Chapter 455: Apocalypse (6)
Isaac felt something squishy under his feet. For a moment, he had the illusion that he was standing on the flesh and blood of countless people. In reality, the floor was just scattered with white sand and ruins.
But what difference did it make?
Isaac unknowingly sank to his knees.
"All those people because of me…"
"I killed them."
White Owl replied calmly.
"You didn't kill them, Isaac. Don't misunderstand. You shouldn't feel guilty for something you didn't do."
Don't misunderstand? How?
Isaac unknowingly groped his chest.
Of course, his soul was from another world.
'No, that's not right.'
Now that it was a world he would never return to, he had to say it belonged entirely to this world.
A soul solely to inhabit this Nameless Chaos' body.
It was only natural that he had quickly become accustomed to using tentacles. Because this body itself was a form created by White Owl by molding Chaos.
Isaac recalled Archangel Manseungja searching for the name of the Nameless Chaos.
But that was impossible from the start. Because it hadn't been named yet in the first place.
'Wait, then is Al Rieedu my dad? No, didn't Al Rieedu actually give birth to my body? Then Al Rieedu is the mom and White Owl is like a stepmom who raised me?'
Isaac unknowingly fell into such thoughts.
It was close to escapist thinking, but it only jumbled Isaac's head up even more.
White Owl looked at Isaac's appearance with pity.
"Isaac. I don't want to say villainous things like 'To create a new world, you have to destroy the old world.' It's been 300 years, and it's too late to regret it now. It's irreversible."
"You shouldn't say that."
"That's true. What I mean is, no matter how much you regret or suffer, it's already too late. Besides, it's not a mistake you made. You're an existence thrown into the world, and you just have to do what your heart tells you to do."
White Owl muttered like a sigh.
"I'm just frantically patching up and writing the back half of an already messed-up novel. Will such a novel become a masterpiece just by rewriting it? I didn't want to continue inheriting this residue of wickedness. Especially if that wickedness might destroy the world soon."
Isaac felt bubbling emotions but understood White Owl's words.
The more the Urbansus Revision was repeated, the closer the Mother of All Gods would come to the world, and it might have been destroyed before the light's intensity filled a thousand years.
That doesn't change the fact that she killed everyone she feared for no reason, a sin no different from the Mother of All Gods.
"You don't have to sympathize or understand. I'm going to bear all this karma. You just have to live as you are."
Isaac understood White Owl. Because he understood, it was even more painful.
He didn't know what other choices he would have made if that situation had happened.
The White Death was a cruel but effective treatment that cut off the rotten part.
However, he couldn't thank White Owl, nor could he forgive her.
Because Isaac was the new flesh that sprouted from that cut-off part, the evidence of sin.
'Maybe that's why she made me experience that situation directly.'
So that he could experience and judge the anguish, the sorrow, and the fear himself.
Since she didn't intend to be forgiven, she wanted him not to repeat the same mistakes, stepping on this past.
Isaac stared at White Owl for a moment, then let out a long sigh.
"I understand that what happens from now on is more important."
Then Isaac glared at White Owl.
"But you did something unforgivable. Of course, I don't intend to forgive you either, nor do I have the right to. If there's a hell that angels can go to, you'll pay the price someday."
At Isaac's firm words, White Owl had a bright expression, as if she was happy.
"Forgiveness is a luxury for me. I just hope you keep moving forward."
Isaac looked at White Owl with an absurd expression.
White Owl seemed happy just that Isaac, who had realized all the truth, was saying 'moral and right' things.
While he was angry at that fact, Isaac couldn't help but sympathize with her inside.
White Owl could never deny Isaac.
Because Isaac was the one who could prove that the sin she had committed hundreds of years ago was a 'necessary thing' and a 'right choice.'
"Just in case."
White Owl spoke first.
"The memories you experienced aren't exactly the same as reality. Al Rieedu was a much more ambitious and extreme revolutionary than you. For example, he even tried to assassinate Beshek when he seemed like he would eventually become a god."
Certainly, that happened.
He even succeeded in killing him in the end, but now he also knew that the Lighthouse Keeper had made it as if that had never happened with the Urbansus Revision.
