Chapter 169
"Belief," Ashita whispered from across the room, her eyes fixed upon Nirma with an expression difficult to decipher.
It was neither amazement nor envy, but an acknowledgment that she, who carried the blood of the Ningsih lineage, had never arrived at this conclusion on her own.
"Belief is a fundamental aspect. Even the very lifeblood of an Abnormal, isn't it?"
The old man smiled—not a bitter smile, not a warm one, but a relieved smile, like someone who had finally entrusted a heavy burden to shoulders capable of carrying it.
"You understand, Nirma. You understand far quicker than I expected. The novel Abnormality was never published, never read, never touched by anyone's eyes except Theo's own. It only lived within his mind, within his dreams, within prayers he never dared to speak aloud. So when the real world and the world of the novel merged, there was no belief sustaining them—Sinta and her Abnormals fell into a void they could not resist, not because they were weak, but because they were never invited."
Hearing that, Arya felt something he had never expected—a flash of Jerusalem in the year 1099, of the messages he and Nirma had gathered all this time, of riddles he had never been able to solve despite spending countless nights staring at the very same archives.
"The Great Abnormals are not hunting Prophet Muhammad SAW. Nor are they hunting Jesus Christ. They are not even targeting the central figures of the other religions," he said, his voice sounding like someone reciting the conclusion to a long calculation, yet beneath its calmness trembled something he could not hide—excitement from finally seeing the pattern, or perhaps fear because what he saw was too vast for the two of them to handle alone.
"They are hunting the collectors of hadith. The apostles. The record keepers. The interpreters. The figures who turned the history of those central figures into history itself—not the central figures themselves."
Tegar, who had remained silent all this time with his fists clenched at his sides, suddenly let out a long breath, like someone finally realizing he had spent all this time chasing shadows on a wall that were nothing more than tricks of light.
"So they do not wish to alter the holy scriptures directly? They want to influence the minds of the writers? To tamper with the memories of the collectors so that what is written is no longer revelation, but… something else?"
Ashita looked at Tegar with a gaze she had never given him before—not as a colleague, but as someone seeing for the first time that her partner could think in ways never taught at the Temporal Cross-Police.
"Not something else, Tegar. Someone. A name."
Nirma closed her left eye for a moment, and within that darkness, she saw everything clearly—the map that had long been formed from fragments she never realized were connected, the red thread stretching from Jerusalem to Medina, from Medina to places she had never visited yet somehow recognized from archives she had never opened.
"They want to write her name," she whispered, and when she opened her eye again, the light within her left eye had changed.
It was neither dim nor blazing, but calm, like the surface of a lake too deep to be disturbed by even the fiercest wind.
"Sinta Melina Ningsih. They want her name to be recorded within the five holy scriptures. In Islam through the Qur'an, in Christianity through the Bible, in Buddhism through the Tripitaka, in Hinduism through the Vedas, and in Confucianism through the Si Shu and Wu Jing. Not as the central figure, not as a goddess, not as a prophet—only as a name that exists, as a trace that cannot be erased, as proof that she once existed and deserved to be remembered."
The old man nodded, and within that nod was a tremor that unconsciously made Ashita support his arm more firmly.
"Because if her name is written within the holy scriptures, Nirma, then belief will naturally flow toward her. Not belief born from coercion, not belief born from fear, but belief born from rituals, from prayers, from recitations repeated every single day by billions of people across the world. And with that belief, Sinta will return. Not as a ghost, not as a shadow, not as a fading memory—but as herself, whole, alive, standing within a world that never once invited her, yet is now forced to accept her because her name has been written in the most sacred of places."
The old man drew a breath for the final time.
Not the breath of someone about to die, but the breath of someone who had finished saying everything that needed to be said and now only needed to leave before his words lost their meaning by lingering too long in the air.
"Ashita," he said softly, his eyes gazing upon the face of his descendant with a look he had never given anyone throughout ten million apocalypses—the gaze of a grandfather wishing to carve his grandchild's face into memory before the door closed, "create a portal for me. Take me to your headquarters. I have stood too long within a world that was never truly my home, and my legs are beginning to forget what it feels like to rest."
Ashita nodded, the hand supporting the old man trembling as she raised her other palm, and within the air between them, golden light began to spread like water flowing across glass—a portal pulsing with the same rhythm as a heartbeat unwilling to part.
Before those frail feet stepped into the light, he turned toward Nirma, and from within the folds of his worn robe, he pulled out a book—its cover crumpled, its pages yellowed, and at the bottom-right corner was a name written in ink that had already half faded.
Theo Vkytor.
"This is for you," he whispered, placing the book into Nirma's cold palm, "the only volume I possess. It only goes up to the year 1998. Up to the point where I—and nearly the entire Ningsih bloodline—died within that three-story pool of blood. I do not fully know what happened afterward. I never lived long enough to read it. But perhaps you, Nirma, with your left eye that sees far too clearly and your right eye that hides something even you yourself are afraid to know—perhaps you can discover something I never could."
When the portal's light closed behind the old man—slowly, like eyelids too exhausted to remain open—Nirma, Arya, Ashita, and Tegar stood within a silence unlike the one before.
It was not an empty silence, but the silence of a room only recently abandoned by a storm, where everyone could still hear its echoes ringing within their ears even though the wind had already ceased.
"He only gave me one volume," Nirma finally said, her eyes fixed upon the book in her hands with an expression difficult to read.
It was neither disappointment nor gratitude, but acceptance, like someone who understands that not every question will be answered within a single night—and that is perfectly fine.
"The information is minimal. Many pages are torn. But it is enough to make us understand that our enemies are not monsters—they are merely beings who have lost their direction."
To be continued…