Chapter 141: Anomaly

Why was there not a single mention if the so called Demigods? As described by the High priest… The Angel and the Demigod were the sons of the God.

Ishiki shook his head violently. This was not the correct way of thinking… He needed to look at it from other ways.

’First… Why do the angel and the Demigod both represent charity? Or do they?’

Ishiki’s eyes narrowed as the thought entered his mind and he read the entry once more…

’Wait,’ he thought, his pulse quickening. ’The High Priest never called the Angel by any specific title. He just called him “the Angel.” It was only the Demigod who was specifically identified as the Demigod of Charity.’

That was… significant.

Ishiki had assumed—based on what he’d learned from the projections in the Outer Ring, from the worship structures throughout Aethelburg—that the Angel was the Angel of Charity. It had been presented as fact, as the fundamental truth around which the entire city’s religion was built.

But the High Priest, writing in a diary that predated the city’s fall, had never made that connection.

’So what if the Angel isn’t the Angel of Charity at all?’ Ishiki wondered, feeling a chill run down his spine. ’What if that’s just what everyone was told to believe after Mandecium was forgotten?’

There was one more thing that bugged him ever since he had started reading this diary…

Why were there the symbols representing the seven sins under the pillars? No, that was very vague.

Looking at the bigger picture… the question should be, What did these pillars represent to start with?

Actually, it was more deep than that. There were more than one God.

’Why?’ Ishiki thought, frustration building. ’Why would a cathedral dedicated to Mandecium have pillars representing the seven sins? What do those pillars actually mean?’

He was missing something. The answer felt close, just out of reach, like a word on the tip of his tongue that refused to materialize.

One thing he clearly knew was that the central pillar has always been broken… While the other five were broken during the Lost time.

This raises yet another question. Why were they broken? And why were the new pillars erected in their place.

’Even the symbols underneath were destroyed too thoroughly to identify. If I have to guess… I would say that the pillars were used to represent divine hierarchy, then the broken ones would mean something that has to be forgotten.’

The corrupted God have been mentioned a lot of times… Ishiki had a hunch that they had some connection to it. Or maybe…

’The pillars represent the gods and they were broken because they have been forgotten.’

Ishiki rubbed his face tiredly, wincing when the movement pulled at his still-unhealed wound. But he was very happy with his crude deduction and would use this understanding as the fundamentals of all his knowledge.

With a new set of questions Ishiki once again summarized what he knew and then started reading the next entry. Maybe he would find something while reading the entries.

No, he was sure he would find something. Then there was also the small diary he was carrying in his pocket.

But he felt as though he wouldn’t need it, he thought that because of a simple fact that whoever that guy was… he was not more knowledgeable than the High Priest who had lived for who knows how long.

He creased his eyebrows and flipped open the next page.

***

2nd of August, Year 1126 of Divine Protection

It has been a whole week since I woke up with that strange feeling. And It very well terrifies me to say that I am indeed in the future.

But for some reason the people around me are all the same.

I have questioned my subordinates carefully—the four priests who serve under me in this cathedral. I asked each one separately whether they have noticed anything unusual recently. Any disruptions in their routines, any strange sensations, any gaps in their memories.

All four answered the same way: no. Nothing unusual. Everything is as it has always been.

For some unknown reason they all seemed to be fully aware of the angel saving the capital. Without letting my image shatter I asked each one of them to tell me the whole legend as a test.

They all said the same thing – The Sun was devoured by a Corrupted God and hence the Angel offered itself for the sake of this city.

It was actually magnificent, before they told me… I haven’t noticed that the sky was not real and so was not the Sun. I do not know what conspired during the ages that have been lost.

But one thing terrifies me beyond anything else. Was the Corrupted God the same God as the Great old one?

If that is so, I am afraid that the prophecy has already come true and the Great Corruption has already transpired.

I can not go out and see for myself so, I must rely on different sources.

If my subordinates feel nothing, if they perceive no disruption, then logically I must conclude that I am the anomaly. That whatever I am experiencing is unique to me rather than a genuine alteration in reality itself.

It seems that this gives us the answer to the question of what happens to the awakened people who never return from their trials. Do they experience something similar? Is the Neural Matrix System capable of transferring souls in alternate time?

I will end it here for today.

May the Angel forgive us.

***

Ishiki’s eyes widened yet once again as he read through the page.

Following that a lot of questions bubbled up in his mind… making him shake a little. He felt excited, and terrified at what he was learning.

’So, the High Priest was indeed an anomaly. All the other echoes created had the memories already engraved in their mind. If i had to explain the phenomenon then I would say that it was because of the fact that the original body of the High priest was still alive.’

That was the most logical explanation. But it was indeed a new information… so the High priest was ’Aware’.

The next question he had was much more dire than any other he had ever faced and it chilled his bones to the core thinking about it.

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