Isaac knew that White Owl's sponsoring such a person meant that she had been preparing for this situation from quite an early stage.
"Isn't that a history that was ultimately denied in Urbansus?"
"No, it's the actual history based on the memories of the Chaos followers who were swept away at that time. The Lighthouse Keeper couldn't revise the history of the White Death. He was worried that it might bring the Mother of All Gods back again."
White Owl stood up, brushing off the sand.
"At the time, Urbansus was full of Chaos followers who had died all at once. It was impossible to even touch it for a while. There has never been a time in any history where so many people died in an instant. Even if the conditions for calling the Millennium Kingdom had been met, it wouldn't have been possible."
The Millennium Kingdom is the concept of tearing heaven and merging it with the earth.
If the Millennium Kingdom had been called at the time of the White Death, they would have seen 'a heaven tainted' with Chaos followers pouring down all over the world.
So, the Lighthouse Keeper spent hundreds of years creating the scam called the Dawn Army, repainting heaven. He raised fanatics full of belief in order, sent them to the Holy Land, and killed them all.
In other words, they used human lives as paint to paint the walls.
"∙∙∙ Wouldn't the Millennium Kingdom have been better than calling the White Death?"
Despite having decided to accept the unavoidable reality, Isaac still couldn't forget the face of the old woman who had draped a scrap of yellow robe over his shoulders. Beshek, who was looking at him with a betrayed expression, either. But White Owl quietly replied.
"Then Edelred wouldn't have been born."
Isaac felt like he had been hit on the head again. It seemed like the back of his head wouldn't be able to last.
"Rottenhammer, Gebel, Angela, Lianne, Cedric, Hesabel, oh, and Isolde wouldn't have been born either. It's a pity about that pretty girl. Oh, Tuhalin might still be able to meet you. He was already in his prime at that time."
The Urbansus Revision meant changing history. Of course, changing history also changes people.
Perhaps that's why the angels are gradually moving away from humans. Because they are existences that will disappear just by lightly twisting history.
However, White Owl seemed quite knowledgeable about Isaac's relationships. Mothers are usually very interested in their sons' relationships.
White Owl seemed to be somewhat extreme in that regard, though.
"I wanted to meet Isolde in person someday. I don't know what she'd think of my face, but I imagined you bringing Isolde to introduce her to me."
"Okay, stop it."
"And the child born between you and Isolde, too."
Isaac closed his mouth.
White Owl stared at Isaac quietly and said.
"Yeah. If the Millennium Kingdom lasts, that child can't be born. I don't know who killed more people, me, who caused the White Death, or the Lighthouse Keeper, who buried the Caller under the desert. But the moment the Millennium Kingdom descends, the Lighthouse Keeper will have killed an immeasurable number of people who will be born in the future."
The Millennium Kingdom is another kind of destruction. White Owl seemed to be saying that.
"Of course, the people who died from the White Death wouldn't think so. They still call you and me traitors and hate us."
Suddenly, Isaac thought of Al Rieedu.
The human hero who was with White Owl until the end. The madman and prophet who stood on the side of the weak and even tried to destroy the world. Was he also in the Outer Boundary like the other Chaos followers?
"Have you met Al Rieedu again?"
"Al Rieedu?"
White Owl frowned and shook her head.
"I've actually looked for him a few times, but I haven't seen him even once since that day. Not even in the Outer Boundary. I suspect he's either so distorted that I can't recognize him, or he's been annihilated."
If White Owl hadn't met him, it seemed unlikely that he was in the Outer Boundary.
If so, there was a high possibility that he had been annihilated, but Isaac had already encountered Al Rieedu in his dreams several times.
It couldn't just be a simple dream.
According to White Owl, Isaac's body was Chaos itself, born from the husk that Al Rieedu had shed.
Also, in his dreams, Al Rieedu had shown himself conscious of Isaac several times.
Perhaps just as Isaac had sympathized with Al Rieedu's thoughts, perhaps fragments of Al Rieedu still remained inside Isaac.
"Then is it all over now? Can we go back now?"
Isaac thought so, then suddenly realized that nothing had changed.
