Chương 228: Chapter 224: See With Peeled Eyes

Dan's voice sang in unison with the hundred other acolytes in the hall around him. His eyes — peeled wide by metallic frames — gazed at the ceiling painted with the likeness of the Great Iris. Neither he, nor any but the highest creed cultists had been able to lay eyes on the sky above Coral for a while now. The light of the Deific Storm would not only melt their eyes at a glance, but slag the very bones in their body. So, they had to settle with this visual replica. A poor substitute.

It captured none of the beauty in the sight Dan had come to love. There was no subtle swirling of stars and galaxies, only stagnant dots. The Omen Artisan who painted it had somehow made the fake stars sparkle and glow, but there was no truth to the vision. The artist could not comprehend the depths of the Great Iris. Dan knew he couldn't either — that was something only the highest of Everseeing Eye cultists could claim — but even he found the fake sky an abysmal replacement.

The Great Iris was more present then ever before, and he was stuck here, watching a painting. Dan wondered whether it would be a good or bad idea to vent his frustration to Ari the next time he saw her. The reminder of the cult she was continually rejected from might be received poorly, but it was possible she would enjoy making fun of the weak artistic talent of those somehow already inside. Well, he would actually need to see her for such a conversation to happen.

Only twice since the accretion storm arrived had Dan been given the chance to return to his ward. Both occasions had Ari been nowhere to be found. Talking to their other ward-mates let him know that she hadn't suddenly moved out… but she was certainly out and about more than she should be. Without a cult to protect her, the unexplained activity made Dan worried. He let his hymn meld away.

There were a few others that continued their chant in his absence, but the vast majority held hushed whispers that in no way expressed their devotion to the Grand Iris. If any upper creed had been around to watch over them — as they typically were — they would have been punished. But they weren't here. Those older cultists were gone for the same reason Dan's cohort were gossiping under the fake Great Iris. Solan was dead. Dan doubted there was a single soul on Coral that hadn't heard by now.

The Fleshsmiths' leader had been murdered, and had taken a good chunk of her cult along with her. After the Dark Star disaster, this was the final nail in the cult's coffin. The Fleshsmiths were no more. Even Dan knew that without the foundational members of the cult, those that remained would have no choice but to take what they knew to another cult, and hope they were welcomed in. Any that clung to loyalty… well, they wouldn't live long. And that was without the whispers of how so many Fleshsmiths died.

Invow death. He could hear his fellow acolytes speaking those words with a terrified hush. The fact that there were so many… it didn't take a high creed to figure out that Invows may not be as impossible to force as they were told. It was a concern for sure, and certainly didn't do much to ease his doubts for the future, but Dan's mind had been stuck on another little detail that had spread like corruption in water. The murderer. Everyone had heard the fight. They'd felt Coral tremble.

While the details of what happened were not entirely clear, there were some details that had been seen by so many different eyes that it was unthinkable for them to be exaggerations of fact. Solan's chains had destroyed a large swathe of the lower levels and the undersurface. An unsettling pink, bodiless maw had eaten through much of the same space before the chain. And the one part that Dan couldn't stop thinking about: the appearance of a Dark Star moments before Solan's death.

Dan's eyes strained to blink for the first time in days. He decided to head back to his quarters. If the upper creeds were around to punish him, then he wouldn't have gotten away with it, but this was shocking news even to the most powerful. He slipped from the worship chamber without a single eye turning his way. An image kept forcing its way into his mind as he thought about the Dark Star. A face. But it was an obscene thought. It didn't make sense.

He dismissed it over and over, but her face kept slipping into his mind as he thought about the death of the Fleshsmith leader. Nyxila. Well, he supposed she had been given the free evolution for winning the Trials, so that name was probably old already. And Dan thought he was doing well with his first evolution on the horizon. The girl had four! He shook his head and scratched at his cheek where the metal rubbed irritably. There was no way it could be her.

No matter how his mind seemed to keep seeing Nyxila whenever he thought about what could have possibly killed Solan. Sure, the fact that Solan had been killed by something that could apparently create Dark Stars meant the last two weren't the Fleshsmiths' fault after all… but that had nothing to do with Nyxila. It couldn't. She may have been the sole survivor of the Dark Star Event where hundreds of thousands of Fleshsmiths had met their end. That didn't mean she could create them.

