The reversal of a law is not in and of itself illogical, for there is no true 'law' that exists beyond the thirteen blessings of the world.
The first blessing goes as told: Your innocence shall be weighed amongst a scale. Your sin will set you free, yet the weight of your sin will let innocence dictate the cost to pay.
Through sin, may we bring justice. Through innocence, shall we grant clemency.
This is the first law known by all those who transcended the role of Hylic within this World.
— The Third Anarchist
Chatter... Chatter... Chatter...
A myriad of humans were passing the time as the day went by.
Creating weapons, making conversation, eating food, training and fighting, finding their calling, cleaning laundry, reading a book, or walking along the length of the streets that all connected to the Tower of Babel.
Most importantly however, they did all sorts of work for the sake of the Library and peace.
And the Scribes of Onkhivol spent endless hours fixing the broken barrier that allowed the Amalgamates to invade.
All that happened within an abandoned street that had no sun in the sky, no water in the ground, and no life whatsoever.
This was the street where a young man, an acolyte of the Library, who was spending some time there and not in the actual battlefield or training, currently sat and slouched against a concrete boulder.
"Haah... haah... phew. This might be the most intense workout I've gotten since my hundredth battle against Phernes! Mmm..."
He stretched his arms as he spoke to himself, feeling completely exhausted after the drastic transformation of the body that just took place within his own physical frame, the struggle of the soul felt like an omen from the gods.
Luckily, he had some spare clothes to at least put on once his own ripped from the stress of the aftermath of his bodily rebirth.
Not only did he train his body, but he also trained his soul by exerting energies from the base of the surrounding atmosphere.
Now that he could taste it without any further problems on the horizon, he had to try and show off his new-found strength to Phernes!
"I really want to beat that fucker already. Weak! I'll tell you!!!" He exclaimed to nobody around. Not as if anyone would listen in on this alleyway that had clear signs of being abandoned.
Even if there was anybody around here, they were probably working or this part was reserved only for Parahumans.
It was weird to him that there was no other place he could train other than here, but he disregarded that thought as it wasn't natural for him to think over things too much.
He believed at heart that everything will work itself out, and everything will end up with a favorable result.
A world where... he and Onofre are living happily.........Together.
The scents of iron and dust left him a strange after-taste, but that was probably because this boulder was enhanced with some sort of metal.
...Right?
'This doesn't feel weird. So why do I feel watched... What the hell...?!' Quickly turning behind him to look at whatever figure was standing and watching with intent, his paranoia high due to the adrenaline from his workout and the fact that the area was so still for the last three hours; nothing was there.
Except for an empty rusty barrel laying down a foot away, that is.
Not even a soul walked through these pathways! He'd hear it if he wasn't deaf... And he sure as hell was not.
Which makes him wonder.
'Where are the people and Parahumans that used to live here? I'm surrounded by nothing but an array of long connected apartments and houses on the walls... The sunlight doesn't even get down here because it's all blocked by the houses above... so... did something happen to make everyone abandon these alleyways or something?'
Being abandoned within an inhabited, built-up place was equally as dangerous, but he was a Parahuman, so there was nothing to worry about, right?
Yeah, since being a Parahuman is cool and all...
Still, it wasn't like he'd act like an arrogant bastard and trash everywhere or anything that he didn't like, there was an order to be followed and a leader to be with.
That was the reasoning he arrived at whenever he dealt with ideas of overthrowing the status quo.
Eventually his exhaustion and weariness overcame him. It was a feeling where he wanted to just go home and... fall to bed, sleep, rest, feel at ease, warmth, peaceful, get away from reality, get away from fighting, feeling whole.
But he couldn't just make it back there all dirtied, he was a well-known acolyte! Everyone was! He could at least take care of his body, thank god for Onkhivol not having a concept of baths and showers. He would've cried if he had to bathe or shower by taking off his beautiful clothing, the only material reminder that this life was not the worst it could've been. Because of course, it all goes according to what he wants... Eventually.
If only he had the strength to use an energy to clean himself...
Or...
"Envision it!"
"See it! "
"Feel it!"
"Become one with your cleanliness... your SOUL shall be the epitome of cleanliness, purity!!!!!" His voice echoed over and over in the empty alleyways, the residue of the energy created by him permeated the air with a soap-y smell.
"And... I cast... You, cleanse!" Making elegant poses as if he was in a modeling gig, he wiped off all the grime and dirt off himself without a touch to his body.
His smell was pure, his eyes were relieved and full, his whole body was full of that refreshing sensation, everything within him has reached another height, and the air was not as bad smelling either; at least for an abandoned alley like this.
"How cool was that?" Saying proudly and satisfied with his work, finally, he had a breakthrough.
"KNOW ME ALL, CITIZENS OF ONKHIVOL! I AM THE CLEANSEMASTER... GHERBAHL! AAHAHAH!" Raising a fist to the air, his ambitions clear to any deity that wasn't a blind dirty rag of a mongrel, and even if they were then it was nothing less than his vision was capable of handling, a simple glance to the sun as a beacon was for him to go towards a brighter future...!
...
