Novel Full Chapter 342: Face My Mettle
Chapter 342: Face My Mettle
***
{Outside The Projection}
’If the Light didn’t answer the bastard…’
’He wouldn’t just be condemned.’
’His legacy would be erased.’
’Forgotten.’
Those final words repeated in their minds.
Words that spoke of an obvious truth.
A reason for what they suspected.
What made history so different.
Was this really it?
Did Aether really twist it all?
Remove it from the very minds of people?
They didn’t wish to confirm it; they didn’t dare to.
If it were the truth, then just how many lies had they been fed?
Or rather… just how many truths had been hidden from them?
Truths that could shake their worldviews ten times over.
Next thing they knew, they’d find out that Malik had a secret kid with Layla or whoever.
Whether it was to save them or guide them along, forcing their minds to accept a truth that fit a narrative controlled by those above, the people didn’t care.
Reasons didn’t matter to them, not at all.
These truths could all be damned.
They didn’t want them.
Real was what they wanted.
Anything else made them feel…
Cheated. Foreign. Lesser.
Made them feel mortal.
Those in the hall were the strongest and most noble people Fam Iblis had to offer, so even if THEIR minds were so easily manipulated, twisted, then just how… just who could stand tall and say their world was completely true?
That whatever they saw, felt, or heard was unchanged.
…That it was as real as the existence of Aether.
It made them wonder…
Did their Sultan see the world at the end?
When he sat upon the Golden Throne…
Did he see the world for what it was?
The truth that it hid from them all?
What did it make him feel?
How did it twist him?
Their questions were endless.
Their answers weren’t.
***
{Inside The Projection}
By the time Malik arrived at the kingdom’s main Farajah Station, rows and rows of citizens had gathered outside its gates and walls, surrounding the building, watching and waiting.
People were in nearby buildings too, filling them way beyond capacity.
They were everywhere.
The entire plaza was overrun.
They all wanted to see the ritual, the Light, for it was Aether that’d speak.
Aether, a being, a name that the Originists believed to be God.
Aether, what most believed to be the breath of God.
Those who took it literally saw it as the breath of the True Sultan.
Others, who were the majority, saw it as something metaphorical.
God didn’t breathe.
Even a Jinn didn’t exactly need air, so how was it that God did?
Or perhaps those who took it literally saw it as something intentional.
An act of God to ’Their’ people, a Blessing bestowed upon them all.
Though in a way, many in the metaphorical crowd believed in that as well.
Only instead of it being the True Sultan who did it, it was an even higher power.
A being above what was already above the Divine Hierarchy.
This being had to be connected to the Forgotten Nexus, the very… contraption that moved the entire universe into its embrace, the center of all that was, which was connected to Al-Fawra, one of the many abysses in the universe, a source of Aether.
Of course, this held another angle.
There was a crowd that believed it all to be scientific.
They ignored the truth of souls, the Trumpeters of Death, the Nether’s River, their Judgment, Hell, Heaven, Magi in general, their blood, the True Sultan, Corruption, Divinity, the Divine Law, and all of what made the Forgotten Nexus divine, instead focusing on its physical mechanisms, believing that it may be the key to the truth.
Everything they spouted was theoretical because, well, no one was insane or strong enough to travel down to the bottom of Al-Fawra and reach the zeroth layer.
This crowd was the minority of a minority, and they weren’t exactly popular… mostly due to their constant pessimism and “world-is-ending” drivel.
Even their fellow atheists alienated them.
The Speakers had their own opinions too, but it was much the same—too theoretical.
This topic was too nuanced with many beliefs, too many to count, and that was without even accounting for Templar, the Twelvers, and their respective branches, which held opinions similar to the metaphorical group.
Either way, no matter who believed what, they all knew Aether to be something Divine.
And it was only of course, how could it not be Divine? It was what brought mortals to Godhood.
So all of these people that surrounded the Faraja station, its public ground, anticipated something incredible.
Something beyond the flat plain of stone, stage, and guillotine before them.
Indeed, it was a place of execution, where blood had dried into the grooves of its stone so many times it looked black beneath the noon light, like the ground itself had veins.
The guillotine didn’t look any better, rusted and scorched in places, but still, it held weight, so, so much weight, for at its peak, engraved in weathered gold, was the twin-headed Crimson Owl of the Holy Kingdom, wings unfurled, clutching a broken chain in one claw and a sphere in the other, one head facing the Heavens, the other Devil’s Maw… Hell.
A scene of horror this was, a scene that had parents covering their children’s eyes.
But the man kneeling in the center made it feel like a stage of ceremony.
The Chancellor was in full formal garb, white and silver robes.
He had cut his palm, let blood drip onto the stone.
His breath misted as he whispered.
He looked desperate.
An orb of light hovered before him, suspended in stasis.
It watched him and the one who stood opposite him.
Malik.
He stepped forward through the silence, dressed in the same black.
Wiping away the blood, the Chancellor stood up and turned slowly towards him.
“Without my support, my information, and my connections, the rebellion would’ve never taken off. The nobles would’ve crushed your plans early on. I carved the path with my own hands.”
Malik looked down at him.
“You carved nothing of mine, and what you did carve was crooked.”
His words held no emotion.
“It’s simple. You used us… and I used you.”
The Chancellor cracked, and everyone could see it.
“You need men like me! You don’t build change with clean hands!”
His mouth twisted, pupils dilating.
“You think these people want justice? They want bread! They want power! You’re just a—”
Malik raised his palm, cutting him off.
“Take your stance, boy.”
The world felt smaller.
Everything was constricted.
The Chancellor felt beyond humiliated.
But he wasn’t about to die kneeling.
He took a stance.
Malik didn’t…
“Oh, come on.”
And the Chancellor scoffed.
“Give me mercy, Lord Malik. At least learn my name.”
Malik looked at his eyes—the second time he had done so since they first met.
A long moment passed, and he ordered:
“…Tell me.”
The Chancellor gave a small smile.
“Thueban.”
Malik nodded.
“Chancellor Thueban… I am he whose mother named Malik, a King from Zawaya, grim-faced and tight-lipped. I repay a drop of venom with the weight of Qantara.”
He placed his left hand behind his back.
“The blade of Zulfiqar.”
He raised Spine Splitter across his chest.
“The silence of Jahannam.”
A dark red glow surged along the edge.
“Face my mettle.”