The Bishop let out a shaky sigh, his mouth jittery, his arms folded, and palpable discomfort showed.
"Terminus," he voiced, his tone hardly above a whisper.
The Cardinal's demeanor, normally stoic and indifferent, now trembled from an unknown fear.
"Ter-?"
Slap!
Rue's head sharply turned left; his speech was cut short from shock. Taking several steps back, Rue, now registering what had just happened, absentmindedly raised his palm, resting it on the ever-growing pink hue on his tender flesh.
Wincing in pain, Rue regained his bearings after several seconds.
"Wha—what the hell was that for!?" Rue spat with venom.
"Can you not read the room dumbass? Don't say it either," the Bishop retorted, his voice calm.
Rue sneered; his rage was highly volatile after being hit and slapped like a bad dog. He hated frequenting this feeling — it made him fucking sick. He was tired of feeling it.
It was a grim reminder.
However, this rage was quickly stunted and replaced with professionalism.
With a deep breath to clear his mind, Rue narrowed his eyes.
"Explain?"
The Bishop, balancing between edge and not, held himself back from blundering this child's head in.
He closed his eyes.
"There is rhyme to me bringing out my inner projection onto the immortal plane," his tone was hesitant.
"As I established earlier, my ability to speak on this matter is heavily restricted due to the parameters of the treaty. However, I can attempt to detail a heavily abridged version of the lore of that place."
Rue shrugged with a subtle nod. "You're doing it again — being all cryptic and suspicious. Stop biting your tongue and just tell me."
"It's not by default, child, but it's fear that forces my speech this way. If you had known what types of entities we're dealing with, then you wouldn't act as leisurely as you do," he said calmly, with venom.
The Bishop felt annoyed by Rue's nonchalant attitude — but that's just the consideration of the bliss of oblivion.
But with time, he would know.
"Our world is only one of countless parallels. Each world line is governed by its own set of rules, restrictions, and gods — or so we call them."
Rue opened his mouth, but the Bishop quickly cut him off.
"Let me finish, before you speak."
Rue closed his mouth and nodded.
"To tear apart the grand façade of our creators — but our gods are just beings of a higher Destination."
"This would also include the Sun Goddess."
"You know what you said would be considered blasphemous hearsay, right?" Rue questioned after several seconds of thought.
"Yes, I'm quite aware of the implications of my heretical utterance, but that's just the truth."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"That, I'll get to, but first listen."
"Kay."
"Our god is, in the grand scheme of this, nothing special. Frankly speaking, she really only is an extremely powerful Tenth Destination being from a past era." The Bishop self-deprecatingly chuckled at the irony of it.
"You know our church, along with others, play along with this fib — by preaching the gospel of their god's love and power, and yet?"
"They have power that is achievable, or that was."
"Our world has thousands of sovereigns. If we exclude the other races, then just the Human race alone has hundreds of Sovereigns."
"They're all only a mere realm from obtaining godhood, and yet they don't?"
"Why do they stay complacent at the peak of the Ninth Destination rather than reaching the Tenth and stepping into godhood?"
The bishop gritted his teeth.
"Fear. Fear of the consequences of daring to revolt — and why?" He laughed like a madman as he spoke
"The gods of this world want to keep the current status quo, its worked well so far, why stop?"
"Of course, not all Sovereigns are created equal. Only the cowards remained idle, while the ambitious ones plotted to rise into the Unity Realm."
"They failed to ascend."
"Then came Altheria's soft reset. And with their failed exploit came the fruits of consequence — every practitioner above the Sixth Destination was purged."
"Give or take a few million years, and the world recovered. With this recovery began this era's heroes — incomprehensible prodigies who changed the very way we understand Will, or what we call it now."
The Bishop paused, his expression reminiscent of an elder pondering over their past.
"Prior to the Era energy wasn't called Will, but practitioners would categorize energy into twelve sister variants.."
He sighed.
"When the heroes reached the Ninth Destination, they discovered the true nature of the gods — greedy beings who ran the world behind the scenes only to gather energy from the world's connection."
"Congregating together, the prodigies had created a shadow council. Their only goal — reach the Unity Realm and kill the gods."
"They succeeded at reaching the Unity Realm — the first goal — but they were gravely mistaken with the second."
"At first, the prospect of extinguishing the tyrannical presence of the gods had seemed possible after slaying the first five Gods. They were hopeful — until they met the sixth god."
"That hope they had built up was replaced with anguish and dread."
"The fight was not a fight, but a slaughter."
"They had failed, and with their failure came yet another soft reset from the gods."
"However, the gods this time around weren't as benevolent. Every practitioner above the Fourth Destination was purged."
"With this reset came one of the darkest epochs for the Human race," the Bishop mused.
As Rue humored the Cardinal's monologue, he couldn't help but be entertained by the absurd narrative they were telling.
The Inquisitor struggled to accept that such a ridiculously fictional-sounding notion could exist.
Era's? This seemed possible.
The twelve sister energies? Plausible, but highly unlikely.
The supposedly benevolent gods being tyrannical beings? Simply ridiculous.
However, he would continue to listen to the ramblings of this geezer.
"Humanity, a race regardless of the era, had always reigned supreme. However, with the new restrictions placed on them, they had lost the title to another race."
"The Death Seekers." The Bishop grinned.