Chapter 163
Nebetu'u, amidst all of it, did not move.
It remained floating at the same height.
The female head no longer smiled, yet neither did it frown. It merely observed with an expression that could not be interpreted as anything other than cold curiosity.
Meanwhile, the male head finally lifted its gaze from the pulsating flesh pendulum.
Its vertically divided eyes—black on one side, white on the other—captured every approaching laser beam, every frequency wave rippling through the air like disturbances spreading across water that was far too calm.
"They're shooting at me as well..." whispered the female head.
Its tone sounded half-questioning, half-stating a fact.
Below, Shaqar, still standing with his exorcism device raised, felt his blind hatred suddenly collide with something he had never anticipated.
Confusion.
Because the attacks were not aimed solely at his troops.
They were not aimed solely at Zhulumat.
They were aimed at Nebetu'u as well, as though Maharaja Krata had decided there was no difference between a self-proclaimed neutral balancer and an openly declared enemy.
Amid the confusion that froze half their muscles and the fear that paralyzed the other half, Zhulumat felt his hand move before his mind could complete the process of making a decision.
His hand reached toward his own neck.
Toward something he had worn for years as nothing more than a dead ornament.
An ancient relic from rituals whose meaning he had never truly understood.
Yet now, as the five-colored lattice drew within seven meters and the frequencies emitted from the Sacred Beings' eyes made his eardrums feel as though they were being slowly torn apart, that object suddenly felt like the only thing in the room that still made sense.
"PRAISING EARTH NECKLACE—USE IT NOW!"
Zhulumat shouted.
His voice cracked at its edges.
Before the word now had even finished vibrating through his already damaged vocal cords, he had already pulled the necklace from beneath the collar of his robe.
A ring of black stone that never gleamed.
Never glowed.
Never did anything except burden his neck with a weight he had never questioned.
In the same motion, he pressed both palms against its surface.
Not gently.
But with all his strength.
Like a man attempting to awaken something that had slept for far too long.
For a moment, nothing happened.
The red, yellow, green, blue, and purple lasers continued advancing.
The frequencies from the Sacred Beings' eyes continued squeezing Onigakure's brain until he felt fluid dripping from his nostrils.
Then the Praising Earth Necklace around Zhulumat's neck responded.
Not with light.
But with sound.
A strange sound that moved in direct opposition to the frequencies attacking them.
A low vibration that did not emerge from the necklace itself but descended into the ground.
Into the cracked marble beneath their feet.
As though the necklace were asking the earth whether it still remembered its ancient promise to those who had once buried their prayers within every grain of sand.
"FOCUS—FOCUS ALL YOUR ATTENTION ON THE NECKLACE!"
Zhulumat shouted again.
This time, his voice was heard not only by the ears of his subordinates but by their bones as well.
For something had begun spreading from the necklace around his neck.
It moved like a wave traveling through interconnected roots beneath the earth.
And Apathy—who only a second earlier had felt as though his head were about to split apart from the frequencies emitted by the Sacred Beings—suddenly experienced an impossible relief.
Not because the attack had ceased.
But because something now existed between his mind and the attack.
A thin layer that felt like wet clay, absorbing every blow without ever complaining.
Beside him, Shaqar, still bewildered by the sudden shift in circumstances, heard Onigakure shout from behind.
"I CAN FEEL IT—THE NECKLACE... IT'S ASKING THE EARTH FOR HELP!"
The lasers now struck something invisible to the eye.
A shield with no color.
No shape.
No measurable thickness.
Yet when the red beam touched it, the beam neither reflected nor burned through.
Instead, it changed.
It became something else.
A thin layer that strengthened the shield rather than destroying it.
And the frequencies emitted by the Sacred Beings' eyes, which had once crushed their minds, now felt like hands pressing pillows against their faces—uncomfortable, oppressive, but not powerful enough to truly stop them from breathing.
"HOLD IT—NONE OF YOU DARE LOSE CONCENTRATION!"
Zhulumat shouted.
His voice was already hoarse, yet it had never sounded this loud.
The voice of someone who understood that a single second of distraction would mean death for the eighty-seven people whose lives depended on his commands.
Around him, one by one, his subordinates began doing the same.
Their right hands grasped the necklaces around their necks.
Their left hands pressed against the backs of their right hands with enough force to turn their knuckles white.
From eighty-seven different necklaces, the same vibration began to rise.
It merged.
It unified.
It became a single voice.
No longer eighty-seven separate requests.
But one collective prayer spoken by eighty-seven mouths that never needed to part.
Agatha, standing closest to Zhulumat, felt something she had never experienced throughout her entire career as a satanist soldier.
The shield did not merely block attacks from the outside.
It soothed something from within.
As though the vibrations from the necklaces were whispering to their nervous systems that they were safe.
That they were protected.
That the earth beneath their feet would never betray them so long as they still remembered how to ask properly.
In the midst of a chamber trembling with prayers spoken without sound.
In the midst of eighty-seven hands gripping black stone necklaces until their knuckles resembled freshly stripped bones.
In the midst of five-colored lasers relentlessly striking the invisible earth shield that felt like a wall woven from ancient roots intertwined through eternity—
Nebetu'u finally moved its hand.
Not quickly.
Not dramatically.
But with the gentleness of a surgeon deciding precisely where to make an incision.
And the pulsating flesh pendulum that had hung motionless within its grasp slowly began to swing to the right.
"There is," whispered Nebetu'u's male head.
Its voice did not emerge from an open mouth.
It emerged from every pore of that asymmetrical body.
A voice that felt like sand falling into a well too deep for its impact ever to be heard.
And when the pendulum paused at the farthest point of its rightward swing, something in the air changed.
Not the pressure.
Not the temperature.
But certainty.
As though the entire room had suddenly been forced to acknowledge that the existence was real.
That it did not need to be proven.
That it was sufficient simply by being.
For the first time, Zhulumat felt his earth shield waver.
Not because of an attack from outside.
But because of something from within.
Something questioning whether the earth he had always believed to be his protector still had any reason to protect something that might not truly exist.
To be continued...