Chapter 167
"They are not dead," the old man whispered, his eyes staring into the distance as though he could still see the rows of exalted beings who had now become mere shadows of their former selves, "but neither are they alive. They walk, they breathe, they still wield the authority that once made the entire universe tremble—yet within their eyes, there is only emptiness, because Sinta, the very reason they once raised their swords and upheld their laws, vanished without a trace."
Ashita, standing beside him, could feel the old man's arm trembling, and for the first time, she realized that his physical frailty was not caused by age, but by something far deeper—something that could perhaps be called the loss of a center of gravity.
"You're worried that it will happen to all descendants of the Abnormal?" Ashita asked softly, and the old man nodded with a movement that felt as heavy as a tree trunk about to collapse.
"It is not worry, child. I have already seen its beginning. If nothing changes, if no one fills the void left behind by Sinta, then all descendants of the Abnormal—including you, including me—will end up like those Great Abnormals: alive yet not alive, dead yet not dead, trapped between two worlds without ever truly belonging to either of them."
Yet amidst the anxiety hanging like a fog that refused to fade, the old man turned toward Ashita with a different gaze.
It was not the gaze of a narrator reporting facts, but the gaze of a grandfather who had just discovered a faint ray of light within a room he had long believed to be consumed by darkness.
"But you, Ashita—you are the exception. You are able to exist, able to be born from the bloodline of the Ningsih family, not because of coincidence, nor because of remnants of genes forgotten by Sinta's hand. You exist because of Theo's faith in his children, believing that they would one day set everything right."
Nirma, upon hearing those words, felt the bandage covering her right eye pulse with a strange rhythm.
It was not pain, nor vibration, but as though something behind the white cloth was nodding in agreement, as though an old memory had suddenly been touched by a name she had never heard before.
"Theo Vkytor? The novelist?" Nirma asked, her voice emerging from beneath her veil with a tone she could not hide—a mixture of curiosity and an unnamed premonition.
The old man smiled, and for the first time, his smile was not bitter—it was warm, like someone remembering an old memory that, despite its pain, was still cherished simply because it had once existed.
"In one of the arcs within the game Flo Viva Mythology that he experienced, there was a small event that perhaps no reader considered important—but for us, who live from the breath of stories, that event was the foundation. Theo tried to become a good father to his children. Not through grand words, not through promises he could never keep, but through the simplest effort of all: doing everything he could to keep his children safe, and continuing to pray, continuing to believe in his children's talents, wherever and whenever they might be."
Ashita fell silent, and within that profound silence, she felt something she had never experienced before.
It was not pride, nor relief, but gratitude so immense that it almost felt painful, because she, who had never known who her parents were, who had never felt a sincere embrace, who had never heard a prayer offered for her sake, now realized that somewhere, at some point in time, within a story she had never even read, a father she had never known had believed in her long before she herself believed she deserved to exist.
"And I," the old man said, his voice suddenly becoming more fragile than before, like paper folded too many times until it nearly tore at every crease, "I am also an exception—but for reasons far less noble than Ashita's."
His eyes stared at the ground between them, and for several seconds that felt like years, no one moved, no one breathed, because they could all sense that the words about to leave his mouth would carve wounds no amount of time could ever heal.
"In the novel Abnormality, I died. Nearly all descendants of the Ningsih bloodline vanished as well—98 percent, perhaps 99—slaughtered by the blades of Sinta and Bi Fitri, the mixed-blood descendant of the Ningsih family whose very name alone is enough to fill me with disgust."
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, no tears flowed, yet his eyes had changed—becoming darker, deeper, like two holes leading into an underground chamber untouched by light.
"A swimming pool, Nirma. As tall as a three-story building. And we—our flesh and blood and bones—filled it to the brim. Not because we could not fight back, but because we never had the chance to realize that the blade Sinta held had been designed from the very beginning to kill us."
Arya, upon hearing that, felt nausea twist his stomach once more, but he did not lower his head, nor did he look away—he stared at the old man with wide-open eyes, because he knew that turning away from horror would not make it disappear, it would only blind him to its true form.
"Then why are you here?" Arya asked, his voice flat, though beneath that flatness trembled something he could not conceal.
The old man smiled—the bitterest smile he had shown that day, a smile that felt like salt scattered over a wound that had never dried.
"Only a rumor, child. I have no proof. But I suspect… Sinta wanted me here. Not because she cared, not because I was special. But because her will toward something was so overwhelmingly strong, because she desired something with such intensity, that I—who should have been nothing more than flesh floating within a three-story pool of blood—was able to appear within the real world that had merged with her novel."
He let out a breath, and within that exhale was a strange sense of relief, the relief of someone who had finally stopped searching for answers because they realized that some questions do not need answers—they only need to be spoken, heard, and left hanging in the air like leaves that never fall despite the changing seasons.
"Sinta is here, Nirma. In the same world as us. I can feel her. But she has not appeared yet, has not shown herself. She chooses to keep praying—perhaps for something, perhaps for someone, perhaps only for herself, exhausted after slaughtering her own family."
The old man leaned more heavily against Ashita's arm, as though the burden he carried came not only from his old age, but also from the weight of history he was trying to lift with words that were slowly running out.
"The Great Abnormals, Nirma—you must have heard that name before, perhaps as a legend, perhaps as a threat, perhaps merely as whispers echoing through archive corridors you never opened. But they are not merely stories. They are guardians, subordinates, collections of Abnormals whose level of power surpasses both conventional and unconventional limitations—beings nearly equal to angels, gods, and others of their kind within the novel Abnormality."
To be continued…