Chapter 56: Why destruction is not complete

Chapter 56: Chapter 56: Why destruction is not complete

The screen popped into existence the instant Randal reached for the Sixth Wave, the same cold blue interface that had mocked him for five centuries.

[Ascension failed: Cannot access Sixth Wave]

He stared at the familiar rejection without flinching. By now the words have long since lost the power to surprise him. The system had locked him out of the next stage of his power with the patience of a jailer who enjoyed watching the prisoner test the bars every single day.

Randal’s ascension was still restricted, a heavy chain wrapped around the core of what he was, but yet even diminished he remained one of the two most destructive calamities alive. Only Morgana’s potential sat above his. But That knowledge did nothing to ease the old bitterness. The system had never been kind to him or to anyone else. Every gift it offered. It did so with a hidden knife or another motive.

Then, after five hundred years of silence on the matter, the interface flickered and changed.

[Sixth Wave ascension can finally be accessed]

[Destruction calamity can only function completely as an Ascender when it finds its soulmate]

Randal’s eyes narrowed. "Another old trick?" His voice was low, rough with disuse and distrust. By now he already knows the hard way that the system never gave anything freely. Everything it did carried a dark motive. "What’s a soulmate?"

The screen pulsed once..

[Destruction is the embodiment of Chaos itself. The two can only be complete when merged together.]

Randal’s mouth opened, then closed. He had seen the system do many things across the long centuries of his existence—grant power, revoke it, twist fate, break minds—but never this. Never something that sounded almost like a opportunity than another old trick.

"So what you’re saying—"

[DESTRUCTION × CHAOS = ABSOLUTE SEVENTH WAVE]

The words hung in the air. Randal stared until his vision blurred at the edges. Then, slowly, a smile stretched across his face. It was not a kind expression. It was wide, sharp, and terrifying, even with his mana shackled, the promise of the Absolute Seventh Wave was not something he would usually turn down.

Then Randal turned away from the screen and vanished into the capital’s dark alley’s.

Meanwhile Two minutes later, Fahai and Layla arrived in the alley.

They looked nothing like the figures one would expect them to be. Fahai wore a plain white t-shirt and faded blue jeans, the kind of clothes a man might throw on for a late-night walk. Layla had chosen a soft pink top and simple trousers, her hair loose instead of bound for combat. No one glancing at them would have guessed they were two of the most powerful forces in the existence. But That was the not the point.

Fahai crouched and pressed two fingers into the ashen residue still clinging to the cracked pavement. The substance crumbled under his touch, already fading.

"He was here," Fahai said quietly.

Layla’s eyes swept the rooftops and the dark mouths of the surrounding streets. "What does he want in this capital of all places?"

"I don’t know. But I strongly doubt he’s here for a good reason." Fahai rose, brushing the ash from his fingertips. "Can you track his mana residuals?"

"I tried. Randal is too good. I couldn’t find anything."

Fahai’s brow furrowed. The thought of Destruction walking freely through his city sat in his gut like a cold stone. "Let’s split up. The faster we cover ground, the better."

Layla nodded, but Fahai caught her arm before she could leave.

"The moment you see him, you inform me."

She rolled her eyes, the gesture pure teenage disdain despite the gravity of the situation. "Yes, yes, I know, Father."

"Layla." His voice dropped, stripping away any remaining softness. "This is no joke. This is Destruction we’re talking about. When you see him, you contact me. IMMEDIATELY."

For a moment her face twisted with something close to disgust—at the warning, at the sudden seriousness in his voice , at the fact that even she had to take Randal seriously. Then she gave a sharp "Hmph!" and shot into the air, vanishing between the rooftops in a blur of pink and black.

Fahai watched the empty sky for a long second before turning and disappearing in the opposite direction.

---

Commissioner Varn sat behind his desk. His eyes exhausted with years of endless politics. Across from him, Angel and Agnes stood like two cats forced into the same small room.

"Today I want you both on your best behavior," Varn said, rubbing his temples. "Angel, respect Agnes—"

"I still don’t see why I have to be babysat by a witch," Angel hissed.

"I don’t see why I have to babysit a jerk," Agnes shot back instantly.

Varn’s hands came down hard on the desk. "Please. Enough."

The word flowed through the room like a whip. Both of them froze, then turned to face him. Something in the commissioner’s expression had shifted. The usual weary patience was gone, replaced by a gravity that made the air feel heavier.

"Angel," Varn said quietly, "do you remember where I found you?"

The question landed like a stone in still water. Angel’s face went blank. Then the past rose up and swallowed him and Agness a whole.

