Leon ran toward Azazel's body, shouting in a broken voice: "Father!!!"
Sakolomeh let him go. All danger was averted. An almost melancholic smile brushed his lips.
Erasa approached behind him and removed her mask: "Well done, Champion!"
Bakuzan joined them, making his sword disappear with a fluid gesture: "One would think only you could solve this problem. Even Azazel would have caused us big trouble!"
Sakolomeh gave them a proud smile. Satan then arrived and placed a hand on Sakolomeh's and Bakuzan's shoulders: "Since I exist, I had never seen such impressive humans. Humans like you, you don't come across every day. Even Adam wasn't at your level."
Bakuzan rolled his eyes, looking weary: "What do you plan to do, Satan?"
Satan smiled, her cheeks flushing: "Who among you two is single? I'd be delighted to become his fiancée, if that doesn't bother anyone!"
Erasa and Bakuzan exchanged a complicit smile and turned an accusatory gaze toward Sakolomeh.
He raised his hands in defense: "You know, being single has never bothered me. Stop looking at me like that!"
Satan exclaimed: "Perfect!!!"
Sakolomeh flinched. Satan placed both hands on his shoulders, caressing them slowly: "I've always loved relationships with humans!"
Sakolomeh blushed violently: "Relationships?! What do you mean?!"
Bakuzan slapped his shoulder laughing: "Don't play innocent, you know exactly what she means!"
Erasa sketched a small smile: "For once that you're finally going to have a girlfriend, don't act like an idiot!"
Sakolomeh blushed even more, staring at Satan who was devouring him with a perverse gaze, a forked tongue slipping out of her mouth: "Uh... wait, you mean you've been very sexually active in the past? And... and you want to make me one of your..."
Sakolomeh's ears started smoking, and he yelled:
"Never in my life! I don't want a wife who has already had countless adventures. I want a…"
Satan cut him off sharply:
"A virgin? I can become one, you know. It's just a matter of morphology and human stuff. I can fix that easily!"
Sakolomeh yelled:
"Aaaaaaahhhhh!!!!"
Bakuzan and Erasa burst out laughing. Sakolomeh turned toward them, red with anger:
"You two love making fun of me!!!"
Bakuzan sighed, then turned his gaze to Satan.
"Alright. The circus is over."
He stepped toward her. Satan stared at him, intrigued.
"What is it, Baku…?"
Bakuzan extended his hand toward her.
"I'm going to remove the Father God's curse that weighs on you."
Satan's eyes widened.
"Wh… what?
Really…?"
She remained frozen, barely realizing what she had just heard.
That curse had bound her since the dawn of her very existence.
Erasa frowned.
"Wait… I thought the Father God didn't participate in the Dream's rules.
How could he have cursed Satan for introducing sin to humans?"
Lucifer's voice rose behind them, calm, arms crossed.
"Because it wasn't the true Father God.
Only an isolated avatar… like there have been several in the past."
Everyone turned toward him.
"Really?" asked Erasa.
But how is that possible?
Lucifer replied without hesitation.
"When an absolute is imagined, especially an absolute like the Father God, it can generate avatars from its own fragments.
Entities that reclaim themselves as the sole divinity."
He paused.
"But only one avatar was recognized as autonomous and legitimate by the true Father God: Morlük.
Since the Madhurya, it is he who has made necessary the existence of countless divinities in the Dream through fragments of himself.
Zeus, for his part, fragmented far beyond himself… giving birth to the primordial gods."
Lucifer continued:
"The Father God who cursed Satan disappeared ages ago.
It was a protective avatar of humanity, born from traces of the true Father God, but remained an avatar that became autonomous, attached to its own cause."
"He was neither more powerful than the true Father God… nor even than a Third Zone god.
But his authority was equivalent to that of the primordial gods.
That was enough to reach Satan."
Erasa placed a hand under her chin, thoughtful.
"So… the Father God against whom you lost, Lucifer…
which one was it?"
Lucifer closed his eyes for a moment, then reopened them.
"The true one.
I was defeated because I tried to take possession of the Dream…
to become the Absolute in his place."
