Chapter 30

Draft

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Lemuel still smoked.

He lit a cigarette, took a few breaths, and milky white smoke filled the air. After only a few puffs of the cigarette, it was left cold between Lemuel's fingers.

It's not that you didn't tell Lemuel about the past. He told you anecdotes about relatives and friends and the battlefield, and you returned your battlefield knowledge, you told him how deep the crusaders go in hell, and the ecology of the underground. This time, Lemuel asked you to tell him the full details. He asked about your itinerary and about your past relationships with other people. He's finally discovering how much abnormality was hiding in what you see as normal and unspoken.

No one can approach the Son without permission, no one will ask how the Son is doing, so this unprecedented thing isn't forbidden. You can tell him, and you tell him you did.

You describe to him your day-to-day schedule, that before the age of fourteen you were above ground, and after the age of fourteen you spent most of your time underground. You tell him about your father, your brothers—they aren't Sons, but other apprentices of your father, more like your caregivers or sparring partners in fact— a dog named Lightning, the nun who disappeared after kissing your forehead, and the said chapel. Lemuel asked you to talk about the people around you, but you don't have much to talk about in this regard. More than ten years of experience only took a few cigarettes.

Very few people left you with stories to tell, and when they do, those people disappear quickly. The funny thing is, the less worth mentioning someone is, the longer they stay with you. These people don't say one more word more or do more, they are blurred in your memory, like silent screws on a machine.

Lemuel snuffed the last cigarette in the ashtray without even taking a puff. He stood up and sat down again, fidgeting as if tormented by something crawling inside him, unable to find his way out. You stop and wonder if you've talked too much to made him uncomfortable.

"...White cat." Lemuel says in the end.

You look at him, he doesn't look at you, as if looking at you will make something repressed burst out. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. He seems to have a lot to say, too much, it's stuck in his throat, and he can only talk about insignificant things.

"There used to be a circus in the north counties, exhibiting the 'Blessed by God' white cat," he said. "It's said that it has lived for more than 40 years and was famous at the time. It was carried in a silk basket and dressed in expensive clothes, it ate the best food, exhibited everywhere, and made a lot of money... Later, the matter was finally exposed, it wasn't a long-lived white cat, but many, many generations of white cats with the same name. Anyway, people don't distinguish the cat's face, as long as the coat color and name are the same."

Lemuel paused briefly and continued: "The year my sister became a full-time teacher, we encountered another circus exhibiting white cats. It's still the same trick, 'Come and see the long-lived cat blessed by God, you can live up to a hundred years with a glance', it's still very much in business. Do people really believe in immortal cats? Then are those who buy the tickets fools? No, they just want to see rare things and need something to worship."

The story stops there, and Lemuel shakes his head, as if he felt that it's meaningless to say this. He wipes his face and finally looks at you.

"If the Son is such a thing," He says, frowning, "Why are you here?"

"Because of God..."

"Don't say that!" Lemuel interrupts you. Unlike what he's saying, his voice wasn't angry, but almost pleading. He looks you in the eyes and says, "Enoch, tell me."

It wasn't a rhetoric, it is God's will. But obviously, this is not what Lemuel wants to hear.

The scene that always reappears in your dreams reappears in your mind now. One night more than five years ago, the sky was lit by countless fireballs, the scorched smell of plants, dirt, and flesh came over you, taking your breath away. Ah, not here, if you want to fully tell the tale, you have to move the timeline back. You remember that it was December 23rd, in the early hours of this day, you discovered a number of the demon legions.

After the age of fourteen you spent most of your time in hell, it doesn't mean you can't stray from the battlefield anymore. That was the case that day, a wave of demons came to overground, and you, who happened to be nearby was temporarily needed to act as reinforcement. When your team and a small number of local troops came close enough to the demons, you realized that the number of demons was several times more than you estimated.

Maybe it's just an accident, maybe it's someone's fault, there seem to be some people responsible for this, but it's not something you have to think about now. You don't know why this demon army suddenly appeared outside the defense lines, nor how many they really were. You don't have to know the cause and effect of each battle, you just need to provide your ability, as it has always been. You have a bird's eye view of the boundless beasts and the eyes of a holy dove. You tell the other the demon's numbers and distances from where you were. Your father's face turns ashen, and many others were pale.

"On the way from where we traveled, there was a natural cave." Father says decisively, "You must use your prayers to hide inside that cave, reinforcements will come tomorrow and the day after tomorrow."

After you became an adult, even if it was your teacher and acting father no-one had called you by your first name. Even though you still habitually regarded your teacher as your father, this title could only be said in your heart. Your only father is your only God. You are stunned by this instruction, your entourage has come and gone over the years, but your father has watched you grow. He's quite aware of your strength.

"Brother Ian, I can stay here." You say, pointing to the small gap in the sand table, "I can set up a barrier here to resist the demons..."

"How sure are you?" Your father says.

His tone isn't an inquiry, but more like an assessment. You take countless tests every year, you know the limits of your abilities. You can't get away with it, you make an estimate and answer: "Ninety percent."

