Chapter 216: The Prophet’s Gift
Gideon and the others moved to the basement, the same room where Piggy had once been imprisoned. It was intentionally left without a heater, making the underground chamber damp and cold enough that every breath became visible in the air.
A single light bulb hung from the ceiling, lazily swaying back and forth and casting moving shadows across the stone walls whenever the wind slipped through the narrow ventilation shaft.
Elaine was the first to enter, followed by Freya, who escorted the prisoner inside before forcing her onto the chair. Delilah quietly walked in last, hugging a thick book against her chest.
Her face remained as unreadable, yet Gideon noticed the subtle stiffness in her shoulders the moment she stepped into the room.
She had been like that ever since Jace and Otis returned from their expedition, or more precisely, ever since Arthur’s report repeatedly mentioned one particular name, Leon Miller.
To everyone else, Senduro Highland’s Aberrant Species and Ecology was simply an old ecology book Arthur happened to borrow, but to Delilah, it had once belonged to her ’late’ husband.
"You want to sit down?" Gideon asked, already pushing his own chair back to make room for her.
Delilah gently shook her head. "I’m fine."
Gideon didn’t press the matter any further and instead turned toward the woman sitting across from him.
She was already wrapped in a thick winter jacket, yet her entire body continued trembling from the cold. Whether it came from fear, the interrogation, or the freezing temperature no longer mattered.
"Let’s begin." He opened his notebook before calmly meeting her eyes.
"State your name, your age and your occupation. More importantly, what exactly is your position inside the Scions of the Lord?"
The woman slowly raised her head. Her wet black hair still covered half of her face, but the hatred inside those blue eyes hadn’t faded in the slightest.
Gideon sighed. "You should know something before answering."
He casually gestured behind her. "The woman standing at your back has already promised to remove your fingernails one by one if you lie to me or decide to stay silent. Personally, I think she’d enjoy doing it."
The prisoner’s shoulders immediately stiffened, and she instinctively glanced behind her. Elaine stood there with her arms crossed while Freya calmly inspected several surgical tools laid out on the metal tray beside them.
"My..." The woman swallowed. "My name is Astrid. I’m twenty-two years old... I’m a missionary serving our Creator... the Great Chaos."
Gideon immediately clicked his tongue, the title alone enough to irritate him. "Enough with the preaching. At what age did they start brainwashing you? More importantly, why would you willingly devote your life to a group of lunatics whose entire purpose is wiping out humanity?"
Elaine let out an impatient sigh. "I’ve been wondering the same thing. You people keep talking about salvation while leaving mountains of corpses behind. Frankly, it’s disgusting."
The woman suddenly slammed both hands onto the table. "No!" she shouted, ignoring the pain shooting through her body.
"Our God is real! I was saved by our blessed Prophet! Without the Prophet, I would’ve—"
Gideon interrupted her with a quiet laugh. "You mean Henry?"
Confusion immediately flashed across her face. "Who?"
"Henry," Gideon repeated. "The man leading your little cult."
She immediately shook her head. "I don’t know anyone named Henry."
Gideon frowned slightly at her response.
"Our Prophet has no name," she continued, almost sounding offended that he even asked. "The Prophet doesn’t need one. Sometimes the Prophet appears as a woman. Other times as an old man... sometimes even as a child. The face always changes, but it’s still the same Prophet."
The room fell into a brief silence as Gideon slowly exchanged glances with Jade, his expression gradually darkening as the description settled in his mind. It finally matched the Void. Different faces, yet the same individual.
He quietly rubbed his chin while countless possibilities ran through his mind. ’A shapeshifter...? But Henry’s ability resembled beast taming. Unless... Chaos wasn’t limited to a single ability in the first place.’
Gideon leaned forward, his face was only five centimeters from hers, his voice lowering into almost a whisper.
"What I’m confused about is this. If you truly believe salvation comes from becoming food for aberrants, then why are you still here?"
"Why spend years infiltrating settlements, manipulating innocent people and dragging them toward death? Why not walk outside right now, find the nearest aberrant nest and offer yourself breakfast?"
