Of Justice, Injustice and Truth

Before the Creators went out of their way to announce his arrival, I knew him… nay, I was told of him.

Beloved of Chaos, he was a human, decidedly mortal, albeit was the strangest of a man to be classified as a “human.” Among the Champions of Chaos, he was feared as a Royalty among them. A star of chaos and destruction, he was the Prince of Chaos whose existence was predetermined like the coming of destiny.

On the contrary, I was a God. As laughable, loathful and contradictory as my entire existence could turn out to be, I could not deny what I could do and who I was. A God I was, born and immortalized from miracles, concepts of and Authorities. Born for the Throne. A God I am and will be, until the day the whimsical Creators would undo my godhood and charge someone else to fill my role.

He was born into Chaos, raised and trained by Chaos. I was conceptualized from codes of Order and Principles. The two of us, we could not be more opposite.

By the time he learned of me through the Creators’ various works. I had already long expected to see him and his arrival for many bleak, flame-bounded eons.

To his awareness, I merely existed in the still-and-animated pictures, the cryptic texts written by the Creators, the accumulated lore built by the researchers and scholars of his dimension. I was a figment of someone’s imagination. I was merely an inconsequential part of a greater game.

But for me, he was as real as destiny. He was as real as Death herself. On my one-hundredth birthday, the day when I became a man, I heard of him, my destiny.

Of all the four cards made from the bone of Chaos, I drew mine as my siblings drew theirs.

“A mortal man shall be your greatest foe, a human who you could never smite with your hammer. The Worst of the Five Blazing Hands, and the Worst among the Six Royal Champions of Chaos, the most beloved Champion of Chaos, the greatest villain. A Prince recognized not by birthright or blood right, a Prince who was feared for the trail of fire and destruction that he left behind. A Prince who was raised by Chaos and shaped by the Hands of Chaos, a Prince who bathed in the favors and love of Chaos.”

Naharis, my father, darkly spoke of his prophetic vision. He was one of the ancient heroes who defeated Chaos and his spawns to bring order to the realms, and thusly, charged by the Creators to be the king of the realms. He was gifted. He could read the will of destiny. My father could saw things existed in different dimensions from ours and even things that existed in a higher dimension. He could identify the abomination of wanton destruction that would leak out of the Green Moon from time to time to give us an edge in our confrontations. He could foresee destiny before destiny arrives. And he foresaw my destiny.

“Human, but his heart is as strong as yours. His mind is as sharp as mine and Eogaill’s. His gifts are as many and great as those of your brother. He is as persistent and adapting as Niwdar. He’s as lethal as Death. A universe of abominations and an army of Chaos’ spawns that you and I had vanquished could not be his match. Even the Chaos of olds, in the flesh himself, is pale before this Prince. I saw you facing him alone, your greatest enemy. I saw you were on your knees, undone, and him smiling mocking at your defeat,” cried my father, speaking of the fate that the Creators had drawn for me, my inevitable ending. Immortals would not age after their coming-of-age, blessed to be eternally youthful. But my father seemed to grow old into the wrinkled oblivion of mortality when he spoke my prophecy. Blood-red, harrowed tears of despair wetted his eyes and stained his face. “Wonten, he is your destiny, your Undoer.”

The card vanished when the prophecy ended, what was taken from Chaos returned to Chaos. Just like that, on the day I became a man, my inevitable defeat had been foretold before I got to face him on the killing field.

Why me?

Eo was destined to uncover the Creators’ greatest secret. Sinintee was fated to succeed in the Creators’ greatest dream. Niwdar would, one day, overcome Death’s authority through her miracles.

Whereas Eo, Sinintee, and Niwdar received a prophecy that told of their successes and greatness, I was secretly pulled out of the party to be told of him, my undoer.

Best 100th birthday ever…

A God was supposedly an Immortal. My time was as lasting and infinite as the universe. But since the moment I heard of him, I began to realize just how finite the amount of sand that I had left in my hourglass. Since then, my time had already streamed downward to the zero of doomsday.

Before he was the Creators’ Prince, before he was someone else’s Prince, I had known him as the Prince of Chaos, my undoer, my inescapable doom. A Prince of destruction, war, and chaos. A Prince who was raised by Chaos in another dimension and shaped by his Hands, long I had known and dreaded of him, sooner and ahead of the prophecy that announced his royal arrival to the realms.

Long I had tirelessly steeled myself, my body, and my hammer against the macabre forms of his ghost, haunted by his impending arrival.

I did not know what the Five Blazing Hands of Chaos were like. I did not know what horrific destruction the Six Royal Champions of Chaos were capable of wreaking. I could only imagine that they were nothing good, and the Prince of Chaos, most beloved of Chaos, he was the Worst, the ultimate weapon and most destructive of them all. With my poor imagination, I conjured his phantasm image from the image of Death, and the vanquished Chaos of olds, and the worst chimeric mass created from all the abominable spawns of chaos leaked out from the green flickering moon that I had ever fought and vanquished.

I had no desire to just give up and be undone without a fight. So I trained and prayed that I might conquer my own destiny. Inside the Phantom Lodos, my fortress of solitude and castle of solace, I trained, and trained, and trained and trained some more with all of my desperation. I trained and fought against him, the phantasmal ghost of a Prince.

