Chapter 599: A Tale of the Past. The Old Testament - 6
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 599: A Tale of the Past. The Old Testament - 6
A fanatic, a cult leader, a monster who deceived the world, making people gouge out their own eyes and offer them as sacrifices. Be-el, the Radiant Heavenly Lord, who harmed humanity with the taboos of heresy.
To find him, ‘Sis’ and the warriors ascended the mountain, but the Lonely Mountain Yullim truly lived up to its name.
The warrior sent to scout returned without having gone far.
“I report. There is nothing to be seen.”
There was nothing. No shade to hide from the light, no thicket to block the wind. The fact that no one was there was thus made all the more obvious.
Until now, the information given by the Lorekeeper had been flawless. What could be wrong? The King's warriors, confused, looked to the Lorekeeper. She answered stoically.
“The headquarters of the Cult of Radiance is somewhere on Yullim. It is merely hidden, which is why you cannot find it.”
“O wise Lorekeeper. But on this rocky mountain, there is not even a place to hide. Unless my eyes deceive me, this mountain is empty.”
“They have used a wicked art to cast a barrier, preventing their base from being seen. You will not find it unless you use the method to break it.”
“What is this method?”
“The barrier is in one of those valleys. So, have a group go to each valley and reflect the ground with a mirror.”
How could they find something that was invisible? The men were skeptical, but these were the words of none other than the Lorekeeper. She had guided humanity through its autumn and found the three calamities. The wise Lorekeeper had never been wrong.
The warriors decided to act rather than waste time arguing.
“Come now. Surely the Lorekeeper would not be mistaken. If they’re hiding behind a barrier, they must be cowards. They don’t seem very dangerous, so let’s split up and find them quickly.”
“Great Druid, weave the grass into a communication network for us.”
“My King. We will be back shortly.”
The King's warriors took the mirrors and scattered in small groups. They were so in sync that no specific orders were needed.
As everyone dispersed, ‘Sis’ naturally ended up waiting with the Lorekeeper. The Lorekeeper was accompanied by the five warriors who had been escorting her since the snowy mountains. They were warriors of outstanding skill, devoted to their training, but rumored to be more loyal to the Lorekeeper than to the King of Humans.
Whether because of the rumors or because it was true, a slightly heavy atmosphere lingered. A subtle war of nerves passed between the King's warriors and the Lorekeeper's five warriors.
Yet, the Lorekeeper and ‘Sis’ themselves spoke warmly to each other.
“A dry wind blows on this mountain all year round. Not a single cloud forms, and not a single blade of grass grows. It was nicknamed the Lonely Mountain because it stands all by itself.”
“Lonely? It feels open and refreshing.”
“That is the Lonely Mountain’s pride. However, my King, it will be difficult to notice any signals from the mountainside. Let us wait where the view is clear.”
To the Lorekeeper’s suggestion, ‘Sis’ replied, “Let’s do that.”
The Lonely Mountain Yullim had but a single peak. A peak made desolate by the absence of trees, grass, or even perpetual snow. The Lorekeeper El escorted ‘Sis’ as if to soothe Yullim’s loneliness.
The day was impeccably clear. The dry, cold northern light was pure white, yet not dazzling. If the jungle sun was a downpour, the sunlight on Yullim was a soaking drizzle. Even the skin-burning sun seemed to diffuse into a pale white here.
It was an expedition so peaceful and quiet it felt like an excursion. There were no dramatic stories here like in the snowy mountains, the jungle, or the desert. But perhaps this emptiness could be filled with contemplation.
Lost in deep thought, the Lorekeeper arrived at the peak with the King of Humans. Only then did ‘Sis’ quietly call out to the Lorekeeper.
“El.”
“Yes, my King.”
“This is it, isn’t it? The place you wanted to bring me.”
El stopped walking.
A single peak stood lonely under the blue sky. Since nothing could be seen looking up from below, one would naturally assume there was nothing here.
But if not on this lonely peak, where else could it be?
“Yes. That’s right. This place, the sacred mountain of the Cult of Radiance, Yullim, is where it all began.”
El took a bronze mirror from her sleeve. She carefully held it forward, tilting it slightly toward the sun. A gentle wind, like an embrace, swept by.
And an aurora of ten million colors unfurled like a curtain.
Countless rays of light danced freely across the world. Sparkling, shattering, scattering to pieces and rejoining. Swallowing. Birthing and splitting. Winding. The colors seemed to describe every word ever created by humankind.
The mirror was the key, and the sky was the lock. When she inserted the mirror into the sky and turned it, the curtain of the world was drawn back.
And what was hidden within revealed itself.
It was an altar. A mixture of stone, sand, and brick, its architectural style was impossible to discern. It looked as if someone had simply added whatever they could find for the sole purpose of building it higher, until it became too tangled to even have a chance of being fixed.