Nyxila had just gotten obscenely lucky that whatever created the Dark Star had freed her from Fleshsmith captivity, then had managed to survive in the place where cultists seven evolutions greater than herself had died. Maybe the whole reason she'd lived was because Solan's killer didn't care for her, where it slaughtered Fleshsmiths like rats. That was clearly the only answer that made sense. Dan hadn't exactly seen her recently… but he hadn't seen many from his ward since the end of the Trials.

He had no ground to stand on to even think she might have been involved this time. It was a bit early, but Dan laid on his bed. He stared up at the blocked off skylight that, in normal conditions, would bathe him in accretion light as he slept. Instead, it was now just a high-powered LED. Dan hated trying to sleep under it, but clearly it was working. Just last night, he'd rested in a half-wakened state. His dreams were filled with the comings and goings of those who lived in his shared room.

He even remembered the face of the girl who tried to steal BD from his stash. Walking down the dorm, he snagged double the amount she'd taken. He'd seen her poor attempt to hide her BD pouch in a pocket of her mattress only days ago. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. It was hard not to feel constantly exhausted these days. Dan wondered if this sort of gruelling tedium was standard for acolytes of all cults.

Would Ari have actually enjoyed her time in the Omen Artisans, or would it have had none of the glamour that had her so invested in the cult that wouldn't accept her? The constant, draining pressure to perform — even if that performance simply meant a hymn of devotion — wore down at his soul. It was enough to strain his resolve. If the alternative wasn't going cultless, then he might have already given up. He never would, though. He couldn't.

When Dan had been blessed with opportunities and talent the rest of the kids back in the ward would kill for, he could hardly back out now. Look at him now! He'd even managed to squirrel out a moment to relax for himself. And just like that, another wave of guilt washed over him. The opportunity that many had missed out on was right there, handed to him, and what was he doing? Laying on his ass when it wasn't even resting sleeping hours. Still, he didn't get up.

Despite how it made him hate himself, this was finally a moment to just… stop. And he took it. If there was one thing he was actually looking forward to, as part of the Cult of the Everseeing Eye, it was the Observatory. Immediately after the Great Iris spun to life, he'd been taken up to the highest point in Coral. There, he had been laid bare to the beauty of The Eye. The universe captured in a single pupil. Dan felt seen, and it had opened his eyes in a way that no eversight assists could.

He wanted to be up there again. Dan wanted to gaze into the eye that held an entire cult enraptured. That was impossible. Once the accretion storm had truly begun, the Observatory was no longer safe. He, along with thousands of other low evolution cultists and acolytes had been directed down to the surface. Not long after, even the surface became too inhospitable for him. The next time he would be allowed up there — with enough shielding put in place to protect him — would be in three months.

If being allowed to view the Great Iris was the only reason he was being brought up, then Dan would be excited. He would be thrilled enough that these long days and longer nights would be a breeze to sit through. But… there was more to it. In three months, Dan was expected to sacrifice his eyelids. It was early. Usually, the eyelids were sacrificed with the second evolution milestone as a way to direct and empower the evolution. But this was a momentous occasion, as the upper creeds said.

Thousands of acolytes would be cutting off their eyelids. Hundreds of upper creeds would be giving up their eyes. This was no sacrifice. This was an offering. The Cult of the Everseeing Eye felt the presence of their god, and wished to show their devotion. They wanted the entity that cradled Coral for eternity to speak to them. To show all what it saw. Dan didn't know if it was a good idea or not. All he cared for was that the day he would have to lose part of himself had been moved forward.

And unlike an evolution, he couldn't delay it. His seniors had spoken of the day they sacrificed their eyelids like it was the best day of their lives. They had explicitly said Dan would feel the same. He doubted it. The idea remained as repulsive as it was the day of his naming ceremony. In fact, being forced into contact with so many that had willingly given away parts of their body for the path of the Everseeing Eye had only worsened his distaste for the idea.

With so many horrors hiding both beneath Coral, within it, and beyond the realms any human could comprehend, Dan felt like everyone was insane to engage so heavily with levers they didn't understand. These entities they sacrificed to… why did they love human sacrifices so much? What could they do with a bit of discarded skin that was no longer useful without the organ it was once attached to? The common answer was that a person gave something value by being reluctant to part with it. That life was valuable.

