Chapter 34

Draft

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—— A. Say goodbye to Lemuel

You decide to say goodbye to Lemuel.

It won't be easy, but you're determined to see him and talk to him before you leave. As always, things related to Lemuel seem to be like sharp candy. You're no longer the child you once were, you already know that sweetness is more precious than pain and that it's worth swallowing them both together.

The bedroom door opens beneath your hand, Lemuel is asleep on the bed. Occasionally, you'll come back late because of some unexpected events. After all, you're the only priest here, Lemuel isn't be surprised by your late returns. You've already made an agreement: if you're not back after seven o'clock in the evening, he doesn't have to wait for you. You know there's dinner left in the pot, but you have no appetite right now, you should put it away in the fridge before you go.

This simple but irrelevant thought makes you feel a little uncomfortable for some reason.

You watch Lemuel quietly for a while, he's asleep, his chest heaves slightly. It makes you proud that your gaze doesn't suddenly wake him up, like a suspicious bird is willing to perch on your shoulders. From his arms hanging out of the quilt, you can see the soft curvature of his neck- Lemuel's body has nothing to do with slenderness, but when he lies relaxed all the lines appear so gentle. He's a python entrenched in the forest, a leopard resting on the branches, you've seen how these soft lines gp taut, it's the living strength and beauty.

Lemuel's so beautiful, you can already make such an attributive statement now. You find that "beauty" isn't an external criterion, it's an internal emotion. That's love. You love his strong body, his hideous claws, his broken horns and scars. You love his handsome face, his kindness and bad temper, and his shining soul. Even if a thousand people think he's ugly, even if ten thousand people think he's evil, in your heart he's still perfect.

This is your private paradise.

Lemuel's eyelashes flutter and he opens his eyes under your gaze. He gives you a half-awake smile, so you woke up too. Reality hit you once again.

"I'm leaving." You force yourself to speak, "His Majesty the Pope needs me, I have to go back to the Holy See."

Lemuel's lazy expression disappears in a second, along with his smile. He props up his body and blinks his eyes as if unable to respond.

"Why does the Pope need you to go back? How does he know that you're still alive? How do you know that he's looking for you?" Did an angel deliver you a message?"

"The Hymn of the Sons has sounded, I need to go back," You say.

"Just because of a song?!" Lemuel says in disbelief.

Yes, it rang, so you have to go back. You have to go back, there's no reason, you don't need to think about any reason, it's like pressing a switch to turn on a light bulb, like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, isn't it instinctual? But when Lemuel stares at you, you realize that he couldn't understand the rules, and that he would never let you go.

You start thinking, trying to come up with a reason. why are you going back? Yes, the Pope, there's something wrong with His Majesty the Pope. The Holy Son there probably meet bad luck, only you can come in handy.

"His Majesty the Pope won't fail," You say, "His Majesty the Pope blesses us, His Majesty supports the expedition, he's a blessing for mankind..."

You repeat what they've told you a thousand times and what you've repeated thousand times. For the sake of all mankind, for the world, for all sentient beings, and for the saved souls. Clergymen are best at giving speeches like this, and your tongue works just fine even though his gaze makes you numb, but Lemuel doesn't look like he was persuaded at all. He purses his lips, and the anxiety on his face intensifies.

"Fuck..." He utters a foul word, swallowing the second half abruptly, he changes his words as gently as possible: "When are you coming back?"

"......"

"You," Lemuel repeats slowly, "Will you come back?"

The Holy See may still have a Son, maybe not. You could be a relic or a spellcaster holding the bones of your siblings. You may or may not be in time to save the Pope. But anyway, you can't come back. They'll put you back in the box, a jewel box stacked by tiers of attendants, or literally, a box for relics. There's only one road in front of you, and you have come to say goodbye to Lemuel.

It's just that those words feel as heavy as a stone, they press on your tongue and you don't know what to say.

"The medium I used to resurrect you before was the bone of another Son." You answer foolishly, "There's many restrictions on resurrection prayers, even a Holy Son can't perform it casually."

You say a lot in one breath.