His deceiving appearance was decidedly human, cultured, likable, loveable, but hiding a dark and impossibly colossal mass of everything that was wrong and atrocious, a destruction-infested body combined from the spawns of chaos that I had laid wasted. His appearance was alien shaped, chiseled and loved by the Hands of Chaos, and bearing a smile of Death. He stood like a stretching shadow, always smiling at my futile effort and rage. My hammer phased through his body, touching neither his astral shell nor physical shell. For all of my strength, I could do him no harm. I could not even touch him. My father had armed me with endless arrays of weapons and armors imbued with different miraculous properties. None of them worked. None of them could touch him.

It was as if no weapon or miracle or authority of this dimension could hurt him. As unfair and incomprehensible as reality appeared, I had to accept the abnormality. If his makeup wasn’t like that, he would not be the chosen one of Chaos. As I fought against him, I tried to develop miracles that could tear a hole through this dimension.

But the real horror was his invisible inner self, the cunning of Eogaill, gifts of Sinintee, the resilience of Niwdar, and my zealot strength. He probably could, but he did not employ any great miracle or hitherto unseen authority to defeat me… He had always trampled over me with a better version of my own methods and tactics and miracles. He was like my own mirror image, but way ahead of me in everything. He was playing with me, always.

Despair I was at my own mortality and doomsday. If I could not defeat his ghostly phantasm, how could I defeat him? But an imperial parade of every immortal spirit existed in the realms could not beat this pandemonium of a ghost, and I must face the real man alone.

He was like the ultimate doom of the universe and the end of the dimension that we lived. He was like the Creators’ expressing their discontent and disapproval of us and our universe. He was the doomsday of our universe standing on two feet.

And I must face someone like that alone.

Long I had repeatedly fought against that ghostly phantasm of a man who I could not defeat inside the Phantom Lodos. Yet, I knew not of his truest appearance or weapons, strength or weakness, miracles or authority, only that he would undo me without fail.

Long I had lived loathing his accursed existence, fearing him and his impending arrival for as long as I lived. I feared him and his ghost as much as I had cursed my own destiny. Facing his ghost, I felt my own fragility… how helpless and weak I truly was… how mortal the world had always been when abhorrent creatures like him had always existed on other dimensions.

I was a God, the God of Strength, or so I was.

“Don’t smile. Don’t smile. Don’t smile. Stop smiling, please. Please,” I cried and begged shamefully, hammer swinging in an ever fruitless manner. The moment he smiled, my defeat was but written in stone. Me, Wonten, a warrior, a God, cried because of him. I dared not admit. I dared not tell. I dared not show. Before his ghost, I was humbled and shamed, crushed and defeated.

Strong I was not. Brave I was not, and definitely not God or Warrior.

I hollowly wept for my own mortality by the time I had lost count of my defeats. For all of my strength, fighting experience and miracles at my command, I darkly howled like a fearful, helpless child in front of his smiling revenant. No matter how strong I had become, how many skills and tactics that I had developed, no matter how many strong foes I had felled, no matter how armed I was, his ghost always smiled a nonchalant smile. His smile was one that only felt sadden and betrayed by my own helplessness. “Is that the best that you can do?” It was that kind of smile, one that spoke of his confidence in the strength that he hid beneath his human shell.

The titans and the other mortal races praised my name and invoked my sign for strength and courage in the face of their greatest trials. But strength and courage, those mortals had more than my exhausted share. Strength and courage, I had none to spare for them when I was already shamefully crying before I had to face my greatest trial. Inside the Lodos, I threw up when I heard their prayers.

I felt my mortality approaching whilst facing him. I was an immortal who lived fearing my destruction. I yearned for more time… I yearned to be the master of my own fate. I yearned to live. But he shall arrive. Today, tomorrow, next month, next year, next eon, I knew not when, but Destiny shall arrive.

I don’t want to die.

Nobody could run or hide from destiny. Destiny could not be opposed. He who destined to be vanquished shall be vanquished. He who was fated to live shall live. And the one who was ordained to undo me by the Creators will come.

By the time my insane swollen eyes told me what I had been doing for years, I was already accustomed to plowing the ground inside the Phantom Lodos with my hammer whilst facing his ghost.

“I don’t want to die.” “I don’t want to die.” “I don’t want to die.” “I don’t want to die.” “Someone please save me.” “Why me?” The sacred training ground of the Phantom Lodos was littered with angry and fearful carved titan runes. Shamed I was, from the realization of my complete surrender to fear and the thought of someone might discover how fearful and wretched I had become through words. But I could not bring myself to erase them. With time, those runes replicated themselves, but angrier and more craven by each passing day. Every day, I bit my own knuckles and clawed out my flesh to feel the sharp, waking hurt, to feel alive, to do away with my fear while waiting for his impending arrival.

“I don’t want to die,” I repeated the words while I still could.

Long I had known that no matter how much I trained myself, destiny would arrive. I told myself that I would face my destiny fighting to protect my pride as a warrior and a God of Strength. But the more I fought, the deeper and darker the despair inside me became. Weapons I had amassed, miracles I had stocked, authorities I had mastered, but the ghost of that Prince of Chaos did not get any weaker and the gap between me and him did not get any shorter.

And then, I resigned. Long I had been waiting for him, with the resignation and acceptance of a defeated man.

