Anomaly

Chapter 386 – Worship of the true gods [32]

(POV – Dominic Virel)

The moment Dominic heard the words spoken by the immeasurable entity before him, it felt as though the very world had suddenly been torn off its course. Sound vanished, there was no wind, no breath, no heartbeat, only an absolute silence, heavy as an abyss. His body remained still, yet his mind sank slowly, like a stone cast into a bottomless ocean.

He felt neither cold nor heat, nor pain. It was worse than that, it was emptiness. A void that devoured his emotions one by one, pulling them into an endless spiral of darkness. Even his thoughts felt distant, echoing like lost voices in an infinite hall. The words of the great divinity still lingered, fragmented, unreal. Impossible. No... that couldn’t be true. Dominic knew. He was certain.

For entities of that level, beings whose existence transcended laws, logic, and even reality itself, nothing was impossible, so long as it lay within their spheres of influence. They were absolute existences, shapers of fate, sovereign over concepts mortals could not even name. Limitations... no, that was something that belonged only to the weak, to the fleeting. So why?

Why had his request been denied? The doubt began as a whisper but quickly became a crushing weight in his chest. Something didn’t make sense. Something was... wrong. Dominic tried to find logic, tried to reconstruct every detail, every word, every nuance in the entity’s voice, but the more he thought, the more the answer slipped through his fingers. And for the first time since standing before the divine being... Dominic couldn’t understand it.

He had served the great divinities from the moment he became aware of their existence. He hadn’t merely heard of their feats and miracles, he had studied them with feverish devotion. He knew their capabilities, their domains, their symbols. Among all, he was the most knowledgeable... and without a doubt, the most devoted.

Fervent, disciplined, Dominic had never let a single day of prayer slip by. Even in moments of exhaustion, even when his body failed, his faith remained unshaken, or at least, that was what he believed... But perhaps that wasn’t enough.

Doubt crept in like a whisper, nearly imperceptible, seeping into his deepest thoughts. Maybe he hadn’t shown enough. Maybe his devotion, no matter how constant, hadn’t reached the required depth. Yes... that had to be it. No... it had to be.

A test. The divinities were watching, evaluating, waiting. Dominic felt the weight of that realization like a growing flame in his chest. He needed to prove himself. He needed to go beyond words, beyond rituals. He needed to show just how far he was willing to go. How far he would go... for them.

Even so, Dominic was utterly lost, wrapped in a suffocating confusion over how to prove his loyalty to the divinities. All his years of servitude and blind obedience now seemed insufficient. It was no longer enough to serve, he had to demonstrate. He had to make it undeniable that he would do anything for his gods.

His breathing grew heavy and uneven as Dominic plunged deep into his own mind, like someone drowning in an ocean of thoughts. Ideas surfaced and vanished before they could even take shape. His fingers twitched involuntarily, grasping at the emptiness around him as if trying to seize something that didn’t exist, or hadn’t yet been understood.

His mind raced, spinning wildly, searching for any direction, any spark of clarity amidst this trial imposed by the divinities. The silence around him grew heavier by the second, pressing down on him, demanding an answer. And then, like lightning tearing through the darkness, an idea emerged.

If he wanted to prove he was worthy... then he needed to prove he could be like them. Dominic’s eyes, once lost in the void, slowly shifted, almost instinctively, until they settled on the two mortal women present.

He observed them in silence. At first glance, they were nothing more than two ordinary humans, fragile, unremarkable, devoid of anything that would justify such protection from the divinities. Nothing about them shone. Nothing about them called for importance. And yet... there they were. Protected.

He narrowed his eyes slightly, analyzing every detail: the uneven breathing, the barely noticeable tremor in their hands, the way their gazes avoided his. There was fear, pure, instinctive, and that, in a way, intrigued him more than anything else. Then the thought came. That was it.

If he wanted to prove he was worthy of ascending, he would have to go beyond mere grand deeds. He would have to challenge what stood above all. Defy the divinities... confront them, if necessary. After all, how could he become their equal without proving he was not beneath them? A slow smile formed on his lips.

It wasn’t an ordinary smile. It was cold and precise, like the edge of a blade about to cut. At the sight of it, the two women took a step back, then another, as if their bodies reacted before their minds could grasp the danger. Dominic noticed the movement but made no effort to understand it. It didn’t matter.

