Chương 229: Chapter 225: Marred Mural

"How goes the search for Oe'Ạ̰͢ivo̓?" Oe'Usaie gave him a withering look.

"Do you really want another piece of bad news right now?

'Cause I can absolutely make your shitty day that much shittier." That was not the response Oe'Louei had been hoping for. Rubbing his temples, he made to leave the exhibition. He passed hundreds of years of masterpieces hung on the walls, each as irreplaceable as the next. For most of his life, those paintings had filled him with an awe nothing else had achieved. Even the more… dangerous of the lot. Those permanently covered by sealing drapes. He had always instinctively felt the power painted into those canvases.

Not anymore. Now, as his gaze slid over the rough shape of such immature depictions, he saw nothing but flaws. They were the work of children. Of toddlers scraping at walls with filth. Oe'Louei could no longer see the beauty and horror of those paintings. It was a curse. One he had to bear for witnessing the Endless Ocean. After interpreting the art transcending all others, he now literally couldn't recognise any other. For what could ever be considered art next to the greatest achievement of Omen Artisans?

"I cannot ignore it." He sighed.

"What have you found?" Oe'Usaie followed after him, but her eyes lingered on the displayed pieces. A wonder remained there that was now absent for the mural interpreters like himself.

"I found fuck all," she said.

"Not so much as a shadow of the guy's soul remained."

"Then the Fleshsmith soulsingers found them?" It was the most likely scenario, but it was still troubling to hear. Given the fate of the Fleshsmiths, their covert operations with the Bodytwisters should remain in the dark. The bigger issue was how none of the events surrounding Zandisth's summoning went as expected. The only detail that went as expected — well enough — was the failure of the ritual. Not a single other prophetic fact proved true. The bridge didn't get jammed.

No army of soulsucking parasites flooded Coral through the broken failsafe. And the head strike-force — guided by Oe'Aivo — had vanished from the face of Coral. After so much recent success, it was a blow to their progress. Their biggest failure of interpretation since they began the project more than a decade ago. Then, Solan had died. That had been a shock that had wiped the previous failure clean from everyone's minds. Such a massive figure on Coral was now gone?

And not one of the interpreters had seen that coming? Oe'Louei even had predictions for years from now involving Solan. For the future when the second leg of the Omen Artisan's scheme came into play. Those were now clearly wrong. So much planning and preparation; now pointless. But he couldn't worry about that. How could he? What with his predictions failing left, right and centre. The Mural of the Endless Ocean was proving to be unreliable.

"Hmm," Oe'Usaie finally answered his question with a non-committal hum. Oe'Louei stopped in his tracks and turned to her.

"You don't think it was the Fleshsmiths," he stated.

"I don't," she said. Her fingers fanned at the pages of a small notepad that hung from a belt. The little image in the corner flickered with life.

"There were signs of a fight. No bodies. No blood. Mostly scratches and lingering effects of the Bodytwisters chosen for the mission… but I found other marks and residue that just makes me confused."

"For one, there was a highly reactive Bodytwister nerve agent that none of the assault squad should have access to. Maybe they invited another of their cult along, I thought, but the rest makes me not so sure.

"The ground had deep notch marks similar to that of a heavy strike with a dagger, except in the pattern typical of chainsaws. That alone, along with a few drill-hole patterns make me think either the Technocult or Worshippers. But then I had to go and find dried patches of some substance I've never seen before, and the holes left by acid. And this wasn't just any acid. I had to go down five floors to find where it stopped. That's a full metre of solid steel!"

Oe'Louei wasn't sure if those details meant anything substantial. While a Machine God Worshipper's presence would be disastrous — they could not be allowed to learn of the Omen Artisans' double dealings — it was difficult to believe one was in the periphery of the Fleshsmith Island. Even more so for the Technocult, with their lesser numbers. Neither cult could risk diverting the strength required to kill the Bodytwisters stationed there. Not when their battlefield was on the other side of Coral.

Well, it was possible if they knew exactly where to look at the exact time… which would indicate a leak in the Omen's upper creeds. To reveal that, all for what was essentially an operation neither cult had any stake in… well, it was unthinkable. Much more likely they'd happened across them.

"So what do you think happened?" he asked. Oe'Usaie took a moment to speak.

"I think — and this is the part that you'll hate the most — that none of these little details actually matter. They're too chaotic. Too unfocused. It's almost as if something is mimicking the human method of fight, incorporating random pieces from across Coral into some sort of chimera." Oe'Louei had a hunch where this was going, but didn't have the time to even sigh before she pushed on with her conspiracy.

"It's the same thing that killed S͍̾ølą̛́̄n̼̙͈̘̄̍̓͘," she announced, barely keeping her voice from shouting. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Groaning, Oe'Louei left through the front arches of the Exhibition. The Mural of the Endless Ocean could hardly be contained in a place so… unrestricted. Now that the news had spread, he needed to descend to the private collection, then to the hidden Cradle of the Mural below that.

"Think about it," Oe'Usaie insisted as she followed again.

"S͍̾ølą̛́̄n̼̙͈̘̄̍̓͘'s death is a black mark. So is Oe'Ạ̰͢ivo̓'s disappearance. A pink mouth chewing through metal is about as disconnected from a Dark Star as I could imagine. Admittedly, it's a poor linking thread on its own, but the lack of cohesion in both scenarios reinforces the black mark connection."

"We've had plenty of missed prophecies in the past years," Oe'Louei argued.

"There is nothing that can interfere with fate so directly. This is simply a flaw in our interpretations. All we can do is refine them further, and finally complete the mural."

"Maybe I'd believe that, had the Fleshsmith leader still been alive. But she's gone. Dead, and taken her cult with her. That is not something you can ignore. No matter how poor your, or any other interpreter's vision, S͍̾ølą̛́̄n̼̙͈̘̄̍̓͘ is an existence too fundamental to Coral. Either she's not dead, or the Endless Ocean is wrong."

