Chapter 483
"Most of the fourteen individuals you asked me to monitor have begun showing the same signs."
The voice came in a way he had never anticipated, arriving at a moment when doubt was creeping with its quietest steps into the deepest space where he usually made decisions with an unwavering certainty untouched by anything.
Theo felt a vibration ripple through the RWIA network that had remained silent ever since their telepathic communication had been officially shut down, a vibration that carried something he had never asked for yet always received in the same way every single time, a vibration that made his body—which had been frozen on the cold floor with his gaze fixed on a door that never opened—suddenly feel something moving within him in a way he could not control.
Aldraya reappeared at the edge of his consciousness in a way he had never planned, present with the same flat tone she used when asking strange questions about why Theo had not slept with her or what kind of woman could arouse him both emotionally and sexually, yet within that flatness there was something different, something that made every word from the silver-haired girl feel heavier than usual, more urgent, more like something that could not be postponed even though they had just agreed to end communication and allow each of them to carry out their tasks without interfering with one another.
She conveyed that most of the fourteen individuals Theo had previously instructed her to observe were beginning to show signs he could not ignore, signs that caused her highly advanced mind to process the information at a speed she had never demonstrated to anyone other than Theo, signs that they were about to enter hibernation, that they were beginning to fall asleep one by one in an unusual manner, that their eyes—once wide open with full awareness of their surroundings—were now gradually closing, their eyelids lowering at a pace she had never predicted before.
"The first arc, episode eleven could truly go off track. And I did not come this far to watch that happen."
The response left Theo's lips without requiring time to be formulated, an instruction born from the place where he neatly stored all calculations and decisions in perfectly aligned rows that never overlapped, a command simple in wording yet heavy in its implications for the being carrying out her task from a place far away, with a loyalty he had never asked for yet always received in the same manner every time.
He told Aldraya to do nothing to most of the fourteen individuals who were beginning to show signs of entering hibernation, to simply observe them with unblinking eyes and her highly advanced mind that continued processing incoming information at immeasurable speed, to let them fall asleep in their own way without any intervention that would alter the course of the narrative too noticeably.
There was no instruction to wake them, no order to apply additional pressure on Ilux from another direction to replace the pressure that was gradually fading one by one as eyelids grew heavier and breathing rhythms slowed, nothing at all except silence—the only response he asked of Aldraya after giving that instruction.
And Aldraya, who from the very beginning had only listened with a loyalty she never questioned the origin of, accepted the instruction in the same way she accepted every command ever given to her since the moment she first opened her eyes in the world created by Theo, without asking why, without questioning whether this was the most optimal decision among all available choices, without doing anything other than allowing the silence enveloping the RWIA network after his final words to signify that their communication had ended for the second time on this increasingly late night.
After the silence returned in a way that no longer felt unfamiliar, after ensuring that no more vibrations traveled from afar carrying strange questions or unexpected reports at a moment when doubt was creeping with its quietest steps, Theo then shifted his gaze to where his attention should have been from the very beginning—to the place where a brown-haired young man, still wearing the same clothes from that morning, lay weak on a bed he had never left since first entering the room with a hope that had long since faded, replaced by a despair he never asked for yet continued to bear with an irrational loyalty.
He looked at Ilux in a way unlike any gaze he had ever directed at any other being throughout his journey as the Supreme Author.
Not with the gaze of an observer noting every minute detail of the movements before him, not with the gaze of an architect ensuring every piece on the chessboard moved according to a meticulously designed scenario, but with a gaze born from somewhere deeper—from a place where doubt and certainty clashed in a way he had never witnessed before, from a place where he realized that beyond all the risk calculations he had made for hours in this increasingly dark room, there might be another being moving in ways beyond his control, even though he was the Supreme Author responsible for every word that gave birth to this narrative.
And within that gaze, within the silence that enveloped the room in a way that felt increasingly like a crushing weight from all directions, he remembered that his body had long been coated with his own Resolve, Will, Intent, and Ambition—thin layers that rendered his physical form invisible to ordinary beings, layers that made him undetectable even by God Quil-Hasa, layers that allowed him to stand in this room for hours without anyone ever realizing that a being far beyond a mere observer was witnessing every movement unfolding before him.
The awareness of time that never ceased moving, of the clock in the corner of the room ticking with an unchanging rhythm even as everything around it might shift in ways he had never expected, of a momentum that should have marked the beginning of everything now drifting further away at a speed he could not catch simply by standing still, made Theo realize there was no longer any room for idleness, no more time to doubt the plan he had created or reconsider whether the last proposal that left his lips with absolute certainty had been the best decision among all available options.
To be continued…