Rise of the OtherGod Apostle: Not a Cult Leader, but a Serf?!

#196Reader Mode

T/N: Thanks for the coffee Pancakes, Konnichiwhatsup, and Simi! <3!! Sorry for the lack of updates. I had a family emergency come up. Everything’s fine now. I’m back to slaving away! Woo~ Yay! _(´ཀ`」 ∠) _

#196

Casimir instinctively drew and nocked an arrow before she realized what she was doing. The movement felt as natural as breathing, and those crimson eyes provided perfect targets.

Then—

“My goodness. What a dangerous toy to play with.”

“Mother” sighed softly, and the arrow in Casimir’s grip crumbled, scattering dead wood at her feet.

Suddenly, the bow felt wrong in her hands. She glanced down to see not her seasoned bow, but a child’s painted toy, its string a mere joke.

“This is why children require constant supervision. I cannot look away for even a moment.”

With each step “Mother” took, she seemed to rise taller, looming against the sky like a giant from a dark fable. But it wasn’t Mother who was changing. It was Casimir. She was shrinking; her clothes sagged around her as her body dwindled. The toy bow slipped from her fingers, now soft and small.

She turned to flee, but her legs had become pudgy, clumsy things that barely held her weight.

After only three unsteady steps, she fell.

Giant hands caught her before she hit the ground.

“And where was my little quail trying to go? Shh, shh…”

The endearing tone was so sickly sweet Casimir snarled… or tried to. What came out was the thin, furious cry of an infant.

Mother seamlessly cradled her with one arm, tenderly swaying as she stroked Casimir’s head. “Such determination in those little legs. Already trying to conquer the world when you’ve barely learned to crawl. You’ll make a fine commander one day—no, an Amir. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

Remember… Casimir fought to cling to the thought as her mind grew fuzzy and simple. It’s not real. Just a dream. Only a dream.

This thing calling itself “Mother” had no real power over her.

None of this could truly harm her.

If it thought humiliation would break her, it was sorely mistaken. She had endured far worse than the helplessness of infancy.

Break free. Wake up. Now.

Casimir squeezed her eyes shut, urging herself to wake up.

“Oh, getting sleepy, are we?” Mother’s voice dropped into a soft, melodious hum. “All that fussing tired you out.”

A lullaby emerged from those smiling lips, but in a language she had never heard before.

“When Mother walks where the island’s shadow falls…”

The world snuffed out like a candle.

This was no ordinary darkness. It was void. No air, no ground, no sense of up or down. Casimir flailed, her limbs touching nothing. She felt herself dissolving at the edges, her consciousness a fading presence in the void.

[To find the pearl within the oyster’s walls…]

Depriving one of all senses.

The realization cut through the panic. Casimir had seen even the toughest prisoners break in such isolation. This was a prison of the mind. She understood. The creature aimed to drive her mad in the silent emptiness, to let her own thoughts cannibalize each other until nothing was left.

[Her darling child is left alone to weep…]

It was like drowning in absence.

Struggling would only exhaust her. Casimir let her body—or what was left of it—relax. Even here, time would pass. Nightmares ended. This creature couldn’t hold her indefinitely.

Whether she drifted for days or months hardly mattered. She’d survived worse waits.

Casimir’s internal count hadn’t yet reached an hour when she sensed a change. Light began to seep through like water finding its way through cracks, hairline fractures spreading across the darkness.

So soon? Another dream?

Her tormentor must be running out of time. It was hardly surprising, considering they were in the midst of breaking into the heart of Order.

The thought was oddly comforting as the light enveloped her.

Casimir opened her eyes.

Sunlight fell on the mosaic tiles overhead, scattering gold and azure hues across the dome. She was in her family’s winter home. She knew every detail of those tiles, having traced them during countless cold seasons.

“Look who’s finally joined the living.”

Her father glanced up from where he sat by the brazier, his face softening into a smile he reserved just for her. “I was starting to think you’d sleep right through to summer.”