Yet, I slowly found my courage when I resigned myself to the hands of destiny, accepting it for what it was. No longer had I thought of myself and my survival. Like those mortals who approached their mortality thinking of their legacy. I, too, thought of mine.

What kind of legacy did I wish to leave behind after I was undone by him?

When that question had fully seeped into my head, I was filled with hope.

I knew he had a mind like that of Eogaill, which meant he was fully sentient, completely unlike any disposal spawns of Chaos that leaked out of the flickering green moon. They were non-negotiable, without a personality or soul or conscience. They were like soulless automata crafted for destruction and destruction alone. But this human, this Prince of Chaos, he was different.

If he could talk to, he could be negotiated with.

I only hoped that even if he was the worst of evil and chaos combined, I could talk him out of the path of destruction. My greatest hope was that I could turn him to a force of Order and good even if that was the last thing I would do.

I pictured myself kneeling before him, submitting myself and asking him to spare the world of the destruction that he was capable of if I must. If making war with him only brought forth inevitable destruction, I would make peace. If a submissive act of cowardice like that was the last thing I would do as Wonten, I would. If I, myself, would be undone like that, I shall. For my family, for Coeles, for Escana, for the realms, I would be remembered as a coward. And I was bafflingly satisfied with that result, for what the world considered as an act of submission and cowardice would be my bravest, final act. At least, in that manner, I would be remembered. A coward who submitted to spare the world from destruction, I was, I was at peace with that mere thought.

He was like what Death was to mortals. He was like what Chaos was to the titans. He was not an enemy that I or anyone of this dimension could fight, or should.

I laughed at my own ignorance and inexperience. It was the best laugh that I had ever had since I was born.

I learned how men made friends and how the defeated made peace with their enemies and their conquerors. A fighter I was, but I learned how to lose against him without fighting. A warrior I was, but I learned to submit. A God may be omnipotent and perfect, but nobody was above gaining new wisdom or learning a new lesson. So I learned to lose. I learned to accept how powerless I truly was. I learned to stop fighting against his haunting ghost inside the Phantom Lodos. I learned to think like a mortal.

For all of his concerns, I was a being of fiction. I was not real.

But, the longest and the most real of my nightmare he had always been, a foe who I could never defeat, the one who had always smiled at my defeat. The longest of an imaginary friend, my imaginary friend, he had been, the one I should make friend with, not war.

A human he was, his existence was as fleeting as a glimmer of light. A God I am, immortal, I could wait forever for the moment when he finally arrived. Or so, I had always fantasized.

What I did not know, my undone came before his arrival. If only I realized that I was not the only one who was trapped in the waking fear of my own approaching destiny and mortality… I had eyes back then, but they were as good as blind. While trying to look into the yonder future, I lost sight of things in the presence.

…

I lost sight of myself and what I had become. What I am, a God or a slave, I could not tell. Evildoer or lawmaker, I no longer could tell.

…

The moment my destiny had finally arrived and stood before me in a miracle-denying jail, I had been long undone and defeated, but not by his hands.

“Let’s pretend that I am an absolute fool for not realizing that you are quite deaf and obviously mute. That or let’s pretend that I am a rude motherfucker for mocking an obvious disabled. I am Fearless, the Prince of The Alliance,” in a light, joking tone, said he, the Prince who had successfully cheated Death.

Long I had expected of my meeting with him. I did not doubt his success or survival. Destiny was like that, his arrival might be slow but unstoppable.

I was entranced by the sight of my greatest fantasy became one with my destiny. He was just like I had always imagined, and more. A cultured, likable physical shell to cover an impossibly large astral shell, a human shell with a set of two astral bodies hiding beneath. And beneath his astral bodies, even more secrets.

As I was becoming one with silence, curtly and sharply, that lightheartedness in his voice disintegrated. From there, only deep imperial words of power could be heard. “You have five seconds to introduce yourself, 10 seconds to kneel before me and tell me that you are sorry for giving me that shitty test, 2 seconds to rise, and 30 minutes to deliver a presentation to explain your intention behind that test and who else helping you to design it.”

My own eyes were flame-bound, but through the spectral magic eye that Eo has engrafted into my soul, the two of us could clearly see that my destiny was smiling like my imagination. Eo could see him as I saw him. Even if Death and every Immortal of this world were having my back, that smile would not change.

Like I had always fantasized about this moment, my knees slowly caved in. But before they hit the floor, he caught me by my shoulders.

“The kneeling part was a joke, was my cue not obvious to you. Only my enemies kneel before me.”

I did not know that destiny could be so panicked.

“Seriously, what are you even thinking inside your head. If you are indeed the Defender of Justice, stand until the end. Kneel not to demon, worm or injustice. Bow not to wrongdoers and evildoers like me. Stand straight and defend what is right until the end.”

Arrogant was his voice, but the thin, telling curve on his lips spoke of a different story.

“Is that not what justice is about? Unbowed, unbent, unyielded, uncorrupted, uncompromised?”

It was a smile free of fear, an accepting smile, one that was at peace with the consequences and retributions of his action. Oozing out from his words was bravado and a warlike temperament, yet his smile was peaceful. His was a smile of a man who had come to terms with himself and the absurdity of the hand that fate dealt with him.

It was the most fearless smile that I had ever seen.

Destiny had a will of his own. Prophets may foretell of him and his arrival. The Creators may draw a path for him. But he was his own person. He paved his own path.

