Elsewhere, the wind blew slowly, as if the world itself were holding its breath. A step echoed on the ground. Then another. Bakuzan advanced calmly, accompanied by Erasa and Salomeh.
His gaze was steady, but his mind was restless. Since he had become the Apostle of the Father God, a question had persisted within him—nagging, impossible to ignore. That entity... if one could even truly call it that... remained profoundly incomprehensible. Even to the gods born of the Dream, it was strange. Close, almost familiar… and yet utterly unreachable.
Ever since Sakolomeh had reconnected the original gods to their own origins, a troubling hypothesis had emerged. What if the Father God was not distinct from the others? And if, beyond appearances, there truly existed no hierarchy at all? Outside meta-reality, such notions lost all meaning. According to some interpretations from the White Exentity, the Father God and the other original gods might be nothing more than one and the same being… fragmented.
Bakuzan, despite his status as apostle, did not have access to all the answers. The Father God Himself did not seem to offer direct understanding. During the battle against the Anarchetypes, He was present… at least, seemingly so. But the more Bakuzan thought about it, the more that presence felt ambiguous. Was it truly Him? Or merely another "part" of Himself, manifested elsewhere, differently, simultaneously?
The information he had gathered all pointed in the same direction. The Father God was ancient. Far beyond anything that could be conceived as ancient. Perhaps even the origin of the possible itself. He had not merely existed… He had divided. Not by creating, but by fragmenting Himself. The original gods would then be nothing but portions of His own being, segments of His essence that had become autonomous.
But that autonomy had limits.
For each fragment, however powerful, could only grasp what it was—and never what it lacked. That would explain why the original gods could never fully comprehend the Father God. They were trying to understand a totality… of which they themselves were incomplete pieces.
Salomeh drew closer, noticing Bakuzan's unusual silence.
— Big brother… maybe we should continue our research on the seven deadly sins, and set aside, for now, all that concerns the Father God.
Her voice was soft, yet earnest.
Erasa, meanwhile, watched in silence. She too was the apostle of an original god—a god who, according to these new theories… might merely be another facet of the same whole.
Salomeh, for her part, was linked to Morlük. An avatar of the Father God. The one from whom the gods of the lower zones derived. A derived origin… of an origin already fragmented. So a question pressed itself, increasingly difficult to ignore.
And if all gods… were in truth only one and the same being?
A being scattered across different levels of existence.
The Father God.
After all, He had borne countless names—throughout eras, beliefs, and worlds. Odin. The Faceless God. The Covered God. The God of Incomprehension. YHWH. Allah. He Who Is What He Is. The foundation of being. The nothingness that gives birth to all things. The crawling chaos. So many names… all striving to designate a single reality.
But those names, those religions, those beliefs… might simply create weakened fragments of Him— incomplete versions, frozen within their own level of absoluteness, unable to transcend what they represented.
The Father God, however, escaped all that.
He was neither truly conscious… nor entirely unconscious.
He existed otherwise.
An entity capable of acting without intention. Of producing effects without will. As if His "body" could move, create, alter… without any decision being made. And conversely, He could just as well do nothing.
An existence based neither on choice… nor on the absence of choice.
But on something even more fundamental.
Something that even Bakuzan, despite all he now knew… still could not comprehend.
Bakuzan nonetheless understood one essential truth: being the apostle of the Father God, as he had become, did not mean embodying the totality of that being. Far from it. He was likely but a point of consciousness— a localized expression within an immensity that wholly surpassed him. Like the other original gods, he represented only a fragment— a conscious facet of a whole whose magnitude defied all understanding.
The words of Sakolomeh returned to him, heavy with meaning. The Father God was not simply a supreme entity… He was a boundary. The most vast limit of the possible. An absolute frontier preventing all things from tipping into the impossible—or even reaching it. He was not merely in the Dream… He was its ultimate boundary. The point at which every attempt to go beyond collapses.
And yet—
He was not reducible to the Dream itself.
Like Mü Thanatos, He seemed both contained within the Dream… and outside it. Present everywhere, and yet unreachable. Something that nothing could grasp in its entirety. Not even His other fragments. Not even the original gods.
Bakuzan exhaled softly.
His gaze turned to Salomeh.
Then he slowly nodded.
— We'll do that… yes. It's probably simpler, for now.
Salomeh gave him a gentle, almost reassured smile.
At that moment, Erasa stepped forward. Her presence immediately imposed a certain silence. Her eyes were cold, sharp, as always.
— I can sense their positions.
Her voice was calm, cutting.
— Among the seven deadly sins, there are several demonic entities… but the ones that concern us right now number three.
A short pause.
— Mammon. Asmodeus. And… Legion.
Salomeh frowned lightly.
— Legion? Who's that?
Erasa did not avert her gaze.
— It's not "a" demon.
A brief silence.
— It's a multitude.
She folded her arms.
— Legion is an aggregation of countless demon emperors contained within one and the same body. A collective entity. A conscious ensemble… unified.
Her gaze sharpened.
— You can recognize it easily. It never speaks in the first person singular.
A pause.
— Always "we."
The wind blew softly around them.
— But that's just a detail.
She continued, more gravely:
— Its body is unstable. It constantly changes shape, as if unable to contain all the presences it harbors. Faces appear… disappear… overlap. Sometimes even multiple voices speak at once, with different tones.
Salomeh stayed silent.
Erasa went on:
— And above all… it doesn't think like a single entity.
Her gaze hardened.
— It can make several decisions at once. Attack through multiple contradictory logics. Contradict itself… and yet remain coherent.
A heavy silence settled.
— In battle, that makes it extremely dangerous. Impossible to predict. Impossible to read. It's like facing… an entire army within a single body.
Bakuzan stood still for a moment.
Then he slightly raised his head.
— So… Mammon, Asmodeus… and Legion.
His gaze grew more serious.
— Which one do we start with?
Further away, apart from the turmoil of the arena, stood a vast and silent mansion. An immense villa, almost excessive, each detail breathing luxury and control. Inside, in a spacious room, the steady sound of water resonated.
In the bathroom, Hinata stood beneath the shower.
The water slid down her face, streaming along her shoulders, carrying away the tension of battle… at least seemingly. She slowly closed her eyes.
Her thoughts, however, hadn't stopped.
An idea imposed itself upon her.
What if… the duel had already begun?
Not in the arena.
But here.
Now.
Once the shower was over, she turned off the water and stood still for a few seconds, as if to anchor that sensation. Then she stepped out, a towel wrapped around her, her steps calm but her gaze more serious than usual.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The sound tapped gently at the door.
— Who is it? she asked.
A composed voice replied from the other side:
— May I come in?
Hinata paused briefly, then answered simply:
— Yes, go ahead.
The door opened.
A man entered, dressed in an elegant jacket, his glasses perfectly adjusted on his nose. His demeanor was impeccable—almost too much so.
— Miss Hinata, you're expected downstairs for dinner with Mr. Mo-Zus.
His tone was neutral, professional.
Without waiting for a reply, he closed the door behind him.
Silence fell immediately.
Hinata did not move right away.
Her gaze slowly turned to the bed.
There— a photograph.
That of Sakolomeh.
A faint smile appeared on her face.
A sincere smile.
Almost peaceful.
— I'll help you with your investigation of the system…
Her voice was low, but resolute.
— I promise.