"No, wait. Come to think of it, the Mother of All Gods has been summoned, and the Millennium Kingdom has descended, right? Isn't this the worst of the worst?"
The reason White Owl had caused the White Death 300 years ago, killing 1/3 of humanity, was because she didn't like the Mother of All Gods and didn't like the Millennium Kingdom either.
Her intentions can be understood in that either choice was the worst, but in the outside world right now, the two are combined.
But White Owl confidently said.
"Not at all."
"Why?"
"Because you're here now, unlike then."
"........"
Fortunately, White Owl wasn't saying vague nonsense like, 'As long as I have Isaac, I don't care what happens to the rest of the world,' or 'If I have Isaac, I'll do anything!' Although a lot was abbreviated, it seemed that this situation was what White Owl had intended.
"Now that I've met you, all the preparations are complete."
White Owl started like this.
"First of all, unlike 300 years ago, the Mother of All Gods has no followers, so she can't hear any prayers unless they go through Midas' Hand. Just as I had to borrow the power of the Mother of All Gods to turn away the Mother of All Gods' eyes, I had to bring down the Millennium Kingdom first in order to destroy it."
"Why?"
"Because to catch a bird, you have to either go up into the sky yourself, or bring the bird down to the ground."
Isaac tried to understand White Owl's difficult way of speaking.
The Lighthouse Keeper isn't a god, but he's an angel with power stronger than most gods. He doesn't even have the only weakness that gods have, being bound by concepts.
In fact, when Isaac tried to break the Millennium Kingdom, he was able to fight the Lighthouse Keeper not because his power was strong.
It was because the Nameless Chaos inherited the position of new Chaos, preventing the Mother of All Gods from ruling the 'Millennium Kingdom.' In other words, Isaac didn't win against the Lighthouse Keeper, he damaged the Millennium Kingdom.
'It's still hard to think of a way to deal with the Lighthouse Keeper.'
White Owl smiled as Isaac stared blankly at her.
"Want a hint?"
"I wish you had just used easy words from the beginning."
"Emperor Waltzemer."
Isaac was taken aback by the sudden, random name.
Why Waltzemer here? That fool who tried to gain recognition from the Lighthouse Keeper and enjoy the absolute power of the theocracy, but foolishly offered up his power and was excommunicated--...' Isaac thought until he realized the real meaning.
The reason Waltzemer was able to have as much power as the Order was because of the Licht Treaty, which separated earthly power from heavenly power. But when the Emperor Waltzemer directly abolished that treaty, the distinction between heavenly and earthly power disappeared. Thanks to this, the Lighthouse Keeper was able to sweep all human power into the Order.
Heaven and earth became one.
Just like the current Millennium Kingdom.
"The Lighthouse Keeper."
Isaac unknowingly muttered.
"Kicked the heavenly throne and came down to earth."
Breaking the wall that separated the realms of gods and humans. The Millennium Kingdom was like abolishing the Licht Treaty. The Lighthouse Keeper and Waltzemer, these ambitious power-seekers, thought the same way. Perhaps it was close to hating their own kind.
White Owl answered with a smile.
"That's right. The Lighthouse Keeper must have been planning to rule the world forever while enjoying absolute power in the Millennium Kingdom. But thanks to that, the rank of the angels fell to the same level as humans."
Isaac thought of the Immortal Order's angels.
Pallor and Lord of the Graveyard. The angels who had already been devoured by Isaac and annihilated.
Even if other angels were killed by Isaac, they could return to Urbansus and recover. That's why it's said that he 'repelled' the angels, not 'killed' them. But the reason the Immortal Order's angels were annihilated by Isaac was only one.
Because they had bodies.
"The Millennium Kingdom's angels can't exist without bodies. They're still strong, but they're no longer unattainable heavenly beings, just powerful rulers."
White Owl said so and reached out her hand to Isaac. The purple tentacles that came out from between the white feathers wrapped around Isaac's hand.
A firm but soft tentacle.
White Owl grabbed Isaac's hand tightly and said.
"Now is the time to defeat the Lighthouse Keeper. No, maybe even more is possible. You will be the gardener who can decide what to erase and what to leave in this world...."