Chapter 498
Theo did not answer.
His eyes were fixed upon the nine women who now raised their heads after the long prostration had ended, and among them, Baal-Zevul—with shimmering brownish-blue hair—stood first, followed by Chemosh, whose charcoal-gray eyes glowed dimly, and then Apollyon, silver-dark and silent like metal that remembered death.
"The Nothingness," Rahab spoke, her deep oceanic gray-blue hair swaying softly, her voice resembling waves crashing against the cliffs of silence.
"We heard Your call. Show us who must be destroyed, and we shall turn their remains into a lullaby for the night that shall never end."
And amidst all of that, Apophis—with hair the color of poisonous withered leaves—did not speak, did not move, merely smiled—a smile that, for the first time, made Aldraya stop questioning her own allure, because that smile reminded her of something she had long buried within the depths of her consciousness.
Lilith HaRish'a raised her head after the prolonged prostration that felt like both an instant and eternity—her pitch-black hair moving slowly, as though every strand still refused to abandon its posture of reverence toward the Nothingness.
That single eye of hers, which never blinked and never changed, now stared directly at the entity before her with an unreadable gaze—not because she was hiding something, but because what she was about to say was too heavy to be expressed through an honest expression.
"The Nothingness," she said, her voice no longer cold like ice frozen for thousands of years, but warm in the wrong way—warm like soil still holding heat after a forest fire, warm like ashes still pulsing beneath bare feet.
"We must deliver news we never wished to deliver. Of the fourteen sisters You birthed from the nature of emptiness, only nine remain."
She paused for a moment, and behind her, the eight surviving sisters remained silent—not breathing, not blinking, not doing anything living creatures usually did to reassure themselves that they still existed. Only their eyes moved, staring at Lilith, staring at the Nothingness, staring at the emptiness between them both.
"Bes," Lilith continued, and the moment that name left her lips, the voice from the depths of her consciousness—the voice of Bes, who always laughed, who was always loud—also fell silent, as though listening to the report of her own death from the lips of her surviving sister.
"Enlil. Lamashtu. Ahura Mazda. Mictlantecuhtli. They are dead. Hunted. Slaughtered. Erased by the Gods who feared their own shadows."
Asherah, standing directly beside Lilith's right side, stepped forward halfway—not because she wished to take over, but because she felt that tales of death could not be borne by one person alone, could not be spoken by one mouth alone, could not be mourned by one heart alone.
"They died, the Nothingness," Asherah spoke, her voice trembling—a tremor she had never shown in thousands of years, a tremor that made her old emerald-orange hair sway like leaves shaken by the wind before a storm.
"But before their consciousness was completely taken away, before their names were erased from the records of existence, they did something we never expected. They transferred something. Not their bodies—their bodies had already been destroyed, reduced to ash, scattered among the fractures of realities that could never be reunited again. But their souls. Their essence. The final vibration of their existence."
She raised her hand and pointed toward her own chest, toward the place where, beneath skin and flesh and bones she never truly possessed, something pulsed.
Pulsed in the same rhythm as her five dead sisters.
"They transferred their souls into us. Into my consciousness. Into Lilith's consciousness. Into the consciousness of Mammon, Ashmedai, Baal-Zevul, Chemosh, Apollyon, Rahab, and Apophis."
She paused, and for several moments, there was no sound other than the soft rustling of their hair and the heartbeat that had never truly existed.
"Not because they feared death. Not because they were unprepared to leave. But because they knew—they knew—that their deaths would not be the end. That as long as we still live, as long as our consciousness still pulses with the same emptiness, they will continue to exist. As whispers. As echoes. As wounds that never heal, yet never truly die."
The silence that followed Asherah's report was unlike ordinary silence.
Not the silence born from the absence of sound, but the silence born from anticipation, from something waiting to react, from nine pairs of eyes staring directly at the Nothingness with hopes they did not dare to voice.
Lilith HaRish'a, who had stood silently beside Asherah all this time, finally stepped forward.
One step, then another—enough for her pitch-black hair to touch the suddenly colder air, enough for that single eye of hers to stand directly before the unblinking gaze of the Nothingness.
"One question, the Nothingness," Lilith said, her voice no longer warm in the wrong way, but returned to its original tone—flat, far too flat, like the surface of a lake concealing an abyss beneath it.
"Why did You not move? For years. For decades. While our five sisters were hunted, tortured, killed—where were You?"
She did not cry.
Lilith never cried, because tears were the language of creatures who still possessed hope, and she had lost hope long ago—yet her voice cracked at the end of the sentence, cracked like glass scratched too deeply, cracked like fractures that could never be repaired, cracked in a way that made the eight sisters behind her feel something they could not name.
"We heard Your call. We came. We prostrated ourselves. We reported the deaths of our sisters. But You... You merely remained silent. You merely watched. You merely existed—in the same way You have always existed, without ever doing anything."
She clenched her fists, her long nails pressing into her palms hard enough to leave marks—marks that would vanish in an instant, like everything that touched her.
"Our question is simple, the Nothingness. Why did You not protect them?"
And the Nothingness answered.
Not with anger.
Not with regret.
Not with stale apologies like those spoken by lesser beings whenever they felt guilty.
But with indifference—indifference so perfect, so absolute, so pure, that for a moment, Lilith felt as though she were speaking to a wall, to stone, to a void that had never learned the meaning of loss.
"Crybabies," said the Nothingness, the voice slipping out like wind passing through a door left slightly ajar, like water flowing over stones too smooth to become wet.
"You sound like children crying because their candy fell to the ground, even though they had already eaten it long ago."
Lilith fell silent.
Behind her, Asherah froze. Mammon froze. Ashmedai, Baal-Zevul, Chemosh, Apollyon, Rahab, Apophis—all of them froze, unmoving, unbreathing, unblinking, like statues of ice in a winter that would never end.
"Be proud," the Nothingness continued, and for the first time, the tone of that voice changed—not warmer, not colder, but deeper, older, more absolute in a way that suddenly made Lilith feel small, as small as dust upon a table that had never been wiped clean.
"Be proud of the sacrifice of your five sisters. Their souls did not vanish. They did not become ashes scattered among the fractures of reality. They returned. Not to Me—I never asked for their return—but to you. To your consciousness. To the core essence of your power. They became part of you, and as long as you continue to exist, they shall never truly die."
To be continued…