To the Empire [6]
High in the exalted heavens, one of countless realms.
BOOM—!!
A colossal man, at least two meters tall with blinding platinum hair, slammed his fist into the ground. The sacred earth cracked like a spiderweb from the shockwave.
“How dare you... HOW DARE YOU!!! Treat me, Lord Barat, like some petty god?!!”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Barat roared, smashing everything around him. But what truly drove him mad was something else. He reached into the void, seizing tens of thousands of 'threads of causality' linking to the continent. Threads that should have quivered at their master's call hung limp and blackened, like dead flesh.
“Why... My blessings are clearly etched there, so why won't my divine word reach them!”
He closed his eyes, forcibly scanning the continent's causal laws. But from a certain region onward, all information was shrouded in opaque fog, severed as if locked away. This was no mere coincidence. A power that twisted the continent's very laws to blind a god's gaze.
Barat's eyes flashed with fury and shock.
“The others are the same? ...Only one in the heavens could isolate causality this perfectly.”
Grinding his teeth, an arrogant silhouette of a woman flickered in Barat's mind.
“That bitch... That bitch did this. She who controls the continent's causal laws couldn't possibly be ignorant. She knew a demon had descended and still blinded me!”
Veins bulged in his fists. His divinity surged wildly, spewing dazzling light, and with a massive explosion, he vanished from the spot.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The heart of the heavens, pinnacle of all worlds and grandest sanctuary.
A massive platinum pillar crashed vertically into the sanctuary's plaza. Nearby clouds evaporated from the impact, and amid the radiance, Barat strode forth with hellfire ferocity.
“B-BarAT, my lord! Halt!”
High angels guarding the sanctuary's grand doors crossed their spears to block him.
Elite even among the heavens, their wings trembled in terror at Barat's approaching visage.
“This is Lady Astarte's absolute sanctuary! None may enter without permission...!”
“Out of my way, you vermin!”
Barat didn't deign to reply, his steps unyielding.
With each footfall, the entire sanctuary shook like an earthquake.
“Gaaah...!” “Kuhuk...!”
The angels screamed, slammed to the ground.
Not from any attack. The sheer pressure of his unchecked divinity crushed their shoulders like physical weight.
Noble high angels crawled, vomiting blood, but Barat trampled past without a glance.
BOOM—!!
Touching the sealed sanctuary doors, ancient sacred runes exploded in chain reaction, crumbling away.
He stormed through the forcibly opened gates.
There sat a woman in arrogant repose, her galaxy-tressed hair and indescribable silver pupils gazing into the void.
“ASTARTE!!!!!!!!!!”
Her thunderous roar shook the sanctuary, yet she didn't stir.
A faint, dreamy smile lingered on her profile, hazy and beautiful.
But as Barat's heavy footsteps crushed the barriers, that warmth evaporated. A colorless, emotionless mask took its place.
The sanctuary's temperature plummeted below freezing.
She slowly, languidly lowered her void-staring gaze.
Silver met rage-filled eyes, but her lips remained sealed.
“......”
Suffocating silence flowed.
Barat advanced to her very nose, snarling, but her eerie calm stifled his first word, lips twitching.
At last, a numb syllable sliced the chill air.
“......Barat.”
Barat glared into her silver pupils with bloodshot eyes, bellowing.
“You knew! You who toy with every causal thread on the continent couldn't possibly be blind!”
His voice echoed like thunder against the vaulted ceiling.
“Yet you hid it? Blinded me, deceived my authority?! Those lunatic demons, buried in hell's abyss since that holy war millennia ago... They've set foot on this land again!”
Unable to contain his rage, he slashed the air, continuing.
“The blood hasn't even faded from that day, and they dare leave their filthy prints in our sanctuaries! Lands under my blessing, heroes I anointed—they're being tainted by that ominous aura! And you just sit here, smugly staring at nothing?!”
Platinum divine power poured from his body, scorching the floor white-hot.
“Colluded with that demon scum? Forgotten that millennia-old humiliation, betrayed the heavens to scheme with that black-blooded monster?!”
“Answer me, Astarte! Why the silence? Demons defile our noble domain, and the heavens' leader schemes in mute—what's your game?!”
Her brow twitched faintly at his waterfall roar.
Instead, the chill spreading around her thickened, threatening to freeze even his blazing power.
“......”
Astarte stared with emotionless eyes, a gaze of supreme, arrogant nobility—like beholding a beast too dumb to comprehend.
At last, her lips parted, shattering the frozen air.
“No.”
One word. Yet it bore absolute pressure shaking the sanctuary's foundations.
“Our land? What in this petty palmful is truly ours?”
She rose slowly, extending slender fingers toward the void.
Galaxies flowed from her fingertips, dazzling light fragments scattering.
“This place holds only His breath. Father's land of primordial silence.”
Astarte turned to Barat. Cold contempt filled her silver pupils.
“Have you forgotten? We are mere lowly guardians while He is away. Dare not carve your greedy name into His legacy.”
Her noble, icy thrust wilted Barat's surging power. Each word became sacred law, crushing his soul.
“......!!”
Barat's face flushed crimson at her chill rebuke.
Shame, rage, and ineffable dread—as if his depths were exposed—roiled his divinity.
“Spare me your sophistry, Astarte!”
He stomped, shaking the floor.
Deep down, he knew. He and the others had forsaken the Creator's role, drunk on mortal worship, calling themselves 'gods' in corruption.
But he wouldn't relinquish that sweet power.
