A new day rose over the world, and Niyus, silent, crossed the threshold of his home. He gazed for a long time at the brilliance of a rising sun, draped in the golden veils of dawn. The gentle wind whispered through the leaves, like a forgotten prayer.
A faint smile touched his lips, and in the silence of his heart, he thought:
"After all... this life isn't so bad."
For Niyus's life had found a strange tranquility again, similar to what he once knew-before the wars, before the fusion, before the call of the heavens and the abysses. He now refused ascension. Despite his communion with Rivhiamë, he had deliberately sealed away all evolution, turning away the eyes of gods and demons alike, for fear of attracting their wrath or covetousness once more.
He led a simple, almost austere existence. In his secluded house, Rivhiamë slumbered deep within him, calm and silent.
His days were made up of modest acts: picking fruit at the edge of the forest, hours of meditation in the silence of the mountains, and long baths in the hot springs, a glass of wine in hand. A fragment of peace, suspended between two eternities.
And yet... a doubt still gnawed at him.
Zenchi... does he still exist?
Seized by this thought, he slowly returned home and sat down. His breath aligned with the rhythm of silence. He closed his eyes, withdrew from the world, and plunged into the folds of his consciousness.
Soon, he was nothing but a spirit floating in the void.
Darkness enveloped him like a shroud. He called out:
"Why... Why can't I find Zenchi?"
Then, a voice echoed, muffled and distant, like a bell struck in a forgotten abyss:
"You are dead. You have lost everything."
Niyus shuddered. He searched the emptiness around him, but nothing answered his gaze. His voice broke the silence:
"Who's speaking? Show yourself!"
But the voice continued, relentless:
"Zenchi is the singularity.
He acted through his effect in the Delzluhud... and beyond.
In the giant dimensions, where laws become pure abstraction, where concepts detach from all form, all purpose, all narrative. There, each being is the thought of a threshold. A truth expressed only by the absence of form. An essence that can no longer be named.
In those heights, abstractions are such that they are no longer ideas or forces. They are the very thresholds of all phenomenal, conceptual, absolute abstraction."
A terrible silence followed these words.
Niyus remained suspended, his mind wavering on the edge of an abyss. What he had just heard... defied his understanding.
The voice continued, deeper, vaster-as if the Universe itself spoke through a crack in Being:
"Zenchi is the Singularity.
The primal axis that shapes all dualities, all laws, all concepts... from Delzluhud.
That is where he acts: at the heart of the great Crucible, where opposing forces are bound, where the structure of reality is molded by a primal tension.
In Delzluhud, every duality ~ life and death, light and darkness, cause and effect ~ is only the fruit of his inner pressure.
But this is only the beginning."
The void expanded. The voice rose, as if carried by millennia of silence:
"For Delzluhud is not a summit. It is a foundation.
Beyond it rise the Giant Dimensions. They transcend it completely. And in their transcendence, they dissolve what you called laws. They erase boundaries, rendering even the foundations of concept abstract.
What, in Delzluhud, was Law... becomes Intention.
What was Concept... becomes formless Tension.
What was Duality... becomes an irreducible fracture in the Absolute."
Niyus listened, frozen. The words fell upon him like truths too ancient to bear.
"And yet, despite this transcendence,
everything Zenchi shaped in Delzluhud and its extensions is projected, transcended, elevated toward the heights.
Through the infinite higher dimensions, toward the Giant Dimensions.
Where each giant dimension contains another, higher, vaster, more abstract.
They transcend each other, endlessly, until every notion of structure, thought, or even opposition collapses into the silence of what can no longer be expressed.
And in that place...
laws are no more. They become silence.
Concepts are no more. They become absence.
Dualities themselves withdraw, as if they had never been.
Only the trace remains... of a Singularity.
A name, a breath, a touch in the absolute. Zenchi."
Niyus, suspended in the void, murmured:
"But... who are you?"
A form slowly emerged from the mist. Its silhouette was human, but an immeasurable aura floated around it. Black hair falling in thick locks, bronze-toned mixed skin, eyes of a deep yellow, almost reptilian, and black patterns running along his arms like ancient runes.
His body was athletic, shaped by the perfect balance of power and serenity. A gray, supple, almost ethereal cloak girded his hips and stretched down to his bare feet, which glided silently over the invisible surface of the void.
He finally spoke, his voice resonating in the space like a memory of divinity:
"Have you not understood what I am trying to say? Zenchi is a Singularity... and like any Singularity, it acts according to its nature, from Delzluhud to the Giant Dimensions. But it never elevated you."
"W... what?" Niyus choked. "An... illusion?"
"Exactly. Everything you thought you experienced, its words, that fusion... was only a mirage meant to preserve the balance of your mind."
He approached, eyes half-closed, and declared:
"I am Isissis 4. The Quaternary Chief God. The highest representative of our divine caste."
A stunned silence followed.
"It is I, and I alone, who am responsible for your awakening. I am the one who allowed your evolution. The power you liked to consider your own... was mine."
Niyus, shaken, managed to articulate despite his stupor:
"But... I thought gods could not interfere with the creations of others? This one belongs to Mü Thanatos. So how...?"
A cold smile touched Isissis 4's lips.
"You understand nothing of the gods. What you know is only a fragment, a shadow. I am Isissis 4. The one who transcends all restriction. I am free, everywhere in the World of Existence. From Satyaloka, I regulate mana and energy at all levels of creation."
He raised a hand, and at once a current of cosmic energy burst into the void, visible like a river of gold and fire.
