Chapter 180 - 160: Judgment

"Just maintain the encirclement. We’re moving to the next phase."

The Furnace Fire in Captain Field’s chest receded slightly.

He didn’t reply, but he brought his axe back to his chest.

Sarah reloaded her shotgun but didn’t pull the trigger again.

The rhythm of the battlefield changed in an instant.

Richard could see it with his Spiritual Vision.

Beneath the earlier din of clashing blades and axes, a deeper undercurrent had been flowing all along.

Mr. Hutton stood in the center, reading nonstop.

With every passage he read, a glowing word somewhere on the children’s bodies would dim;

and with every word that dimmed, the Mother in the seams below was lifted an inch higher.

The moment she was read to the point of having nowhere left to hide, she would emerge on her own.

"Edmund."

"Here."

"The seventh child to the southeast. The words on the scapula."

On that child’s shoulder blade was a line of extremely faint Inscription, worn down by repeated abrasion.

"’Qui silentium tenet’ (He who keeps the silence)," Edmund reported.

"Pre-Roman equivalent?"

The freckled girl bit her lip.

"’An tí a choinníonn an ciúnas’ (The one who holds the quiet)."

"Alexandrian School connection?"

Richard’s mind raced.

"’Silentium sub umbra’ (Silence beneath the shadow)."

"Good."

Mr. Hutton cast out that passage.

The line of text on the old foreman’s shoulder blade winked out with a soft POP, returning to the Mother’s depths.

"Do you understand now?"

Richard understood. "We’re calling out the parts of the Mother that she herself couldn’t name, one by one."

"Once they are called out, she can no longer hold onto them."

"Yes." The old Scholar continued to wave the red pen in his hand. "Her body is the sum of all the ’nameless’ she has taken in over millennia."

"The nameless form her flesh. Once they are read aloud, that part of her flesh no longer belongs to her."

Richard frowned.

Every unnamed sorrow, every unanswered prayer, every unrecorded death—she had gathered them all.

She was a tomb thousands of years old, and buried within were all those whom no one remembered.

The children were the hands she extended to embrace posterity, but for the living, such an embrace was fatal.

"The next few passages will be more difficult." Mr. Hutton continued with his work.

"When the Church suppressed her, they covered the layers she could originally name, one by one, with the title ’Underground Female Demon’."

"For this passage, we must first lift the lid the Church placed on her."

"We’re dismantling the Church’s Seal?" Edmund asked from his position, his voice tight.

"Correct." Mr. Hutton made no attempt to hide it.

"The Church’s Seal from centuries ago was a crude one."

"What we must do tonight is dismantle it, allow her true name to be heard again, and let her accept Returning to Sleep on her own terms."

"..." Edmund’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

He glanced down at the Silver Cross on his chest.

"You’re right. The Church made a mistake centuries ago. Tonight, we will correct it."

The old Scholar gave him a slight nod.

"Then let us continue."

The red pencil began to move across the Rubbing Copy again.

"Edmund."

"Here."

"The Inscription to the North, the one covered in gold lacquer. Can you read it?"

Edmund took a deep breath from his position.

The gold lacquer peeled away inch by inch under the light:

"...’Illa cui nomen tacetur’ (She whose name is not spoken)."

"Even the Church didn’t dare name her directly?" Theodore muttered under his breath.

"Mm," Mr. Hutton acknowledged.

"They covered this sentence with gold lacquer because speaking it would awaken her, yet they couldn’t bear to erase it completely."

"They knew they had done wrong," Edmund’s voice dropped.

"They knew this ’Mother’ should never have been called a ’Demon’, so they left this sentence behind."

The old Scholar made a rubbing of this passage and appended it to the end of the entire Judgment.

The Mother in the seams below was lifted another inch.

In that moment, Richard could "see" her clearly.

She hadn’t emerged yet, but her form was nearly complete.

Throughout the underground sarcophagus, the female silhouette was slowly ascending.

With each added passage of the Judgment, she accepted a little more of her original self.

She was finally returning to her rightful place.

"’Qui in cordibus orphanorum manet’ (He who remains in the hearts of orphans)."

"’Qui lacrimas matris bibit’ (He who drinks the mother’s tears)."