“Father vanished eons ago! Who knows if He abandoned us or entrusted this land?!”
Bloodshot eyes glared as he hypocritically roared like the Creator's most loyal.
“Who filled that void, preserved this noble realm? We did! With Father gone, we must be their 'gods,' guide His creations lest they stray. This honors Father truly!”
He pounded his chest, piling contrived justifications.
A desperate bid to wrap deified arrogance in 'responsibility's' gaudy paper.
“Yet that lowly demon tramples Father's garden with filthy feet, and you'll just watch?! I won't allow it. I won't stand by as this land bearing His trace is soiled by that madman!”
He bellowed, yet avoided her piercing silver gaze. Her all-seeing eyes terrified him, stripping his decayed essence bare.
Astarte cut his cowardice with a light handraise.
“Enough.”
One word. His enveloping platinum power withered like severed cloth.
“......!”
Barat gasped, frozen. His torrent of sophistry jammed in his throat. Trembling with rage, he couldn't defy her overwhelming hierarchy.
He whirled, storming toward the doors. But at the threshold, he halted as if struck. Shoulders heaved.
“......My loyal subordinate is gone.”
His low murmur scraped the silence. Head bowed, teeth grinding, he continued.
“He served millennia at my side, conveying my will to the continent. And he... scattered like dust by that mad demon. No resistance, no fight—not even a scream!”
He turned slowly, glaring. Bloodshot eyes swirled with venomous hatred and murder.
“That monster roams Father's garden now. While you blind your 'noble' eyes in silence, the continent will be ravaged by his malice!”
His final earth-shaking roar.
“Watch, Astarte! Before Father's land is defiled, I will sever that bastard's head! Then see if you keep that arrogant silence!”
With a blinding explosion, Barat vanished.
His lingering radiance faded; the ravaged doors thudded shut.
Astarte gazed indifferently at the traces. Where her rage- and greed-stained brother's back had vanished, cold, heavy silence descended anew.
Slowly, languidly, she lifted her gaze to the empty void. As if recapturing the sacred ecstasy Barat had shattered, she closed her faintly trembling eyes and whispered low.
“My Creator, my one true Father.”
Her voice wove secretly through the silence, laced with ineffable loss and deeper, bizarre madness.
“I miss You... So chillingly, achingly. Why abandon us without a word? Even I, Your first finger, knew not where You hid.”
She clutched her chest. Pale fingers clenched, crumpling noble robes.
“What disappointed You in us? No—hate us. Smite them, crush my soul. Your hatred is sweeter blessing than indifference.”
Her agonized litany brought an eerie peace. Beyond closed lids, she sensed faint vibrations from beyond the continent—primordial scent only she remembered.
“But... now it's fine. I feel it. Your fragrance rising from the continent's edge, amid lowly dust. That rough, warm heart soaks my soul.”
Her lips curved in grotesquely beautiful arc—not merciful god's smile, but a child's joy at reclaiming lost treasure.
“Father... Forgive not these sinful children...
“Punish them, forsake them. Let me alone bear Your wrath fully, me alone remain at Your side.”
The sanctuary's galaxies swirled brighter, devouring her mad prayer.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Such heavenly clamor never reached the mortal plane. The carriage air was serene.
I sat with Lulu, Mimi, and still-disheveled Ethan on the sofa, gazing out.
Red haze spread from the horizon; soon, radiant dawn crested.
“Wooowaaah...!”
Lulu and Mimi gasped in unison, eyes sparkling.
For these kids, sunrise meant ominous signal—scurry to hiding.
Under sun, always hunted, enduring cold glares, seeking darkness. But now, different.
No more hiding. A place to lean, and 'family' to face the sun with.
Worry-free, dazzling dawn in our rolling home. Lulu drank it in, entranced.
I watched quietly. Dew beaded her clear eyes, then a drop trailed her cheek.
Mimi beside her blankly sun-gazed, oblivious tears dripping.
Not sad tears. Proof that survival tension, etched since birth, melted silently in warm rays.
Always vigilant, flinching at sounds, dawn-hunt for shelter—exhausting life.
That taut heartstring loosened at last; pent emotions burst as tears.
They scarcely noticed, the relief so alien, immense.
I approached quietly, wiping tiny tears with fingers. Warm, poignant.
At my touch, they blinked, realizing. Then beamed world's brightest smiles up at me.
“Daddyy... Lulu so happy, 'cause Lulu has Daddy! Super happy!”
Lulu mumbled into my chest.
The girl, lifelong 'dirty child' or 'must-hide thing,' first defined herself aloud.
“Lulu... now happy girl! 'Cause Daddy, Lulu happy!”
My heart twinged. Mimi, hugging my leg, whipped her head up, yelling.
“Mimi too! Mimi happy 'cause Daddy! Mimi happy family! Lulu happy, Mimi happy! Daddy our Daddyyy!”
Mimi shook my pantleg with all her cotton-candy might.
Their endless confessions drew a chuckle from me.
“Yeah. You're happy kids, I'm your dad. So no more worries.”
Watching peacefully, Ethan cleared his throat oddly, pointing outside.
“......Do you see it?”
Lulu and Mimi turned where his finger aimed.
Beyond horizon, colossal walls pierced clouds.
Below, endless carriages and wagons queued; distant gates loomed immense.
Continent's heart, humanity's pride.
Ethan murmured low, pride-tinged.
“We've arrived. The Empire... of Barshak.”
The empire's walls gleamed golden in dawn light, welcoming us.