"Ha! Hoo! Heee!" A man kept making poses as Zabulus watched from afar, unamused. Making half-wit jokes and flexing to nobody, he didn't even make a good speech, nor put any effort into it. What was this, a play or something? Oh, perhaps it was that.
"Aaaand! Stand ready! I shall arrive at the Tower and tell my tales of cleanliness to all of you~!!!" The short man said, clearly full of bravado. 'This guy is an idiot, hahaha. I'm bored already. Does this damn world really not have better things for me to do?'
Feeling absolute boredom consuming his being, he jumped over the roofs stealthily as to not be heard by the Clean Poser Speech man.
"Uuggh! I'm still hungry!!" Zabulus yelled within his mind. "How can my stomach rumble even if I had a meal that consisted of like, one-thousand or more individuals combined...? Is the natural food of this land just not enough...?" He spoke with worry, worriedly rubbing the side of his stomach as he sliced through the air above each roof.
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'Follow the rules.' A thought passed to him.
The sudden urge to kill the man due to how annoying he was had been suppressed.
"Haah." He sighed, looking at a new course of action. He looked up at the ends of the wall above, "Maybe I should do that..."
Although his balance was tilted due to the roof of the houses being leveled with the road; he began walking as close as possible towards the wall and then...
Each of his fingers turned into claws, except for his index and thumb, though somehow resembling some sort of talon, he extended the skin and formed an actual finger to the tip of the claw.
Next, he rubbed his index on the side of the actual claws and got a feel for how sharp they were.
The entire process was painful as he felt every nerve ending activate inside of the edge of the talons, seeing as he really hadn't processed just how sharp he'd made them, the pain was an indiscernible mess.
One by one, he placed all four of his hands on the wall, implanted the talons in there, and after the feeling of imbalance cancelled itself out, he leaped.
The sound of birds chirping had left an impression on him. His first thought when seeing them was:
'Godly creatures these are... They can fly, they move with the freedom and elegance that the humanoids lack. They must be the spawn of the Gods!'
Having a closer look at these small, yet majestic and long-tailed raptors.
The talons of his own probably weren't meant for climbing at all, but he simply did it because the option was available and it came to him instinctively.
And so...
Once he did jump upwards, he stuck his talons inside the wall once again. Progress made? 2 meters. Now he had to jump once again, and do it a second time. He did so. Progress? Another 2 meters. Now once again, and once again. Finally, a whole 6 meters worth of progress that had been made. How many more to go?
It didn't take much for him to gauge distance, it seemed to be around... 200-something meters vertically?
Well, what was important was not his worry about getting up there, but dodging the houses and stairs on the way up, as well as not being seen through the windows.
...
Finally, he'd dodged the last house as he was facing the next obstacle.
He was looking straight down from 130 something meters up high, a distance that might've been like a few breaths away, but his actual panic was not due to the height, it was the actual distance of his jumps being so low. If he missed just ONE jump and was sent down scraping against the wall, the losses would cost him another hour of this stupid labor.
An hour of laboring to shave off 100 meters. This was so... utterly boring. Why didn't he just go back to the Tower? Or eat another meal? Or just explore town?
'Whatever! I already put myself through this stupid shit, I'll get up there and battle the heavens... Alright!' Clenching all his fists together to pump himself up, he said to himself, "Don't let me fall down you four, I'm not even bothering to count them with this distance...".
The distance between the talons had to be kept so it wouldn't lose efficiency, he'd be damned if he lost this advantage that easily...
'...Right?' So thinking, he positioned all his four talons, dug his feet and toes and... he jumped, again.
Same old sound.
Yeah, he wouldn't be caught doing a barrel roll in the air anytime soon, not like this anyways.
Alarmingly, his trajectory had altered to where he was going a little bit too low, a move that instantly caused him to fear his chance of falling. Not that it came true, though.
For a millisecond, it looked like he fell at an alarming rate before suddenly putting his legs to work against the air and pushing through as he did before.
Same speed, no complaints at this point.
"Fuck! What is this? Mm. Whatever... I think... three... Two... One... Oh." It was way too fast of a reaction time and a response that he didn't get to enjoy the speed of getting there.
He was still lunging upwards and looking for a wall to cling on to. But there was ultimately nothing. He already surpassed the 200 meter boundary.
"What a bothersome world." He commented.
The surroundings of Onkhivol gave him a sense of 'Wow, I really lucked out here, huh?' while he was still slowly gliding up high without knowing how much longer this would last. For this instance though... he felt as if he was a Godly creature, truly.
To glide effortlessly through the air, experiencing the cool chill of the winds, feeling the oxygen increase in pressure and resistance, his nose taking in the scents of the higher layers of air as he made his ascension to the darkening sky, where the rest of the mites can only wish and pray to breathe one day. It was completely unlike anything he'd seen before...
"Is this what that Eskra Goddess had always seen? What a sight... The sky was far larger and fuller than the entire civilization below it. Truly a shame that not only will they not listen... but those pathetic god-sent-bastards won't recognize a soul."
"Who's this guy?"
"Mommy! Mommy! What is that!?"
"Uh? Sir? Are you lost?"