"That's it, there's a one in a ten chance that you'll fail." He looks at you sternly.

"Even if I fail, I can ensure that everyone and the town behind us will be safe and sound." You say.

You can, a Son's power grows stronger with age, and the moment a Son dies may make them the strongest they've been than when he or she was alive- there's been many powerful prayers that require the user to be sacrifice. There's a 90% chance that you can block the torrent of demons like a rock and defend everyone behind you, whether it's your followers, the army, or the town in front of the demon's marching route. Another possibility is that you wouldn't be able to hold on until the arrival of reinforcements. You'll die, and you'll exchange your own death for the greatest benefit. You've figured out what prayer to use, so that when you're gone, most of the demons will go to the afterlife¹ with you.

But your father shakes his head.

"You're risking yourself, Your Highness!" he says, the gap between his brows deepened. "We exist to protect you, and are all willing to die for you! We, the soldiers, the believers in the town... Do you think that believers of God wouldn't be devout enough to sacrifice ourselves for the Son?!"

You subconsciously shake your head, but you were confused. They tell you that God loves the world, so the Son of God was born, that you're the one chosen by God, and that you should bear suffering in order to save the world—isn’t this the time to bear suffering for the world? They taught you to die willingly, made you believe that sacrifice is noble and sacred. But at this moment, they make you avoid it, leaving behind hundreds of lives that could've been saved. The man who told you that it was your glorious destiny to die for others now says that people should die for you.

You are puzzled, and of course your father sees it. "There are trade-offs," He says, but what are the standards for choice? You don't understand, he doesn't explain.

They quickly make a decision, you will go to the cave to hide, they will stay to defend against the enemy. The meeting that decides the fate of you and hundreds of thousands of people will be held in tents. All of the participants belong to the Holy See. The guards, the local garrison and the town mayor have no right to participate. They will not know that they had a chance to be saved. Those who attended the meeting were all devout and brave clergymen, who looked down on fear of death and took the overall situation into consideration. If you only saw them, you might've believed your father's words.

At yet within the scope of your activities, there's another priest who's not devout and brave enough. He's the priest of the town, with little power, and a rather young age. The only reason he was temporarily accompanying you was to act as a guide. After all, he's a local, and he's more or less a member of the Holy See. You see him praying in the corner shortly after the decision to stand ground was announced.

He doesn't know what you could've done, but he at least knew what it meant to go head-to-head against so many demons. You see him holding the cross, his mouth quivering and moving. Everyone's busy at the moment, and your caregiver is restless, it's rare for you to approach without others noticing. You quietly edge closer and finally heard what he was praying.

"Mother..." The young priest mutters, tears glistening in his eyes.

You suddenly realize at that moment that he didn't want to die.

How strange, people who don't care about life and death must survive, but those who don't want to die have to die for the former. What's the standard? You don't know, you haven't figured it out yet.

Soon someone will escort you into the cave, and you'll engrave prayers to hide yourself. You'll find that hiding here does not guarantee your survival. This place is too cramped, the underground river inside is as high as your waist, the air doesn't circulate, and if you stay for too long, it's possible to fall into a coma due to hypoxia, or die from drowning. Your corpse will be stuck in this cave, swollen and bloated, and only the Holy Cross on your neck can prove your identity. But dying here can at least leave your corpse whole, the corpse of the Holy Son can still be used, its not a waste. Maybe that's why your father made you hide here.

Everything is ready. After nightfall, you stood at the entrance of the cave and glanced in the direction of the battlefield. It's not far from the battlefield, you can still see that the demon and human army haven't yet come close to each other, you can stay outside for a while. The wind brought the breath of the devil, and suddenly, the sky lit up.

You see countless fireballs streaking brightly across the sky, like stars falling through the night.

It shouldn't be that, some species of demons do release fireballs, but not so arbitrarily, its more akin to a wasp stinging with its tail. Only the most furious demons throw fireballs like this, it shouldn't be so dense and powerful at just the beginning, like a stabbed hornet's nest. Maybe something new had an unexpected side effect on demonic weapons, maybe a power clash from above turned into the real hellstorm below, all for reasons that have nothing to do with you. And yet the results are in sight.

Countless fireballs roared and fell, the heat wave distorted the air, and the flames came alive in an instant. You subconsciously ran to the battlefield, and after running several meters, you remembered your father's instructions, turned back to the cave. This delay caused a catastrophe, the fireballs had already fallen.

You were blasted from the shock wave and heavily thrown to the ground. You were dizzy and a constant ringing appeared in your ear. You roll back into the cave. Cold underground river water pours into your mouth and nose, you cough and stand up, and before you can find the prayer of protection, the cave shakes.

Fireballs fell like raindrops, covering all the way from the battlefield to here. The prayer of hiding and fortification protected a few cubic meters of terrain, it was a drop in a bucket, not to mention that you haven't gotten there yet. The rocks above you starts to collapse, one falls on your head, then more. Darkness hits you, and you lose consciousness.

Surprisingly, you wake up.