Astrid’s shoulders immediately stiffened. Her lips trembled before she finally shouted, "B-Because serving the Creator while we’re alive is what grants us the right to enter Heaven!"
"I see." Gideon slowly leaned back before letting out a quiet laugh that echoed throughout the basement. "So you’re a coward."
Even Jade couldn’t stop herself from snickering, while Elaine openly rolled her eyes.
"I was expecting something more convincing than that. You spend your entire life preaching that death is salvation, yet you’re terrified of dying before someone gives you permission. That’s not faith, Astrid. That’s hypocrisy."
Astrid clenched her fists so tightly that the veins on the back of her hands began to bulge, but Gideon no longer cared about arguing with her beliefs.
He flipped to another page in his notebook. "So let’s move on to something useful. How did your Prophet learn about Cinder of Dusk, and what exactly were you planning to do inside my territory?"
Astrid suddenly smiled. It wasn’t the smile of someone cornered but someone who thought she had finally found an opportunity to strike back.
"You’re as smart as everyone says, aren’t you, Gideon?" she said mockingly. "Then you should already know the answer. You destroyed our plans in the Deliric Desert. You took those sinners into your territory and dared to protect them from the judgment they deserved."
Her smile gradually widened. "So naturally... we came here to destroy everything you’ve built."
The room fell silent.
"Our Creator never intended for your power to exist." She leaned forward despite the restraints holding her to the chair. "You’re an aberration. A mistake. Before the apocalypse can be completed, before the Creator awakens and this world is finally cleansed, you must disappear."
She tilted her head unnaturally, the fanaticism inside her eyes becoming even more obvious.
"The world will finally return to the way it should’ve been."
Gideon’s expression didn’t change. Only his thoughts did.
’An aberration...? Do they know I came from another world?’
He remained completely still while countless possibilities raced through his mind. If the Scions somehow knew his true identity, then one of them must be in the same situation as him or maybe they made a conclusion because of his unique power?
"You sound remarkably confident for someone tied to a chair." A faint grin slowly appeared on his face.
"Has it ever crossed your mind that my existence might be proof your Creator isn’t nearly as omnipotent as you believe? Perhaps I’m here because this world has finally grown tired of parasites like the Scions of the Lord."
"That will never happen!" she screamed. "Our Creator loves us! That’s why we’re here! You won’t stop us! We’ll control the King, erase that cursed town before we march straight to you and do exactly what we did to your precious friend!"
Jade’s chair scraped violently against the floor. She slammed both palms onto the table before leaning so close their faces were barely a hand apart.
"Where is Arthur?"
Astrid burst into laughter. It was hysterical, almost delighted.
"Why don’t you open the Prophet’s gift?" she asked between fits of laughter. "Those beautiful flowers... and what’s sleeping underneath it."
Jade’s pupils shrank. Without another word she walked around the table, grabbed Astrid by the front of her jacket and threw both of them onto the floor. The chair crashed beneath them as Jade climbed on top of her before driving a heavy punch straight into Astrid’s face.
A loud crack echoed through the basement. Blood immediately poured from Astrid’s broken nose.
"You piece of shit!" Jade roared, grabbing Astrid by the collar before slamming another fist into her face. "I swear I’ll destroy every last one of your cultists before you ever get the chance to summon your damned apocalypse!"
Astrid was still laughing even with blood covering half her face... Only the final punch finally silenced her as her head went limp against the stone floor.
Elaine immediately stepped forward to pull Jade away while Gideon quietly watched the unconscious woman for several seconds.
He turned toward Elaine. "Move her to another room. Sterilize everything, gag her mouth, tie both her hands and feet to the bed and make sure she can’t kill herself before I decide we’re finished with her."
Jade took several deep breaths before finally stepping away.
Only then did Gideon turn toward Delilah. "You’ve been quiet this entire time, do you have something to say?
Delilah hesitated as she bit her bottom lip, "I... I don’t have any proof yet. But I think the parasite is man-made."
"I don’t know where they managed to build something advanced enough to engineer a parasite like that."
She swallowed before forcing herself to continue. "Maybe they found an abandoned underground laboratory... maybe an old military research bunker that survived the apocalypse."
"But I think the person who created it... was Leon."
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