[Choose yourself or the world!]
A chilling emotionless voice rang in Arohan's ears, freezing him in fear. His mind had gone blank and didn't know what to do.
At the same time, he didn't understand how did someone appear in the lift out of nowhere to ask the question.
With a lot of effort and strength, he turned around, and the next moment, he began to tremble. His eyes began to bleed, his face started swelling, and worms seemed to have begun to crawl under his skin.
But he didn't even know that, and just stared blankly at the ugly, hideous eye floating in the air without any support and looking at him.
Its sclera was a sickly yellowish-brown, covered with dark veins that ticked erratically. The iris was a hideous, deep crimson, twisting in rough patterns that looked like bloodstains. The eye was ringed by layers of cracked, rotting flesh that seemed half-dissolved.
[Choose yourself or the world!]
The same emotionless voice rang again in his ears, forcing him to come around. He looked in shock at his disfigured body and immediately after a wave of pain engulfed him.
While all that was happening, Vanya and Agastya were lying unconscious. The worms that had appeared out of nowhere had begun to feed on the two of them.
If someone with extreme focus were here, they would notice that with every bite of the worm, a specific vein ticked in the hideous creature's eye.
Arohan didn't have anything in his mind as unbearable pain had clouded his brain. He couldn't think of anything other than that at that moment.
Suddenly, the pain disappeared and the eye descended down and stopped right at Arohan's eye level. He could see nothing but indifference and cruelty in that eye.
[Your last choice. Choose yourself or the world!]
Arohan's mind had become insanely calm at that moment and he finally pondered over the statement.
He didn't have to think what the eye meant by the statement as his intuition told him. He was an intelligent guy so wasn't very hard to understand what it meant in this situation.
'Of course, I will choose myself.'
The thought rang in his heart, and he was about to answer the same. But suddenly for some reason, he instinctively turned around and looked at his more than a year old son getting eaten by worms.
His heart almost skipped a beat and a wave of anger like never before rushed in his brain. He wanted to jump and pounce and roar, but an invisible force seemed to have tied him to that place. Other than moving his limbs, he could do nothing else.
***
"Why can't you try to understand us at least once?"
...
"You want this car. Okay, I will buy it immediately."
...
"It will look good on whoever becomes your wife."
...
"Shield him, I am going to ram it on the barrier."
***
One after another, the memory of him and his parents flashed. The accident five years ago would have taken the lives of all three, but his mother shielded him from the brunt of the force which left him only with injury.
His parents might have had a chance to live due to the strong airbags, but they instead used their bodies to shield him, which meant a certain death. Even then, they did all of that with a smile.
His parents were theists and were regular visitors to churches or other places of worship every year, and he also followed them. That night, Arohan wished for every God of every religion or society to save his parents, but no supreme power came down and saved them. The irony is that, the family was coming from a church.
'Why am I remembering all this right now?'
Arohan thought in his heart, while also struggling to reach his son.
Right at that moment, the statement rang in his head once again. It wasn't the creature repeating the statement, but the memory of it.
"I choose the world!"
'I will finally be able to apologize to you for turning out this way,' Arohan thought with a relieved heart when he remembered his parents.
[The choice has been made!]
[Calculating whether the world is worth rescuing!]
[Your choice is deemed incorrect. The world isn't worth rescuing. Starting the protocol to destroy the world.]
Arohan who had finally made a selfless decision due to his son, felt his heart sinking when he heard the following statement.
"Are you fucking bullshitting me?"
Arohan roared and pounced on the eye. He didn't even notice that the invisible force binding him had disappeared and he was free to move.
"And the Inferior did raise his hand in blasphemous fury, his voice trembling as a storm before the divine; yet the Lord laughed in disdain. 'How dare the dust seek to stain the heavens, or the worm rise against the Sun?' And with a breath, the God's fury was ignited, a fire to consume the inferior who dared stretch their hand toward the Divine. For it is said: the heavens are unsullied, the throne untouched by mortal rage, and woe to him who dares insult the infinite."— Sunder 10:18
A voice filled with anger exploded in Arohan's head causing him to stop and scream in pain. His hands slowly began to melt, while the number of worms inside his body grew at an exaggerated rate.
"And in the shadowed depths where despair reigned, there shone the Core, a gift from the First Breath, who in mercy did not forsake the fallen. And it was spoken: 'To the lowest, I grant the power to rise, for even dust may be sculpted into stars.' Thus, in His boundless grace, the Primordial extended a hand, that those who seek might ascend, and the spark of the infinite be given to the finite, that they may walk the path of gods."— Eternis 12:81
Suddenly, a blinding light appeared out of nowhere, and with it followed a verse he had never heard before. The voice seemed to contain a majesty that was unattainable for any lifeform in existence.
The corruption and disfigurement he had received due to the creature began to disappear, while a scream that could cause the planet to explode rang, but no one could hear it.
[HOW COULD IT BE?]
The eye's voice rang once again, but it wasn't directed at Arohan. In the presence of the light, the eye slowly began to dissolve, and the inaudible scream only got louder and more painful.
A few seconds later, a small eye that looked to be made of a gem fell on the ground, and things returned to normal on the planet.
Arohan had no idea what was going on at all. He could only look blankly at the scene since these things were beyond his comprehension.
The next moment, the light began to dim down, and not long after, only a radiant, pulsating orb was left suspended in the air. Its surface seemed liquid, moving and stirring with colors that varied from deep gold to transcendental emerald and violet.
Its interior contained faint shapes resembling eyes and branching tendrils, which rippled randomly. Occasionally, bright dots of light danced within it, like the forming and fading of stars.
'It is as if it embodies the potential of all life and transformation within it.'
Arohan couldn't help but have the thought, surprising himself. He couldn't move his eyes away from the orb at all.
At that moment, he had forgotten everything, only the orb was left in his eyes. His heart began to beat louder, while his hands moved on their own and stretched to catch the orb.
He even forgot what had happened the last time he tried to touch a thing he didn't understand.
Fortunately for him, no things such as the last time occurred, and he successfully got hold of the orb.
"'From ruin, you have risen; from dust, I have shaped you anew. I am the spark eternal, the gift of ascent. Know this, O Child of Struggle—by my light, the boundless path opens, and by your will, even the unthinkable may be made flesh. For you have conquered not by fate, but by fire.' Thus I anoint you, and the heavens bore witness."— Revelation 1:1
As soon as he touched it, the same majestic voice rang once again in his ears, and the next moment, a wave of power rushed through his body.
He even saw an illusion of an endless being standing in the endless darkness of the void. The next moment, the being turned around and Arohan's eyes met with its eyes.
Arohan seemed to have received an electrical shock as his body began to tremble, and immediately after, he crashed to the ground unconscious.
***
A/N: The verses aren't written by me, but I have taken the help of the internet and AI.
From the next chapter, we will finally learn about the supernatural structure of the book's universe.