Chapter 77
The sun leaned lower, casting a slightly harsh light upon the wooden table where the food had begun to cool.
Apathy was still speaking, now more softly, yet his voice slowly faded—drowned within Shaqar's thoughts that had drifted far away.
He thought about time, about how everything could turn without warning, and about how fragile the reasons of the satanists were for holding on.
Once, he believed courage was only needed on the battlefield, but now he understood—the fiercest battles were fought within the chest, where guilt endlessly demanded justice.
In silence, he felt increasingly alien to the world he once fought for—a world that now seemed too bright for a heart veiled in the dust of the past.
"Ah… my stomach is truly full. I can't take another bite."
'But that's understandable, perhaps even justifiable.In just two hours, I, along with the team leaders and all of Xirkushkartum's troops, will depart—heading toward the place spoken of as the heart of everything.Maybe the amount of food I ate today was excessive, a little close to greed.But this is the opening step before the great mission comes to crush us all.'
With his stomach now filled, Shaqar leaned back slightly in his chair, his fingers tapping lightly on the table's surface before patting his stomach twice.
That small movement broke the silence that had momentarily enveloped the tavern, leaving behind a low hum of breath mixed with the satisfaction of fullness and fatigue.
On his face lingered a faint trace between comfort and regret—comfort because his hunger was finally sated after days of skipping proper meals, and regret because he knew this calm was merely an interlude before the next storm arrived.
He even muttered faintly within, realizing how much food had gone into his body today, as though it was preparing itself for something far greater than a mere journey.
Around them, the light from lanterns began to shimmer along the street, casting wavering shadows upon the stones slick with dew.
Shaqar closed his eyes for a moment, feeling how his full stomach carried a heaviness far deeper than the physical.
Within him, the awareness solidified—that all this comfort was nothing but irony, before the journey to Thalyssra, the City Blessed by the Great Sanse, would demand all his strength once again.
A place said to never know dusk, where divine light dripped from the heavens like sacred water—yet also the ground where trials beyond time would unfold.
Apathy watched him quietly, moving his gaze from his empty plate to the captain's face, now lost in thought.
He knew that beneath those lines of exhaustion, Shaqar was reassembling his courage.
There was a subtle vibration in the air—a formless sign that something vast awaited at the end of the day.
Perhaps for Apathy, Thalyssra was just another name on an economic map, one among many trade centers once mentioned in headquarters reports.
But for Shaqar—and in the calculus of the Satanist High Command—that city was a pillar, the economic artery sustaining their entire community.
Its fall into the hands of Angels and holy beings, the vile servants of the Cursed One, would not simply be a defeat.
It would be a bell, a herald of apocalypse ready to toll, striking their civilization with inevitable ruin.
"This—"
"What is it?"
'No matter from which angle he was seen, the man's expression was not that of someone who had just finished eating.Gone were the signs of fullness, gone the simple fatigue.What remained was the impression of a conqueror—one who had subdued the Holy Beings, the Angels, and even the Cursed One himself.A power etched deep, an energy that seemed to surpass the might of those three legendary entities.'
Moments after the last breath of satisfaction faded, the air between them grew heavier than before.
The sound of a spoon being set upon a bowl rang softly, marking a shift from leisure to something unnamed.
Shaqar, who had been staring at the broth remnants in his bowl, slowly turned his gaze.
Before him, Apathy sat upright, showing none of the fullness typical of other satanists.
The light of the lantern cast over his face, revealing an odd impression of age.
Not from time—but from the weight he carried.
His eyes were dim—not in weariness, but like embers hidden beneath ash, still burning yet concealed beneath the most deceptive calm.
To Shaqar, Apathy looked like someone returning from a bloodless war, bearing a victory that brought no joy.
The sky outside the tavern began to shift in color, and the lantern's shadow swayed softly above their table, reflecting glimmers across their bowls and the eyes of two men burdened by unspoken truths.
Shaqar kept staring at Apathy, as if to make sure the figure before him was real—not just a vision conjured by a weary memory.
He realized every line on Apathy's face was more than a mark of age—it was a scar from battles no longer recorded in any war report.
There were wounds that did not bleed, and from them, Apathy's strength radiated—not from pride, but from solitude accepted without resistance.
Within Shaqar, a bittersweet feeling arose, hard to name—a blend of admiration and unease, for satanists as strong as Apathy often had already lost something irreplaceable.
Yet Apathy's calm was not the peace of a serene man.
He was more like a volcano that had just erupted, now frozen while still harboring fire within.
His movements were slow, measured, and each breath carried something unspoken.
Shaqar could feel the atmosphere pressing from all directions, like a fine field of energy born from a life that could never be told in ordinary words.
In that dim gaze, he saw the shadow of his own past—when conviction was still whole, and courage still pure, before the world shattered it with the truth that not everything fought for brings salvation.
He felt small, yet strangely not defeated.
Before Apathy, he saw another form of himself—a man who chose to bear the world's burden without needing to explain why.
Time passed slowly, not because they wished to linger in silence, but because silence itself had become the truest language between them.
Apathy looked down at his bowl, then lifted his head with a nearly soundless motion, as if weighing the right moment to speak.
The lantern light traced his jawline and eyes, making him appear like a being once stepped out of the divine realm, returning with only fragments of its light left in mortal form.
In that gaze, Shaqar knew—something was about to break.
Perhaps not as anger, but as a truth too heavy to be wrapped in words.
Time seemed to stop at that instant, frozen between the breath and space of two souls cloaked in weariness.
The noise outside the tavern had vanished, replaced by the soft hiss of wind slipping through the cracks in the wooden walls.
The lantern above the table trembled faintly, its flame flickering wildly, as if sensing the tension suspended in the air.
Before Apathy, Shaqar did not move; his body remained upright, yet his eyes slowly lost focus, as if drawn toward something deeper than mere conversation.
The unfinished opening words echoed through the small room like the resonance of a prayer that had lost its direction—too sacred to ignore, yet too heavy to continue.
To be continued…