Morwen Val's hoarse interrogation echoed through the deathly silent bridge.
Every word seemed to use up the embers of her ten-thousand-year faith, filled with extreme pain and disbelief.
"What have you done... to her?!"
Angronia stepped forward half a pace; her dark red power armor emitted a dull grinding sound, and pure Battle Intent began to burn in her amber eyes.
Fogremia and Sanguinia also turned to the side simultaneously, shielding Leticia behind them with icy expressions.
However, Leticia merely raised a hand, gently stopping them.
She did not look at the Grand Abbot of Saints, whose mind was on the verge of collapse.
She did not even answer the question.
It was as if that hoarse, desperate interrogation was merely a meaningless whimper carried on the wind.
Leticia walked to the side of the throne.
She leaned down, her movements as gentle as if she were afraid of disturbing the most precious treasure in the world.
She reached out her hand and gently patted the small, curled-up figure on the throne.
Her voice was gentle enough to melt the glaciers of eternity.
"Terra, wake up."
"A guest wants to see you."
On the throne, the blanket woven from light moved slightly.
Golden hair, like flowing molten gold, spread out from under the blanket.
Terrania let out a dissatisfied murmur, thick with sleepiness, and slowly sat up.
She rubbed her sleepy eyes, those pure golden pupils still somewhat hazy, reflecting the soft lights of the bridge.
She subconsciously searched for Leticia's figure, and upon seeing Leticia right beside her, a relieved, dependent smile immediately appeared on her face.
Then, she curiously cast her gaze not far away.
She saw the "big sister" wearing a magnificent silver-white suit of armor.
She saw her face, pale as paper.
She saw that in those eyes, sharp as a hawk's, a storm of pain, confusion, and fear was surging.
Terrania tilted her little head in confusion.
She jumped down from the throne, barefoot, and walked step by step toward Morwen Val.
She looked up, gazing at the figure before her who was so much taller than her.
In those pure, unblemished golden eyes, there was the most innocent, most direct confusion.
"Sister."
She spoke in a childish, milky voice.
"Why are you... crying?"
Boom!
This light, powerless question was like an invisible battering ram, slamming fiercely against Morwen Val's heart!
I... am crying?
Morwen Val subconsciously raised her hand, wanting to touch her own cheek.
Only then did she discover that her vision had become blurred without her knowing.
Hot liquid was uncontrollably sliding down from the eye sockets that had witnessed countless wars and deaths.
She braced herself, maintaining the dignity of the Grand Abbot of Saints, trying to speak, trying to use words of judgment to interrogate the identity of the mysterious girl before her.
But.
When she met those golden eyes, so pure that they contained not a single impurity.
All the prepared, cold, law-like judgment words melted and evaporated instantly, like ice scorched by a raging fire, and she could not utter a single word.
She opened her mouth, her throat dry and painful.
Terrania did not wait for an answer, nor did she care.
She just continued to look up, gazing at Morwen Val, and spoke on her own.
The voice was very light, very childish, yet it seemed to pierce through space and time, recounting a truth that had been forgotten for ten thousand years.
"I can hear it."
"I can hear so, so many people crying."
"The stars... are also crying."
Terrania stretched out her little hand and pointed toward the deep sea of stars outside the porthole.
"Everyone... is so tired."
That last sentence, like the gentlest sharp blade, pierced precisely into the softest, most exhausted part of Morwen Val's soul.
So tired...
Yes.
So tired.
Fighting for ten thousand years for an ethereal oracle.
Praying for ten thousand years to a silent deity.
Supporting for ten thousand years a crumbling empire.
She was tired.
Her Sisters were tired.
The entire empire was tired.
This simple sentence completely crushed the armor of solid ice named "Grand Abbot of Saints" that Morwen Val had built over ten thousand years.
The armor shattered inch by inch.
Revealing the mortal soul inside, which was also capable of confusion, pain, and exhaustion.
She abandoned all her identities.
She abandoned all her dignity.
She looked at the Blonde Girl before her, her gaze no longer one of judgment, but a kind of almost desperate... plea.
She used all the strength of her life to ask the question that had plagued her for her entire life, and had plagued countless loyal sons of the empire for their entire lives.
That question had even become a taboo of the empire.
"God-Emperor..."
Her voice trembled violently due to excitement.
"Why has the God-Emperor been silent for ten thousand years?!"
"Why... allow His empire to Decay to this extent?!"
This interrogation was no longer aimed at Leticia and these "heretics."
It was aimed at the God she had believed in for her whole life!
It was the most desperate cry toward this cold universe!
The entire bridge was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Everyone's gaze was focused on that small figure.
Terrania looked at the "big sister" before her who had suddenly suffered an emotional breakdown, and a sad expression appeared on her face.
She stood on tiptoe and reached out her little, soft hand.
Wanting to wipe away the unstoppable tears from the corners of Morwen Val's eyes, just as Leticia did when comforting her.
Just at the moment her fingertips were about to touch Morwen Val's cheek.
Terrania's movement stopped.
At that moment, her pure golden eyes lost all their innocence and focus.
Replaced by an endless, distant, and... sorrowful look that seemed to bear the weight of ten thousand years.
Her voice also became ethereal and ancient.
"Because..."
"He is too tired..."
Five simple words.
No grandeur of an oracle.
No profundity of scripture.
Just like a child stating the simplest, most plain fact.
But these five words were like a bolt of lightning from the beginning of creation, fiercely splitting Morwen Val's chaotic mind!
What... did she say?
Tired?
God... can also get tired?
Just at the moment Morwen Val was stunned by this subversive answer, Terrania's distant voice sounded again.
There was a heartbreaking weariness in that voice.
"He is just..."
"Too tired."
"So tired... that He cannot speak."
Boom!!!
This answer, simple to the extreme yet sad to the extreme, was like a heavy hammer forged from holiness and compassion.
It did not smash Morwen Val's faith.
Instead, it gently, yet irresistibly, shattered the cold and majestic... statue of God that had been worshipped in her heart for ten thousand years.
So... that's how it is?
It is not that the deity is heartless.
It is not that the deity has abandoned them.
It is just because... He, like us, can feel pain and get tired.
It is just that the pain He endures is billions of times more than all of ours combined.
His exhaustion has long since exceeded the limits of the universe.
This answer, filled with "humanity," was more impactful than any theological debate!
It instantly allowed all of Morwen Val's persistence and confusion over the past ten thousand years to find an exit that was the most absurd, yet the most reasonable.
"Thump—"
Morwen Val's tall body could no longer support itself.
Her knees went weak, and her heavy power armor knelt fiercely onto the cold metal deck, making a loud noise.
The war halberd in her hand also clattered to the ground.
Tears, like a bursting flood, poured out from those eyes that could no longer maintain their sharpness.
She was completely dazed.
Like a child who had been lost for ten thousand years, finally hearing news of their father, only to learn that the father was already too exhausted to respond.
In this suffocating silence.
Morwen Val trembled and took out a palm-sized object wrapped in thick layers of holy oilcloth from the hidden pocket on the innermost side of her breastplate.
That was her last reliance.
It was her last... line of defense.
She used all the strength in her body to hold that object high, facing the direction of the throne.
"If..."
Her voice was hoarse, filled with a final, desperate struggle.
"If you really are Him..."
"Then prove it to me!"
"With this... relic of the Father!"
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