Anomaly

Chapter 362 – Worship of the true gods [8]

(POV – Protagonist)

I was fully aware that my emotions were... a little out of control. I could clearly recognize that my reaction was disproportionate, bordering on irrational. I was angry, not fleeting irritation, but a dense, suffocating fury that burned inside me like embers trapped beneath my skin.

There was so much anger that, for one shameful instant, I felt like I could simply set everything in front of me ablaze and watch the flames devour it all. The core of the issue, the detail that unsettled me most, was that I had absolutely no idea why. There was no clear reason, no direct offense, no obvious provocation.

It was just a priest. An ordinary man in long robes with a pious expression, standing at the center of a colossal church while dozens of people knelt, murmuring prayers and worshiping idiotic stone statues. I could understand that.

Devotion. Fear. The human need to believe in something greater. All of that was predictable, boring, even. What I couldn’t understand was why the priest was being worshiped alongside the statues. His followers looked at him with the same reverence they directed at the sculptures, as though his mere presence were sacred.

The stone statues were unmistakably representations of me and my sisters. I recognized the carved features, the symbols etched into the bases, the details in the petrified garments that mimicked our own.

Tenebrya had a statue too, which was particularly strange, considering the public wasn’t even supposed to know she existed. And yet there she stood, immortalized in polished marble beneath the stained-glass light.

Somehow, everyone knew about us. Not just our names, but fragments of what we were, or what we could do. I had no idea how that information had spread, or who had released it.

All I knew was that the knowledge was there, circulating freely among them, shaping their faith, feeding their worship. But their worship was aimed at the wrong place.

A strange thought took root in my mind and refused to leave. I had never considered this perspective before, but thinking it through calmly, it was natural... perfectly plausible that they would venerate us. After all, what were we, if not the forces that upheld reality itself?

Althea, my little sister, didn’t merely touch life, she commanded it. Wherever her fingers brushed, seeds sprouted, wounds closed, hearts began beating again. The air around her always seemed cleaner, heavy with vitality.

Nekra, on the other hand... Nekra did not represent death in some distant or symbolic way. She wasn’t a metaphor. She wasn’t a messenger. She was death itself in flesh and blood.

Tenebrya ruled over every aspect of fear. She didn’t just inspire it, she made it tangible. Under her influence, terror ceased to be an emotion and took form.

Eryanis was order incarnate. The universal laws, gravity, causality, balance, were not abstract principles. They existed because Eryanis existed. Her very breath kept galaxies in orbit and prevented reality from fracturing into incoherence.

Nyara, in contrast, was chaos itself, but not destructive, senseless chaos. She embodied the gentler aspect of chaos that walked hand in hand with order. The two completed one another like opposite sides of the same cosmic coin. There is no order without chaos, nor chaos without order.

And finally, Chronas... time. Not the hours marked on fragile clocks, but the invisible current that drags stars from birth to collapse. Something mortals could never begin to comprehend. Life. Death. Fear. Order. Chaos. Time. Primordial forces. Absolute. Inevitable.

And yet all that worship, all that desperate faith, all that will echoing across the ages, was being directed at the wrong person. Time, order, fear, life, death, and chaos, all converging, all flowing, all bowing... not to their true essences, but to a humble, insignificant human vessel. A fragile body of flesh and bone.

That said... how did I know all of this? I wasn’t sure. Not yet. But one thing was undeniable: what I felt was real. I was angry. No... “angry” was too mild, a word far too small to contain what churned inside me. I was burning.

It wasn’t metaphorical. It was almost literal. I could feel the air around me ripple faintly, as if the atmosphere itself were heating up in response to my presence. The temperature seemed to rise a few degrees each time I clenched my teeth. Tiny dust particles danced in the warm air, shimmering like mirages.

But that was irrelevant. The heat didn’t affect me. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t bother me. If it helped, even slightly, to ease the wildfire consuming me from within, then so be it.

My eyes were fixed on the priest. I watched him receive something that wasn’t his. Something that did not belong to him. The self-satisfied smile on his lips, the way his fingers curled around it... everything felt wrong. Unjust. With each passing second, the heat around me intensified, rising along my skin like invisible steam.

And then I felt it. Soft, warm hands wrapped around me gently. One brushed around my neck, encircling me like a cozy scarf on a winter day, a nearly ironic contrast to the heat I radiated.

Two other hands slid across the table and clasped mine firmly, fingers intertwining with quiet affection, as though anchoring me there, keeping me from losing myself. I also felt a light tug at the hem of my clothing, insistent but gentle, like someone trying to get my attention, pulling me back to the present.

Beyond that, two presences remained at my left side. I couldn’t see them directly, but I felt them. Their emotions reached me clearly: affection... compassion... and, above all, understanding.

“Mm, mm, dear sister...” a warm, mischievous voice murmured behind me, velvet-soft and instantly recognizable. It was Althea.