You tell him about the resurrection technique, about the holy relic, about the disappearing big brother, these shouldn't be said, but this is your last line, the last time, the last vacation, the last freedom. A sinner¹ should confess at the end of his life, The Lord will forgive you. You talk about your conjecture about the attack, about the song on the radio, about the song played in the first half of your life, your exposition is both straightforward and disorderly, because the look in his eyes makes it hard for you to think. You're a bag full of debri, and now you can't organize its contents, so you have to open yourself up, pour out everything inside, and lay it flat in front of Lemuel.

Lemuel understood.

It took you more than ten minutes to tell the story. For those who's hearing it for the first time, it might be difficult to digest such a huge amount of information in such a short period Lemuel didn't necessarily fully understand it, but he clearly got what he wanted to know.

You see shock and rage growing inside him, more than when he first learned about your past. The more he understood what you were saying, the more furious his confusion grew. How could such a thing happen? How could this happen? You can see this deafening question from Lemuel. If it's not you, who is it.

"I thought those bastards just used you as a tool," Lemuel grits his teeth, trembling with anger, "It turns out that you're all expendables, livestock that have to work and be slaughtered for food... why do you want to go back? You escaped, why are you going back and rushing to die?!"

"His Majesty the Pope cannot afford to lose." You repeat, "This is the Son's mission, this is my destiny..."

"No one is born to die! Were human! Enoch, you're human! No one lives to die!" Lemuel shouts uncontrollably, "We're human beings! Enoch, no one lives to die!"

He forces you to look at him with eyes like hawks, it feels like they've shot through you and nailed you to the ground.

"Listen, Enoch, listen to me!" Lemuel tells you solemnly, almost sternly, "I've been a soldier for ten years, and I've wandered around the South for a few years, I swear by my mother's grave that the demons are already weakening! The front line is very stable, the army's pressing the demons down. They have demon expelling weapons on them, and the military even shepherds demon armies like sheep, only a few times in the past ten years did they break through the line of defense, and its all due to the mistake of the expulsion weapon! Think about it, if the battle is really as tense as the media says, if the demons are really so dangerous and uncontrollable, how do people who do business with subspecies demons get permission? Half of them are state-owned businesses!"

You subconsciously wanted to refute, but he anticipates what you wanted to say.

"You don't think so, yes, because the Sons has been running in the most dangerous places, right? You told me too, you spent most of your time in hell guarding the Crusades, didn't you? You've been there for five years , have you ever met a wild demon?" Lemuel says first.

You can't argue with that

"Compared to the time when the gates of hell just opened, humans have completely prevailed now." He takes a breath and continues, "Why?"

You hesitate, "Because after the gates of hell opened, the gates of heaven also opened." You still deliver the standard answer, "In the same year, His Majesty the Pope- the first Son of God- came into the world. The blessing of the Lord came, and the priests received gifts... "

This is the standard answer, written in textbooks in many countries, and mentioned at every Mass in the recent decades. After the gates of hell opened and the demons came to earth, ordinary scriptures became sacred prayers used to restrain these monsters, and clergy became priests with real power, like God's blessing- or rather there's no other way to explain it than that. So God became the God of the world, and the Holy See almost regained authority similar to that in the Dark Ages.

"Really?" Lemuel sneers, "I haven't seen a Holy Son in my ten years of serving the army. The army doesn't need an extraordinary persons like you to win battles. Ninety-nine percent of the chaplains who follow the army only have a little healing prayer, and their basic function is to provide relief for death. The reason why humans have been able to suppress demons and beat them over the years isn't because there's more churches in this world, but because our weapons have changed from swords to guns, destruction with a gesture. Our gadget have turned to machine guns that can fire continously, and tanks that can blast the devil to heaven under a rain of fireballs! God have never appeared, angels never appeares, we've come here relying on human blood, sweat and brains! Enoch, you'll die! But the Pope won't do anything, the sky won't fall!"

"But His Majesty the Pope supports the expedition." You whisper stubbornly.

"What do you mean?" Lemuel frowns.

You do not know.