"I would much rather S͍̾ølą̛́̄n̼̙͈̘̄̍̓͘ to still be amongst the living — I can't believe I just said that — than for there to be some entity wandering around Coral capable of warping fate so easily." Oe'Louei passed the last of the arches and entered the public section of the Exhibition. He wrinkled his nose as a girl barely past her Naming seemed to snap her eyes to him. The girl looked ready to storm over to him and announce herself again.

She had been persistent this past week, even if no cultist would give her the time of day. Before the child could steady her nerves and march over, he glared. All of the accumulated frustrations of the day bore down on the girl through it. Even from ten metres away, they heard her squeak.

"Not a fan of her work, then?" Oe'Usaie asked, amused. She glanced over her shoulder as they reached the stairs.

"It's a unique style, I'll give her that. The different shades of black are surprisingly not horrible at expressing the form of the bird. Its outline is sharp, and feathers are crisp. Normally, the lack of contrast would damage the subject, but she's accomplished it in such a way that the lack of colour variation seems to make images appear and vanish as if it were moving. I wonder if it's a name."

"We cannot accept new acolytes until the Mural is complete," he said.

"Not unless they are a generational talent. Is she that?"

"…No." She seemed to actually ponder it.

"The lack of white space in her paintings can be interpreted as a touch of obsession with worlds beyond the veil. Besides, as unique as her style is, I do not believe it has the potential to be useful." Oe'Louei took her word for it. A year ago, he would have taken one look at that girl's art and have seen the full range of her potential. It wasn't exactly prophetic, but it was a skill that had once made him very useful in finding promising acolytes.

Now, those names had been pivoted to unravelling the mysteries of the Endless Ocean. It was not a quick exercise to enter the Cradle of the Mural. The security checks alone took almost an hour to pass. So often, Oe'Louei wished he could pull rank and demand to be let past without all this interference… but he knew better than most how important it was that he couldn't. If any high creed could simply demand to be let past, then their defences would be rendered moot.

He disrobed, bathed, and adorned the provided purified coat to access the chamber only the most well-trusted Omen Artisans Could. Oe'Louei kept his eyes clamped shut as he walked under the majesty of the Mural of the Endless Ocean. Even blind, he could picture its incomparable beauty stretching across every wall, every pillar, and each floor or ceiling around him. As much as he wished to open his eyes and take it all in once more, the risks were too great.

He needed to pace his observations for only the futures he needed to know. A dull murmur broke the musical silence of the almost divine space. People were talking. That was strange in this space that needed perfect isolation. Even a breath was frowned upon.

"Oe'Louei, this is no time for restraint." The words of his fellow interpreter reached his ears.

"Open your eyes." He did, and immediately he saw what had the others murmuring amongst themselves. Up there, splitting through the ceiling where it had never before, was a long, bold black crack. It broke the shifting hues and images that painted Oe'Louei's mind with the future into two distinct halves. Where before there had been only the inoccuous black marks of a future vanishing, the fissure broke the sky. He was suddenly not so sure about rejecting Oe'Usaie's theory.

What else but something that could break fate could do this? But before he could dwell further, the shifting images of the future clamped down on his mind and he saw the inklings of a new fate. One that burned into his mind like a fractal of glass. A dozen possibilities. That wasn't normal. There was always only one future. One future that the Omen Artisans could drag to be in their favour. Oe'Louei saw nothing so simple across the incomprehensible ceiling. He saw Coral falling into the black hole.

He saw the cults' wars tear apart Coral itself into a dozen parts, only to then be eaten from the inside out by gods, monsters, or whatever else the platform remaining whole protected them from. Then there were more personal images. He saw himself, dead a thousand ways. He saw the cults butchered and piled atop each other until the mountain of corpses was eaten away by the falling light of the accretion storm. The cult leaders faced the worst of the punishment.

Oe'Louei was stuck in those possible eventualities for less than a minute, but it felt an eternity. By the end, he felt sick at even having a body. He barely stopped himself tearing out his own guts. If he butchered himself first, then what happened to those cult leaders could never happen to him. Something out there truly hated the cults. More than he could fathom.

But before the vision faded away and he realised it was all a future held within that black crack that marred their Mural of the Endless Ocean, Oe'Louei felt himself fall. The Cradle faded around him, and he sunk into the deepest abysses of space. He couldn't panic; fear had already locked every fibre of his being in place. From all around him, the stars so infinitely far away began to blink. They gazed down at him and a profound terror flooded his soul. A weight settled on him. Agony.

There was nothing else for him as the focus of something that could never be contained by this world fell entirely on Oe'Louei. His arms snapped and his legs shattered. He was remotely aware that he had fallen, but with such an entity gazing down on him, there was nothing he could do but stare back. He wished he could do anything else. He wanted to relish in the agony bestowed upon him.

If he could focus on where his body was broken, or where he had fallen, then maybe the horror of the existence's unending scale would abate. But no. There was no avoiding this being's gaze once it had arrived. An Eidolon peered upon him, and it was the most agonising thing he'd ever experienced. All of him. All eighty years of his life and all those that he might have had screamed in unison. No. He tried to scream from every second, but he was not a being of time. He could not scream in the past.

But the Eidolon could easily crush him in every moment. If he'd been given the time to think, or the absence of horror to assess, then Oe'Louei would have done everything in his power to have his cult stop the prophecies. To never peer through the crack. To destroy the Mural of the Endless Ocean. But time was not something he had. It was the domain of the Eidolons. Oe'Louei pulped. His body was crushed under the casual glance of a being so much greater than himself.

All that remained was a single drop of blood to mar the mural.