Was it the darkened sky speaking to him? Was it a goddess calling out for him? Or was it simply the murmur of the darkness within him, finally speaking and surfacing without anyone noticing it?
...
Slowly, his ascent and admiration of the world were interrupted by a bunch of people sitting and camping atop the walls of Onkhivol.
'Ah... The Wall Dwellers Onofre spoke of! Fuck, I forgot!'
In a single instant, he saw one person, followed by a second, then a third, and the number multiplied. That was the pace he found those humanoid eyes fixated on him, though he still had the advantage of speed and landed (pretty hard) onto the top of the wall, making sure he'd hit nobody.
What's a soft-landing? Nobody knows and nobody cares.
"Fuck! Ugh, wait?! Ouch!" A bunch of rocks scattered all over, a bit of pain spiked within his head as he fell face-flat on the rocky parts of the wall. The force that his head came crashing down definitely had left a dent; luckily the ground had cushioned his fall.
Still hurt though.
"S-sir... are you okay?" One of the wall dwellers approached him.
"Augh.... Y-yeah, just give me... time, dammit." He groaned and put a hand to his mouth, or his upper face, or his nose, whatever part was feeling the impact for now.
"Here, have this." The person walked back towards some huge tent that encompassed about 50 meters of the width of the wall and found a few items.
Without having to inspect them, it was easy enough to figure out it was a piece of cloth, some rubbing alcohol and a light splash of what seemed to be water. It was also quite colder in temperature, almost freezing...
"Thank y-" Splash. "EEEuuuu! Cold! Cool! What the hell is wrong with you?!"
"S-sorry sir! Y-you just seemed to be in need of... uhm... A little bit of cleaning... You carry a s-s-stench and even b-being at the top of the w-wall... well..." The seemingly shy person offered.
"No, just no, it's... fine, just don't use the cold water, damn it. What is this, like negative 10 degrees? In what fucking world do we have a temperature this low for bottled water?"
"W-well, umm. I am so sorry s-sir..."
"Stop apologizing. The 'Sir' makes me think you're about to suck my dick or something."
His lower lip split while speaking and began bleeding a little bit, likely due to a bit of dryness that had set in during the climb, and the fall didn't help.
So the person offered to help with the rubbing alcohol, of course after using a bit of the wet rag, a very subtle soft-yellow type color, to clean off the smears of blood and dirt, such as his finger marks and some random debris around his body.
"Alright, go at it then." He was not ready for the stinging that applied itself to the wound and pierced into his brain though. In his first instinctive reaction, he wanted to recoil, to put his other hand or many arms over, but he suppressed it as he just let the 'healing' take place.
Meanwhile the helping wall-dweller asked him, "W...What's your name? Mr. Sir?"
"Tsk." He made a sound at being called Sir again, "It's Zabulus, call me a name similar to that and I'll- Guh." The pain of the after-sting made him nearly bite his tongue.
"S-sorry!! Ah-ah! Right! My n-name is Phronta... N-nice to meet y-you!" She quickly introduced herself as she bowed down in a curtsy.
"Good. Are you done with the formalities? Because I still have places to see."
"No, sir! You have to stay here until you heal fully!" Phronta replied to him.
He looked at the other wall-dwellers for some sort of help against her, but they all sort of looked down in defeat.
'What is she, the shy-leader?' "I was already in the process of healing myself, couldn't you tell?"
"Uhh.. M-maybe not physically..."
"What does that even mean?"
"Mm-Nothing!!"
This kind of reaction had been unexpected.
Knowing fully well it wasn't going anywhere, he stood up and... lost his balance.
"O-oh right, you're obviously, probably, not healing from that fall completely." She reminded him.
What a cheeky one.
'Why do I feel like this is the equivalent to what an old, injured, male dog feels like? She's treating me like a damn puppy...'
"H-here, sir... come with me and... And you'll be up in n-no time..." She pointed towards the big tent... almost as if trying to soothe the irritated 'puppy' by petting him.
'How does this one even live out here? I've never seen an Azkite before! Uuuu... What do I do, what do I do, what do I doooo? How can I even bring myself out of this mess!? What if... what if he kills everyone here!? NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!'
"Lower your voice, I can hear you from over here."
"H-huh?!"
'Did I speak out loud? NO!!! Now he'll definitely attack us and take everything we have! Wait... No... the White Queen would never allow for that to happen! OH, THANK THE BLESSED WHITE QUEEN THAT SHE IS! But if he's here... then clearly she's the one who allowed him to enter the kingdom! He came in from the inner walls after all... Ah...!'
'What a mess she has inside her.' He could read into her thoughts as a part of his power somehow evolved into being more telepathic.
The other wall-dwellers continued to indulge in their conversations and work, laundry and chores, weapons, arrows, ranged and archery stuff. They were no different than the people who lived in the city itself.
No different...
...
With how far these humans lived, it only got colder and colder. Probably way below -40 degrees in celsius from what his intuition was telling him.
It was a given that without much sunlight the night would settle in once again.
And slowly... The sky darkened as the fire torches and the campfire became more than the source of light. The people would see their breath crystallize and touch their shoulders, but they were unbothered, they'd gotten used to it; or at the very least, it was their 'norm'.