Erasa sketched a sly smile.
"If I had been the Father God, I would have destroyed you on the spot."
Lucifer turned toward her, surprised.
"Huh…?"
Erasa smiled shyly and pulled her mask up slightly.
"I forgive you. For everything."
Lucifer remained silent for a moment… then nodded gently, a discreet smile on his lips.
Meanwhile, Bakuzan placed his hand on Satan's head.
A light swirled around her.
A dark shadow tore itself from her body and materialized in Bakuzan's palm.
"You are free now…" he said.
He clenched his fist, annihilating the curse.
"It's over."
Satan remained frozen for a second… then smiled.
She had never imagined living long enough to see this day.
She simply threw herself into Bakuzan's arms.
"Thank you… infinitely, Baku."
Sakolomeh turned his gaze toward Leon, who was carrying Azazel on his back, advancing slowly toward the Immortal Echoes.
"I think he's just exhausted," said Leon.
"The extraction of the Absolute Resonance remnants must have drained him."
Sakolomeh nodded.
"He'll recover quickly."
Then his gaze became more serious.
"Alright. Now… where are the souls held by the seal?"
Leon indicated to everyone to follow, pointing in a direction.
Sakolomeh advanced at the front, followed by Bakuzan, Erasa, Lucifer, Satan… and Leon, who was still carrying the exhausted Azazel on his back.
Leon murmured, his voice low:
"It's here… I can feel it…"
Erasa nodded slowly, her mask vibrating slightly.
"Yes. Like a scar that refuses to close."
They eventually reached a vast expanse hollowed out in the mass of the world, a kind of cosmic cavity, suspended between several layers of dead reality.
At the center floated something impossible to qualify, like a bubble.
It was neither material nor immaterial. Its surface constantly changed texture: sometimes smooth like a black mirror, sometimes fractal, sometimes like skin covered in symbols that corresponded to no known language.
Marks were inscribed on it… but as soon as one tried to fix one's gaze on them, they deformed, folded in on themselves, as if the Dream refused to let them be understood.
Bakuzan gritted his teeth:
"That's it… the seal of the Absolute Resonance."
Lucifer frowned:
"No. It's not the seal.
It's the imprint left by the validation of the All. It's not even an action anymore… it's a state."
Dull murmurs resonated from inside the bubble.
Not distinct voices, but a superposition of presences, souls frozen in an endless instant.
Leon knelt down.
"They're there… All of them."
A heavy silence fell.
Sakolomeh then stepped forward.
He felt neither fear nor hesitation. Only a strange clarity. The words of Mü Thanatos still resonated in him, perfectly aligned.
He slowly raised his hand.
"I'm not going to break the seal," he said calmly.
"I'm not going to deny it.
I'm not even going to touch it."
A discreet glow appeared around his palm. It was neither raw energy nor divine authority.
It was his Law.
Bakuzan watched attentively.
"You're creating a space… upstream?"
Sakolomeh nodded.
"Exactly.
A fragment of Dream where the verdict was never pronounced."
The space around the bubble began to vibrate. Not violently, but like a silent rewriting, almost respectful. Sakolomeh's Law did not conflict with the Resonance but slipped between the lines, where no correction had yet been necessary.
A second space appeared, superimposed on the first, invisible but perceptible.
A preserved echo.
Sakolomeh closed his eyes.
"Sealed souls…
I'm not taking you away from your judgment.
I'm memorizing you."
One by one, glows escaped from the bubble. Not by rupture, not by escape, but by transfer.
The souls were neither torn out nor freed by force: they were repositioned, reinscribed in that timeless Dream fragment.
Erasa felt a shiver run through her.
"That's… incredibly precise."
Lucifer murmured, almost admiringly: "He doesn't defy the All…
He accompanies it."
The bubble did not shatter.
It remained there, intact… but empty.
When the last glow disappeared, Sakolomeh slowly lowered his hand. The Law dissipated on its own, as if it had never sought to impose itself.
Silence returned.
Leon raised his head, eyes teary.
"They… they're alive?"
Sakolomeh opened his eyes and replied simply: "Yes.
They exist again."