Chapter 71 - Path of the Divine
The blonde girl returned her gaze to the horizon. "My mother unknowingly discovered a Requirement, something they didn't want to be discovered. Even though she was an authority in her country, she didn't know everything. Are you following me?"
"I am…"
"My mother was just below the level of an Inquisitor, but she could have been even better than them. The only thing I know is that she was better because she was born on Earth; I just know that was one of the reasons. She fought against a serpent that could topple a country, a serpent that controlled an army of creatures that invaded a continent."
"Your mother was powerful"
"My mother was a… fool… but she was my mother." Alice sighed a bit and continued to speak:
"Even being the highest authority, she answered to the Heralds. The King and Dukes of the Oblique World have more information about everything, about why our Earth ended up like that and the truth behind the fall of the Oblique World."
"What happened when your mother killed the serpent?"
She looked at him. "Her arm came back and regenerated…"
Regenerated? Her arm grew back?
"There is no medicine in this world that can do that, not even the best-known healer. The Heralds might have access to a powerful healer, but they would also need to have the severed arm in their possession. However, my mother… she regenerated the entire arm."
"And then, what happened to her after her arm regenerated?"
"Everything was fine, but she felt ill for a few days because of the Requirement. What I'm about to tell you, Luke, won't just bring problems for me. It will bring problems for everyone who knows us. If they find out that I know this, I'm dead, and so is everyone I've interacted with."
"I understand, I won't say anything…"
"Luke, they say there's something greater in this world. There's something greater called the 'Paths of the Divine.' To complete a stage of this path, it's necessary to fulfill a Requirement. It seems not everyone has access to this path. Only those superior nobles know what is needed to complete a Requirement. Each level has its own Requirement… as I told you, my mother, as soon as she killed the mythical serpent, she…"
"She discovered a Requirement to awaken the Path of the Divine…" Luke completed.
"Yes… and acquiring this Path is a significant difference in power… it's the distance from here to the sky. Her body couldn't handle it, and she got sick, but it would be temporary. She would eventually adapt to the new stage she had reached. But… do you think those in power would be happy if someone had this level?" she laughed. "After our country fell to the serpent, she wandered, sick and frail, with her body undergoing changes. She returned to me; I was already far from my old home, sheltered in another country. She was very ill, very ill indeed. As soon as she saw me, she told me everything while crying in despair. Leaving me this sword fragment, she said, 'Daughter, I will die for this grave mistake I made. I understood things about this world that I shouldn't have. I saw things I shouldn't have… the truth is terrible.'"
"What happened?"
"I told you, didn't I? Everything in life comes down to resources. But they considered that she shouldn't be a resource. Appealing to them to do nothing, she went back and begged, saying she would never tell anyone the things she discovered. But they… saw the danger in her having knowledge she shouldn't. So… she… died."
"I'm sorry…"
"That was about ten years ago. I've gotten over it… in parts. But when I awakened my powers and saw my Inner God, I could understand the Path of the Divine and the Fragment of the Inner God that she left me. I can't use this thing beyond the powers it already has until it fully recognizes me as its owner. The more a Fragment of the Inner God is improved… the closer you get to the power of the Inner God. That is the Path of the Divine. My mother discovered how to gain a Fragment of the Inner God through other means and paid the price by uncovering a terrible truth."
"I don't understand where you're going with this…"
"I'm going to find the truth, Luke. That's my goal as a Deviant. I want to discover the terrible truth about our world that my mother discovered. A truth that the Harbingers don't want anyone to have, and that's why I won't stop… I need to know what left my mother in that state. Maybe it was fate that the sword came to me, precisely a thunder user, because I will use this sword to achieve my goal."
Luke remained quiet.
"The truth that my mother saw… it shook her. The truth that made her say strange things to me… things my mother would never say. What she saw by walking the Path of the Divine… she understood the Secret or parts of it… or things beyond."
Alice stopped talking, and for a moment, she looked even further away. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl retrieved a bitter memory that was buried deep in her soul:
"It was raining when she came home, a thunderstorm roiling in the sky. I was looking out the window in the middle of the night. Only a lamp illuminated the room. I was a small child in one of our houses in another country. Our continent was united, so it was common for the highest authority to have residences across countries. When a blue flash exploded in the sky, she came through the door. My mother hadn't told anyone she had returned. She was muttering a bunch of nonsense: 'it was all a lie,' 'no one is ready,' 'we shouldn't have done that,' 'the call was made.' She looked at me but didn't recognize me, still clutching her head and covering her ears. My mother didn't want to hear something, it seemed like only she could hear whatever was speaking to her."
"I screamed for her. My mother looked at me and smiled, then went back to covering her ears while repeating the words: 'black, white, water, darkness, void.' She held me and hugged me tightly, saying she made a mistake. When she handed me the fragment of the sword while trembling, she went back to murmuring… murmuring things in another language, a language that doesn't exist… or once existed. My mother was sweating even after drying herself with a towel, or actually, it was me who was drying her. She sat on the bed with her head on her knees. She stayed in that position all night, sometimes muttering something unknown, other times pausing to breathe. At one point, she looked at me and said, 'I should have let everyone die….' How do you think I felt hearing that? I was a child, but I wondered how my mother, who was a heroine of our nation and faced problems with a smile, could say that? What did my mother see that was so terrible? But I said nothing, I was scared. I stayed in the corner of the room, watching the woman who was my mother regret what she had done and what she had seen."
Alice clenched her hands.
"Before she left, she told me one last thing…"
Alice stopped talking.
"I don't know if I should tell you… I didn't even understand what she said."
"Was it that serious?" Luke asked, seeing the girl starting to hesitate.
"I don't know, but she had a look of fear. Even so, she tried to tell me. Twice she tried to speak, but the words got stuck in her throat. And then she struggled to try to say it… somehow, it was like she wasn't allowed to speak it. She tried to tell me, but then it came out in another language… after a while, she just turned, looking at the door, and prepared to leave. Still with her back to me, she said in a sad voice: 'They aren't moons, they're eyes.' And I never saw her again…"
"They aren't moons, they're eyes…" Luke murmured, recalling where he had heard that before.
In my nightmare…