“Let’s calm down a little” she continued in a near sing-song tone, light as the breeze before a storm: “The humans you’re so fond of are only moments away from turning into barbecue” She let out soft, muffled giggles, like tiny bells chiming in the dusk, clearly amused by her own teasing.

“Humans are so fragile...” she added, and for a moment her voice softened, taking on a maternal warmth: “But that’s exactly what makes them unique. They break easily, they bleed, they tremble... and even so, they keep going. As a mother, I can’t help but find them adorable because of that fragility”

There was a brief pause, not silence, but contemplation: “They shine brightest precisely because they can be snuffed out at any moment”

Althea’s voice drifted through the air like a warm evening breeze, calm, enveloping, dangerously intoxicating. It wasn’t just the sound itself, but the way it seemed to brush against the skin and slip into the mind, soothing whatever turmoil lingered there. Even though none of them spoke another word, I could clearly feel the emotions radiating from the group.

It was as if the air itself was saturated with feeling, vibrating against my skin. Tenebrya was the easiest to read, her emotions burned intensely. There was genuine concern, pulsing like a hurried drumbeat.

There was curiosity too, bright and childlike. And woven through it all, a faint trace of anger, not exactly directed at me, but at the situation. She couldn’t hide it. Maybe because she was still so young. For her, all of this was still new.

That was when I realized what I was doing. My hair was... literally on fire. The naturally translucent white, which once resembled strands of silk lit by moonlight, had turned into a vivid reddish-gold, glowing like the heart of a furnace. The tips burned in a deep phosphorescent blue, crackling with tiny sparks that fizzled out in the air like dying fireflies.

The flames didn’t consume. They didn’t destroy. They danced. They moved in sync with my breathing, flaring slightly with each inhale, drawing back with every exhale. The air around us was hot, not suffocating, but steady and oppressive. To me, it felt almost pleasant, like sinking into warm water after a long winter. But I couldn’t say the same for Emily and Laura.

Sweat streamed down their faces in crystalline rivulets, dripping from their chins and soaking into their collars. They kept their hands near their throats, as if trying to make room for air, breathing in short, hurried pulls.

Their chests rose and fell with visible strain. Their eyes were slightly unfocused, pupils dilated, as though reality itself were drifting away inch by inch. In short... they were dangerously close to passing out.

Slowly, I reined in my anger. The heat radiating from my body began to fade just as gradually, dispersing into the air like steam after a storm. The oppressive warmth loosened its grip, the temperature returning to normal. It no longer felt like we were trapped inside a blazing oven. The air grew lighter, easier to breathe.

The silence that followed was broken only by the sound of deep breaths. Laura and Emily were visibly relieved. Their shoulders, once tight with tension, relaxed little by little, and they were finally able to draw air naturally again.

The sweat shining on their foreheads began to dry, and the redness in their faces slowly receded. Emily pressed a hand to her chest, as if confirming her heartbeat had settled, while Laura let out a long, shaky exhale, her eyes still slightly wide.

That was when it really hit me. Realizing the effect my loss of control had caused, a stab of embarrassment pierced through me. I looked away, scratching the back of my neck out of habit, unsure of what to say. I felt... ashamed.

I glanced around slowly. All of my sisters were here. Althea still had her arms firmly wrapped around my neck, her small fingers clutching the fabric of my shirt. She rubbed her soft cheeks against me in a childlike gesture.

Eryanis and Nekra stood a few steps to my left. Silent. Their eyes were fixed on me. And yet, beneath their rigid posture, there was something else, clear relief softening the tension in their gaze.

I was back to normal... or at least, it seemed that way. I swallowed hard. I thought about saying something. Anything. An explanation, maybe. A justification. But the words caught in my throat. I wasn’t sure what to say.

So I let the first honest thing that came to mind slip out: (... Sorry)

Emily and Laura exchanged a quick glance, not long, just enough for them to reach some silent understanding. Then they looked back at me with warm, surprisingly understanding expressions.

I hadn’t expected them to truly grasp the reason for my anger. To be honest, I’d been bracing myself for disapproval... maybe even fear. So it was comforting to realize they seemed okay with me.

Laura placed a hand over her chest, drawing in a slow breath as she gradually steadied herself. “You calmed down,” she said, her voice still slightly shaky, though a faint smile tugged at her lips.

Emily let out an exaggerated sigh, running a hand through her hair as if checking to make sure it was still intact: “And more importantly...” she added, a crooked grin forming: “we didn’t get fried”

Emily released a long breath, her expression faintly tired. She reached for the collar of her lab coat, smoothing the slightly wrinkled white fabric before slipping it off and draping it neatly over the back of her chair.

The cool glow of the monitor reflected in her eyes as she stepped closer to the desk. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard for a second: “Let’s find out who this “friendly neighborhood priest” really is... and where he came from” she muttered, tilting her head slightly.

A subtle, almost imperceptible smile curved at the corner of her lips: “For you to get that angry...” she added under her breath: “now I’m seriously curious”