Chapter 139: Entelechy of Creation
Dawn steadied herself, breathing hard, her new divine power settling into her body. The Plague Garden crawled away toward a corner, leaving wet trails on the corrupted floor.
Focus... Dawn commanded herself... You just ascended; you have Revelation now. You can see truth itself.
She looked up at the Faceless Twilight, at the Star God wearing Lea's face.
"Where is she?", Dawn's voice was steady now, backed by the authority of her new divinity, "Where is Lea Darkwill? What did you do with her?"
The Faceless Twilight tilted its head, that gesture so eerily familiar it made Dawn's chest ache.
"I already told you," Lea said through the mask, "I found this body at the bottom of the ocean, right when I woke up too."
Dawn activated Revelation, her white-gold eyes blazing with the power to perceive absolute truth.
She saw... nothing wrong.
The statement was true, every word of it. Haser Pnimalom the Faceless Twilight had indeed found a body at the ocean floor. The truth resonated perfectly.
"You're lying.", Dawn insisted, though Revelation showed no deception, "You move like her. You stand like her. You are her."
"Am I?", The Faceless Twilight's voice carried genuine curiosity, "How well did you truly know this... Lea Darkwill?"
Dawn's hands clenched. "She was my Shadow Guard, my friend. I know her better than—"
"Did you know she became a mercenary after running away?", the interruption was casual, almost mocking, "Did you know she killed people for money across the world? Yet even her name won't be remembered."
Dawn's breath caught. How would a Star God know such specific details unless...
"I consumed her memories when I claimed this body.", The Faceless Twilight explained, as if reading her thoughts, "Every experience, every emotion, every secret. I know Lea Darkwill better than she knew herself by the end."
Revelation confirmed it was the Truth.
"Then you admit you took her body!", Dawn created a weapon, golden gears forming a rifle, "You stole her life!"
"I claimed an empty vessel.", the correction was gentle but firm, "The girl you knew died in the ocean, consumed by the waves. Abandoned by everyone who claimed to care."
The words hit like physical blows.
"We didn't abandon her! She ran!!"
"Because you failed to help her when she needed it most.", The Faceless Twilight stepped closer, "When The Demise Ground tortured her, she broke and was hollowed out, what became was just a body headed for self-destruction."
"That's not... we tried to find her—"
"Did you?", the skull tilted again, "Or did you focus on your church? Your experiments?"
Dawn's weapon wavered. Because that was... technically true. Her work had consumed her.
No... Focus.
"You're deflecting.", Dawn said coldly, her white gold eyes standing firmly, "You are trying to make me doubt myself instead of answering the real question."
She raised her rifle, pointing it directly at the Faceless Twilight's head. The Star God merely stared at the barrel.
"If you're truly just a Star God who claimed an empty body, then you won't mind if I verify that claim. Let me examine you with Revelation. Fully. No resistance."
The Faceless Twilight went very still.
"That would be... utterly stupid."
"Because you're lying."
The voice turned genuinely serious, "Looking too deeply into a Star God is the height of hubris. And do you think a mere mortal of flesh and bones can command a Star?"
Dawn hesitated. That was... logical, she was getting too heated, again.
"Then answer me this.", she demanded, "If you're not Lea, if you're truly Haser Pnimalom the Faceless Twilight, then where did you come from? What Star do you represent?"
Silence.
Then...
"I don't remember."
Revelation told it was the Truth.
"What?"
"I woke up in the ocean with fragmented memories. I know that I am a Star God. I know my nature was Judgement, Malediction, Veil. But my origin?", The Faceless Twilight shrugged, "I don't know, nor do I care much."
Dawn's eyes narrowed, "That's convenient."
"That's reality, sleeping for thousands of years under the spell of that thing does that, though it doesn't matter much for my main body.", the Star God gestured to its body, "This form is merely one of my countless Avatars across the starry sea. For now, I am what I claimed to be - an Ancient Being who just woke up from slumber."
Truth. Truth. Truth...
Every word rang with absolute certainty.
Dawn wanted to scream, to tear down this mansion. Wanted to force the truth out of this being wearing her friend's face.
But Revelation showed nothing. No deception nor lies. Just... truth.
How?
Unknown to Dawn, behind the Faceless Twilight's mask, Lea's face was perfectly neutral.
Because every word was technically true.
She didn't remember being born as Haser Pnimalom, because that identity was a lie created moments ago. She was a Star God because the Shapeless Comedy's lies said so, and who could contradict a god?