But one thing was clear. The intense desire to reach that high heaven was palpable.
Were they trying to build a tower, or a staircase? Or did they not even have the luxury for such thoughts?
Whatever its form, it was built simply to be higher, even if just by a little. To touch the sky, even if just for a moment.
A person who had yearned to reach the sky lay desiccated upon the altar, dead with their hand outstretched toward the heavens.
“Ugh…”
Someone let out a groan.
There was more than one corpse. Hundreds of them, dried like mummies, lay dead around the altar at the center of the peak. All of them had their hands stretched toward the altar, like the needles of a compass. Or perhaps like petals spreading from the pistil of a flower.
“There were those who wished to reach the sky. People who called themselves the Cult of Radiance. They were more interested in the light from the sky than in their own bodies.”
El walked down a path that cut through the center of the corpses as if it were familiar. ‘Sis’ followed behind her.
Round things rolled about as if welcoming the first visitors in a long time. White and round, holding various colors, they looked like toy marbles.
But a closer look revealed hideous capillaries. Red muscles clinging to a pupil came into view. The desiccated, cracked tissue was grotesquely twisted.
“They yearned for the unreachable sky and the light that shone from it. I don’t know why. I don’t know what drove them. Were they curious? Intrigued? Or was there… something wrong with them?”
Their identity was someone’s eyeball. Plucked, perhaps, with great care to avoid damage.
Human eyeballs rolled around like trash. As soon as they realized what they were, the King's warriors looked around at the corpses in horror.
In the eye sockets of those they had thought to be ordinary corpses were not normal eyes, but finely crafted glass beads.
“So they studied the light. They delved into these two eyes and the world they could perceive. What does it mean to see? Who decides what color is? Is the sight I am seeing the same for everyone? And even if it is, how can we tell the difference?”
Making her way through the glass-eyed corpses to the top of the altar, El approached the body of a woman at the very peak. On her pure white robes was a drawing of a tetrahedron with an eye inside it.
“There was a person who believed that an unseen being exists, that it guides us to knowledge and wisdom, and that the purpose of life is to find it. That one must even sacrifice their life to do so.”
The corpse’s hand was stretched toward the sky. From it, El took something. It was a transparent prism. So clear, one could hardly tell if it was there at all.
“Her name was El. The one who would later bear the title of Radiant Heavenly Lord.”
But the moment El held it.
Let there be light.
“She is a Divine.”
‘Sis’s’ memory was submerged in light.
The world transformed. Light turned into countless letters, then scattered, only to gather again and again.
This was the domain of knowledge. A space where the body, power, and everything else was meaningless. Swarms of light surrounded us in hundreds of types of waves, and half-digested knowledge drifted limply through the void.
In this space where only knowledge and truth existed, El faced ‘me’.
“I am a child born of their design. I embraced their aspirations and desires, and without a shred of doubt, I researched. I dug deeper. I gathered people. I accumulated knowledge. I betrayed. I deceived the world. I tempted. I tricked. I tested. I drove them to their deaths. I even gouged out my own eyes. Blinded at the end of my pursuit of light, I reached the light of truth. I am a Divine.”
El fiddled with the area around her eyes. In her transparent pupils, which did not reflect the present, she could see a future that had not yet arrived.
She was a prophet in the truest sense. The Saintess of Origin.
The beginning of all Saintesses. If there was light in the beginning, it was only after she was born that it could truly be seen.
“But. At the end of truth, I realized something. No matter how magnificent the great shackle engraved upon the stars of the distant night sky, no matter how delicate the structure contained within a single grain of sand… if there is no one to see it… it is all meaningless.”
What did she see at the end of the future? I had no way of knowing. But it was clear that some great change had come over her.
“Having ascended to the seat of a Divine, I pierced through the light and delivered an epiphany to my younger self, who had been gazing up at the sky. The Cult of Radiance gathered its followers and performed a ritual to seek truth in the light. They cut glass to gather the light, then trapped people within a swarm of light so bright it felt like their eyes would burn.”
The glass eyeballs and the transparent prism. The clear glass bubbles hanging all over the altar. And the altar itself—grotesque, yet built to place lenses and prisms in specific positions as it was stacked higher.
This altar was a space designed to trap light and glimpse its secrets.
“While enduring the pain within that blazing light… I received the truth sent by my future self. That if I did not act, I would face the end that would one day come.”
The Saintess of Origin, having encountered forbidden knowledge within the light, turned her transparent eyes. At the end of her gaze was me.
Huh, me? Not Sis?
“Yes. You who have come from a faraway place, the King from the future where I succeeded.”
The Saintess of Origin looked directly at me and prophesied.