"I won't. I won't enslave anybody, even if it means lowering myself. I don't need anything at the moment and if I thrive to act humanly for long enough, the actual transition will be smooth. I know the map, up until the Architecture. If I'm being hunted I'll know about it and I'll act accordingly. Without killing I will live. I won't be broken."
She walkes mindlessely to a massive, impressively large and high cliff. Her hands curled up, her nails biting into the palms. Her teeth grinding against the other teeth. The blood on her lips.
Amphelise punched the wall and retracted her damaged hand from the rocks, looking at it she confirmed all the broken bones. Even with her sin, dying sin but still, she had made quite the dent into her own skin.
She smiled and proceeded to annihilate the entire forest forward, trees and grass. Upon the ruins she self-harmed, spitting blood. Yet there was no pain, she had lashed out at the world around her to express her anger and frustration. Lost in her thoughts and lost in space.
The group gathered around her as if they were either worshipping her or preparing to kill her. She didn't care that much, her entire attention focused on a school few miles away.
A short period of time after she entered the school, they all caught their breath. They were terrified. Most of her sin was still here, active, unexpectedly undying, raging even.
"We have to follow through. Emova will guard in the outside just in case. Any objection?"
No one rejected the idea and they all followed Ismael inside the school as the sun started to set. All alone, half an hour later, she felt a sudden weak but deadly blast of corrupt energy emanating from the ruins.
"How are you still doing this, Yael? The decades pass, then the centuries. This is ridiculous."
"I'm playing the game. You'd have to be crazy to still be sane."
"Whatever ideas you have in your head, Ismael knows you're not related to him."
"Oh, fine. I don't care. Ismael wasn't the main pawn."
"Then...? Why-"
"The vicious cat is the main character here. At least of this little plan."
"Yael, what plan?"
"I don't know. But the third witch, she's iknthe school."
Emova let her guard down, rushing to the structure as Yael dragged her to her and flew her to the sky before dropping her down on the rocks.
"Why is she...here?"
"Efalis. Loovis. Anaïs. Brothers and sisters. Forever. As the rest of us rot in jail cells in hell, lost within the depths of the Lifeline or sentenced to live in Perseus of all places. I've called her to set things straight. As totally unpredictable as she can be, she's very clear on what she wants, likes and dislikes. She'll show us what's truly happening."
"Are you jealous that you weren't one of the three?"
"Are you not? I was locked away at the Lifeline, to be forgotten despite trying to find a way out and make friends, have a family...as all women do, it's instinct really; and while I was inside, she could go and do whatever she wanted and she did nothing. Nothing! She chose sloth. So I chose greed. Capucine is a work in progress but trust me, she's the key."
"Because she was born with an ability to join Efalis?"
"Precisely. And because of that, I've theorized that whenever one of the three dies, they have to be replaced. Efalis the lost child, Loovis the arrogant king, Anaïs the unstable witch. And then I noticed something in the midst of all this mess. A quivering, shining light in the darkness, injecting hope into my veins. Efalis. Ismael. Loovis. Ismael. Anaïs. Ismael. He's the substitute, the replacement. The garbage that will fill the void, because he didn't kill Efalis, he showed mercy and compassion, so he was rewarded."
"So a chosen one?"
"No, no such thing. Like angels, it was a chance, a chance Ismael can still fail to amount to. This is a test and I'll make sure that he fails. He made sure that the lost child had found his way back into his home, when Loovis was fighting arrogantly, he showed to be humble when I was talking to him in a fake dream. Now, his final test will be to remain stable in the face of adversity. But when confronted to Anaïs, he'll surely lose his mind."
"I hate that it makes sense. I have to admit."
"But upon beginning to understand this, I was still away from my goal. How could I ever recover? Ismael, this good for nothing, child solider, freak, ascending to such a position in the cosmos while I would remain trapped in the Lifeline? Never. So I called out to thr Nephilims, and one of them took two of his friends with them. Nobody would say no to some kind of transcendance. Geulsang Zhao and Ambroise Ler would forever part away, leaving Ismael more and more unstable. So that the witch could never be satisfied with Ismael's inherent madness."
"Insane, you are."
"Call me whatever you want, Eva, I've done everything I could. So here's the bet, we stay here and wait", she proposes, sitting down. "We let Ismael pass the test. If he succeeds, I'll admit my defeat and never influence anything ever again. If he loses against her, I'll kill him if he's still alive and take his place."
"Will do. I refuse to influence others anyway, I hate that. Freedom is the caretaker of the soul. He'll realize what's at stake and make the right choice."
"You seem to forget what Anaïs even looks like."
"No. Rest assured, Yael. I remember her face. I remember the ambience, the evil, the depth of her insanity. How shockingly terrifying it was. How outlandish is the fear she conveys. Unfortunately this memory will never leave my head."
The entire group consisting of the Suffered, the Cardinals and the two Nephilims seperated into smaller groups in the classrooms.