Anomaly

Chapter 392 – Worship of the true gods [38]

(POV – Protagonist)

My field of vision expanded within seconds. It felt as if the world had been stretched out before me, every detail gaining space, every movement becoming sharper... and at the same time, absurdly slow. Time itself seemed to have been dragged into a near standstill, as if reality had been reduced to a fraction of what it was supposed to be.

The people were still there, forming a circle around me and the priest, but now I could see every expression with striking clarity. Wide eyes, half-open mouths, stiff bodies, their fear was unmistakable, like an invisible haze spreading through the air. Around us, chaos unfolded.

Cars and trucks were hurtling toward me, out of control, like projectiles launched without direction. Their frames rattled, tires screeched against the asphalt, the sound stretched and distorted by the slowed passage of time. Some vehicles had completely lost alignment, veering off course and heading straight toward people running in desperation. And they were running, but to me, their movements looked almost frozen.

Arms flailed, legs struggled to pick up speed, bodies stumbled over one another in a futile attempt to escape. It was a desperate struggle against the inevitable. I could clearly predict which of them wouldn’t make it out of the way in time.

For a brief moment, my mind tried to imagine the impact. The dull crash. The crushing weight of metal at high speed. The silence that would follow soon after. I pushed the thought away immediately. This wasn’t something worth watching... much less experiencing.

Finally, I let out a quiet huff, laced with irritation, and turned toward my Alter Ego. No matter what I thought, if we were going to act, we’d have to do it in perfect sync. I knew all too well that, on my own, my chances of saving everyone were practically nonexistent, and admitting that, even if only to myself, was irritating enough.

When my eyes met his, I realized he had already been staring at me for a while. His arms were crossed over his chest in a relaxed posture, while his eyes studied me with a... strangely arrogant expression. A subtle hint of superiority, almost as if he were silently judging me.

More than that... he looked proud. My eye twitched slightly. I couldn’t quite explain why, but that expression sparked something deep inside me, an instinctive irritation. Maybe it was just my imagination... but for a brief second, I had the clear sensation of being insulted.

“I know exactly what you’re thinking... and as insulting as it is, enough to make me seriously consider slapping the hell out of you, I’d rather not comment on it or dig into it. It’d be pretty weird to go around hitting myself, since technically, your thoughts are mine too” I said in an obviously sulky tone, letting out a faint, irritated sigh at the end.

On the other side, my Alter Ego simply huffed again. His eyes, a vivid, intense red, seemed to burn with a light of their own. Even so, for some inexplicable reason, I had the distinct impression that he was rolling his eyes, as if that vibrant color wasn’t enough to hide his boredom: “Also... I really, really hate it when you do that”

My complaint came out heavier than I intended, but as expected, my Alter Ego didn’t show the slightest sign of caring. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t care much about what others say either, so from that perspective, his reaction was perfectly understandable. Not that it made things any less irritating. But... you can’t have everything.

So, without wasting time on hesitation, I let my eyes sweep across the surroundings. My Alter Ego mirrored the motion beside me. In just a few seconds, though to me they felt like stretched-out moments, I finished my analysis. The conclusion came simply and directly: preventing everyone from being crushed would be much easier than I had initially thought.

To be honest, I didn’t need to go out of my way to intercept or stop every vehicle flying toward the crowd. Many of them wouldn’t even get close enough to pose a real threat. Some would end up crashing into storefronts, facades, and street poles, inevitable damage, but honestly, not my problem. If anyone was going to be held responsible, they could send the bill to the crazy priest causing all this chaos.

That wasn’t the main point. All I had to do was focus on the people who were actually in immediate danger and adjust their trajectories, a subtle push here, a precisely calculated shift there. Nothing flashy, just enough. Having a mind capable of processing everything as if the world were stuck in slow motion made all the difference.

Finally, my Alter Ego and I decided to act. In a single instant, the world around us snapped back into motion. Time, which had seemed suspended, crashed down on us like a raging current. Vehicles surged toward us, out of control, slicing through the air with the sharp sound of metal being pushed beyond its limits, while screams echoed from every direction.

