It hit like fingernails dragging across a chalkboard — a nauseating, skull-splitting screech that exploded right next to Vincent's ear.
He clapped his hands over his ears in pain, but he could still hear it clearly. The one saving grace was that the whispering carried no corruption or divinity mixed into it this time, so it didn't do him any real physical harm.
But tonight's prayer to the True Creator was supposed to be an attempt at actual communication — not a session of listening to it swear and rap nonsense. Vincent forced himself to hold on, shouting, "True Creator! My Lord! Can you hear my voice?"
It didn't do any good. The True Creator kept right on spewing its mad, filthy babble.
Gritting his teeth, not caring whether it could hear or understand him, Vincent spoke quickly. "If nothing goes wrong, next week the Augustus family is going to use the vessel you already chose for your descent, and hold a ritual to bring you down."
"I'm sure you can guess their real goal isn't actually to bring you down — it's to use you to get what they want. I know you might not care about schemes like that, or about being used, but I'm asking you... please don't respond to the ritual. Please don't descend."
"Sukabolie! Sukabolie! &&%¥%"
All he got back was more of that filthy Russian-flavored cursing, and the brass eyes around him twitching faster than ever.
Bernadette said quietly, "The True Creator's condition seems even worse than before. It's gone completely past the point of being able to communicate... Maybe it really was affected, helping us against the Primordial Witch last time."
Vincent frowned, unwilling to give up, veins standing out on his face from the whispering's assault. He was silent for a moment — then a spark of inspiration hit him, and he shouted, in Russian: "Comrade! Can you hear me? Comrade Grisha!"
"Comrade Grisha!"
"If you can hear me, stop the whispering. Rein in the negative feelings in your heart. I really need your help."
"Comrade Grisha! The Party and the People need you!"
Bernadette: "???"
Even Vincent felt like he'd lost his mind a little, but facing down a madman, he figured extreme measures were called for.
He gave up holding back entirely, pouring out a stream of revolutionary rhetoric and ideology, trying to fight "the madness of a god" with "great ideals."
Over here, "Sukabolie." Over there, "Such-and-such-ism." On the surface, they were both just shouting past each other, not connecting at all.
Then, at a certain moment, the True Creator's ear-splitting whispering abruptly cut off.
In the basement, the eyes that had been twitching rapidly all went still at once, then all turned to stare directly at Vincent. A moment later, the brass eyes shuddered in unison, and a voice drifted out, faint and distant, as if carried from some ancient age:
"Oh. It's you."
Vincent's spirit surged, a thought hitting him that felt almost unbelievable: No wonder it's the greatest ideology of them all — even capable of fighting off a god's own madness. It actually snapped the True Creator, this raving lunatic, back to sanity?
But the moment that thought crossed his mind, the brass eyes turned mad and pained again, and the faint voice grew blurred, broken:
"It's about to wake... I can't... resist..."
"If you get the chance... come to the god-forsaken... land..."
"I'll be waiting... there... for you."
The instant the last word fell, every brass eye hidden in the veil of shadow vanished at once, and the shadows in the basement seemed to be swallowed by some invisible black hole, gone in the blink of an eye.
Then, with a soft whoosh, the candle flames went out, and everything fell silent.
Vincent stood frozen, staring at the statue of the hanged figure, unable to shake off that last string of words: That voice just now... was that the Ancient Sun God?
That had to be it.
In the original story, when Klein reached the god-forsaken land, the voice that spoke with him had also seemed to be the consciousness of the Ancient Sun God — one that could only briefly resurface when the True Creator directly confronted the Master Beyond the Grey Fog.
Could the Nation of Disorder qualify too, somehow?
But — why would it want me to come to the god-forsaken land? Was there something it wanted to tell him in person?
Wait.
The first thing it had said, coming back to its senses, was "Oh, it's you" — and that was the Ancient Sun God's consciousness speaking. Didn't that mean it had already known him, from before?
So his earlier suspicion was actually true?
Had he really, through some time-transfer device, or time magic, or some other means, gone back into the past, and met the Ancient Sun God early on?
Were all those changes from the original story — the ones that shouldn't exist — things he himself had caused, by going back?
For a moment, Vincent's thoughts tangled into a knot, and he genuinely couldn't tell whether this theory, if true, was good news or bad.
"You should've used the chance just now to ask it how to get to the god-forsaken land."
Bernadette's voice cut in. She hadn't questioned the True Creator's words much at all — in her understanding, that "it's you" simply referred to its prior acquaintance with Vincent.
"Didn't think of it in time."
Vincent sighed, then added, "Well, in a couple days when we pray to that 'Angel of Fate,' we can ask about it there too."
As far as reaching the god-forsaken land went, Vincent knew of two methods: one was Amon's bug-exploiting trick, and the other was going through the western end of the Divine War Ruins, with the True Creator's permission, taking the normal route freely — the way the great serpent Ouroboros and the Aurora Order's Sages did.
Bernadette asked, "Why do you think the True Creator specifically wants you at the god-forsaken land?"
"No idea yet."
Even suspecting he'd travel back through time someday, he still had no clue what the True Creator actually wanted from him.
"Do you think it might have sought out Dad too, at some point?"
"...That, we can ask when we get there."
Vincent smiled. "Don't rush it too much. Maybe after next week I'll finally advance to demigod, and then we can use that compass to go find Emperor Roselle."
"And when that happens, we'll give your dad a good little 'surprise!'"
Bernadette gave a soft laugh. "By 'surprise,' you mean he suddenly and inexplicably gets another 'son'?"
"..."
The smile vanished off Vincent's face at once. "Fine, we'll each address him our own way — you call him Dad, I'll call him bro."
Sure, Emperor Roselle was technically about two hundred years older than him, but Vincent had zero interest in being anyone's son... though, well, being "half a son" wasn't really a problem.
After all — a son-in-law is basically half a son.
To be continued…
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