Chapter 115
The vibrations from the self-consuming explosion had indeed vanished, yet its residue remained, seeping into things more delicate than bone and steel.
Its effect was felt as a faint but pervasive distortion throughout the collective body of the force.
In the middle ranks, slightly leaning outward, the synchronization that had once been mechanical and perfect now carried flaws that were almost invisible.
When the command to adjust their grip arrived, the fingers of a soldier's left hand moved a fraction of a second slower than his right.
In another line, a shield shifted a few millimeters farther than it should have, creating a narrow gap that reflected the moonlight in the wrong way.
Their movements became like those of a massive machine whose gears had begun to wear down, still functioning, but with friction that produced another kind of sound within the soul, a sound not born of metal, but of restrained doubt.
The residue was also a feeling.
It was a dual sensation that pierced the subconscious of every individual.
A bitter victory tasted on a tongue that felt metallic, mingled with a primal fear that they had merely driven away a ghost, while the ghost's sweat still clung to their uniforms.
The glowing dust from the exploded sacred faith did not truly disappear.
Those invisible particles clung to armor, lodged themselves between the plates, and were even inhaled deep into the lungs.
Inside, the particles did not wound, but burned slowly in a far more insidious way.
They burned away memories of sanctity, reheated long-buried guilt, and tested every justification for rebellion they had ever whispered on dark nights.
Their victory felt like the theft of something sacred, and now they waited for the unseen hand of its owner to come and demand retribution.
That moral pressure was heavier than any physical assault.
It pressed down from above, like a sky that had suddenly lowered, grown denser, filled with eyes that condemned without sound.
The soldiers felt it as a weight upon their shoulders, a subconscious urge to hunch, to make themselves smaller and less defiant.
Breaths grew shallow, not from exhaustion, but from guilt pressing upon the diaphragm.
Steps became heavy, as though the earth beneath their feet—the earth of the satanist dominion they fought for—now hesitated to fully support them, still bound by the remnants of divine claims they had only just scattered.
"Even the blessing of Heavenly beings will not be able to extinguish our spirit."
For the Anti-Thunder Vanguard, who served as the first living shields, the victory was paid for in full within their own bodies.
Fine cracks like spiderwebs appeared not only on the surfaces of their metal shields, but crept into the bones of the arms that held them.
Ordinary soreness turned into stabbing pain, as though their very skeletons creaked under divine weight.
From the nostrils of several soldiers flowed not red blood, but a thick, pitch-black fluid, like ink contaminated by darkness, streaming heavily over their sealed lips.
The most torturous sensation was the burning within the chest, a heat not born of fire, but of trapped remnants of holy light that continued to scorch from within, gnawing at their dark convictions with a cruel purifying flame.
Some of them suddenly staggered, losing balance as if struck by an unseen blow, their synchronized movements shattering for a moment before they trembled and struggled to reunite.
Behind them, the Orbit Severance Line paid with the currency of consciousness.
Headaches like files scraping the inside of the skull struck the captains and coordinators.
Their vision swam, the world before their eyes sometimes splitting in two or being veiled in gray fog for a moment before returning to normal.
More terrifying was the loss of their own inner voices.
For several seconds that felt eternal, Shaqar, Onigakure, and the others heard only an empty silence inside their own minds.
Instructions, analyses, even fear vanished, leaving a hollow void that severed them from themselves.
Though they eventually recovered, their movements became unbearably heavy.
Every step taken to monitor the front lines felt like trudging through wet mud made of inaudible whispered prayers, a metaphysical current constantly trying to drag their knees toward the ground.
And at the center of everything, the Banner of Zhulumat paid the most abstract, yet no less painful, price.
A backlash wound of faith.
Their Liturgical Reversal Engine succeeded, but twisting sacred meaning in such a way was like handling radioactive material with bare hands.
The chest of every High One felt crushed by an unseen grip, suffocated by the presence of claims of truth they rejected yet were forced to process.
Their dark incantations faltered, words that once flowed smoothly now felt foreign and heavy upon the tongue.
Worse still, one or two sacred symbols reflected back by their device did not fully vanish.
Small symbols, faintly glowing like tattoos of light, clung to their arms or the base of their necks, not injuring the skin, but making every breath feel like inhaling air filled with fine thorns.
Their rituals slowed, powered no longer by seamless belief, but by a burning force of will, a resolve forced to keep pulsing even as their very souls had been wounded by the poison of purity they sought to neutralize.
"Do not let your guard down.
The wounds are real, the heaviness is real, but our purpose is more real than all of it."
Fhoooh!
"Do not be deceived by the pause.
Angels always grant false openings so their enemies grow careless and kneel, and we did not come this far to stop at the threshold of the gate."
Zhulumat Katamtum watched those consequences creep through his ranks like an unseen disease.
He felt the tremors of dissonance from the Anti-Thunder Vanguard, caught the mental fatigue weighing down the Orbit Severance Line, and within his own chest, he felt the cold bite of the backlash wound of faith.
Yet in his eyes, like twin embers of charcoal in the darkness, there was no space for mercy or regret.
There was only purpose, a mission that had to continue even if earth and sky themselves tried to stand in the way.
From within him, a new will gathered, harder and more focused than before.
He did not shout.
His voice burst forth not as a wave of sound, but as pure pressure of will, exploiting every remaining connection between himself and his army: through the ground they stood upon, through the faintly pulsing remnants of the telepathic network, through the black blood dripping from his soldiers' noses.
The command was not words, but a navigational summons planted directly into the mind.
The image of the Blessed Capital of Thalyssra, with its towering spires radiating sickening golden light, was projected with absolute clarity.
It was accompanied by a single, overwhelming impulse.
Advance inward.
"Holy… holy… holy…."
Fhhhhh!
"His Name echoes beyond flesh and will.
Hear the call that does not ask permission.
We sing, and the world remembers its place."
Hhhh!
"Our gratitude is the breath of the sky.
Our praise is the axis of time.
Whoever insults Him, we will brand with an echo that never sleeps."
Huuuuh!
"We repeat, we repeat—until ears grow weary and bones begin to doubt.
Blessed be the One Accursed, exalted by our obedience.
And cursed be they—who stand without blessing, who walk against the song."
And then, the world collapsed back into sound.
The sirens that had previously been nothing more than a suffocating backdrop suddenly surged with renewed intensity, piercing far beyond the limits of ordinary auditory tolerance.
To be continued…