Destiny followed his own goal.

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Two days I have been jailed inside a miracle-denying Divine Dream conjured by Death.

“Forget about those slimy-tongued bastards, the like Flokí and Envy, the liars and deceivers of the world they are or so they claim, but none of them are on my level, and never will they be. Therefore, do yourself a fucking favor. Learn to doubt everything I would tell you. No matter how convincing my words might sound to your ears, doubt them. Ask yourself, ‘What is his purpose by telling me this? What is he hiding? What is he after?’ Take everything I say for but a grain of salt, ALWAYS DOUBT MY ACTIONS AND MY WORDS.”

I have learned that he was a liar who was proud and unashamed of being a liar.

“Make a mental record of everything that I had told you. Learn to profile me, keeping tracks of my lies, truths, consistency, and inconsistency, drawing out the patterns. If you can profile me, there is no reason that you could not profile every other liar and deceiver. If you can uncover and destroy my trickeries, their kinds would be an easy walk. If you could see through my traps and layered illusions, there would be no reason for you to not be able to see through theirs. This shall be your first lesson, my man, DO NOT MISJUDGE OR MISIDENTIFY YOUR ENEMIES AND THEIR PURPOSES.”

I have learned that he was fully convinced that he was, without competition, the worst personification of evil and injustice.

“When you can finally distinguish if I was trying to trick you or not, we will move on to discuss the next important objective.”

Hitherto meeting this man, I had trained men and women through Divine Dreams. This was the first time I was being trained inside a Divine Dream, by a mortal nonetheless.

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Locked inside that miracle-denying jail, he had done nothing but talk while I had done nothing but listen.

“Lucky for you guys, you got me and not FY. If FY was here instead, you braindead morons would have a giant, fat Zero as your chance for victory. The fight ends before it even starts. Unlucky for you guys, you got me and not FY. Unlike FY, I am no pacifist. I am vindictive, cruel and petty, especially when someone was trying to rob me of everything. Someone picks a fight with me, I show them war in an exact manner that they had picked a fight with me.”

A talker he was. He could talk for hours and days. Days turned into months. Months transformed into years, but he had never run out of topics, breath, or energy.

“You are not my brother, my lover or my family. Our relationship is that of people with a common interest, partnership, give and take, you-scratch-my-back-and-I-scratch-yours kind of relationship. I am not teaching you for free. I do expect something in return. So start thinking about how you should pay this tuition fee from now.”

If there was a race of humans who could talk and keep on talking unto the end of the world, he was the first of his specimen. The world would end first before he would run out of topics to talk.

Once in every now and then, he gave me short breaks so I could restructure my notes, review and draw out the patterns. And when the breaks were over, he was back to talking again. But I noticed that something had changed inside him with every break. The changes were small and invisible until I clearly detected the existence of an Authority within him. Someone, either Sinintee or Niwdar or one of the Demon Lords, had lost an Authority of theirs to a human. A gift, which only an Immortal had been entitled to, was now owned by a mortal. The foundation and normality of the world that I had known were being undone in front of my face. The ghostly phantasm that I had conjured inside the Phantom Lodos, either by coincidence or by destiny, it slowly became real in front of me. One Authority became a pair of Authorities. A pair became a trio, and a trio turned into four, and that number kept adding up at an accelerated rate.

Someone, if not many, was learning the same lesson that I had once learned during the time when I was still locking myself inside the Phantom Lodos. But unlike me, who was only fighting a ghost of my imagination and fear, this person was turning that ghost into a reality. Somebody was making the doomsday of our universe real.

‘Eo, had we, immortals, always been this foolish to you?’

I was a blind fool, but someone out there, who was also trapped inside this Divine Dream conjured by Death, was even more blinded and more foolish than I ever was. Yet, I took no comfort in that thought, only fear.

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Neither the faithful pull of gravity nor the firm drag atmospheric resistance could deny his passage or slow him down, for his lack of material flesh. Completely unhindered by the boundaries of the material world, a mighty spirit flew out of Escana at meteoric speed. Invisible was this spirit to the naked eyes of the unascended, those who could not see through the barriers of the material plane.

On Escana, only a numbered of those, whose eyes could see through the restrictions of the material plane, would recognize the identity of this spirit by the appearance of his astral body. His astral body was one that stood through the greatest trial of fire, forged and built from crippling black and silver fire. His body was one that clad in tales-tell ancient horrors. His face was flame-bounded, a spelling, faceless mask without eye, or nose, or mouth, an icon of impartiality, a symbol of Justice. His scalp burned, a telling picture painted from patches of scars and fringes of damaged hair. Mortals had worshipped him with many names and titles. The God of Strength. The God of Justice. The Mighty One. The Warrior. The Defender. The Protector. The Faceless God. He was Wonten, the lawful patron deity of the Faceless God Temple. A person could not talk about Wonten and not link his name to Principles and Laws.

The he was, his unique Authority was, the purpose of his existence had been. Laws and Principles were his greatest domain. Justice first, Might second, he had been. As smooth and mechanical as one of those automata created from his brother’s Etherium Forge, Wonten rose to the stratosphere of Escana, unhindered by any physical boundary, and approached the invisible Martias Edoline. His astral body was on a straight course to the Golden Moon, the place where the Golden Hanging Garden of Coeles was hung.

