novelraw Chapter 23
Chapter 23
Chapter 23: Sin
Ze rushed forward and caught Wa.
He tried to touch the arrow, yet did not dare to.
Despite their prolonged struggle, no matter what methods he had used, he had never intended to take Wa’s life!
Deep within their hearts, there had always been a fear.
To be stained with the blood of one’s kin was the greatest blasphemy!
Even God would despise it!
All divine favor would be lost!
The scene they feared the most, the one they least wished to see,
had ultimately descended upon them in this accidental manner…
“Who was it?! Who shot the arrow!!”
Ze raised his head, his eyes bloodshot.
The young warrior had long been frightened senseless.
He collapsed onto the ground, his face drained of all color.
“Why?!”
“Why did you do this?!”
The warrior cried incoherently.
“I… I didn’t mean to…”
“But if this kept going, sooner or later, you two…”
“Sooner or later, it would have…”
“I… I just…”
“And, Lord Ze, you…”
“Aren’t you able to…”
His words were utterly chaotic, yet they revealed that Ze had become the only “beneficiary” of this accident.
“Bastard!!!”
Ze erupted in fury.
He did not care about the throne!
What he cared about was God’s gaze!
Now Wa was dead!
Killed by an arrow from someone at his side!
With such monstrous sin, with the blood of kin—
would God still show him favor?!
Rage and fear intertwined.
Ze suddenly raised his hand, and flames surged into existence.
In an instant, they engulfed the terrified, pleading warrior.
The shrill screams abruptly ceased, leaving behind only a charred corpse.
Yet killing could not restore anything.
Ze, along with Ya who had rushed over upon hearing the news, frantically activated the divine grace within their bodies. Gentle starlight enveloped Wa’s chest, attempting to heal the fatal wound.
But the shattering of the heart…
seemed to touch upon the fundamental laws of life.
The warm radiance flowed over him.
Yet the wound would not close, and Wa’s life continued to slip away like sand through fingers.
Wa looked at the two of them, tears streaming down their faces.
The complex emotions in his eyes…
finally turned into calm relief.
He struggled to move the corners of his mouth,
revealing a faint, almost illusory smile. His voice was so light it seemed it could dissipate at any moment.
“That’s enough… Ze, Ya…”
“Don’t waste your strength…”
“I… am about… to go see Father…”
His gaze gradually lost focus.
As if crossing through time and space,
he saw that brilliant sea of stars, saw that figure standing at its center.
In the end, the light in his eyes completely faded, and his head drooped weakly to one side.
Wa, the second son of Sun King Apollo, the pioneer who had opened the eastern cities, had his life forever frozen in this struggle born of an endless yearning for divine grace.
Ya looked at Wa’s body, her expression filled with grief.
“Back then, En died like this…”
“And now, Wa has fallen before us the same way…”
“Ze, what you are fighting for—is it truly God’s grace, or… your own desire?!”
Ze’s body trembled violently.
After so long of open and hidden conflict,
he could no longer tell.
He truly could no longer tell…
What drove him to disregard everything—
was it faith in God, or desire that had already twisted and corrupted within power?
……
Wa’s body did not turn into starlight and return to the heavens like their father Apollo.
He was, in the end, still mortal, returning to dust.
Ya and Ze buried him beside En’s grave. These brothers who had once walked different paths, yet ended in tragedy, were finally able to accompany each other in death.
Deep into the night, all was silent.
Only the cold moonlight poured down.
Ze, alone…
stepped into the vast, empty temple.
He knelt upon the cold ground, gazing up at the divine statue, which under the moonlight appeared even more mysterious and distant.
He did not pray, nor did he beg.
He simply knelt there quietly, like a stone sculpture.
In his mind flashed scenes of childhood play with Wa, with En, with Ya.
His father’s stern gaze.
The ecstasy of receiving divine grace.
The anger and suspicion during their conflicts.
And finally, it froze upon the moment Wa fell with the arrow in his chest—that look of shock, and ultimate relief…
He remained kneeling like this.
Letting time pass, letting guilt, confusion, and pain wash over his soul.
Until the eastern horizon began to pale.
The first ray of dawn pierced through the temple’s cracks, illuminating the base of the statue.
Only then did Ze struggle to his feet.
He walked beneath the statue.
His gaze fell upon the stone tablet on the left side of the statue—the one bearing his father’s life’s work, the 《Sun Laws》.
He reached out and gently brushed over the text.
He seemed to feel the expectations for the future and the heavy sense of responsibility his father had when carving those words.
Carefully, he removed the stone tablet that recorded the laws and began to read it word by word.
Those provisions that once seemed somewhat harsh and unfeeling to him now appeared to carry a different meaning.
He seemed to see his father beneath the starlight,
repeatedly deliberating over the fairness of each law.
He saw him enforcing the laws with an iron hand…
and beneath that coldness, a desperate gamble for the dynasty’s long-term future.
“I will inherit the throne…”
Ze, facing the stone tablet, facing the divine statue…
made a vow.
“With my entire life, I will atone for my sin and carry out your path, Father.”
He decided to bear the throne.
Not as glory, but as shackles—as a vow of redemption.
Just as he was about to return the stone tablet to its place,
the corner of his eye suddenly caught sight of something—
behind the statue, there seemed to be another inconspicuous stone tablet.
If not for the sunlight falling at a particular angle, revealing its shadow, he would never have noticed it.
Ze walked over and took out that stone tablet.
And the content carved upon it…
instantly left him frozen in place.
God said.
Apollo.
Desire is the root of human suffering, because desire can never be satisfied.
The inscription was ancient yet clear,
carrying a calmness and profundity that transcended time.
Ze stood stunned.
Even his breathing seemed to stop at that moment!
This was…
what God had once said to Father?
Unconsciously, in a trembling voice, he read the words on the tablet one by one.
“Desire is the root of human suffering, because desire can never be satisfied.”
In that instant,
All obsessions, all conflict, all suffering, found their ultimate answer before this simple yet profoundly deep truth!
Tears burst forth immediately.
Ze thought—
if…
if he and Wa had seen this tablet earlier, received God’s revelation,
could they have avoided this tragedy of brothers turning against each other, of kin slaughtering one another?
God was great—He had already foreseen everything that happened today, long ago!
But sadly…
they had been blinded by their own desires and missed this most important warning.
He turned the tablet over.
On the other side was a simple carving.
It depicted the scene from that year—
their father, beneath the enveloping starlight, dividing his divine grace, turning it into countless specks of light that flew toward the four siblings.