And that purity and strength were valuable. But why? What exactly did these gods and monstrosities do with his friends after they'd been stolen away from the ward and sacrificed? The why was something nobody had ever been able to give a straight answer. And it was that why which terrified him. Those two little bits of skin that were his eyelids might be all the link some unsympathetic existence could need to drag Dan into an eternity of torment after his death.

Or maybe it was a pathway to filter everything Dan ever saw to its liking. Everyone had just learnt that manipulated Invows were possible, after all. Honestly, Dan might be the insane one. What else would explain everyone else's casual disregard for the sheer horror of the world they were surrounded by? Then again, the fear of falling behind was a powerful motivator to ignore the problems one couldn't see. Dan himself was participating in that culture out of necessity.

It's not like he was willing to become a poverty-stricken, defenceless cultless no matter how the prospects of sacrificing himself might terrify him. Dan sank into his mattress, staring into the unblinking, blinding light of the LED. He let himself dream up a world where everyone was really just like him; terrified and incapable of comprehension, but putting on a show of competence. Even the cult leaders only acted like they knew what they were doing.

Though, deep down they were as terrified of the world around them as anyone else. Then there was the thought of someone who actually knew how things worked. They weren't terrified. They weren't putting on a show. But in a world of actors, how would they ever be noticed? They wouldn't. Not at the start. But eventually, things would go their way too well. The world would seem to bend at the edges, twisting around them in ways that made no sense to anyone else. But then they realise that nobody around them has a clue.

And they begin to act. But the world still bends around them, even as they claim ignorance. Eventually, people begin to notice.

'You shouldn't be alive.' His own words about the Dark Star from months ago suddenly popped into Dan's mind.

'No one below their fourth evolution has ever survived in one. And you…'

'Ari did.' She had said those words with so much certainty that it had struck Dan dumbfounded in the moment. It had left an impression. Dan had dismissed it as a mistake of details. But what if it wasn't? What if it was the actor forgetting to act? What if Nyxila had slipped up and spoken the truth. Ari had survived a Dark Star. How would she have known that? She was there. Ari's memories of that night were nothing reliable, suppressed by a dream-bug, and Nyxila had been extremely late to the emergency gathering.

Ari had gotten caught in the Dark Star, and Nyxila had saved her. Nyxila was there for the creation of the first Fleshsmith Dark Star. She was there for the second. And Dan suddenly had a very good reason to think she was there for the third, down under Coral. It made sense. It was so obscene that is shouldn't make nearly as much sense as it did, but the more Dan poked at the thought, the more he came away unnervingly confident that he was right.

Whether his little imaginary scenario was right, and Nyxila somehow knew more about the world than anyone else didn't matter. Something was strange about her. She'd surmounted too many obstacles that were simply considered impossible. She'd been able to evolve even with a cursed core name. From the horrible sickness and terrible luck he'd only ever seen from a distance growing up in the same ward as her, she should have died a thousand times over. Those sort of curses would cripple a cult leader. And now…

somehow, those curses had seemingly vanished. Or… had been redirected. Even ignoring the curses, four evolutions, even if one of them was granted by succeeding in the annual Trials, were obscene for someone at sixteen. And the Trials? She'd won them with barely any support from a cult. That wasn't natural. The cults always pushed the boundaries of the rules to have their own champion come out victorious. The Null Scar was the perfect example. Which, of course, Nyxila had survived as well.

Against something that had slaughtered every other contestant that could have spoken of any events that might have occurred. Actually, the only ones who had any sort of idea of what had gone down in the second Dark Star — the one Nyxila had spent years inside, where hundreds of thousands of Fleshsmiths had died — was Solan and her closest confidants. All of which… were now dead. Dan couldn't say what led up to the events of a few hours ago.

Whether it was Solan who had gone hunting, or she was hunted, but he rapidly came to a conclusion that didn't make any sense. Nyxila had killed Solan. It was such a massive leap in logic, and yet every other step was just as huge. He couldn't fathom how she'd done it. The impossibility of the act went beyond all the other impossibilities surrounding the girl. But… Dan knew Nyxila enough that he couldn't outright say that it was unfathomable for her.

The weird cursed girl that had once always stuck to her own little corner of his ward had achieved the impossible. She killed a cult leader. She toppled an entire cult. … Maybe Dan was insane after all.