The Faceless God realized how much he had wished that he was an automaton, a golem without consciousness, a faithful instrument without a conscience. But an automaton he was definitely not. A God Wonten was. That was a reality that Wonten could not change.

He was a God, The God of Justice, as ironic and laughable as things could possibly be, as Wonten often thought of himself.

Once, he had been the manifestation of Justice, the symbol of ultimate good. His body, both the physical body and the astral body, and his even consciousness were the faithful instruments of Justice.

His strong heart only beat for the innocence and the good.

His blood fueled goodness and cleansed evil.

His body was miraculous strength, a tireless servant, an unwavering defender, a true lawful protector of Justice. His body was strong enough to be the shield to stand before the weak and the innocence.

A faithful executioner of Justice his hammer was, strong and unwavering to smite the very definition of injustice and its devil spawns.

Assembled from the complex bonds of miracles, his eyes were supported by the very supreme Authorities that created and shaped the universe. They could peer through the fabrics of reality and judge the world with impartiality. Evil and unjustness would reflect in his miraculous eyes in a swirl of corrupting light. It was a corruption of light, a conflagration of darkness. The graver the evil, the more aberrant and sickening that darkness would reflect. Radiating darkness, but aberrantly bright and reflecting as though light. The greatest injustice was as dark as the abyss, but unlike the abyss, it had life and a will of its own. It encroached both light and darkness, twisting and corrupting them in a dissembled reality where the light was inverted. Innocence was transparent, colorless. Redemption was a complex conflagration of colors just like the fiery inner self of an opal, true but hidden.

But it was his discerning mind that made Wonten a Defender of Principles in every sense and meaning. He could always differentiate right from wrong. True to his miraculous manifestation, he had been a God of Justice and Strength. Every breath of air, every living moment, he lived dedicating himself to defend justice. But, no longer.

Since the end of the First Divine War, his mind had been as blunt as his hammer. What he is now, what he is defending right now, what he should fight against now, not even Wonten knew. His justice-searing eyes had forever sealed behind the molten darkness, not that Wonten would want them to open ever again. His ghastly lips were once paired, but now flame-bounded and welded as one. Their inseparable oneness had certainly played a vital part in preventing him from talking for the last hundreds of eons. But even when his jaws could open, even if his tongue was unboiled and his lips were unsealed, Wonten doubted that he could say the words. “I am Justice.”

“I am Justice,” three simple words, any man and woman can utter that. In fact, countless mortals had declared that. Not Wonten, not him, no longer him. No longer could he voice such a declaration with the steadfast belief he once held in the past.

“I am Wonten,” he would address and introduce himself as such if the need arose. No God of this or Defender of that or anything else; Just, “I am Wonten,” that was sufficed for an introduction. Any more than that is pure falseness and fallacy, Wonten believed.

“The personification of concepts, authorities, and miracles, a God is. Missing either one of the three, you are a God no more. Do not ever lose sight of what you are,” his father has explained that to Wonten and his siblings once at the dawn of time.

Just like his three siblings, Wonten knew that his manifestation was divine. Both his physical body and astral body were the conceptualization miracles and authorities.

Eogaill was the manifestation of Truth. Her eyes could separate the truth of the world from its falseness. If Eogaill bled, the truth would pour out of her flesh. Civilization was Sinintee. The conception of Civilization, its evolution, its past, presence, and future, became Sinintee, its face. If Sinintee was in any way, harmed, the same would happen to civilization. If civilization was warped, Sinintee, too, would. Niwdar and Nature are one spirit in two bodies. If nature is hurt, Niwdar languished. If Niwdar was damaged, nature suffered.

But justice, it is… incomprehensible… what is it? What is justice?

Eons Wonten has languished, mulling. Eons, he seemed to know the answers and yet was emptied of a clear, defining answer. Wonten knew that he is the manifestation of justice. And yet, when he bled, aberrant substance seeped out of his wound, neither colored in the essence of justice nor strength. Justice first and Strength second, he had been. In the olden past, Wonten has once known what he is. He was the embodiment of Justice and Strength, has been. What he was, who he was, Wonten was no longer so sure. A God he was, that he knew. But “A God of what?” The faceless God could not answer this question.

Dark, troubled thoughts and perhaps madness as well, accompanied Wonten’s forlorn form through his travel.

Wonten’s dark, depressing thought only become darker when the sight of the miracle-slaying black wings, Death’s messengers and familiars, impeded his spectral third eyes, signaling his impending closeness to the Martias Edoline, a disarming zone which he has played a large part to create.

Martias Edoline was an invisible spherical area surrounding Escana, where no immortal participating in the Reign of Chaos was allowed to cross with their physical body without Death’s seal of approval and any Immortal who crossed this area must inform their identity to Death. This zone was guarded and patrolled by Death’s familiars, impeding world-altering miracles from entering or escaping Escana. Martias Edoline was first created and defined as soon as the First Divine War concluded.

The Martias Edoline separated the world of immortal and mortal, limiting the usage of Miracle and Authority that could potentially undo Escana. It was meant to be an invisible barrier to limit the damage dealt with Escana by Immortals in Wonten’s original vision… meant to be… The Martias Edoline existed because Wonten wanted it to exist. And it was just as great a failure as he was, Wonten had realized eons ago. Now he was forced to look at it through his spectral eyes.