In his lap was the half-completed embroidery she remembered. He was working on the fourth scripture: the parable of the faithless at the spring. Even from a distance, she could see the scene emerging in silk: small, desperate figures, dying of thirst, gathering what they believed to be water. She could almost hear her father’s voice recounting the lesson. How god Nephiton cursed unbelievers to see water as sand, to feel their throats parch even as they drank, to choke on dust while salvation lapped at their very feet.

You always wanted to complete all thirteen chapters.

But death took Father halfway through the tenth.

How strange it was to see him so young like this. The man warming his hands by the brazier couldn’t have been more than thirty. His movements were smooth, his touch sure as he guided the needle. He was younger than she was now, younger than she had been in years.

His golden eyes softened as he turned to her.

“Don’t worry about your Mother. I’ll tell her you spent the afternoon studying scriptures. Rest more if you need to. Dawn prayers are harsh when you’re not used to them.”

She batted his hand away as he reached to smooth her sleep-tousled hair, and rose to her feet.

“Where is she?”

“Mother,” he corrected gently. “Where is Mother?”

“Fine. Where is Mother?”

“At this time of day? Probably running drills in the training yard, I’d imagine. But honestly, you shouldn’t—”

Casimir didn’t wait to hear the rest. She was already sprinting down the hall in yesterday’s clothes, determination stoking a fire in her chest.

That thing would be wearing her mother’s skin again. This time, her arrow would find its mark in its skull.

She rounded a corner too quickly and almost collided with a servant who was hunched against the wall. Something about his lowered face seemed vaguely familiar.

“You there!”

“Y-yes, my noble lady?”

“Fetch me my bow.”

“Your… bow, my lady?”

“Don’t ask questions. Just do as you’re told.”

“I—I beg your pardon, noble one.” He lifted the red cord around his neck with shaky fingers, his eyes never leaving the floor. “The armory is forbidden to me.”

Understanding dawned slowly. The red tags identified him as belonging to the lowest caste. Slaves. Those without Nephiton’s blessing couldn’t even see the doors meant for golden-eyed nobility, much less walk through them. They were barred from all places of power, especially those containing weapons.

The defeated tribes had flown red banners, hadn’t they? Rebels who fought to the bitter end, and whose color became a symbol of disgrace. What gods they had once worshipped, she no longer remembered.

“Look up,” Casimir ordered. “Let me see your face.”

Why did this slave seem familiar? The certainty nagged at her, an irrational but pressing feeling.

As he lifted his head, recognition struck her.

This was the red-tag servant who had, against all odds, made it beyond the outer walls. He was caught, of course, and executed for attempting to flee. Slaves like him shouldn’t have been able to perceive any paths beyond the estate’s illusion…

…unless some sentimental fool had blessed him in secret.

Tch.

Her disapproving click of the tongue made the servant flinch as if struck. “F-forgive me, noble lady! Whatever I’ve done! Please, not the lash—”

“No one is going to whip you. Just… go. Return to your duties.”

“Yes-yes, of course. Thank you for your mercy, noble one.”

As he scurried away, Casimir found herself thinking of her little cousin for the first time in years.

This dream must have been from before the girl became Nephiton’s vessel.

That was the fate for the girls in their lineage. Nephiton would inhabit their bodies like a second skin, looking out through their eyes until their first menstruation arrived. A sacred honor, they called it. A divine duty.

No one ever mentioned the fear of lying awake at night as a child, terrified that if you slept too deeply, you might awaken to find years had passed, your life already lived by another being. Casimir remembered those nights vividly before her own first blood came.

But showing such fear was considered blasphemous.

My cousin was furious when she learned I had shot the servant dead.

Casimir could still picture her cousin’s tear-streaked, red face, screaming that she would never forgive her, would never speak to her again. The girl had sobbed herself sick defending that servant, insisting he was going to come back, claiming he hadn’t been running away at all.

Such a tenderhearted fool. Completely unprepared for the cruelty the world reserves for the soft.