"Mana and energy are produced even higher-by the Gods beyond the Quaternaries. But without me, they could never reach Existence. For the mana of Satyaloka is pure, of such density it would annihilate everything if not filtered. If I projected it raw into Delzluhud, or even into the Giant Dimensions... everything would collapse. Even the Suargaloka, who manipulate flows above the Giant Dimensions, would be crushed."
Niyus, fascinated, breathed:
"Wow... That's... unimaginable. But then... one thing troubles me. You said Singularities shape laws and concepts. I thought it was the gods...?"
Isissis 4 crossed his arms, his gaze darkening slightly.
"Singularities shape, indeed. But they do not create. They transcribe. They transmit the gods' intention in a language Existence can bear."
He paused.
"A Singularity is like a divine pen, translating the absolute into regulated forms. Laws, concepts, energies, tensions... all this, they sculpt, in accordance with our orders, into approachable forms. They are bridges, not sources. We, the Gods, are the sources."
The words hung in the void, laden with immense weight.
Niyus was silent, his soul shaken, but a thought persisted-dark, insistent, inexpressible.
What was Isissis 4's true purpose? Why now?
Niyus asked, his voice hesitant but filled with gravity:
Tell me... why did you elevate me? Why make me a god, once?
Isissis 4 gave a smile, both distant and cruel:
What a trivial question... You wanted it. The fusion with the Singularity was just a decoy, a staging. Everything was orchestrated by me. You were never a Singularity, Niyus. You were just a simple human whom I killed to raise to my state... because you asked me, that day, when I offered you a choice.
Niyus lowered his eyes slightly, troubled:
But... you are a god. Why grant me such a great elevation? You could have confined me to the Suargaloka, a lower, insignificant plane...
Isissis 4 frowned. His voice, full of annoyance and millennial contempt, resounded like a judgment:
That's the problem with humans. Always judging the gods, treating us as irresponsible, scrutinizing our decisions with the presumption of your limited morality. And when, finally, one of you tastes divine power, you get lost in it at once. You do no better. You only seek to satisfy your selfish desires... but after all, that is your nature. For even transfigured, you will never be gods.
A heavy silence followed. Then Isissis 4 looked away, plunged into opaque meditation:
We possess souls, spirits, and many other layers... but none of that means what it means to you. We exist as chōshinku, a form of existence that transcends all other states. Body, soul, being, narrative... for us, these are only useless shells, silent reminders of what we must avoid becoming. For if we fail in our divine role, then yes, these states could seize us again.
He then turned to Niyus, and said in an even graver tone:
I hope you can understand that...
Niyus looked up at him, then lowered his gaze with a sigh:
I think I see... We, the living, progress from state to state... But you, gods, are fixed in an already defined structure. And the states that define us, simple beings, become threats to you. Remnants of what you could become again.
Isissis 4 nodded slowly, his gaze as sharp as divine judgment:
_Exactly. You understand. These states are there to remind us that even gods can be struck down, fallen, reduced to mortals by those who precede us-the Primordial Gods. Body, soul, being: all that belongs to mortals. We should not even have access to it. Yet, their mere presence threatens us.
Silence settled between them, thick, almost sacred. An ancient truth had just been revealed, and its weight stretched to the depths of the soul.
Isissis 4 then fixed Niyus with an immense gaze, where the gleam of cruel wisdom shone:
You see, Niyus... Your ascension was not glorious. You were never a Singularity. You were just a fragment, a shadow cast in illusion. I shaped you not to elevate you, but so you would understand what you should never have touched.
He paused. A dizzying silence.
You begged. You cried out your desire to be more than you were. And I heard you. But that gift was not a gift. It was manipulation. What you thought was your destiny was only a detour... a fiction imposed by my will.
Niyus straightened slowly. His voice trembled, but carried the trace of sincere pain:
Then... why? Why give me divine power if it was just a lie? Why open a path that was only a decoy?
Isissis 4 turned slightly, his gaze lost in a distance no human could fathom:
Because you desired it. Because you humans always seek to cross the limits of your nature. You dream of understanding, of transcendence. But you never accept the truth: what we bear, you cannot endure. Your prayers are cracks. And I used yours.
He took a step forward. Each of his gestures seemed to follow an invisible, millennial cosmic harmony.
We gods are not free. Our existences are engraved in the lines of chōshinku, fixed by the Absolute. We are constrained by forces you cannot even conceive. The states you cross are threats to us, not stages. They remind us that we can be denied, broken, sent back to imperfection.
Niyus remained frozen. Each word weighed like a millennium. Everything he thought he knew was just a veil. A parody of truth.
He murmured, almost voiceless:
Then... everything I was... everything I thought I was... was just a mirage?
Isissis 4 shook his head slowly, with austere pity:
Not a mirage. A test. A trial of your desire, your pride. Power is never an end, Niyus. It consumes. It isolates. It tears away what makes you alive. We gods have gone beyond that need. But you, you still burn in it.
Silence returned. A wave of invisible gravity bent the air around them.
Isissis 4 concluded, his voice calm but sharp:
There is no true ascension for mortals. Even if you touch the highest spheres, even if you cross every threshold... you will always return to what you are: a limited, fragile being, haunted by the end. The transcendence you seek is not beyond. It is within you... and even there, it collides with what you fundamentally are: a human.
Niyus lowered his head. His hands trembled. Not with fear, but with lucidity. The truth of the gods did not shine... it weighed.
If you need the next chapters translated, just send them.