Chapter 161
Nebetu'u—because there was no other name that could truly cling to a being with two heads facing different directions, one absorbed in staring down at the pulsating flesh pendulum hanging from its hand like a heart still searching for its missing body, the other surveying the room with slow neck movements, one after another, as if counting not enemies or allies but the number of sins suspended in the air like a mist that could never fully evaporate—floated freely at the same altitude as the Angels.
Yet not a single one of those perfect-winged beings dared approach. Their wings, once partially bowed, had stiffened into a posture caught somewhere between reverence and caution.
Nebetu'u's body was a walking contradiction—asymmetrical from head to toe, ending in long legs that left trails of black liquid behind them. The substance burned the marble floor with soft hissing sounds, each droplet creating a small smoking hole like a wound in the flesh of the earth, one that had never asked to receive a guest such as this.
Its right wing was large and dense, its feathers appearing to be made of frozen light, while its left wing was smaller and thinner, its membrane gleaming like oil upon water.
When the two wings moved—in minimal, almost lazy motions, merely enough to maintain altitude—no wind was produced. No sound could be heard. There was only distortion in the air around them, as though reality itself were adjusting to the presence of something nature had never been taught to contain.
The male head—with blazing red hair like a fire that never went out despite the absence of any heat source, and eyes whose irises were split vertically into two eternally incompatible colors, one side pitch-black and the other dazzling white—continued staring at the pendulum in its hand without blinking.
Meanwhile, the female head on the other side—with dull yellow hair resembling the glow of a sickly moon and a smile that never changed shape yet constantly shifted meaning every second, from gentle to horrifying to neutral again in a cycle too rapid to follow—continued its inspection of the room.
Its gaze passed over the frozen Angels with their books still half-open, over the Sacred Beings whose crescent blades now pointed downward not by command but by doubt, and finally settled upon the rows of satanists still sprawled across the floor amidst pools of blood.
The pendulum in Nebetu'u's hand—if the word pendulum was still suitable for something that pulsed like living muscle, shaped like a droplet frozen in the middle of its fall, with a surface that never remained still but continuously rippled in tiny patternless waves—began to swing on its own.
Without force.
Without touch.
As though time itself were moving it from within.
And every swing left behind a trail of light that possessed no color, yet felt wet to the eyes that beheld it, like witnessing something no satanist was ever meant to see.
Ten seconds passed in a silence that was never truly silent.
For Nebetu'u's presence itself was a sound that could not be heard yet could always be felt, like the vibration of a bell too large to ring and too immense to ignore.
During those ten seconds, not a single one of the eighty-seven people sprawled across the floor dared move more than a finger's twitch.
They remained painfully aware that they were still alive.
Still breathing.
Still carrying blood within their veins, even though part of that blood had already stained the cracked marble beneath them.
The Angels above remained frozen with their books half-open.
Their wings neither flapped nor folded.
They were trapped in a state of uncertainty they had never experienced since the moment of their creation.
Meanwhile, the Sacred Beings below still stood with their crescent blades pointed toward the ground. The curved edges forged from condensed nothingness trembled at a frequency that no longer felt threatening, yet was not truly calm either, like a dog uncertain whether a newly arrived visitor was friend or foe.
Nebetu'u itself did not move.
The male head remained lowered, watching the pulsating flesh pendulum as it swung in a slower, more regular rhythm, as though counting something invisible to any eye.
The female head continued looking downward with that smile whose shape never changed while its meaning endlessly shifted.
Its gaze passed over faces still lowered, bodies still trembling, wounds still bleeding.
And not a single expression upon those twin faces could be interpreted as sympathy or contempt.
Only observation.
Pure observation that carried no obligation to respond to whatever it observed.
"It isn't doing anything..." Apathy whispered.
His voice was still hoarse, but it had regained its tone.
For the first time since those crescent blades had begun forming, he drew a breath uninterrupted by tremors, nausea, or the relentless urge to vomit.
And then Zhulumat stood up.
Not upright.
Not gracefully.
But with movements that felt as though every joint in his body was being forced to remember its original function after being forgotten beneath prolonged agony.
His knees wobbled.
His hands remained pressed against the floor longer than they should have.
And when he finally managed to straighten his back, blood was still flowing from his nose, forming two thin streams branching around his lips like rivers that did not know where to end.
He lifted his head and stared at Nebetu'u floating ten meters above him.
Within his eyes, reddened by burst blood vessels, there was no fear.
No reverence.
None of the curiosity that had briefly existed minutes ago when the silhouette had still been only a possibility.
There was only anger.
The anger he had been holding back since his exorcism equipment had crumbled into dust.
Since his troops had rolled across the floor like worms covered in salt.
Since he had been forced to kneel before his own subordinates for the first time in his life.
"YOU!"
His voice exploded, not like an ordinary shout, but like something that had been trapped within his chest for far too long and had finally found a crack through which to escape.
Raw.
Uncivilized.
Utterly devoid of the structure worthy of addressing a being before whom even Angels bowed.
"YOU'RE THE ONE BEHIND ALL OF THIS—A BALANCER, YOU SAY? OR ARE YOU JUST AN IDIOT WHO ENJOYS WATCHING US KNEEL LIKE THIS BEFORE DECIDING WHICH SIDE YOU'RE GOING TO SUPPORT?"
Agatha drew in a sharp breath beside him.
Instinctively, her hand reached for Zhulumat's wrist to stop him.
But Zhulumat shook her off with a jerk that was too forceful, too sudden, too emotional for a high-ranking satanist who had survived one hundred and twenty-seven purification operations without losing control even once.
Behind them, Onigakure and Makakushi exchanged glances filled with questions neither dared voice aloud.
Meanwhile, Shaqar felt Apathy stiffen beside him, not from fear but from disbelief.
Disbelief that Zhulumat—their commander, Zhulumat who never wavered, Zhulumat who always had a contingency plan for every contingency plan—was now standing before a being of unknown power and shouting like a market thug who had finally run out of patience.
To be continued...