far too round, almost like an apple with its lower portion bitten away by a mouse, its dividing line tilted awkwardly to the right instead of running through the center.
The third symbol resembled a star with seven points, not five, not six, but seven, perhaps because the child had not yet learned that stars were usually drawn with five points, or perhaps because he deliberately chose seven, knowing something adults did not.
"What... what is that?" the youngest one whispered, and the words came not from his throat but from deep within his chest, heavy and resonant, echoing like a voice inside a basement far too vast to be filled by a single sound. His crimson eyes no longer burned.
He stood petrified, frozen, unable to look away from the symbols slowly revolving within Theo's retinas, spinning like the wheels of a cart pushed endlessly by the wind, spinning like time itself that never slept, spinning like countless moments in which that lonely little boy had done nothing more than write down every hope he carried, only to watch every one of them remain forever unfulfilled.
And the fourth symbol, the last and the most distinct of them all, was slightly larger, carrying an unmistakably older and more mature appearance, though it still looked as if it had been carved by a child between the ages of eight and twelve, whose hands had begun to learn precision without ever fully abandoning imagination.
The fourth symbol resembled a door, a door without a handle, without hinges, without a lock, yet surrounded by pulsing lines like living veins. Those lines moved in and out, rising and falling, as though the door itself were breathing, as though it were patiently waiting for someone worthy to open it.
The youngest one realized that his eyes, which only a moment earlier had still been capable of blinking, glancing left and right, escaping the reality that he was losing, could no longer blink, could no longer look elsewhere, could no longer flee from anything. His vision had been forced to focus, forced to stare, forced to read what was written upon Theo's retinas, even though there were no words there at all, only symbols, only engravings, only the memories of a lonely little boy who would one day grow into a horror author whose works would leave millions unable to sleep at night.
And as those four symbols slowly revolved within Theo's empty eye sockets, the uneven eye, the overly round heart, the seven-pointed star, and the breathing door rising and falling like the chest of a child who had only just stopped crying, something began spreading from his body, a body whose stomach was still empty, whose bones had become muscle and whose muscles had become bone, yet which now stood upright like a tree whose roots had been severed but still refused to fall.
To be continued…