CHAPTER 78: FALLING STAR

The pristine pillar broke and fell.

People who had gathered here for prayers ran around in panic. Nobles, normal people, guards... all were same in the face of death.

The pillar didn’t discriminate as it turned anything it caught into puddle of meat, ending their lives in an instant. Those caught beneath it didn’t have time to scream.

The survivors scrambled over pews and trampled the fallen.

But Ishiki didn’t saw any of this. It was not related to him... what did he care. The screaming, the crashing, the desperate prayers to the corrupted god—it all faded into irrelevance.

The only thing he cared about was what was wrong with him?

His eyes vibrated in their sockets, fixated on a crack in the golden floor tiles. His heart was beating as if it would burst any moment.

’My daughter. The little girl who was sleeping beside my wife this morning. I saw her face. I kissed her forehead before leaving. I know the exact shade of her hair, the shape of her small nose.’

’WHY CAN’T I REMEMBER HER NAME?’

He wasn’t just forgetting. It was worse. It was like reaching for something that should be right there in his hand and finding only empty air.

At some point someone collided with him and fell to the side. Ishiki barely saw the person.

It was the High Priest. The man’s face was a mosaic of terror, snot and tears mixing with the dust on his cheeks.

He was crawling over the bodies of his own congregation. Clawing his way toward the exit like a desperate animal.

Why was he running? Wasn’t he the greatest devote of Mendacium? Wouldn’t the god protect him... why were they all running?

Ishiki felt hot blood seep between his fingers, it flowed from below the pillar collapsed nearby. He slowly raised his head and looked at it, feeling a cold dread wash over him.

He pushed himself backward violently, gasping, trying to put distance between himself and the spreading pool. His boots slipped on the slick tiles. His hands left red prints on everything he touched.

Suddenly, another one of the pillars fell down. It took lives of all who were unfortunate enough to be present below it.

Ishiki pushed himself up, with effort. He swayed a little... then stood tall, looking around. Everything was in ruins. The Cathedral’s roof was groaning like a dying beast.

Chunks of gold leaf rained down, glittering as they fell. The beautiful stained-glass windows that had depicted scenes of divine grace shattered one by one, raining colored glass that looked almost festive as it fell.

The surviving nobles were screaming at their personal guards. Steel flashed in the dusty air. The guards drew weapons and began clearing a path by force, shoving commoners aside, striking them with pommels and armored fists.

The panicked people ran to the door.

He... he was a lieutenant. Did that hold any meaning? No... it didn’t, he was a mundane human at the end of the day... incapable of performing miracles.

Who was he? What was he?

He gritted his teeth... as his expression turned desperate. He pushed forward. Shoved a screaming merchant out of his way. Elbowed a priest who tried to grab his uniform.

He fought through the frenzied swarm of bodies all converging on the same bottleneck.

Hands grabbed at him from every direction. Fingers hooked into his clothes, his hair, trying to use him as a ladder to salvation. He struck them away without mercy.

Survival wasn’t a negotiation. There was no honor in dying together.

Against all of them... he pushed and pushed further finally reaching the door. The archway had already collapsed and the hall was a mess of broken debris.

’How... could this be. This is insane... what happened? Why did it happen all of a sudden.’

He ran over the fallen debris finally to reach out of the cathedral and as he looked out... his pupils shrank to pinpricks and his heart skipped a beat.

The whole city... was engulfed in crisis.

Smoke rose from every direction in massive pillars that merged into a gray-black ceiling that blotted out the sun.

The Outer Rings seemed to have it worse; everything beyond the First Golden Wall was completely obscured by the choking haze. But even here, in the supposedly impregnable Inner Ring, destruction reigned supreme.

And high in the sky... the Sun was bleeding.

He walked through streets he no longer recognized. Past shops where he used to buy bread. Past the gardens where lovers met in secret. The more he walked... the more he saw, feeling his heart grow heavier with each step.

The peaceful city moments ago lay in shambles with only suffering, despair and death all around.

How could have this happened? Had they lost the war? Have their defenses succumbed to enemy attacks?

’No... no... they couldn’t have reached the innermost ring.’

There were three walls around Aethelburg and this was the deepest and most secure of them all, there was no way... enemy attacks could reach them.

As he walked slowly towards his house, suddenly he saw something unbelievable. Something that made no sense.

They moved so impossibly fast that the human eye couldn’t track them properly. All anyone could see were blurs of motion.

One figure radiating brilliant light, the other wreathed in shadow—and occasional sparks when they collided.

Each impact sent visible shockwaves rippling through the air. Buildings that were still standing shook on their foundations. The very atmosphere seemed to crack and splinter under the force of their combat.

"It’s the Gods!" someone nearby screamed, falling to their knees.

"The Gods are fighting! The end times are upon us!"

Ishiki looked at the blurry figures, with narrowed eyes. Were they the famous awakened... people so much talked about?

There were special people in the world who obtained supernatural powers from completing deadly ordeals. Ishiki had never seen them up close before... but, they shouldn’t have this much power.

’Nobody absolutely should possess such destructive capability.’

But it didn’t matter. None of the larger cosmic implications mattered at all.

Because while he stood there watching gods tear reality apart, time was slipping through his fingers like water.

Realizing that, he ran. Ishiki ran with everything he had, over corpses, debris and even half alive residents begging for help.

At long last, gasping and stumbling, he finally reached...

What should have been his home.

He looked around in the rubble, feeling despair overwhelm him. His house was gone. The whole street was just a heap of debris... not a single voice rose from the fallen wood and rock.

’No! NO! NO GOD PLEASE, NOO!’

His knees gave out... he felt a stark pain in his chest that made him convulse. Yet, he crawled... he crawled to where his house used to be and dug.

He dug with his bare hands and not too long after, he saw something that made his heart go cold.

He froze... not knowing what to do. No emotions came as he stared at the buried body of his wife, whose name he had forgotten.

It was still beautiful despite the blood matting her hair. Her eyes were closed peacefully, as if she were simply sleeping in their comfortable bed.

The woman he had married. The woman he had loved for years. He stared at her bloodied face, and a strange numbness settled over him.

He was looking at her. Recognizing her features. But it all felt like a distant dream. Like he was viewing a painting of someone he had once known.

’What was her name?’

He reached out to touch her bloodied face... but fate is cruel and reality is merciless. And in this moment, neither offered mercy.

One of the gods they had worshiped and prayed to for generations— lost the battle.

A lance of pure darkness pierced through its luminous form and as it did, the sun’s light seemed to dim too. Without much delay the sun’s light vanished.

The luminous figure dimmed too, and fell from the broken skies. In the moment it struck the earth, everything around it ceased to exist.

Ishiki’s outstretched hand—inches from touching his wife’s face, disintegrated. Then his arm, and his chest, head and everything that made him a person.

He died a cruel and unfitting death.