NOVEL NEXT Chapter 368: Angel Or Devil
The moment Cassius's words left his lips, silence blanketed the square.
"…the song of celebration, 'The Lull of The First Breath.'"
Gasps rippled through the gathered crowd. For they knew exactly which song he spoke of, and it wasn't a song of mourning, nor a dirge for the dead.
No, it was a birth-song, a sacred chant sung only when a child was born into the world. A song to welcome life, to wish a newborn health, love, and long years under the heavens' gaze.
To sing it now, here, with hundreds about to die, was not only unexpected, it was, to many, almost blasphemous.
Murmurs rose, hesitant and strained. Faces turned from one to another, torn between outrage and confusion. Could they truly twist such a holy song into a dirge for vengeance?
Cassius watched them, smiling faintly, his eyes sharp under the torchlight. He let them hesitate for just a moment longer before lifting his hand again.
"I understand." He said, his voice firm but not unkind. "You hesitate because this song is sung for new life, not death. For beginnings, not endings. For hope, not vengeance."
He paused, letting his words wash over them before raising his arm toward the pit.
"But today..." He thundered. "It is not just for the birth of one young girl's world that this song shall be sung, it is for all of them..."
"...It for your family members who were stolen from you..."
"...For your sons whose birthdays you never got to celebrate..."
"...For your daughters whose candles you never got to light..."
"...For every voice that was silenced before it could sing its own song of life!"
A woman in the front broke, falling to her knees as she clutched her chest. "My boy…" She wept. "My little boy…"
Cassius's voice grew heavier, reverberating in every chest.
"This song is for the birthdays they missed, for the cakes never baked, for the gifts never given...It is for the children who never grew old enough to make their own wishes...And it is for you, the ones left behind, who carry their memory in your hearts."
A strangled sob tore out from a man holding a torch, his grip tightening as tears poured freely.
"And so tonight..." Cassius went on, his arm rising high toward the stars. "...this song shall rise not to celebrate one life, but to send all their souls to the heavens...To let them hear your voices, to let them know they are not forgotten."
"...You will sing so loud, so fierce, that the heavens themselves will hear you and carry it to them. And they will finally, finally, rest in peace."
His words broke something in the crowd. One by one, their resistance crumbled.
A woman cried out. "Yes! I'll sing! My daughter will hear me, I know she will!"
"I'll scream it until my throat bleeds!" Shouted a man, his torch shaking in his fist.
"Yes, I'll sing! I'll sing until my boy smiles from heaven!"
Voices rose, tears and fury blending into determination. Cassius lowered his arm and let a slow smile spread across his lips.
"I see." He said softly. "Then why wait?...Let us begin the celebration of life."
But as he said it, hesitation returned. Faces turned downward. Torches trembled.
Who would begin such a song? Who could bring themselves to twist words of life into a oath for the dead? The crowd froze in its grief, trapped between desire and despair.
And then—
A small, fragile voice pierced the silence.
It was a girl, no older than seven, clutching a worn teddy bear in one arm and a torch in the other. Tears streamed down her face, her lips trembling, but still she sang.
Her voice was high, thin, but clear.
"From the breath of the morning sky y-you came,
Carried on wings of a hidden flame.
The earth awakened, the stars bowed low,
For a new light s-shines, and the heavens know."
The crowd turned at once, stunned into silence.
A child, one of the victims, who has lost her mother to bandits, had begun where none of them dared. Her small body shook, but her voice rang true, quivering with pain yet filled with desperate strength.
And seeing this and hearing her trembling voice, no one could leave her alone.
One by one, the torches lifted higher. Another voice joined hers.
"Hallelujah, child of wonder!"
Then another.
"Born of starlight, born of thunder!"
And another.
"Raise your voice, let all proclaim!"
Until the pit itself was filled with song.
"A soul has risen, call their name!"
The chant swelled, breaking into a roar of human voices. Tears rolled freely down faces lit by firelight. Victims and spectators alike sang until their voices cracked. Some screamed the words, others sobbed them, but all poured their grief into the lyrics.
"The rivers whispered, the mountains sang,
The bells of eternity gladly rang.
The world rejoices, the shadows flee,
A spirit of dawn walks the earth in glee!"
Cries broke in between lines, raw and guttural, but none faltered. The oil-soaked pit glistened with reflected firelight as the voices rose higher, a storm of broken hearts turned into holy hymn.
"Hallelujah, child of wonder,
Born of starlight, born of thunder.
Raise your voice, let all proclaim,
A soul has risen, call their name!"
The bridge came, and voices faltered with sobs, but they carried it through, shouting through tears:
"Crown of sunrise on your brow,
The kingdoms of heaven rejoice right now.
Every heartbeat, a gift divine,
The tapestry sings, your thread will shine."
And then the final chorus came, swelling like a tidal wave, every throat burning, every heart breaking as they screamed the heavens awake:
"Hallelujah, light has spoken,
Chains of silence now are broken.
Sing, O heavens, earth, and sea...""
"...New life has come, and it shall be free!"