For every law that was ever created, either by mortal or by immortal, there was always imperfection, holes, and flaws, to be exploited.

Death has originally stated, “Beyond the Martias Edoline, no Immortal or Demi-Immortal is permitted to pass through with his/her physical body. Beyond the Martias Edoline, no world-changing miracle is permitted.” She defined the Martias Edoline as a disarming zone.

Flokí, the Smiling Demon Lord was the first to find the exploitation of this law. With the help of his demons, Flokí had sent his soulless physical husk to enter Escana first and then moved his astral body second to reunite with it. His action went against the spirit of that rule but the Smiling Demon Lord did not break the law. He did not cross the line with his physical body. His clown-like flesh had certainly crossed the Martias Edoline without his soul. The sight of Wonten stood helplessly and impotently watching Death refused to penalize Flokí’s exploitation of the laws put a wretched smile on the clown’s face.

Wonten had certainly foolish enough to try to fix all the flaws and holes in the rule by adding more rules and laws. On his side, though Eogaill and Sinintee could not bother to lend their effort, his siblings supported Wonten for the reinforcement of the law with their votes. One of them could see through the fruitlessness of Wonten’s effort. The other could predict his failure ahead of time with his own experience dealing with the laws. On the other side, the Demon Lords elected four leaders to represent their common will to cast the votes to change the law. Four votes on Wonten’s side and four votes on the other side and one vote from Death herself seemed fair on the appearance value. Death was the only person who was allowed to cast a blank vote. The voting process did not go through. It always ended in a draw. The vote had gone around, and around, and around. And when both sides agreed with the change, the changes that Wonten had envisioned and wanted to implement had become as misshapen as he was. In the darkness of failures, Wonten was forced to learn how useless he was, again, again, again and again.

Alone, he was the only one who was frustrated at how the laws were handled.

He, alone, was the only fool who had intended to respect the law as the laws were intended. He, alone, was the only person who was frustrated by how the laws were being disrespected. He, alone, felt helpless for his surrender to the rise of laws which went against his codes and belief.

Wonten realized how alone he was in everything since the moment the first round of the Reign of Chaos started. The Game, which Eogaill and Sinintee had created to put a limit on those Demon Lords, has shackled Wonten’s freedom and abilities just as much as anyone. In the Reign of Chaos, where the miracles and authorities of an Immortal were limited, where the Death was the Judge, law enforcer, law defender, and executioner, the Arbiter, the law is beyond his control.

He was the God of Justice, the Maker and Defender of the Laws, who could neither make nor defend the laws.

When Wonten tried to put beings that manifested from destruction like Wrath or Xaara under the control of the laws, he, too, was subjected by those same laws. The Faceless God realized when he became a player of the Game, he was… no longer a defender of any laws or protector of the order. He was… just another cogwheel for the Game. But Wonten also realized that if he took himself out of the Game just like Eogaill did, things would not improve, only worsen. Neither Niwdar nor Sinintee played by the rules. And if they wouldn’t, the other sides, too, would drop their pretense. Escana, since the end of First Divine War, had constantly been saved by pretense and pretext. An escalation in the destruction of these pretexts and pretense would lead to horrific results. Things that Eogaill could do effortlessly, quitting, Wonten could not.

Standing on one side of the Martias Edoline, Wonten bathed in the result of his greatest failures and hypocrisies yet.

Patricider.

God of Justice? You butchered your own father.

Poor him. Poor old Naharis.

Neglected by his children.

Unloved by his children.

Butchered by his beloved children.

O Justice, Where is your punishment?

World-altering miracles, which had been stopped by the moth-built Martias Edoline and kept outside of Escana, devolved into layers of words and pictures painting around it like cruelly designed decorations. Graffiti. Mockeries that turned into drawings and words, they were. Jeering sounds that should not transfer through the vacuum of space yet did, they were. Words that came alive and dancing by spells of evil as they were fueled by miracles and mana, they were, mostly the works of Flokí’s faction, their idea of what a joke was. Written in truth-altering spells, corruption, blight, and illusions, they were words that the mortals of Escana could not see or hear but every spirit of the nine realms could. They were words and sounds that were immortalized in the dead of space by miracles. His shame, defeat and despair, all were in full display.

Why are you there?

On the wrong side, You are.

We are avenging his death.

We are Justice.

Among the written words floated paintings, vivid and telling paintings depicting the horrors of that day. The insane world reflected in Naharis’ eyes, the hurtful sounds which escaped his mouth, the reconstructed past from the third person point of view, the undoing of everything that was right and just.

Die. DIE. DIE.

Tearful eyes and unclothed body, Niwdar twisted her healing miracles for hurt, filling Naharis’ body with ever-spreading tumors. Sinintee howled in savagery as he hacked and slashed in blind hurt and shattered disillusion. Dark was Eogaill’s visage as she condensed light particles from every light source within the ten realms into swords and weapons inside her hands and cast the world to a lightless state. A fool was Wonten, his fighting experience lost, his forged muscles watered, his disciplined strength misdirected, his façade of laws and principles undone with the wild, bludgeon swings of his hammer.

WHY? WHY? WHY?

They were miracles that made Wonten relived the atrocity and horror he committed on that day whenever he entered Escana.

We are beings born from his dismembered fleshes. Hitting us, you are hitting his corpse.

Corpse defiler.

Murderer.

