Chapter 155
Shaqar watched Apathy from the corner of his eye, eyes that never truly stopped observing, and within his chest—still burning from those three wounds of light—he felt something strange.
Not sympathy, but a cold confusion.
He knew Apathy.
Not merely as one of the nineteen subordinates under his command, but as someone born from a lower-middle satanist bloodline, from a family that had never possessed the luxury of learning compassion, from a generation raised upon a single principle.
An enemy is an enemy, no matter what form they take.
Shaqar still remembered how Apathy had first joined Team Xirkushkartum—without trembling, without hesitation, with hands already accustomed to gripping weapons at an age far too young to be called adolescence.
Then why now?
Why were those hands, once steady amidst explosions on the battlefield, now trembling like leaves caught in the wind before a storm?
Why was the breathing that had once remained calm in the midst of enemy encirclement now uneven and erratic?
Shaqar did not voice those questions aloud, but inside his mind they spun endlessly like blades unable to find their sheaths.
What had his bloodline taught him about a Defiled Holy Being?
Nothing.
Because no one had ever taught such a thing.
It existed nowhere in doctrine, nowhere in training, nowhere in all the indoctrination sessions Apathy had ever undergone.
Then where had this feeling come from?
And when he saw sweat beginning to soak Apathy's forehead—not ordinary sweat, but thick, foul sweat with a distinct stench, the kind that only emerged from a satanist's pores when something deeply fundamental within them had been shaken—Shaqar let out a long breath and decided that this was not the time to seek answers.
"Apathy."
The name left Shaqar's lips not in the tone of a commander addressing his subordinate, but in a voice lower, closer, more... satanic.
He stepped half a pace to the side, positioning himself between Apathy and the still-standing figure of Xajuriosta before them, as though a distance of two meters could become a wall separating the pain that was seen from the pain that was felt.
"Listen," he said again.
This time his hand rose—not to issue an order, but to press against Apathy's shoulder with fingers that, despite their injuries, felt as firm as an anchor amid raging waves.
He could feel Apathy's body trembling beneath his palm, feel the muscles in that shoulder tighten and loosen in an uncontrollable rhythm, and for a moment Shaqar almost asked—
What do you see? What do you feel?
—but he stopped the words at the tip of his tongue because he knew that sometimes questions hurt more than answers.
"What you're seeing over there is not something you have to bear alone," he finally said, deliberately keeping his voice flat but not cold, like the surface of a lake intentionally left undisturbed so the fish beneath would not be frightened.
He pressed Apathy's shoulder a little more firmly, just enough to remind him that something real still stood beside him.
"We all see it. We're all here."
The foul sweat continued to flow across Apathy's face, soaking his temples, running down his cheeks, mixing with the lingering dust from the explosion on the first floor.
Shaqar could smell it—a scent unmistakable to anyone who had lived among satanists for more than two decades.
It was the smell of something that had been taught to be hated, only to suddenly be given a form that did not fit that hatred.
It was the smell of doctrine colliding with a reality that doctrine had never described.
Shaqar exhaled again, deeper this time, letting the breath leave him slowly and carry away some of the tension hanging in the air.
"Apathy, look at me," he said.
When Apathy's eyes—which had remained fixed upon Xajuriosta like a bird hypnotized by a serpent—finally turned toward him, Shaqar had already prepared something he had never given anyone on the battlefield.
A space where one did not have to be a soldier.
"You don't need to understand what you're feeling right now," he said.
For the first time, his voice lost some of its usual firmness and was replaced by something more fragile, yet somehow stronger because of that fragility.
"I don't understand it either. But we can't stop here."
He patted Apathy's shoulder once more, lighter this time, like an older brother waking a younger sibling from a nightmare without rushing them.
"Not because we're heartless. But because if we stop, everything that happened to that creature will have been for nothing."
Apathy drew a long breath—a breath that felt as though he were swallowing two worlds at once, like air relearning what it meant to belong to a single place.
He closed his eyes for a moment, allowing Shaqar's hand on his shoulder to become the only real thing within a room that felt like a dream from the wrong dimension.
Calm down, he told himself.
He forced the voice in his mind to sound stronger than the trembling still crawling through his bones.
You must not interfere.
You must not become a burden.
This mission—this exorcism—is greater than whatever you are feeling right now.
When he opened his eyes again, his focus had changed.
No longer on the chain around Xajuriosta's neck.
No longer on the damp wings hanging from that being's back.
Instead, it settled upon the corridor ahead, upon Zhulumat who had already begun moving the formation, upon the objective they had paid for with blood on the first floor.
"I... I'm fine," he finally said.
His voice had not fully recovered, but it had found its foundation again, like a cracked building that chose to remain standing.
He turned toward Shaqar, and for the first time since Xajuriosta had appeared, there was something in his eyes that was not fear.
It was determination, forced into existence from the ruins of pain.
"I won't interfere. I swear. Team Xirkushkartum... we have a duty. I won't forget it."
Shaqar observed him for a moment, searching for any remaining tremors that might still be hiding behind that newly forged resolve.
When he found none—or at least chose not to find them—he gave a slow nod.
His hand left Apathy's shoulder gradually, like someone releasing a mooring rope only after ensuring the ship would not be dragged away by the current once more.
"Good," he said simply.
His commander's tone had returned, though not entirely. A trace of unusual warmth still lingered at the edges of his voice, like footprints in sand not yet erased by the tide.
"Then move. Not behind me. Beside me."
He stepped forward, and Apathy followed.
Their strides merged once more with the rhythm of the formation as it moved away from Xajuriosta—the figure who still stood motionless, still a question without an answer, still a wound no one dared touch.
Ahead of them, Zhulumat was already half-running, signaling rapidly for the pace to increase.
For several seconds, it felt as though everything would continue moving forward—not easily, not without pain, but at least in the right direction.
Agatha caught up from the left side, breathing heavily though her eyes remained sharp.
"We're losing time," she said.
No one argued.
Then the earth beneath them screamed.
Not trembled.
Not shook.
Not merely a vibration that battle-hardened knees could anticipate.
This was a scream—a violent upheaval born from something deep beneath the castle's foundations, something tearing through the reality of the second floor like fabric being pulled apart from two directions at once.
To Be Continued…