The final note rang out like thunder, echoing through the night sky, reverberating across the oil-soaked pit.
Silence followed. A silence so heavy, so absolute, it felt like the world itself held its breath.
And then, the little girl who had begun it all, clutching her teddy bear against her chest, raised her torch with trembling arms. Her eyes shimmered with tears as she whispered, just loud enough for those nearest her to hear,
"For you, mama…"
She squeezed her eyes shut and cast the torch into the pit and just like that the flame arced downward like a falling star.
For a heartbeat, all was silent, the pit of oil-soaked criminals staring up in horror, the crowd above holding their breath, the little girl's sob still caught in her throat.
Then—
FWOOM!
A monstrous column of flame erupted, crawling hungrily across the slick yellow rivers of oil. Fire spread in an instant, racing like a living beast from one corner to another. The screams came immediately.
"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
"NO! NOOOO! IT BURNS, AAAGHHHHHHH!"
"HELP! HELP ME, MERCY! PLEASE! AAAAAHHHHHHHH!"
Their voices tore the night apart, high-pitched shrieks of agony that rattled through the bones of every spectator. The flames clung to skin and clothes, devouring flesh, blackening limbs.
The smell of charred hair and cooked meat rose thick into the air, acrid and suffocating.
Men writhed, rolled on the ground, thrashed against one another in a futile attempt to douse themselves, but the oil only spread the fire further, turning them into wriggling pyres.
And yet, no one looked away. Not one single soul.
And then, before the girl could crumble under the unbearable weight of what she had done, the others followed.
One by one, torches rained down from every side of the pit. They fell like meteors, dozens, then a hundred, striking the ground in fiery arcs.
FWOOM! FWOOM! FWOOM!
The oil ignited everywhere at once, the inferno spreading from corner to corner, until the entire pit became a seething lake of fire.
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"IT HURTS! IT HURTS! GODS! SAVE MEEEE, AAAGHHHHHHHH!"
"WATER! WATER! PLEASE, AAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
"HGYYYAYYYYAY!!!!!!"
The chorus of screams swelled into a single monstrous sound, a thousand voices twisted into one wailing storm of agony.
Flesh cracked and blackened, bodies convulsed and writhed in unending torment. Men collapsed into each other, burning heaps of flailing limbs, their clothes and hair fusing into flames as their charred mouths released nothing but shrieks.
But the crowd did not turn away...Not one.
Their eyes were wide, wet with tears, their fists trembling against their lips, but not from pity, not from sorrow. Their sobs were cries of release, of long-buried anguish breaking free.
To them, the screams below were not screams of pain, but the echoes of justice. Retribution. The voices of their dead, avenged at last.
"T-They're burning!" One woman sobbed, her tears streaming freely. "My husband, they're burning for what they did to him!"
"My daughter can rest now!" A man cried hoarsely, torch still clutched tight though it was already gone. "She can finally rest!"
The tears rolled like rivers through the square, men and women collapsing against each other, keening, shouting, crying, trembling.
To them, every shriek rising from the pit was the cry of a murderer, a thief, a rapist being erased from existence. Every scream was one step closer to peace.
And amidst it all, stood Cassius.
Just as he had sworn, he had not moved from the center. The flames curled around him, swallowing the ground, rising higher and higher until they seemed to engulf him whole.
Julie, Aisha, and Skadi gasped, panic flooding their faces.
"Cassius!" Aisha cried, clutching at Julie's arm.
"Master!!!" Skadi was ready to pounce.
"He's going to burn—" Julie stepped forward, desperate to leap down.
But Aisha, though her lips trembled, shook her head in disbelief. "No...wait...look…"
The flames licked at him. They raged and consumed everything they touched.
But Cassius stood untouched. The fire swirled about his legs, curled around his coat, even lashed against his skin, and nothing.
Not a scorch mark. Not a singe.
It was as if the inferno itself bowed to him.
He walked slowly through the sea of burning men, their bodies collapsing into charred husks at his feet. Some, delirious and half-consumed, reached for him with blackened hands, clawing, begging silently through muffled screams for him to save them.
But he only glanced at them once, eyes burning crimson through the blaze, then moved on.
Untouched.
The three girls froze where they stood. Their horror twisted into something else entirely, something they couldn't explain. Awe. Fear. Reverence.
To them, it was a sight so ghastly it circled back into beauty. The fire framed him, haloed him, and for an instant, in the wavering light, it looked as though wings of flame spread from his back.
To their eyes, he was an angel walking among the damned.
But to others in the crowd, their breath caught in their throats for the opposite reason.
To them, he didn't look like a angel.
This was a demon striding the pits of hell, eyes glowing as the blood of the guilty was burned away. Every scream, every spark, every broken cry only deepened the illusion.
And so, in that moment, the crowd was split.
Some whispered in awe, tears glistening as they whispered. "An angel...he's our angel."
Others shivered, clutching at their arms, whispering. "No...a devil...he's a devil from hell."
Both voices trembled with gratitude. Both voices trembled with fear.
But as Cassius moved through fire and ash, neither angel nor demon could claim him.
What he truly was, no one knew...