What truly mattered was something else. He had seen it. Beneath the choices, the inexplicable protections, the seemingly random fates... he had glimpsed the pattern. The thoughts of the divinities were no longer an unreachable mystery, they were readable. And in that moment, with that smile still etched on his face, Dominic knew: this would be only the first step. The first step toward becoming their equal.

“Oh! Great deities...!” Dominic began, his fevered voice trembling in the air like a whisper steeped in ecstasy. His eyes gleamed with an unsettling intensity, reflecting a newly awakened understanding. He pressed a hand to his chest, as if he could contain the storm of thoughts raging within him.

“I finally understand... the new trial I must face” The words slipped out with weight and reverence, yet also with an untamed fervor. A faint smile touched his lips, not one of relief, but of pride. His posture steadied, the tension in his body giving way to a solemn determination, while a dreamy glint lingered in his gaze, as if he could already glimpse the fate awaiting him beyond this moment.

Dominic felt the invisible weight of eyes upon him, not mortal, not ordinary. It was them. The deities. Watching. Judging. Waiting. A shiver ran down his spine, but it wasn’t fear... it was certainty. He had caught their attention. At last. More than anyone else, Dominic believed he understood the deities, not just their existence, but their logic, their desires, the unspoken rules that guided their choice of who would ascend.

He knew what had to be done. He knew what they would demand of him. And above all, he knew he would do it. Without hesitation. Without regret. Because only then would he be worthy. Only then could he be invited to join them, not as a servant, not as a worshiper... but as an equal. A conceptual being. An embodied virtue.

The idea burned within him like a sacred fire. To escape the fragile mortal shell that imprisoned him... to cast aside limitations, pain, time, everything that defined the lesser beings. This had always been his true dream. His purpose. His obsession. And Dominic was willing to do anything. Any sacrifice. Any atrocity. Because in the end, nothing in the mortal world held value compared to the divine eternity that awaited him.

Dominic did not wait, did not hesitate. He was a servant of the deities, and soon, he would be their equal. That was his mission, and he would fulfill it exactly as it was meant to be. Blessed by higher entities, Dominic carried power in his veins like a silent fire, pulsing beneath his skin.

And now it was time to use it. Time to prove he was worthy. With a firm motion, he rose from the ground, dust still suspended around his body like a veil. His eyes fell upon the two women before him, fragile, insignificant in the face of what he had become. Then, with no apparent effort, he raised his hand and made a simple, careless gesture.

But the world answered. A violent, ravenous whirlwind erupted, tearing through the air with a deafening roar. Everything in its path was dragged along, stones, debris, even the ground itself seemed to give way to the invisible force. And at the center of that fury, the two women vanished, swallowed by chaos as though they had never existed.

The silence that followed was heavy. Dominic smiled. Slowly, he turned his gaze toward the deity. And then he saw it. Her expression had changed. Her eyes, once serene, were now wide open. Her lips parted, surprise laid bare without any disguise. It was disbelief... no, it was admiration.

Dominic’s lips curled further, unable to contain the ecstasy rising within him. A feverish, delirious grin spread across his face. She was impressed. He had done it. He had fulfilled his purpose. And soon... very soon, Dominic would leave behind his mortal body, fragile and useless. He would ascend beyond flesh, beyond human limitations. And finally, he would become like them.

***

(POV – Protagonist)

As the smoke slowly dissipated, my thoughts remained completely locked, like rusted gears refusing to turn. I wasn’t sure if what my eyes had witnessed was real. Was this really happening? Or was my mind, in desperation, distorting my vision? Emily and Laura... Their names echoed, fragmented, unable to fully take shape.

My thoughts failed me again. I couldn’t answer my own questions. In the exact place where they had stood just seconds ago, there was only swirling smoke, rising in uneven spirals. On the ground, a pool of blood spread slowly, winding through the cracks of the cold floor, creeping silently until it reached the tips of my feet.

And still... nothing. Even in the face of this scene, even with the metallic scent of blood filling the air and invading my senses, I couldn’t feel anything at all. No despair. No sorrow. No shock. I lifted my gaze. The priest was staring back at me, motionless, with a wide, feverish, wrong kind of smile, as if savoring every second of this moment.

And I... I was still empty. Did I not care about them? No. That didn’t make sense. That couldn’t be true. The realization came slowly, like a blade pressing against my skin. It wasn’t emptiness. It wasn’t indifference.

It was something else. Something far heavier, far deeper, and infinitely more dangerous. I was calm... because I was angry. Very angry. A silent, suffocating anger, burning inside me without making a sound, like embers hidden beneath ash, on the verge of setting everything around them ablaze.