The Lair

The main hall of the once beautiful Mayor's office of Angkara was now filled with screens, showing various parts of Angkara from the cameras installed throughout the city. Regardless of how her infrastructures were broken down and abandoned, the cameras were still in great shape, because Julian needed them to observe his new subjects, the people who were trapped in the city, being held hostage. He built a wall surrounding the city, so the people of the city couldn't leave.

A month had passed, and he still didn't hear anything about Adam, Hannah, and the whereabouts of the plates that were rightly his. He sometimes wondered if they were never really leaving, only dead and rotting somewhere and couldn't be found. He'll find the plates. He knew he was Aster's chosen Prophet, and it was only a matter of time till he finally got ahold of those plates.

'The Goddess is just testing me,' he told himself often, 'She's only making sure of my resilience.'

He moved to one of the panels littered around before the screens circling the room and pushed a button. An image of an older lady appeared on the screen, with a terror on her face. If one would ever come face to face with the face of Goddess' Man on earth, the only feeling they suitable to feel was fear.

"Mrs. President," he said, "the Goddess is very patient, and me, as Her voice on earth, should act according to what She wishes for me." Although he was having a personal conversation with the government of Kaeia, their voice would be heard across Angkara through strategically placed loudspeakers throughout the city, so the people would hear his voice: the voice of the Goddess.

"I understand that, Pater," said the President of Kaeia, "but..."

"A day delay will cost one life of Angkara citizen," he said, "I lose count when we already reached thirty."

"Please, Pater..."

"Or do you, as an elected President of the people of Kaeia, doesn't really care about the lives of her own people?"

"No. Please don't insinuate that terrible statements. We only wanted your... um... blessing, to at least deliver medical support to the people of Angkara."

"Or what?" Julian didn't interested in this bargaining, he only wanted Her kingdom to be realized on earth, he told himself he's not interested in absolute power, as these sinners seemingly painted him. His interests only lied as far as Aster's, "or you bombed this city? Sacrifice its people? That will only show the world that your Goddessless world only brings death and suffering to the people."

"But, Pater... the disease..."

"The disease will never touch those who have the absolute faith of the Goddess," Julian said with every conviction he felt inside his body and often made him felt something resembled a high. He was convinced that it must be a physical confirmation that the Goddess Herself agree with what he said. He knew if he ever let the central government inside his Angkara, they would only snatch it away from him, crippled his effort to ever find Adam and the plates.

"Please, Pater. Let us help..."

"You can help by stop trying to stall Her plans," he closed his eyes, "for this, today the Goddess required two of Her children to be delivered onto Her presence..."

"No! Please!" was the voice heard of the President before Julian cut their connection.

He then looked around, studying the screens. After he found one that he was looking for, he moved to another microphone, pushed a button under it.

"District A-12," he called his soldiers who were standing around guarding the district, "take two people under your supervision. You know what to do," he removed his finger from the button.

He walked back to his makeshift throne in the middle of the room, which was basically the former Mayor's chair being propped higher by stacks of books and chests he found around the office. He climbed and sit on it, closed his eyes. He could not see what would happen to the two people he was ordered to be sacrificed to Aster. He told himself that this was something Aster required him to do. Those people who sacrificed this last month would only meet Her faster than everybody else. He often envied them, to be easily taken away from the evil and corrupt world.

He heard them yelling and screaming as they were dragged from their huddled community by his men. Begging to be spared.

He told himself that this was for the greater good. All of his loyalty to Aster from the very beginning of his life, his new life, was leading him to this point in time. He was going to be Her most important person that would bring about peace and truth to this life.

He heard the two people still crying aloud, "please just shot us, please! Don't hang us!" He could hear women wailing. Maybe they were their mothers, or wives, or daughters.

He imagined the world that would come to be. The perfect world where familial ties would not be important. Where people would live forever. He regretted that those people, in their effort to cling onto their lives, no matter how terrible and evil it was, couldn't see that he was doing them favor. They couldn't see that he was granting him eternal life, where there would be no more wants, no more needs, no more loss. They would be happy.

He heard people screaming when finally those two sacrifices being hanged in front of them. The wailings that followed were only white noise for him, as he heard them every day. He wished that the government of Kaeia would finally tell him the whereabouts of Adam. But before that happened, this pain should always be continued. The price of happiness, the price required by Aster.

When the people of Angkara finally run out, he would bring the poison outside of Angkara. Repeat the process all over again. In the end, Aster would win. If he could get ahold of Adam, or Hannah's womb, or the plates, or all of them, the killings would stop. But if he couldn't, the world would finally end anyway, leaving a clean slate for Aster to rebuild Her perfect world, which long had been destroyed by the evil clutches of Bel. In the end, it would be all be worth it.

"All that Bel created were destructions. She undoes Her Sisters work," he cited a phrase from The Holy Codex, then, "Deas Sententia Liberatum..." he smiled and felt the high all over again, knowing that Aster was approving everything he's doing.