---

The slums of the old district had never known peace. Long before the capital settled into its current fragile calm, the calamities had been at the height of their power. War was constant. Starvation was simply another season. People died in the streets and were left there until the rain washed what remained into the gutters.

Angel— whose name is actually called Riley then—had lived with his mother under a roof that leaked in seven places. She had been half-dead already when she gave birth to him, too poor and too broken to offer anything more than the thin milk of desperation. Riley grew up knowing hunger the way other children knew games. There were days the emptiness in his stomach felt like it might tear him open from the inside.

Then that was when Agnes appeared.

She was a little richer than most in the slums—enough that her family sometimes had bread left over, enough that she could slip away with a loaf without anyone noticing right away. The first time she found him, Riley was sitting in the dirt behind a collapsed wall, too weak to stand.

"Here," she said, smiling as she held out a loaf of bread.

Angel didn’t even think twice, he snatched it and with One ravenous bite took half the loaf. Agnes laughed, the sound bright and strange in that gray place.

"Wow. I don’t know anyone who’s ever eaten bread that fast in my life."

Riley looked up at her with crumbs on his lips. "Thank you."

"What’s your name?"

"Riley."

"I’m Agnes. Nice to meet you."

"Agnes!!" her father shouted from somewhere nearby. She glanced over her shoulder, then back at him with a quick, conspiratorial grin.

"Bye. We’ll meet again, Riley."

Angel watched her run away to her father’s voice. And juts like that, in that grey world. Agness was shining. Unbothered by it all.

After that, They did meet up again. Whenever she could, Agnes brought food. A heel of bread. A wrinkled apple. Once, a piece of dried meat so precious it felt like treasure to poor Riley. Those moments became the only light in Riley’s world. She was the first person who had ever looked at him with love and kindness.

But Everything changed the day he awakened.

At five years old, Riley’s black hair and void black eyes instantly turned to something. Something white and rare. He Awakened as not only a good deeder but a good deeder whose body and face altered after receiving power. After the power settled into his bones, his mother took him to a shaman and when the shaman saw him and examined him. She said with a trembling voice

"Your boy is the Angel of the System, sent from the Sovereign itself. He is the servant of God."

And with that, over a single night, the starving child became a living relic. People brought gifts and food for his blessings. His mother, who had once shared a crumbling roof with him, now wore new clothes and spoke of destiny. Riley—now called Angel—was lifted out of the dirt and placed on a pedestal so high he could no longer see the ground.

But He still snuck out when he could. Habit and guilt both drove him. One evening he found a thin, wrinkled girl collapsing against an abandoned wall. When he got closer, the world tilted.

"Agnes?"

She looked up. Recognition hit her like a physical blow. Tears spilled down her face. Angel’s did too. He pulled her into his arms without thinking.

"What happened?"

She told him everything. Her family had thrown her out the moment she awakened as a calamity. In their eyes she had become poison. Angel held her tighter. ℯℯ𝘭.

"Don’t worry," he whispered. "I promise I’ll protect you."

After that, the roles reversed. Whenever he could slip away from the worshippers and the ceremonies, Angel brought food to the abandoned building where Agnes hid. He would sit with her while she ate, promising again and again that he would never let her starve.

Weeks later the Festival of the Feast arrived—the day the city would exalt Angel to near-divine status. Nobles and high-caliber citizens came to receive his blessings. The streets filled with music and the smell of roasting meat. Angel was kept so busy he could not leave for two full days.

Agnes grew desperate. Hunger clawed at her until she could no longer wait. At midnight she slipped out of her hiding place, a sharp stone in her hand. She found a bread shop, smashed a window, and climbed inside. She ate until her stomach stopped screaming, then packed what she could carry.

She was almost free when a voice roared behind her.

"A thief! And a calamity!"

"Sir, I’m sorry—"

The slap that followed was loud enough to echo. The shop owner dragged her into the street by her hair.

By morning the decision had already been made. A group of townsmen approached Angel’s mother with an offer.

"Mrs. Vaina, we have caught calamities. We wish for your son to be the one who burns them on the stake."

"How much?"

"The townsmen will pay you fifty."

She smiled and agreed without hesitation.

When they carried Angel to the square that evening, rain was already falling in heavy sheets. He sat on a fine chair beneath an umbrella, dressed in a spotless white cloak, the living symbol of the System’s favor. The crowd parted for him. Then he lifted his head and saw the condemned.

Agnes hung among them, crucified, blood mixing with rain as it ran down her bent face and through the dirty curtain of her hair.

Angel’s eyes went wide with pure, undiluted horror.

"Noooo!"