Chapter 148
No one spoke after that, because no one knew what to say.
Makakushi froze in place, his mouth half-open as if he wanted to continue, yet his own mind pulled the reins on his tongue.
Zhulumat did not move, did not blink, did not show whether he had heard—or perhaps he had heard too well and chose not to give the gas the satisfaction of any reaction at all.
And at the moment the tension reached the point where someone was bound to step forward or back away, the gas began to change.
Slowly, its color faded from milky white into transparency, like ice melting in the morning, like memories turning blurry upon waking.
"Every floor has its obstacle," the gas said, and its voice now sounded distant, like someone shouting from across a valley as fog slowly descended.
"And every obstacle always demands a sacrifice."
Arkhaz opened his mouth to ask—what the obstacle was, how great the sacrifice would be, whether it could be avoided—but before even a single syllable could leave his lips, the gas vanished completely, leaving behind nothing but silence and spotless walls that had never truly been home to anyone.
The silence left behind by the gas did not break immediately—it lingered, hanging in the air like fog too heavy to breathe, like a sword suspended above their necks by ropes that were beginning to snap one by one.
Eight seconds.
Eight seconds that felt like eight centuries, where no one spoke, no one moved, only short breaths echoing against one another and flashlights beginning to tremble from arms exhausted by tension.
On the fifth second, someone in the back row coughed softly, and the sound struck the room like a drumbeat in a place far too silent.
On the seventh second, Shaqar saw Zhulumat move his jaw, preparing the words that were about to come out.
And on the eighth second, just as the silence was about to become something eternal, Zhulumat opened his mouth.
"Are we going to keep moving forward?" he asked, not to the vanished gas, not to the silent spotless walls, but to the Satanist high-ranking officers standing around him—to those whose black robes still carried the dust of the journey, to those whose eyes had not blinked once since entering this castle.
"After a warning, after a caution, after words claiming that every floor demands a sacrifice—will we still continue onward?"
There was no pause.
No time to think, to doubt, to draw a long breath before answering.
The leaders beneath Zhulumat's banner—dozens of commanders in black robes and faces that had witnessed too much death to still fear mere words—answered one after another, yet their voices merged into a single echo bouncing from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling, from ear to ear.
"We refuse to retreat."
That came from Arkhaz, his voice as flat as stone untouched by waves.
"We will continue until the very last drop of blood."
That came from a high-ranking officer named Vorthas, who until now had remained silent in the darkest corner of the formation.
And then, in unison, like a choir trained for thousands of years for this very night alone, they all spoke the same word.
"Forward."
Zhulumat stared at them one by one, his eyes moving slowly like a flashlight sweeping across a dark room, and something on his face changed—not anger, not disappointment, but a strange kind of defeat that somehow felt like a delayed victory.
"Idiots," he whispered, almost inaudibly, but Arkhaz, standing closest to him, heard it clearly.
"You are all truly idiots."
Zhulumat slowly shook his head, like a teacher watching his students run toward a cliff with smiles on their faces—and then, with his left hand, he pinched the bridge of his nose, a gesture Zhulumat Katamtum had never once shown before his subordinates, a crack in the iron mask that had never allowed weakness to show.
"So foolish," he repeated, and this time his voice was louder, enough for everyone in the room to hear, "for me and my foolish mind to have even considered stopping this army."
He drew a long breath, and when he exhaled, something seemed to leave his shoulders—perhaps doubt, perhaps caution, perhaps the remnants of survival instinct that had never been useful for a leader surrounded by people who would rather die than turn back.
"Return to formation," he commanded afterward, and this time his voice returned to that of a commander, not a man arguing with his own shadow.
"We move forward. Maintain the original formation. No one advances ahead, no one falls behind. Disorder within the ranks is an unnecessary death, and I will not grant this castle victory so easily."
Twenty-two steps.
No more, no less.
Zhulumat counted them in silence, and so did Shaqar, and so did Arkhaz, and so did every soldier whose feet had been trained to recognize limits without needing their eyes.
And when the twenty-second step struck the cold stone floor, the entire room changed—not gradually, not with a transition they could anticipate, but like someone flipping a page too quickly, like a dream suddenly changing scenes without the dreamer's permission.
"This… is different," Onigakure muttered, and his tone was not a question but a statement forced out by sheer shock.
The air around them was no longer neutral.
It felt heavier, damper, more… alive, as though the room itself possessed lungs that breathed softly within the cracks of the walls.
The sensation touching their skin was no longer the cold air of a silent castle, but something warm in certain places and piercingly cold in others, like the body of a giant lying sick beneath the floor they stood upon.
The first floor of the castle welcomed them with a silence too sacred to be called mere emptiness.
The vast chamber was covered in pale white marble flooring that reflected a gentle glow from the towering ceiling above, as though the source of light came neither from torches, candles, nor the sun.
Giant pillars stood in long rows like lifeless silent guardians, each carved with ancient verses glowing faintly, their letters formed from a language that even the Satanist elites felt was too ancient to recognize.
Between those pillars hung long ivory-colored sheets stretching from the ceiling almost to the floor, each strand flowing slowly as if blown by an invisible wind.
At the far end of the hall, a massive circle layered with sacred symbols was engraved into the floor, forming a pattern resembling a sanctification seal—a symbol that rejected darkness in a way both subtle and absolute.
Even the air they breathed there felt strange; not heavy nor poisonous, but too clean, too pure, to the point that the satanists felt as though every breath forced them to swallow something fundamentally opposed to their very nature.
The silence within that sacred hall lasted several seconds longer than it should have.
Not because no one dared to move, but because every member of the army standing there felt the same thing—something difficult to explain with words.
The air on the castle's first floor was too clean, too pure, too… foreign to their existence.
For satanists accustomed to a world filled with wounds, stains, and the rot of life, excessive purity instead felt like poison slowly crawling through their lungs.
To be continued…