Chapter 39: Descent
I looked around in haste, realizing that what I had seen and done was only a revelation belonging to the power of Genesis.
This also meant that one of my precious prophecies had been wasted.
Now I couldn't even try to do the plan I'd worked on.
'That voice I heard…she has a trump card I wasn't aware of.'
As I thought whether what I heard could hide a symbolism belonging to the power of Genesis, I stopped this train of thoughts.
'Every prophecy I had seen lacked any kind of symbolism to unravel…Everything happened as it was…'
This was…strange. It completely defied the bounds of my ability, just like how it happened when I first saw The Monolith in His full glory.
I quickly stopped myself. I had no time to heed to unimportant questions!
But faced with a Nephilim with so many tricks up her sleeve, with an ability I couldn't begin to fathom, what could I do?
She was blocking the exit, and I feared she wouldn't leave that place on purpose.
Earlier, the white-haired girl hadn't thought of guarding the ornamental sword, was it because she underestimated me?
It made sense.
And now that I could injure—almost slash her throat, it was natural for her to raise her guard.
Yet although she sought to destroy me, she wasn't using that trick she had.
The voice saved her just before her death.
Was it her last trick?
A fool-proof way to destroy me?
From what I understood, the voice could've been something that brought harrowing consequences to her—like a double-bladed sword.
Thus it made sense for the white-haired girl not to use it immediately, instead deciding to use it as a last choice.
Thanks to that, I could understand that she had no other tricks left. If she had them, she would've used them as a means to forbid me from killing her.
While Genesis' real world usage rate had improved massively compared to the last weeks, I still couldn't manifest it on purpose.
For now, it still was automatic.
It was as if divine being was gripping me tightly by the heel, dipping me inside the river of time, granting me the ability to know of the future, but forbidding me to swim on my own.
For the first time since my awakening, I was unsure of what path I should take.
While there were many different approaches, the last step was her death.
And while I still didn't have any single clue of how the voice worked, she still had that ace up her sleeve.
Had I known its inner workings during my past revelation—even if what faced me was a thousand-eyed, thousand-armed chthonic being, I would at least have an idea of how to handle it.
But now…
I simply had no clue.
The fear of the unknown—the fear of the beyond was the thing stopping me in my tracks.
'Do I really have to kill myself into understanding her last card?' I thought, knitting my brows.
I didn't have many revelations left. I had to treat them like gold, not waste them.
But even then…I feared there wouldn't be a plan as concise and perfect as my past itineration.
Because of this, I decided to improve it.
'Maybe if I back-pedal at the last second, feinting her into revealing the inner workings of that ability, I could possibly survive for a tad-bit…'
'Since Genesis appears to reveal the futures that have serious wounds or even my death, I could try my new plan. But how am I supposed to know if I'm inside Genesis' revelat—'
My eyes widened.
The reality check Casanova had taught me!
From what I knew, my ability worked like this:
If I go through a future that is fated for me to die—>My ability detects it, starting the revelation—>After I die, the prophecy ends and I return to the point where Genesis first starts.
'When Genesis activates, I could try to do the reality-check, possibly making me understand that what I'm seeing is fictitious, allowing me to follow paths I would never tread inside real life!'
'But if my theory is correct, why hadn't I seen how her secret weapon would work?'
'Was it because I died instantly…?' I thought, yet I felt it wasn't the case.
'Or rather, could my revelations have a kind of time-limit?'
If the time-limit theory was true, however, it still meant I died in the end of such a fate, I just wasn't able to see how because of my limit.
I gripped the half-golden, half-black patterned hilt and slowly started to walk towards her.
I did the reality-check, yet my hand seemed completely normal, free from any otherworldly details.
'What I'm seeing shouldn't be a prophecy from Genesis. This means that my future is not one following with a serious injury or death.'
'Therefore, if I try to feint her trump card, I should survive!'
I started to run.
She did the same, spinning her scythe around.
Her mouth was wide open, fangs baring towards me.
I scoffed.
'She really does look like a rabid monkey.'
As I entered her domain, she swung her scythe at me, prompting me to dodge it with even more precision than the previous times.
I was getting better!
There was no better way to learn fighting by risking one's life!
I just was about to slash her throat with my golden sword, when then, just as I expected, the voice echoed within the illusory moonlight!
"Ṣalmu Erebu Ša Sīn—the Shadowy Descent of the Moon God Sin."
I immediately retreated backwards, increasing our distance.
I couldn't die right there and then. I had to observe her ability so I would gain more insight about it.
The white-haired girl slumped on the ground, as if her energy had run out, her hair falling gracefully on the wooden floor.
She glanced upwards, her red-eyes staring at me.
For others, it could've seemed the perfect moment to slay her. But for me, one who knew that if someone as powerful as her would face such a reaction, it meant that her next move would be immeasurably dangerous!
"Gray Montoya..." she hissed like a snake.
"YOU DARE MAKE A FOOL OF ME?!"
I recoiled slightly.
She knew my name.
This meant I couldn't escape even if I had the chance.
My eyes narrowed.
Never since I'd awakened Genesis I felt this need for bloodshed—this need to destroy her.
I drowned in the feeling, so that my emotions would fuel the fire of my slaughter.
Suddenly, black smoke rose from her slumped body, causing her to shiver, almost convulse instantly.
As my mind buzzed and shook in response, bile slowly rose to my stomach from my esophagus, burning my throat soon after, almost leading me to heave.
'It's coming.'
I did the reality-check, yet my hand didn't look alien. If my theories were right, I would survive, or at most, suffer some superficial injuries.
Since it was highly likely that my predictions also had a time-range, I would need to check and recheck reality, preparing myself for when Genesis would activate.