People ran in panic, scattering chaotically. Some, completely unaware of the imminent danger, ended up stepping right into the collision paths, as if drawn toward the disaster itself. Even so, I still had enough time to observe, register, and map out most of those who would make that kind of mistake.

It wasn’t hard. Call it instinct, heightened perception, or something beyond that... but to me, it felt almost natural to tell who was more prone to mistakes, who would hesitate, who would freeze, and who would run in the wrong direction. Every movement, every choice, every moment of hesitation... it all seemed predictable.

And then, when the cars were only seconds, maybe even fractions of a second, away from crashing into us, my Alter Ego was the first to act. Dark, smoky shadows burst from his body like a living tide, spreading across the asphalt and coiling around most of the cars and trucks with a muted, almost organic whisper.

I, on the other hand, reacted on instinct, or maybe pure desperation, and controlled my own shadows, stretching them across the ground like invisible hands.

They grabbed a few scattered people, pulling them back to where they had been just moments before, right as out-of-control vehicles tore through the paths they had just abandoned. The sound of metal grinding against metal echoed through the air, mixed with the sharp scent of burnt rubber and shattered glass.

I heard shaky murmurs around me and noticed several people swallowing hard; some simply gave out, their legs buckling beneath them, unable to support their own weight after what had just happened.

The remaining vehicles, just as expected, kept going straight, crossing the street without any control and crashing violently into the storefronts behind us.

Even so, by some strange coincidence, none of the cars pushed all the way inside. Most got lodged in the back sections of the shops, destroying display windows and scattering shards of glass across the floor. Still, the few people inside were, for the most part, spared, the fragments only grazed them, leaving more shock than actual injuries.

When the chaos finally settled, the silence that followed wasn’t complete, it came in fragments, broken by trembling whispers and muffled sobs echoing through the wrecked surroundings. The air still carried the scent of dust and twisted metal, while occasional creaks betrayed unstable structures slowly giving way.

At the same time, my Alter Ego moved, lowering some of the suspended cars and repositioning them in less exposed areas... or, in safer cases, simply swallowing them into my shadow, where nothing could reach them again.

That’s when my eyes shifted to the priest, the one truly responsible for all of this. His expression... I have to admit, it caught me off guard for a moment.

The fanatical look was still there, burning with a feverish, almost sick intensity, as if his faith had been pushed far beyond any rational limit. And yet, beneath that distorted surface, there was something else. Something that didn’t belong to that blind fervor.

Fear. And not just ordinary fear. There was a silent pressure etched into his features, a tension that seeped into every small movement of his body: the slight curl of his fingers, the uneven rhythm of his breathing, the cold sweat running down the side of his face. He was anxious.

“T-This should be impossible...” he muttered, his voice trembling through clenched teeth, laced with impatience and disbelief. His wide eyes reflected not only shock, but a faint trace of fear he clearly refused to acknowledge.

“So much power... so much control...” he continued, almost choking on his own words, as if each syllable weighed more than he was willing to admit to himself: “This... something like this... shouldn’t be possible”

The last words dragged out, muffled, closer to a whispered mantra than a real statement. It was as if he was desperately trying to convince himself, a fragile effort to maintain his sense of superiority, an invisible pedestal that was slowly starting to crumble beneath his feet.

Even so, my attention had already drifted away from the conversation, completely captured by a detail I simply couldn’t ignore: the priest’s nose.

A red, faintly glistening liquid streamed from it continuously, forming an uneven line that ran down to his lips before dripping to the ground in quiet, rhythmic intervals.

His eyes were changing too. Slowly, the whites were being overtaken by deeper and deeper shades of red, as if something was pushing outward from within. Thin veins bulged and spread, becoming more visible with each passing second. And still, the priest didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he did, and simply didn’t care.

But as far as I could tell, the reason behind his current state was obvious. He was pushing past a limit. The fact that he hadn’t already bled out was, in itself, absurd. Human bodies weren’t made to withstand, much less command, concepts. This wasn’t power. It was a violation of reality itself.

And reality was pushing back. The closer he got to those concepts, the more they rejected him. It was as if invisible forces were tearing his existence apart, demanding a greater price with every second he insisted on moving forward. At that moment, the priest was no longer just a man. He was a ticking time bomb, seconds away from exploding.