In a way, it was a mercy that she died as Nephiton’s vessel. She never had to witness the estate’s destruction. When the halls ran with blood, a heart like hers couldn’t have endured. She might have ended her own life rather than live through it.

As it was, she likely felt nothing. She only slept while a god lived her life in her stead.

Would she still be there, just around that corner…?

…I am remembering things that should have remained buried.

The intruder was scouring her past, meticulously sifting through her memories, searching for a weakness to exploit. A fresh wave of disgust washed over Casmir. She turned abruptly, leaving the hallway behind in favor of the armory.

You think I want this back? Any of it?

If that was the assumption, it was gravely mistaken. Regret was a luxury for those who had choices.

A bitter smile touched her lips. Well, perhaps she did have one regret.

I should have killed Nephiton sooner.

The god’s symbols were an infestation here—engraved into doorframes, woven into fabrics, staining the very walls. The sight of them made her feel ill. What she wouldn’t give for a sledgehammer and an hour alone.

“My, what bloodthirsty daydreams.”

The voice whispered in her ear, accompanied by something silky brushing across her shoulder. Hair, long and red as a fresh wound.

Casimir stiffened immediately.

“I heard my little quail was searching for her Mother. How sweet. I’m right here, child.”

Without hesitation, Casimir spun around, striking with her elbow aimed at a throat. Yet instead of the gratifying crunch, her arm sank into something soft and pudding-like.

“Be careful. You’re only going to end up hurting yourself with those tantrums.”

“What do you gain from this?” Casimir demanded, pulling her arm back. “Why are you digging through my past?”

“Gain? I’m simply trying to understand, to become the Mother you truly need. As they say, even Mother is new to motherhood at one point.”

“No one says that.”

“Of course not. Regardless, I refuse to let inexperience be an excuse. I am examining her mistakes so I don’t repeat them. Tell Mommy, was there something she did that hurt you? A comfort you yearned for that she withheld?”

The question was so ridiculous, so utterly ignorant of who she was, that Casimir almost let out a bitter laugh.

You want to mother me?

What a pitiful tactic. Only children and the naive still entertained fantasies about getting the parent they deserved. Everyone else learned to live with their scars.

“My mother was a heretic,” Casimir stated plainly. “I tried to save her with the truth of Order. For my faith, she exiled me, threw me out like garbage. So, Mother, are you willing to convert?”

“Believe in Order? Oh, no, darling. That’s not something I would do.”

Typical. Just another heretic speaking nonsense.

The thing smiled kindly. “Is that what you need from your Mother? For her to share your beliefs?”

“That has nothing to do with—”

“Hush now. We both know that isn’t the real truth.”

It whispered sinister words into her ear.

“You have never, even for a moment, truly given yourself to Order with all your heart.”

“Imagine it, Casimir.” Mother continued, her voice soft and treacherous. “A world where Nephiton prevailed. Every soul in the Dark Realm bowing before your kin with golden eyes. Haven’t you ever dreamed of that?”

Casimir’s face twisted with disgust. She loathed those who indulged in such fantasies.

If they couldn’t adjust, they should at least have had the decency to kill themselves quietly.

How often had she thought that while cutting down those who screamed “traitor” at her?

“Only children dream of things that can never be.”

“Listen to yourself. So thoroughly broken you’ve forgotten how to want. My poor, poor little quail.”

Before Casimir could pull away, “Mother’s” arms encircled her, holding her in a tight, possessive hug. Goosebumps rose on her skin.

“I’m so sorry, my dear child,” it murmured, lips brushing against her hair. “If I had brought you into this world, I would never have abandoned you. I would never have died.”

Long, sharp fingernails began to comb through Casimir’s hair with a horrible familiarity, each stroke intimate and disgusting.

This is just a dream. Wake up—

But the sensation changed. The nails no longer swept across her scalp; they pierced through, sinking past bone and into the soft, vulnerable matter of her brain.

The world faded to a void of silent, featureless blackness.

And from that darkness, a new perception emerged. It wasn’t a sight or a sound, but a smell. A thick, greasy odor that choked her throat and filled her sinuses.

