"Why?" the lookalike Ezmelral asked, her voice laced with confusion, her brow furrowed as she stared up at the GodKing. "Is it because I'm still weak? My Essence control isn't refined enough? My speed lacks the edge?" She rattled off reasons like a desperate litany, grasping for understanding amid the sting of refusal.
The GodKing's reply cut through her words, simple and unyielding. "You are not a killer."
The statement hung in the air like a thunderclap, surprise rippling across Shona's face—his five arms tensing slightly—and Ta'Narsha's, her ten arms folding tighter as she exchanged a glance with her son, the weight of the GodKing's words echoing the unexpected mercy in them.
"I—" the lookalike began, her voice faltering, uncertainty clouding her eyes.
Before she could finish, the GodKing placed a massive hand on her shoulder, his touch firm yet not unkind. Reality folded around them in a dizzying warp, the garden vanishing in a swirl of light and shadow.
When it steadied, they stood in a grimy dungeon—dank walls slick with moisture, the air thick with the stench of despair and unwashed bodies. Prisoners in the cells startled backward, chains rattling as they pressed against the bars or retreated into corners, confusion and fear twisting their faces. "Who's there?" one rasped, peering into the gloom. "Guards? More torture?"
The lookalike blinked, disoriented, her gaze sweeping the shadowed cells. "Where... where are we? Who are these people?"
The GodKing said nothing, but a tome materialized beside his shoulder—the Book of Revesis, its cover etched with arcane symbols that seemed to writhe in the dim light. Ezmelral, observing from the time-veil, recognized it instantly—the same artifact Raiking had summoned to purge the Praexer remnants after his colossal sword strike felled their commander. How... how can that be? she thought, her mind racing.
The Book flipped open with a flurry of pages, landing on the second: Voice of Eve.
From its depths crept a finger—pale and ethereal—followed by a hand, emerging in an eerie, slow unfurling like a nightmare blooming from paper. In a sudden surge, a spectral entity rushed forth, its form twisting and undulating as it floated toward the prisoners, curling around one in a seductive, almost intimate embrace—tendrils of mist brushing skin in ways that sent shivers down Ezmelral's spine.
"Confess to me," the entity whispered, its voice beautiful yet chilling, like a siren's song laced with venom, "what secrets do you harbor in your heart?"
The prisoners' eyes glazed over, hollow and vacant, shadows deepening above and below—obscuring eyebrows like veils of night, casting upper cheeks in eerie gloom. One by one, they spoke, voices monotone echoes of buried shame:
"I raided a transport caravan..."
"I killed my husband..."
"I stole a necklace from the princess's drawers..."
Tragedy after tragedy spilled forth, the dungeon resonating with their confessions, each word a weight lifted yet a chain forged anew in the spectral entity's grasp.
Ezmelral's lookalike watched in stunned silence as the spectral entity coiled around the prisoner, its form a swirling mist of allure and dread, drawing forth confessions like poison from a wound. The man's eyes remained hollow, shadows deepening above and below like veils of eternal night, as he muttered his sins in a chilling loop.
The GodKing strode to one of the cell doors, his armored boots echoing like judgment's hammer on the cold stone floor. Ezmelral's lookalike trailed behind, her steps hesitant, the weight of the dungeon's despair pressing on her like unseen chains. With a casual flick of his hand, the GodKing channeled Air Essence—a gust slamming the door open with a resounding bang, hinges groaning in protest.
They entered the dim cell, where a ragged man huddled in the corner, his voice a eerie, broken chant: "I am a thief... a thief... a thief..." The words slithered out like madness given form, his mind fractured under the spectral's unrelenting gaze.
"Kill him," the GodKing commanded, his tone flat, unyielding.
The lookalike whirled to face her master, her eyes wide with shock, the knife in her hand suddenly heavy as lead.
High above in the time-veil, the true Ezmelral felt a chill race down her spine—a memory surfacing like a ghost from the depths. This... this is just like when Raiking told me to kill the sea creature we fished. The hesitation, the moral weight, the push to cross that line... it mirrored her own trial, the moment she'd learned mercy's cost in a world of beasts.
"Why hesitate?" the GodKing pressed, his visor tilting slightly, as if dissecting her soul. "Did you not claim you could kill? Or has your will faltered now that the scales of punishment tip against the crime?"
"I—" she began, her voice trembling, the knife quivering in her grip.
Before she could finish, the Book of Revesis—still hovering at the GodKing's side—flipped open with a flurry of pages, landing on the first: Eden's Root.
The ground shuddered violently, a low rumble building like the earth's awakening fury. In a heartbeat, a root erupted from the stone floor with a wet crunch, impaling a woman in the adjacent cell—her scream piercing the dungeon like shattering glass, raw and guttural, echoing off the walls in waves of agony.
The lookalike's gaze snapped toward the sound, horror etching her features as blood sprayed from the wound, the woman's body twitching in final, futile spasms.
The GodKing's gaze swept the blood-soaked dungeon, the air thick with the metallic tang of spilled life and the fading echoes of agony. One by one, the roots retracted with wet, grinding sounds—punctures sealing, screams cut short in a chaotic, bloody rhythm that built to a crescendo of horror, then faded into an oppressive silence, broken only by the drip of crimson from the impaled forms.
The lookalike turned slowly, her eyes locking on the prisoner before her—his body slumping as he exhaled his final, ragged breath, blood pooling beneath him like a dark accusation.
"This," the GodKing intoned, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through the stone walls, "is a Flood Mission. Thieves. Murderers. Rapists. The silent who turn a blind eye, allowing evil to fester—they are just as guilty as the perpetrators."
He fixed her with an unblinking stare, his helmeted visor reflecting her trembling form. "So I'll ask one last time: Can you—who spent half your life among mortals, absorbing their fragile senses of morality—truly become what the Cosmos demands?"
She lowered her head, her shoulders sagging under the weight of it all, the answer etched in her silence, obvious to both: No. I can't.
Then, in that moment of doubt and anguish, she felt a hand—gentle, unexpected—rest atop her head. The GodKing's touch was warm, almost paternal, cutting through the chill of her despair.
"I know how you feel," he said softly, his voice stripping away the layers of divine authority to reveal a raw vulnerability. "Surrounded by Entities who kill without mercy. I, your master, lead them in Floods—purging worlds in the name of balance. Naturally, as my disciple, you fear their shadows... fear disappointing me. But listen: so long as you remain true to who you are... you'll never be a disappointment."
Her breath caught. The weight of the reassurance struck her harder than any blade, warmth flooding her chest like sunlight breaking through storm-torn skies. Her lips parted, trembling. "M-Master..." she whispered, her heart hammering as if it might burst through her ribs.
Below, the pool of blood crept closer, its metallic scent sharp in her lungs. Just before it could lap against her feet, the air around her shifted—space folding with a sudden surge that prickled across her skin, as though the world itself had inverted.
In the span of a breath, the dungeon dissolved.
The stench, the chains, the bodies—all gone, leaving only the phantom weight of what she'd witnessed pressing heavy in her chest.