Chapter 14 #4
This did not escape the goddess-Mother's notice. She soon perceived the growing threat to her children and recognized in those unknown creatures the marks of Nuadros's power. Thus she discovered the god of Life's treachery.
Feeling betrayed, Amarwen sought help from Calistra, the god she felt closest to. Together, they were ready to unleash their fury against the disloyal deities, but Seijhe convinced them to set aside their wrath for the sake of the children who would suffer from the plague.
With great difficulty, the god of Knowledge gathered the five siblings to decide what to do about the voracious. Anabel didn't want to exterminate her own children and sought a way to protect them. But under pressure from the others, she couldn't find a way to save them.
And so the goddess of War and her two celestial sons, the archangels, were sent to purge the creatures.
They soon realized, however, that all their martial power would not be enough to resolve the situation.
Killing the voracious wouldn't end the problem—they would simply be reborn from the shadows, time and again.
Only one form of extermination would prove effective—one that brought deep sorrow and discontent to all the gods: destroying every planet contaminated by the voracious plague.
With no other options, the deities began the purge.
Calistra and her two celestial archangels led the war to exterminate the creatures, while Anabel took on the task of destroying the corrupted worlds.
Meanwhile, the other three would watch over the remaining worlds, ensuring they stayed untouched by the children of Death.
Some of the information in that chapter was new to me. We weren't taught that the voracious were children of the gods—we were only told they were enemies, just as Lucifer was God's antagonist in human religion.
In the images, they were portrayed as skeletal beings, black as pitch, with small eyes that looked like slits cut by a knife. Their mouths were enormous, taking up half their faces.
The Carniceals were twisted, disfigured monsters that walked on all fours. Their skin was smooth and dry, their eyes completely black, and their mouths huge, full of pointed teeth jutting out past their thin lips. They were the stuff of nightmares.
Yet just as parents have their favorites, the gods harbored a special fondness for one of their creations.
In the vastness of the universe, there was a world that filled them with pride.
There, their children had evolved and prospered to the point of creating societies more complex and organized than on any other world in their domains.
Some of their children resembled Nuadros and were called fae.
The other half were named gorgons and inherited Amarwen's serpents.
This planet, in particular, was the apple of the gods' eye—a bountiful harvest of adoration. They didn't want to lose such a prize.
The god of Life protected this world with all the care of a worried father. But despite his efforts, he arrived too late. Three creatures had already hidden themselves within society.
When the purge came to an end, only the gods' favorite world had been spared, and no one knew what to do—for they loved the children created there, and all the gods drew sustenance from that love and adoration. Then Seijhe found a way to solve the problem…
The words ended abruptly. I flipped through the rest of the pages, but they were blank.
Emerging from the translation, I felt my eyes aching and heavy from the exhausting reading.
On the table, the clock showed 1 a.m. I'd been so engrossed that I hadn't noticed the time passing.
I was curious to know the rest—more than half the book still remained unread, and I had never heard that story about Anabel.
According to Yonser's religion, the Goddess of Death was considered the purest and most sacred divinity among the five, precisely because she was untouched.
Either the book was defaming Anabel, or Yonser was worshiping a lie.
I removed my pink gloves and closed the book.
The image of the circle of wings was still engraved on the cover, but unfortunately, the mark hadn't been mentioned even once.
I'd hoped to find something that could help Ambrose in his search for answers about the patient and was disappointed not to find anything useful.
Still, that didn't mean there wouldn't be answers in there—after all, two-thirds of the book was still blank, and I just needed to find a way to unlock the rest.
Maybe it wasn't a good idea, but curiosity was killing me, so I tried again. I placed my hand on the cover, but the design only repelled me. It was like trying to push two magnets together from opposite ends.
I figured it was because I lacked energy—if the book extracted any more magic, I'd end up exhausted and bedridden for a week before returning to normal. So I grumbled irritably and left the book on the table. As soon as my magic returned, I would try again.