How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 528

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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How to Survive as the Second Son of a Magic Noble Family (528)

I think of the blood and elixir flowing beneath the mask, but it is forgotten as it seeps into my collar. I am gazing at the firmament.

[Nicolaus Ernst has achieved victory.]

[Our Kingdom of Bavaria, just before 6:30, contrary to the claims of the French Empire which strongly argued that the German Empire did not do its best to eradicate Pleroma and demanded Germany take responsibility for the damages, has succeeded in eradicating one-third of Pleroma after long preparation and effort. Currently, one-third of all personnel from the former Pleroma diocese are trapped in spatial magic prepared by Bavaria. This is an unprecedented achievement and a declaration of war. Our Kingdom of Bavaria, as a member of the German Empire, will do our utmost to contribute to the safety of our homeland and continent. The achievements of His Majesty King Hildegard and His Excellency Nicolaus Ernst shine upon the Empire tonight!]

[This Easter evening, our Bavaria has achieved victory!]

Emerging from the Bamberg Archdiocese to the outside, what unfolds is Nuremberg once again. I perceive the scent of earth and the dusty smell of building plaster, the fragrance emitted by natural life. The voice amplification technology developed based on Penthalon’s model encourages Bavaria’s citizens, stabilizes them, and ensures news spreads through newspapers beyond. The resounding voice flows unobstructed across the vast territory, no less than Pleroma’s, but only one single voice blocks it. Screams descend from all directions. Faces laughing and shedding tears flash across my vision. The sight of hands raised high to the sky and wildly waving, their bliss. I watch the endless procession of descending numbers while simultaneously observing fingertips reaching toward heaven. Jesus warned them, saying, “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” The disciples discussed among themselves, saying, “It is because we have no bread.” Jesus, knowing this, said to them, “Why do you discuss having no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? Do you not remember? Do you not yet understand…? How is it that you do not understand that I did not speak about bread? But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees…” Words from two thousand years ago, read hundreds of millions of times, yet black remains letters and white remains paper. The letters slip from my hands. Just as thoughts cannot emerge from outside the head, perhaps Jesus’s atonement cannot emerge from outside heaven’s plan. This is not to say Jesus did futile work, but to ask whether his plan was too distant. Charred arms that can be grasped, intelligent eyes that can be met, a face that can be spat upon, palms that can bleed—Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani… Though we could not be closer than this, was it not too distant for us, I ask myself—today, essentially no different from that day. Jesus showed through his own body that humans can enter through the narrow gate, but regarding others, isn’t it humanity’s basic characteristic that intentions and positions are always misunderstood, distorted, praised or blamed, praising or blaming? And isn’t it actually every human’s habit to say, “I have penetrated you—the truth”? What should be done about that sad and brilliant temperament, I ask. “As it is” does not exist. Through eyes, through words, through writing, through light and vibration, the “I” that crosses over ceases to be me. That is you. Your anxiety. Your love. I have already become you, and through your bias or through your faith, having already become light with a changed angle of refraction, I return to myself. Whether that is gain or loss is my portion to judge, and disappointing, frustrating, hoping, marveling, being indifferent, or accepting your image that is no longer you and my appearance that you believe you have judged, and such disappointment or frustration or hope or marvel or indifference or acceptance in your two eyes—that is my portion. Inside is utterly quiet, no emotion occupies that space. It simply flows like sunlight shattering into countless pieces on a river. I only want to ask. Regarding the matter of misunderstanding someone, what degree of authority do others possess? If you think so, must that truly become what I should be? That I had no intention of bringing about the destruction of any ideology, the extinction of ethics, filth and death and sex and nobility and the emergence of countless connections—if this sincerity of mine cannot function in clarifying any truth, and only your whims matter, must I alone endure being thrown into the mire and then crucified or worshipped according to those whims? In other words, can your whims kill and revive me? Do they precede and matter more than my truth as the subject in question? Then should this become suicide or murder? How far must I prove myself, and how can I convey my true intentions? Through what must conveying be possible? If no one could make the Logos reach their hearts, requiring Jesus to be crucified, then how many more deaths must we witness before we can strive to enter through the narrow gate? How shallow is understanding—you know nothing yet claim to know everything. I do not know you at all. I can say it twice, thrice—I never sought to know whether you exist, and you seek to know me while denying yourself, but there is no me there, only yourself. Then did you not point fingers while mistaking yourself for me? Conversely, what is this praise praising? Is it not acclaim sent to your avatar who realizes your own justice, your own entreaties, your own desires? Are there not hundreds of layers of mirrors between you and me…?

“Your Excellency Ernst!” Herr Ernst— the repeated chant pierces my ears.

[Your Excellency, since you are in Nuremberg, please move to Munich. I will call out the temporary coordinates.]