The sun shines on your face, pulling you out of the clinging darkness. You try to open your eyes, spitting the water out of your mouth, and finding yourself lying by the river. The underground river came to the ground not far away, and the river have pushed you to the shallow beach, allowing you to miraculously survive. You've broken a lot of bones, you've got wounds all over your body, and your nose and mouth are bleeding, but once you woke up, those wounds are nothing.

You heal yourself, the worst injury was on the back of your neck, where the falling stone had left a deep wound, if it was a little deeper it would've split your spine. You stumble to your feet and looked around in a daze. There's no one around except for some mutilated corpses lying near the river's beach. Not far away, smoke rose.

Your head still hurts, and that makes it hard for you to think, so you can only walk there in a daze. When you climbed up the shallow river valley and walked to the open area, you realized that it wasn't the smoke.

Above the river valley is the battlefield. The river extends from underground to the ground, and it's on one side of the battlefield. After a night, something was still burning on the blackened ground, the smell of the burnt stench lingered. The ground is littered with corpses, both of human and demonic nature, when all corpses are either bloody or charred, it's hard to tell what they were.

You rummage around the battlefield, looking for familiar people. You wish you won't find anything but you did, many familiar faces, many familiar limbs, and familiar nameplates. Like soldiers, clerics wear identification plates called holy plates, its more convenient for collecting and burying the dead. You found a few senior brothers, some followers, but not your father, but you've found his blackened and deformed broken holy card. Your father has always been neatly dressed, and has always carefully pressed the holy plaque under his innermost vest, just like how you place the holy relic close to your body.

You sit down and your mind goes blank. The people you knew are gone, the people who looked after you, ordered you, and watched over you are all dead. You should be sad, but your heart is as peaceful as your face. When you don't prefer anyone, you will love no one.

It's not right, you think, but even if you know it's not right, you can't let yourself be stricken with grief, there's nothing you can do about it. You should be sad, but you only feel lost. You instinctively want to hold the cross on your chest and feel emptiness.

You suddenly find something missing, the Holy Cross, the token of your Sonship. Unlike holy medals or military medals, the cross necklace with the engraved name on its back cannot be taken off. The holy cross is hung on a metal chain that cannot be cut by steel. It might've separated from you. You are alive but it is gone.

It was the rockfall, the sharp stone that nearly split your spine apparently split something else— perhaps it was that tough metal block that saved your life. You scurry back to the river and search desperately, but your Holy Cross wasn't there.

The Son never appears in public, and the rest of the Holy See have only seen you as you were before the age of eight.

Suddenly an absurd thought arises in your mind: Who are you? The people who knew you are gone, and the things that can prove your Sonship are gone, so who are you? You don't feel like you're here, you don't feel like you're you, you don't know what it means to be alive. They are all dead and you are alive. Lord, Father, what exactly do you want me to do?

You rummage hopelessly, looking into the water which tore your face into countless pieces. Before hunger, exhaustion and dizziness took your consciousness away again, something shiny drifts down and you catch it.

You expect that to be your cross, but it's not. It was a holy card. It's still intact, and the name and date of birth could be clearly seen. You first saw the date of birth, twenty years old, the same age as you, the only cleric around your age in this battlefield was the local priest who served as the guide. Then you look up and see the name: Enoch Wilson.

His name was Enoch, an Enoch with a surname.

You woke up in a small hospital, your awakening didn't disturb many people, and the hospital was very busy. The demon army suddenly swept through several small towns, and was finally wiped out by the reinforcements that came. At this moment, the nearby hospital is full of survivors. Doctors and nurses hurriedly shuttle between the beds, and when you try to pull out the needle in your hand, someone screams and stops you.

"Please don't move, Mr. Wilson!" Says the nurse.

You've been treated somewhat favorably, after all, you were found wearing a holy card and a robe, and you were a priest. The doctor euphemistically told you the sad news of "your hometown" having no survivors, and said that your survival was a miracle. "Uh, miracle." He smiles awkwardly, apparently having dealt with clergy much.

A young nurse brings you porridge and a washed apple, she smiles shyly at you. You watched her walk out of the ward and heard her sparring with her companions. Her companion whispers something, and the nurse pats her companion's head with the portfolio. They laugh and scold: "What are you thinking, that's a priest..."

"Enoch Wilson" is registered on your file, an ordinary priest who has lost his station and needs to be rebuilt, a pending assignment. You wear the hospital uniform, and the medical staff dare not dispose of your extra torn robe. They will return it to you when you wake up, along with the rosary with the holy relic hidden inside its hidden pocket, that's the only connection you have with the first half of your life. You lean against the head of the bed and look out. It was snowing outside, and the sound of Christmas carols could be heard not far away.

Soon, the radio sounds, the Holy See announces that this year's son was named Isaac, and the son Enoch, who had been fighting evil for many years, will return as scheduled for Christmas to have dinner with the Pope. You take a bite on the apple. It's your first time eating an apple, the sweet juice blooms on your taste buds, it's so sweet.

It's God's will that God guides you.

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Notes:

1- Originally heaven but I think it's a misunderstanding on Google's part (this is MTL so take with a bottle of salt)

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PastTimer: I didn't update yesterday... Sorry TwT