Pretender

Kill yourself, that is justice, blind fool.

The Defender? The Defender of what? Your little sis over glamorized hymen? Your Father? Your family? What did you defend? Who did you defend? You defended nothing. You have protected nothing.

His eyes were blocked, sealed by scars and molten flesh, but Wonten saw them correctly, the mocking, the jeers…

Slowly noticed of Wonten’s presence, the black moths flapped their wings and opened a starlit path for him to cross. For a brief moment, Wonten hesitated on crossing the path that the black wings had opened for him. Laws upon laws upon laws, upon laws, had constituted this zone which no mortal could see. These laws were not what Wonten had intended to create to protect Escana, but here they existed under the pretext of fairness for both the Gods of Coeles and the Demon Lords of Kharigan. And yet, only through the fragility of this wall of pretext, Wonten could grant Escana his protection. This zone was a failure of laws, pretense and pretext with no real value. As long as Death was impartial toward the wellbeing of Coeles, Kharigan and Escana, there was nothing Wonten could do. The Faceless God could understand that, yet, could do nothing to change or improve it.

For Escana… Wonten had forced himself to listen to such a lie for a very long time. For Escana, for the greater good, for peace, for the many… They were lies spoken to ignore a person’s inability and helplessness, saving his godlike ego. They were spoken repeatedly until Wonten became sick and fearful of such abominable, filthy and dishonest sounds, “Greater good.”

What is the greater good?

He was the God of Justice and Strength, and yet he became afraid of two words, “Greater good.” He was a God, sure, but definitely not the God of Strength or Justice. Wonten was not as bright as Eogaill or as ingenious and creative as Niwdar or Sinintee, but he understood the concepts and need of Laws well.

Without respect, the laws that were created by Immortals to govern the Immortals, they only had an appearance value. Trying to reinforce that imperfect law with more laws would do nothing even if Wonten could enforce the laws as he has intended. No set of laws was ever perfect, without holes or flaws, and an Immortal has all the time in the world to find the exploitation of the laws. If an Immortal did not respect the law the way Wonten respected the laws, that Immortal would eventually break that law through exploitation or outright disobeying it, one way or another. That was something Wonten had been forced to recognize, for it had repeatedly slapped against his face.

Sometimes, Wonten mulled why he would bother trying only to fail and fail, again and again.

Wonten wished that he could slow down reality itself as though the reality was but a Divine Dream. Wonten realized that he has spent many passing eons to think before he could pass through this Martias Edoline and returned to the realms of spirits inside that person’s dream. But it was not enough.

Wonten was about to be on a one-way trip to break down all the laws that he had upheld. The Faceless God had mulled about the catastrophic result of his action and he has seen them enough. He was not ready to oversee such a catastrophe. Escana was not ready for such cataclysm. None of nine spirit realms was ever prepared to face such an apocalyptic event.

Mortals invoked his name in exchange for bravery, but bravery was something Wonten had none to spare for himself, let alone sharing with them. The Faceless God realized that he was afraid, now, more so than ever. Even though he was looking at one of the greatest failures of his life, he could not find the courage to act and correct it.

Rationally, the Faceless God knew what he had to do. “The right thing for the greater good,” the things that people had always expected of him, Justice, and yet, his heart was full of doubt and darkness.

“If you don’t know what justice is, simple, I will tell you. It is everything that I am not. It is everything that I had refused to do, and everything that my enemies tried to pervert and corrupt. Simple, right? Confused? How about I tell you some stories instead?”

If Destiny had a voice, he was clearly raving mad, but darkly convincing. Destiny had no doubt in himself or his path.

“Is it not enough, or must we wait until URLOX send the King of The Alliance here to tell you in your face what justice is?”

Hundreds of thousands of stories penned by madness and tragedy, Destiny had told Wonten, but not the one story that should be told. Destiny only spoke of the suffering of others but never himself or his other-self.

“Destroy this twisted foundation of laws and rebuild it anew. If the main pillars supporting your house are rotten and termite-infested, and your house is a shit hole of structural defects, you demolish the ENTIRE FUCKING house, hire some Goddamn authentic construction company and reconstruct the whole damn thing from the start. I don’t need to earn a FUCKING bachelor in engineering to know this shit. If this world order is fucked-up, destroy it and rebuild a non-fucked-up one. This is the right thing to do, is that not simple enough? We are currently having every necessary thing to do this. Me, the fucking demolition man, you and your shut-in sister as the engineer.”

His voice was like a phantom specter of madness that only Wonten could hear. Even now when Wonten should not be able to hear his voice, his immaterial eardrums were still drumming with the echoes leaking out of those rage-blistered lips.

“You make this appear to be an impossible-to-solve problem, but FUCK YOU. It is not. I am STUPID but even I can see the most obvious answer. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOUR ENTIRE DISFUNCTION FAMILY, YOUR FUCKING ANCESTOR, YOUR FUCKING DISTANT RELATIVE FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO SOLVE SUCH A SIMPLE PROBLEM AND MAKING ME SOLVING IT FOR YOU. FUCK YOU ALL.DO I LOOK LIKE A SOLVER OF PROBLEM TO YOU? YOU LACK THE COURAGE TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM? FUCK YOU. DO I LOOK LIKE A SELLER OF COURAGE TO YOU? I SOLD THINGS IN THE PAST BUT NEVER COURAGE.”