"’Qui in silentio noctis dormit’ (He who sleeps in the silence of the night)."

Passage by passage, the inscriptions on the children dimmed one by one.

The two most recently missing children also stopped moving, their eyes vacant.

The floor of the entire hall began to tremble.

Richard felt the Mother below raise her head.

In the nearest hall, the 1881 miller’s factory, the shadows of twenty-five workers fell down in unison;

On the next level up, the 1340 chapel, the Cross in the bishop’s hand tilted to one side;

On the highest level, the Pre-Roman hills, the people singing around twelve newly erected stones fell silent.

The Mother was about to awaken.

Captain Field’s burst of power was nearing its end; the Furnace Fire in his chest was almost extinguished.

"She’s coming."

The Silver Cross on Edmund’s chest grew hot. He gripped the Cross tighter with his left hand.

Maggie’s Oak Short Staff stood by her feet, its ram’s horn head pointing down.

Theodore bit his lower lip.

Richard took a deep breath from his position.

A faceless female shadow emerged from the gray mist.

She rose from the coffin, looking exactly as she was depicted in the cellar mural.

Richard didn’t look at her directly, but he still felt a sting in his inspiration.

His [Perception]-enhanced inspiration, now spread wide, was pushed to its absolute limit.

This "Mother’s" body was in this hall, but her waist was in the 1881 miller’s factory;

Her shoulders were in the 1340 chapel;

Her head was in the Pre-Roman hills.

She extended from this hall all the way into the deepest part of the well, her body the sum of these four layers of history.

Mr. Hutton, however, smiled. The target had finally appeared.

The red pencil was no longer needed; the Rubbing Copy’s Judgment was now full.

The old gentleman’s right hand hovered in the air, his left pressed upon the Rubbing Copy.

He took a deep breath.

’I’ve been stuck at the threshold of becoming a Practitioner my whole life, unable to break through, precisely because my Ether foundation is impure.’

’But tonight is different. Tonight, I don’t need purity.’

A Scholar’s words are his sword. He would use a blade wide enough to span three eras and dozens of generations to sever every "nameless" part of this Mother that she herself could not name.

He began to read his Judgment:

"Stollithirenna (The one who steals the shadows of the young)."

This name was the master hook for the entire night’s Judgment; it had to be placed at the very beginning to hang all the content that followed.

"You are built from Shadow."

"Stol, Shadow."

"Your essence is that which is untouched by light."

"This, we have understood."

The highest layer of the Mother’s body, the part in the Pre-Roman hills, began to dissolve.

The people who had been singing around the twelve newly erected stones now stood motionless, their song silenced.

Having been understood, the Mother’s "body" in the layer of the Pre-Roman hills collapsed inch by inch.

She no longer had the right to stand in that layer.

Mr. Hutton continued his work:

"You are not a passive Shadow, but an active, seeping Shadow."

"A Shadow that walks out from behind the light."

"A Shadow that creeps up from a child’s feet."

"A Shadow that flows from beneath a mother’s eyelids."

"This, we have also understood."

A section of the Mother’s "body" in the layer of the 1340 chapel collapsed.

The seven Practitioners surrounding the bishop all raised their heads. At that moment, the Cross in the bishop’s hand shone with a brilliant light.

The Practitioners’ mouths were moving; they were reciting the scripture they had left unfinished.

"-renna, to flow."

"And also, mother."

"You are the flowing Shadow, the mother of Shadows."

"The one who stands in the center of the twelve standing stones."

"The one who takes in the stillborn."

"The one who gathers all the nameless into her embrace."

"This... we have only understood tonight."

A section of the Mother’s "body" in the layer of the 1881 miller’s factory collapsed.

The shadows of the twenty-three workers had originally all faced the same direction, their postures frozen in surprise.

Now, one by one, the faces of these shadows returned to the expressions they should have had before death.

Some were laughing, some were gasping for breath, some had crumbs of unfinished hard bread at the corners of their mouths.

The final second before their deaths was returned to them, whole.

Mr. Hutton had read three passages in succession.

Each passage dismantled the entity before them from an era, and her body dissolved from the top down, through three layers.

After he finished reciting the third passage, the old gentleman’s face was nearly drained of all color.

And the Mother finally showed her first reaction.