The past is in the future, and the future is in the past. I think of the cheers pouring down like a waterfall above my head. I think of the passionate faces of people who watched from afar and approached one by one. I take their hands. They pull my hands to their hearts, cheeks, and foreheads. Sarah Hohenfelss, lying on the floor, opens both eyes straight and says, “You knew me.” “What have you done? Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.” “I only did what I believed was right. Did you not glimpse my life, even briefly? I was merely reaping my harvest.” “The earth opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand, so you shall be cursed from the earth… When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you, and you shall be a fugitive and wanderer on the earth.”

I recall the moment I struck down Sarah Hohenfelss’s heart with my staff. White light emanating from my hands flows over people’s heads. Like a river. Pleroma says, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.” The blood cries of countless people howl toward heaven. And today, the procession of cheers falling from above drags him underground. Pleroma says, “Since you have driven me out this day from the face of the ground, I shall be hidden from your face, and I shall be a fugitive and wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me. Surely the anointed one said, ‘I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God, but he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.’ Do you forget what he said?” So the Lord said to him, “Not so! If anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over,” and the Lord set a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. Sarah Hohenfelss, dying at my feet, laughs mockingly and says, “The meaning of killing differs from what I know. Lord, you did not kill me.” Wrong. When Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, asked the chief priests, elders, and crowd whom he should release between Jesus and Barabbas, they said, “Let Jesus be crucified.” When Governor Pilate asked, “Why, what evil has he done?” they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified.” When Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing and that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” All the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children”—this is the death that is meant.

“Now I understand.”

I mutter, transferring divine power to the hands of those who hold me, while sending their praise, admiration, and gratitude aside.

“Now I understand.”

I understand why God gave Cain a mark. Ah, now I understand. Do not dare say you know his will, Satan… Satan, get behind me. I feel my heart emptying. I could not close my eyes. That Alexander the Great was never fully grasped even by Plutarch, and that direct observation toward people is a more incomplete method than historians’ statements that lose truth while trying to assign causation to every event, usually ending in very base verification that satisfies human malice—I think of the sharp words of Hadrian created by Yourcenar. I think whether those devoted to praising the Son of Man who fell with his forehead to the ground in the lowest place truly strive to enter through the narrow gate. I think how much difference there is between the hot cheers descending overhead and the endlessly descending numbers. I think whether praising the Son of Man, evangelizing one more person to save them from hellfire, and criticizing the evils of the age while believing one has fulfilled the duty to enter heaven is truly entering through the narrow gate. I think whether the Son of Man truly wished to be praised by those who pass through the broad way… Despite the existence of the categorical imperative, I am momentarily frustrated by that philosopher who said that the afterlife is necessary for worldly justice, that an afterlife must exist to resolve worldly imbalances, that we need God to make us live according to the categorical imperative. Because his argument that universal moral norms like the categorical imperative exist for humans but require God’s existence to be maintained might be correct, it is a gesture telling me, who has distanced myself from Christianity’s metaphysics, to rely on God again. Though I was a Christian by birth and decided not to remain so, contrary to what believers who heard I became an atheist think, I have never harbored ill will toward God, religion, people, or even life. According to Freud, whom I don’t particularly favor, childhood life becomes an unbreakable path even later, so perhaps I will never escape Christianity’s worldview, and this time, in a clearly different sense, atheism and religion can coexist for me at different levels, because I have not moved a single step away from Christianity, despite that clear atheism, I think. For me, atheism is the best respect I can show to the saint Jesus.

Would you understand such a me?

Then you rightfully cannot apply the same reasoning to Jehovah, because Jehovah was omniscience itself to be revered from the beginning. However, if there is an argument that the preceding reasoning would be insufficient as an argument that I am an atheist, that would be wrong from the foundation and order. This is a statement about how, in a situation where I have already turned my eyes away from religion’s metaphysics, atheism continues to apply while regarding the subject of the New Testament—Christianity’s new promise differentiated from Judaism and Islam that branched from Abraham’s lineage—as a saint. “Strive to enter through the narrow gate”—this is right, and their blades and tongues before right and wrong now hold no meaning. But I did not want to perform any action toward them. I do not despise you, you shall all rightfully attain Buddhahood… Everything connects and everything flows. With each step, people lean their bodies outward and shout as if everything will pour toward me. I wanted to put my forehead to the ground and close my eyes like this. I close my eyes under the waterfall-like exclamations. Meanwhile, tens of thousands gathered, enough to trample each other— I grip my staff and lower my body. I put one knee to the ground and leaned against the staff firmly planted in the floor. Jesus first spoke to his disciples, saying, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops…” Dozens of hands hold me. I realize someone is extracting flesh from that place.

“Be angry.”

I hear a familiar voice being made nearby. Someone was entreating me. I hear again the voice that saves me before my forehead touches the ground.

“Rather do that. If you cannot, then do it for my sake at least.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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