The smell of burning flesh.

How predictable.

Casimir didn’t need to open her eyes to know what this dream would reveal. Nephiton’s holy grounds engulfed in flames. The air filled with the screams of the dying. Bodies scattered across the mosaic tiles, their golden eyes gouged out and fed to the fire. The blood of her people, flowing like rivers.

Young and old alike, every last one carrying Nephiton’s gaze, were slaughtered. Not by the legions of Order, but by their own leader. The surviving slaves all told the same tale: their own Amir had ordered the massacre. It was a final, desperate move to protect the hiding place of a god.

Her mother, in her final act, tore out her own eyes as an offering, blood streaming like crimson tears as she was captured. Casimir could still hear that chilling voice, directing the traitors who had already defected to Order: Take her eyes. Feed them to the flames.”

Clever, even in the end. Hidden within those gasping words was a message for her daughter alone. That final, painful command revealed Nephiton’s true location. It was knowledge that gave Casimir her new life, the first rung on a ladder to greater power. An inheritance wrought from suffering.

Casimir opened her eyes.

Beyond the castle walls…

Flames engulfed the sky that should have been dark, turning the night into a false, hellish dawn. The heat was palpable, pressing against her face so intensely she expected her skin to tighten and blister.

Such a detailed illusion.

Casimir had never witnessed this firsthand. By the time her company arrived, there was nothing left but smoldering ruins and the stench of death. Work crews were already there, clearing away the charred debris under a dull, indifferent sky.

This scene—the blazing fire, the screams reverberating in the heated air—was purely a figment of her imagination. Her mind was trying to complete a narrative that she knew only through secondhand accounts and cold reports.

Is there really a difference? A memory is merely a story the mind creates.

For years afterward, Casimir was plagued by nightmares. In them, she always appeared as the Amir, standing where her mother had once stood, holding the same blade. The question followed into her waking hours: What would you have done differently?

Was there anything she could have done at all?

The answer was always the same. Nephiton would have fought desperately, like a animal cornered. Destroying a single vessel would have been meaningless; the god would have seamlessly moved into the next available body, seeping into the nearest pair of golden eyes like water into dry earth.

Yet, over time, a darker possibility emerged. What if her mother had never truly given the order for the slaughter? What if it was the god itself, controlling her like a puppet? It could have turned the sacred grounds into a scene of carnage, sacrificing its own golden-eyed followers before abandoning her mother’s body like a discarded shell, leaving her to awaken, eyeless, amidst a sea of her family’s blood.

What must that first moment of awareness have been like? The unique and suffocating horror of being the only living soul in a place you once called home.

A dry, humorless laugh nearly escaped Casimir. The red-haired creature pretending to be “Mother” had been so eager to adopt that face, so keen on tormenting her with nightmares of her past. How reckless it was, stepping into a role without knowing the script. At this moment, it was likely experiencing firsthand what it felt like to have a god tear its way out through your eyes.

Casimir’s gaze drifted past the flames to the perimeter. The moat was still full. Nephiton hadn’t escaped yet.

It looked and shimmered like water, but touching it brought agony. The steam alone could blister the skin. A single splash would strip flesh from bone before a scream could escape one’s lips. No container could hold it, and no bridge could cross it. It was an absolute, impassable barrier.

An illusion made real. A lie with the power to kill.

Years ago, Casimir had come here with a group of knights from the Order to test a theory. They speculated that her golden eyes might allow her to safely cross the moat where others would burn. The Order had been prepared for a prolonged siege, intending to force the clan to surrender through starvation.

Instead, when they arrived, they found only a graveyard and cooling ashes. The battle had concluded before it had even begun.

In the end…

It doesn’t matter. I know what’s coming. I will not let it triumph over me.

Yet the dream mocked her. In moments, the moat of painful liquid disappeared. Sand poured into the trench with the sound of an enormous hourglass being emptied. The fortress gates opened slowly, like a silent, groaning invitation.

