Chapter 11
It didn't hurt at all.
It was just empty.
Profoundly, utterly empty.
The woman behind her whispered, her voice like the rustling of dry leaves in the night wind.
"You are already half ours."
That was why Mala Qudshi couldn't scream. Resistance was impossible. She could only stare, gripped by paralyzing terror, as the shadows slowly faded.
There was no other explanation, she was being devoured by the Nebetu'u pendulum, its relentless swing continuing unabated, indifferent to her will.
Perhaps there were praises uttered, desperate pleas for help, but none originated from Mala Qudshi's soul. They were nothing more than hollow echoes scattered across space and time. Thousands of voices reverberated, chanting sacred incantations while the woman's grasp tightened, deliberately emphasizing the impossibility of escape.
Bound by an unseen force.
The absorption process, though occurring at the boundary of illusion and reality, unfolded with flawless precision, ensuring Nebetu'u's triumph in draining every trace of life that had once clung to Mala Qudshi.
The pendulum, now swaying decisively left and right, finally reached the peak of its power, erasing all remnants of the sacred being it had defiled.
Gone were the limits of physical and non-physical presence; the entire canvas of existence she had traversed. Even the initiatives, the sacred ideas that had borne silent witness to the formation of reality, the steadfast observers of cosmic betrayal, fell silent, choosing to forget, to acknowledge that Mala Qudshi had never been part of anything at all.
Merely a mirage swept away by the winds of time.
It all happened in crushing silence, without screams or struggle. Only a faint tremor in the air, like nature's whisper, affirmed the disappearance of what was once deemed eternal.
The woman in control remained still, her eyes gleaming with quiet satisfaction, while the remnants of Mala Qudshi's energy swirled, gradually revealing faint flickers of reaction before vanishing into nothingness.
Nothing remained. Nothing to mourn. The world spun on, never deprived of its boundless treasures.
"Filthy Ophitus, hm?"
"Whatever it was, one problem has been resolved, and now—"
Whooosh
Thud
Nebetu'u approached the device, which closely resembled a pendulum, though it was no ordinary one. Moving with rhythmic precision, maintained flawlessly to this very second, it still swayed, still reacting to the initial event, the desecration of Mala Qudshi across every layer of reality.
Cold fingers brushed the rounded surface, not to activate it, but to trace the smooth exterior as if caressing an invisible scar. As her fingertips grazed the metal, a name echoed in her mind, one belonging to an angel she had never known before.
A conviction solidified within Nebetu'u. Though she understood Mala Qudshi was no independent entity, she hadn't anticipated a higher, transcendent envoy, one surpassing her own authority, pulling the strings behind it all.
An extension of the Accursed One, boundless loyalty manifesting as an Eternal Angel, with Pure Ophistu among its ranks.
Before she could ponder further, the room around her abruptly transformed. Walls shifted, floor and ceiling swapped places, and in an instant, left and right inverted entirely.
Yet Nebetu'u remained calm, her gaze unshaken by fear. Deep down, she knew this was no coincidence or illusion, but a deliberate translocation by another power. She allowed the apparition, a two-headed, winged child, adrift in spatial distortion, to hover before her, keeping her eyes wide open, analyzing every shift in the unraveling chaos.
It began in an instant, and in the next, it was over.
Now she stood in a place utterly foreign, an ancient site of worship where holy men once knelt long before cosmic betrayal reshaped all things. Here, before God's defeat in the celestial uprising, before the war that shattered the hierarchies of heaven and earth, devout followers had still praised His name, before it was replaced by the Accursed One. Their hymns had risen on unshakable faith.
The air hung thick with the residue of sacred energy, not vanished but preserved, as if the walls of time themselves cradled the echoes of long-forgotten prayers.
Around her, nothing seemed amiss. Only an expanse of green grass, swaying gently as far as the eye could see. The sight was almost therapeutic, not merely soothing troubled hearts but exuding perfect serenity, a silent proclamation that Nebetu'u now stood outside, no longer within the place of worship.
She stood upon a vast plain devoid of trees, not even a single creeping root breaking the soil. Just uniform, vibrant grass covering every inch of earth, as though the entire place had been designed for pure, uncomplicated nature.
Almost too pristine. Artificial in its perfection.
The distant sky shimmered a bright violet, a hue that should have signaled peace beyond measure. But here, where good meant evil, and evil was softly proposed as good,the male head of Nebetu'u, one of the two occupying her childlike body, no older than thirteen, reacted. It snarled, cursing in a language no human tongue could comprehend. Its voice was ragged, every syllable dripping with hatred, each word a curse upon reality itself.
"Beasts—" the male head hissed, "idiots to call this tranquility. Nothing but torment wrapped in pretty colors, nothing more."
It raged, rejecting every semblance of comfort the scenery offered. To it, the air here was poison, thick with the stench of lingering piety, sacred imprints still clinging even after abandonment.
The female head, however, remained still. While its counterpart seethed, she wore perfect calm, her breath slow and measured, as if nothing in this place could unsettle her. Her eyes were half-lidded, gaze empty yet piercing, seeing beyond the grass and violet sky, into deeper layers of reality.
No nervous blinks. No tension in her muscles. Only a silence so absolute it was more terrifying than the male head's fury. For in that stillness lay understanding, an unconditional acceptance of whatever was to come.
Nebetu'u stood at the heart of the boundless plain, her consciousness stretching beyond mere grass and sky. This place was no accident. Nothing was accidental, not even in the choreographed movements of the cosmos.
At last, both pairs of eyes, split between two minds in one child's body, locked forward, piercing the illusion of peace.
In the distance, faint yet undeniable, stood a structure defying time. A castle, or perhaps something more than a castle. Its form was older than any human empire, more ancient than the Earth itself.
To be continued…