She had found this body in the ocean, her own corpse. She had claimed it by creating a new one from curses.
The power of the Shapeless Comedy, the God of Order, made lies indistinguishable from truth. Because lies spoken under the authority of the First Cosmic Law became truth.
Dawn lowered her weapon slowly, defeat settling in her chest like ice.
"If... if Lea is really dead...", her voice cracked, "What happened to her? How did she die?"
The Faceless Twilight paused, considering.
"She drowned while fighting the Blood Knights. She jumped into the ocean rather than be captured, even after being heavily injured. Sank three thousand meters while bleeding out, and she came right to my sleeping place."
Revelation said it was... True.
"She reached the Divine Domain of Unconscious. But unfortunately, I already owned it."
Truth.
"So she's... she's really gone?", Dawn's hands trembled.
"Yes."
Truth.
Dawn's weapon dissolved. The gears behind her dimmed. She looked at the Star God wearing Lea's face and saw only a stranger, the Boogeyman in legends creating one of the worst nightmares for her.
"I'm sorry.", she whispered, not sure who she was apologizing to, "I'm sorry we couldn't save you."
The Faceless Twilight said nothing.
Dawn turned, walking toward the door on unsteady legs. Her ascension to Sixth Step should have felt triumphant. Instead, it felt hollow. She paused at the threshold.
"Will you... will you at least honor her memory? Not destroy what she stood for?"
Behind the mask, Lea considered the question.
"I am what I am, so whatever a mortal wanted... it doesn't matter to me.", came the uncaring answer, like the indifference of the cold abyss above.
Truth.
Dawn nodded and left, the door closing behind her with a soft click.
Lea stood alone in her corrupted mansion, surrounded by writhing thorns and dark fog, holding a perfect lie together through sheer force of divine will.
The Plague Garden crawled back over, nuzzling her leg sympathetically.
"Mm?"
"I'm fine.", Lea said quietly, "That... went way better than expected."
She walked to the window, watching Dawn's silhouette disappear into Lacrosa's streets.
I'm sorry... Lea thought, the words she couldn't say aloud... But I can't be your friend anymore, can't be anyone's friend. I'm...
The Shapeless Comedy's ring pulsed faintly; she could feel the Jester sealed inside was offering comfort. The truth is still the truth, she doesn't truly know what her current state is. Was she still herself? Assimilated mind into the Divine Domain? A copy of herself created by the Unconscious, or the Divine Domain itself think it is Lea?
Lea turned away from the window.
"Come on.", she said to the Plague Garden, recalling Ouis Marei back into its necklace form, "We have work to do. Empire's Edge won't wait forever."
The slime bounced after her as she descended into the mansion's depths. Behind them, the mansion's thorns writhed, expressing Lea's satisfaction.
Though Lea had one more destination in mind...
...
It was a quiet night, but the capital of Renlou, Rohuang Citadel, lights were still lit.
It is a new year tradition for the people of the Renlou Empire. To stay awake and quiet, offering prayers and wishes for the new year.
Lea was the same; she sat on top of the Temple, a highly disrespectful action. Yet for her, blasphemy was nothing special.
What does she wish for?
It was not the desire to become a god quicker. Nor to get back what she had lost. Her mundane life, her humanity, not any of it.
Not even revenge, not yet.
She wished for nothing special, only the will to endure this world's cruelty.
And in the sky, her eyes fixated on a golden streak of light, beautiful and abnormal.
=0=0=
Dawn walked through Lacrosa's streets, her new divine power settling uncomfortably into her bones. The city's usual bustle felt muted, distant, as if she existed slightly out of phase with reality.
It should have been a triumph. A milestone that took most demigods decades to achieve. She'd done it in moments, in the middle of confronting a Star God wearing her dead friend's face.
Friend...
The words felt wrong and bitter.
Dawn stopped walking, causing a merchant to nearly crash into her. He muttered an apology and moved around her, not recognizing the newly ascended demigod standing frozen in the middle of the street.
Veil.
The thought hit like ice water.
One of the Faceless Twilight's Attributes was Veil. The Path of lies and pathological deception. Nothing a Veil user said could be trusted; it was literally in their nature to lie.
And she'd just accepted everything that Star God said as truth because Revelation showed no deception. But what if...
What if Veil at the Star God level could deceive even Revelation? What if the entire conversation had been a carefully constructed lie, so perfect that even divine truth-seeing couldn't detect it?