Around her, the dream-phantoms of her comrades and commander murmured about signs and waiting for divine guidance. But Casimir barely heard them.

“Casmira!”

The name hit her like a slap. Her old name. The name of a girl long buried within. Even knowing these figures were illusions, a hot spike of shame and exposure coursed through her.

“My brave girl! Casmira!” the voice of “Mother” exclaimed, filled with victory as she tossed something at Casimir’s feet. “Everything is all right now! The nasty bug you were afraid of is gone! Look!”

Something heavy rolled to a stop near her boots, leaving a slick trail in the sand. No, not something. Nephiton. The severed head of the centipede-god lay there, ichor dripping from its limp mandibles as the light faded from its thousand eyes.

Casimir felt blood roaring in her ears. If Nephiton was dead, what about its vessel…?

“And look who I have here! Your little friend, safe and sound. Come on out, child. Don’t be shy.”

Friend?

From behind the creature’s crimson robes, a small, familiar figure emerged. Her cousin was there, as shy as ever, with wide eyes and fidgeting hands. She leaned up to whisper something in “Mother’s” ear, a secret Casimir couldn’t make out.

“Sister, not friend?” “Mother” corrected herself with a light, tinkling laugh. “How silly of me. Of course.”

A hot, bitter emotion surged in Casimir’s chest.

“Your little sister has something to tell you, Casmira. She has waited so patiently.”

Right on cue, the soldiers moved in unison, parting to create a clear path. The dream wasn’t even trying to hide its intent. It was a stage, and she was being summoned to perform.

Casimir didn’t hesitate. She charged forward, her sword singing as she drew it from its sheath. She intended to take the creature’s head clean off.

But her “cousin” was quicker. She dashed forward, her small feet pattering on the sand, arms reaching out.

It’s not real. Don’t—

“Big sis!”

For one, damning moment, Casimir’s arm faltered. The sword in her hand transformed instantly into a beautiful bouquet of roses and baby’s breath. Her cousin crashed into her, sobbing against her chest.

“I missed you so much, sis…”

The feeling of its hands on her was a defilement. Casimir could sense the creature inside her mind, sifting through her memories, pulling out this face, this voice. The invasion was so personal and revolting that it made her want to vomit.

Casimir closed her eyes, and the world disappeared as if obliging her desire for escape.

She floated in darkness, her rage burning like a white-hot sun. She suppressed it, taking deep, trembling breaths, until it became a cold, hard ember within her.

…What a pathetic attempt.

Did this creature truly believe she could be ensnared by such a transparent emotional trick? That she would cry over an illusion mimicking a dead girl’s face and forget how to wake up?

It was all useless. She would outlast it. No matter how many times it tried, no matter how many feeble dreams it conjured—

[I think you may have misunderstood your circumstances. You haven’t “woken up” at all. You’ve merely transitioned into a different phase of sleep. For instance, a fetus alternates between REM and non-REM sleep approximately every half hour.]

…What?

[The precise purpose of REM sleep remains partly unknown, but research suggests that developing brains need much more of it. It is crucial for forming neural pathways. Simply put, babies need to dream to build a functional mind.]

Casimir couldn’t comprehend any of it. The words might as well have been in a foreign language to her.

A… fetus?

[Oh, is my sweet baby still concerned about her little cousin? Such a tender heart. Don’t worry yourself. Mommy will gather what remains of Nephiton right now. I’ll make you proper sisters this time. Twins! Wouldn’t that be wonderful?]

What are you…

[Would you like to be the big sister or the little one? Oh, but with twins, does it really matter? Mommy is being silly again.]

‘…….’

[You’ll probably be born first, since I devoured you first. But maybe if I focus during labor… Hmm? You don’t mind being the older one? You’re already so thoughtful. I’m the luckiest Mother in the world.]

“…….”

[There now. Hush. Mommy will gobble up all the bad dreams. Just rest, little one. Only sweet dreams from now on. I promise.]

“…….”

[Is anything else troubling my baby? Is there anyone else on your mind?]

‘…….’

[…Fabio?]