Rows of flaming torches then appeared, their enchanting light illuminating Mnemosyne's Antiques with a blood-red light.
The black smoke slowly molded into a new form.
First, it created an obscure and muscular body. Its arms were intertwined, its fingers forming intricate, buddhist-like hand signs.
The smog rose up, creating a face.
Its eyes were closed, the face was completely expressionless, as if enshrouded in a deep sleep that started eons ago.
On its forehead a bright, crescent moon was imprinted; it produced a dim, white light.
The face then split, creating a figure in his likeness.
This one however, had one eye open.
I could feel the grip of madness slowly creep inside my heart, prompting me to avoid its wild gaze.
The imprint on its forehead depicted a half-moon—while its tongue was sticking out, oozing a pitch-black substance from it.
This image did not possess a body, but was stuck against the crescent moon figure, as if it were a parasite, a tumor-like, foreign creature.
The original face split again, creating another being on its left.
My consciousness and my primal instincts quivered, pleading me to stop looking, but I couldn't.
How would I dodge her attack if I closed my eyes?
How would I attack her without sight—the most important sense humans possessed?
So I kept on staring, my mind slowly absorbing their ancient details, vibrating under their overwhelming pressure.
This one had both his eyes and his mouth forcefully sewn shut.
Its face trembled and quivered in what I could only figure to be fear.
On its forehead, no imprint was located.
Immediately after, from the back of the obscure figure, an undulating arm slowly formed, writhing with an uncanny and unsettling intelligence to it.
The smog created a wrinkled hand, every finger curling into a claw-like motion.
My heart started beating irregularly, its rhythm slowly faltering.
It was as if my mind was slowly forgetting how to do something as simple as that—like the rivers of ancient knowledge were surging and ravaging against me, causing me to melt beneath their sinister, omnipresent pressure.
Something else was about to come—something unforeseeable, something not meant to be watched by the likes of me.
My brain pounded against my skull, tribal-like drums reverberating inside my soul, images not meant for me flashing across my mind.
Images of tall, slender creatures with many eyes and tentacles sprouting from every fiber of their bodies…
Conch-like structures standing tall, grey steles depicting hieroglyphical, cuneiform-like alien signs, unknowable words carved into them…
The echoes of madness resounding within the atmosphere-lacking satellite. Maniacal smiles, ecstatic and exultant red, bony daemons flying in the sky…
These were events that happened long ago, not much time after the moon gained its first Divinity.
This was when the Sult'hurni, the Moon-People lost their lives, destroyed by an Unseen God, struck by its alien army.
This was not the work of Genesis, this was the work of something else.
These were the memoirs of the Moon God Sin, the forbidden knowledge that seeped out of Him.
Right there and then, from the white-haired woman, the Divinity of a dead world was about to descend!
'I have to do something…!'
…
'To think that a mission came up so suddenly…' Franz thought as he was cleaning the blood-stained scene.
Near him, a head that lacked any eyes, any ears, and any kind of facial features was stuck on the wall.
Its skin was stretched and wrinkled, and on it, many thin needles pierced through it, sticking the head right on the wall.
He sighed.
"I'm late...I sure do hope that Gray hasn't left yet."
He stared at the wall filled with satanic verses, ancient sigils praising apocalyptic events.
"Who could have possibly written such things? One thing I'm sure of, it's that they're experienced. No traces whatsoever were left."
"My sight can't do anything here. That woman could've instead decided to come here herself, or at most, had she been too busy, to call a different Patron Bearer…"
He took a camera and captured the view, mostly focusing on the headless corpse and the sigils.
…
After leaving the scenes and changing his clothes, he started to make his way towards Mnemosyne's Antiques.
Near him, a couple of girls walked slowly, muttering things to each other.
Come to think of it, they were the only people who were walking in that specific street.
"I feel…strange." one girl spoke.
"M-Me too…" the other replied.
"Breathing is hard—it's as if someone is actively pressing on my chest, forbidding me to breathe properly…"
'This…?'
Franz immediately noticed.
This was the sixth sense humans have!
This was their only means to avoid the supernatural, their only means of protection towards the world beyond their own!
"I think we should go…!"
"Yes!"
The two girls started running, the echoes of their steps reverberating through the avenue.
"What could this be…?" Franz looked around.
Only now he noticed the lack of any people.
'Is it the same Nephilim who created that scene earlier…? No, that can't be. While the means of homicide were clearly ritualistic in nature, I didn't detect any foreign quintessence—emanations of power left by a Mercurial Fragment…'
'Could an elder thing or an astral creature have seeped inside our reality…?'
If the Nephilim possessed that sixth sense humans had, it would've proved to be greatly useful.
Since Franz knew how it worked, he could've used it to understand the gravity of the issue by experiencing it himself.
The Nephilim weren't that lucky, however.
At the cost of their abilities, that sixth sense was wholly lost.
'Gravity…'
Franz echoed inside his heart as he fixed his gaze over the sky.
No birds were present.
The sun shone dimly, its light covered by the grayish clouds.
Near the horizon, however…
The crescent moon shone brightly.
'Too' brightly.
Fireworks exploded inside his mind.
'Selene…!'
'She was supposed to leave before Gray entered Mnemosyne's Antiques…Did she stay there to plot her revenge…?!'
"Damn it!"
Franz immediately took off running.
'Selene is a tremendously experienced and talented Nephilim. While Gray's efficiency and ability with Intra is monstrous, he has no concrete fighting experience!'
'If their encounter lasts for long, he won't survive…!'
'If she summons Him, this might end up badly. Not just for Gray—but for Rosano as a whole! If His descent is successful, the whole town is going to become a flattened mess!'