Words and echoes constructed from world-altering miracles seemed dull and quiet to the loudness of a human’s voice. Among all the phantom whispers that Wonten heard, the brazen cursing voice of his supposedly-opposite rang the truest, angriest, and…LOUDEST.

“Kharigan must be destroyed first. Why? The first reason, I can destroy it. Thusly, I will. Make sense, right? The second reason, Kharigan is their symbol, their home, their birthplace, their fortress, their pride. Of course, I would destroy it. Who do you think I am? The third reason, without Kharigan, these brain-dead fools must actively seek a new home. Maybe, they will settle for one star outside of this galaxy. Maybe they would find a planet outside of this system to rebuild their home. But I am willing to bet that they would try to settle down on Escana. Why? I meant why would they settle down on anywhere but Escana when Kharigan is but gone, and when Death is out of the picture? It’s easier to rob someone’s home for yourself than rebuilding your destroyed home. It’s easier to tell yourself that ‘Because the world is cruel to me, thusly I will be cruel to the world. Because the world scarred me, I have every right to scar the world right back.’ This kind of excuse, I had heard enough. This kind of excuse is the exact kind that I would use to defend my wrongful deeds. They would come to Escana, playing dirty and ignoring every rule. It is just a matter of how and when. And on Escana, I have lots of freedom to trap them and butcher them however I want. Someone has to instill them fear.”

His voice was an arrogant, tyrannical voice, one that was unconcerned with the judgment of whoever listened to him. Echo, the Banshee Queen claimed to possess the loudest and most heard of a voice. Her voice was the voice that even a deaf man could hear and even creatures that possessed no sound receptor could listen to.

“Bad, terrible things, the worst of atrocities, I do. Good, inspiring, heroic things, you take credit.” But the world would judge that Echo was very wrong the very moment when they listened to the Prince’s voice.

“Why? Only an ultimate villain could unite a world that has been divided by chaos for he is their greatest fear and despair. Conquer him would be people’s greatest interest, thus they will look past their differences, goals and bloody history to unite against him. I will play the role of this ultimate villain. Why? Because only I can, thus I will. Because I still need to earn my negative karma points to go to hell. Apparently, Gods and Buddha had judged that I was not evil enough to send me straight to the pits of hell… This is a give-and-take relationship, don’t feel bad for me. Now, in order to reshape and rebuild a world to its correct path, the world needs an ultimate hero to inspire them hope. An hour is called the darkest hour because once it has passed, things would get brighter. Similarly, once the so-called greatest injustice has all but expired, the world is filled with good and justice.”

His voice was a ghostly voice oozing with sarcasm, yet filled with resolve.

“Therefore, you must be the one strike me down at the end of my path. Whoever he was, whatever his past was, he who struck me down would become the ultimate hero for sure. But whether you like it or not, the destruction of this fuck-up world comes first. Its rebuild comes later.”

Listening to that voice, Wonten found his astral body returning to Coeles in forlorn muteness.

Two of the Valkyria, his nieces, and biological sisters, accompanied by dozens of Sinintee’s latest military purpose automata were on patrol duty, greeted Wonten as he returned to Coeles. Their soft-spoken, musical voices were a welcoming change to Wonten’s ears. Wonten only nodded his head, silent as usual. Neither of them detected the air of foulness waffled around Wonten as he entered the hanging garden.

Wonten would blame neither of them for it was unimaginable, even in the worst of the nightmare. He could never imagine himself to bring chaos and destruction to the garden. The Golden Hanging Garden of Coeles was a complex series of monuments gifted to Wonten and his siblings by none other than Naharis to celebrate the first birthday.

Eogaill was given the Forbidden Library to satisfy all of her curiosity. Eons had come and gone but Wonten could still remember Eogaill’s radiant smile when she received her first birthday gift. Sinintee was gifted with the Etherium Forge to realize his curiosity and imagination. There, Sinintee was able to create his first automaton. Sinintee could not stop grinning. His smile made him appeared like an innocent child in grownup’s body. Niwdar received her Eternal Greenhouse to test and explore her miracles. She was so happy that she leaped into Naharis’ arms to kiss him. Wonten, himself was granted the Phantom Lodos for him to forge his body and mind from trials of strength. In the Phantom Lodos, his worst fear would take shape and test him until he could conquer them.

His immaterial form should not be affected by gravity, and yet, Wonten felt how heavy his footstep had gradually become. The Faceless God felt like he could understand what that human Prince has gone through when he set his old house on fire. With every leaden footstep, Wonten realized just how much he had wished that he could rewind time and undo all the wrongs and mistakes of the past. And with every subsequent step, the faceless god realized that his wish would never be granted. He could bend time inside a Divine Dream. He could bend reality through the miracles and authorities given to him. But he could not change the past. Wonten realized that he could only learn to move on.

Wonten entered the Phantom Lodos, where he had left his material shell and his hammer behind.

“First comes destruction, then the reconstruction.” His ears were filled with maddened echoes of an angry human. “If you could not destroy Kharigan, sit back and watch. I am fully capable of doing it myself.” His spectral eyes reflected two unconnected scenes. His eldest sister was, again, urging him to dirty his own hands and lest that angry human does the deed. Eo forecasted an even more horrific result in the case Wonten would let that angry human do the job.

Wonten did not doubt her forecast.