This is like a motto passed down from generation to generation, like a legend that parents warn their children: don't step on shadows, don't walk at the end, don't wear a certain color in a certain season... "His Majesty the Pope supports the expedition." You don't know how this sentence works, you just keep it in mind, you don't question it. You must not question, and you never do.

Lemuel reads the answer on your face, he sighs, pinching his nose irritably. When he looks at you, he's so patient, you don't understand him, Lemuel looks like he's going to growl at everything around him but hides you in his pocket.

"The expedition, when the Son and the Crusaders team up to go to hell?" He asks.

You nod.

"What are you going to do?" He asks again.

You shake your head.

That's not something you have to think about. You're at the very core, and what you know is still just the surface. Lemuel lets go of you, hugging his arm again, standing up and walking around.

"Maria wanted me to retire back then, she guessed that this war could've ended long ago, just like the war with the orcs more than ten years ago," He mutters, "But its profitable, like the devil industry, the status of the church, and the underground mines... But she doesn't understand what's so worth it for those bigwigs above to tolerate the church's finger-pointing. Today's not a hundreds of years ago, when the kings, queens, prime ministers and presidents had the power to decide fate..."

Lemuel stops, he turns his head slowly and looks at you.

"Damn." He says dryly, "The Holy Relic."

Apart from the devil industry, and the properties of hell, the Holy See also has a very heavy card.

If interests and beliefs aren't enough to make people bow their heads, how about an extra life?

You see fear in Lemuel's face.

You've seen him in fear many times, past wounds that make him cringe at something too threatening, like an instinct, like a nightmare. This time was different. His fear was clear and rational. It's the moment when the warrior who's determined to slay the dragon finally sees what the dragon really was.

There's no mastermind behind the scenes, just a tangled mass of behemoths like a gigantic stitched monster. Killing the Great Demon King wouldn't bring peace to the world, because there's no Great Demon King. The identities of the perpetrator and the victim are confused. It's a vortex, a mess, and an invincible world.

"Don't go back," Lemuel says, his face turning pale, scratching at your wrists, "Don't go back there, they don't even know you're alive, why are they calling you? It's none of your business!

"I have to go back." You say mechanically.

"You don't want to stay? For... for me?" Lemuel says desperately, "Are you willing to die? Do you want to die that much!"

Your left hand squeezes your right, Otherwise they would tremble together.

This is your mission, this is your destiny, and from the moment you were sensible enough you know that you'll be dying gloriously. This isn't suicide, but returning to God's side, the Son returning to the Father, back to heaven. You've never understood people who fear death, you've never really had a fear of death, you just take the fear of death as a belief— otherwise why be afraid to go to the Lord?

However, you're afraid.

Your hands and feet are cold, your stomach twitches, your bones feel like they're soaked at the bottom of a winter lake. You might tremble if you relax. You'll leave, you'll die, will Lemuel reunite there with you? Is there really a place for reunion after death? In that unknown world, among countless dead souls, can you really find each other? You don't know if there's still a golden sun, if there's unhealthy and delicious food, if there's a soft quilt that makes you lazy, if there's a mongrel barking happily, if there's sweet kisses and sticky sex, if there's still your unruly same-sex' lover.

Mother... that young priest cries in your head like a lingering ghost. After nearly six years, Enoch Wilson, who wasn't religious enough or brave enough, seems to have suddenly revived inside you.

You're afraid of death, you don't want to die.

Pzzt!

Your heart skips a beat, and a strange feeling suddenly comes up, interrupting your fear. Your skin is itchy and your scalp tingles, it feels both familiar and foreign. A few seconds later, Lemuel turns his head sharply, he's also alarmed. He doesn't notice anything unusual, but he has the ears of a demon.

Boom, boom, boom!

Three regular knocks on the door, in this late night, ringing at your door.

For a short while, your mind turnd blank, your whole body is frozen into ice. You react, and you finally remember what this feeling really is.

The connection between Sons.

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Notes:

1- Not clear, but maybe

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PastTimer: The reason why I've been so busy lately is because I'm building a mini robot, the reason why I'm so late is because I just fried my L293d and is having a breakdown about it

Fried L293ds are very delicious, I can't wait to solder everything again ❣️