Slowly, too slowly, the murmurs began.
"…That thing… Did anyone else…?"
"No. No, I've never seen it before."
"I thought I had reached the depths, but…"
"I don't think we ever did. Not like him."
"Whatever that thing is… it's wrong."
Another hush fell as the projection shifted, revealing the dark-cloaked being on its feet.
It was presenting Malik with a weapon wrapped in green cloth.
The moment it was unveiled, the entire hall sucked in a breath.
A double-bladed, curved sword, gleaming under the firelight outside.
It had a blade like no other. Fully white, its hilt a subtle gold.
The name was whispered with something akin to reverence. Awe. Maybe even fear.
A Holy Relic of legend.
A sword that once belonged to one of the twelve Great Old Ones.
While the crowd struggled to process the origin of their Sultan's weapon...
Safira let out a gasp.
The words barely left her lips before she clamped a hand over her mouth.
Because now, looking back, IT explained everything and cleared every possible inconsistency.
She had seen Malik as a Jinn not long after their parting—just eleven or so years.
Back then, she was confused.
How? Why? It didn't make sense.
It took her decades to reach that rank.
She had climbed, walked, struggled, died, and ascended with a group.
Together, they pushed through the dark, watching each other's backs, barely scraping by.
He had done it in one.
Not because he was the strongest. Not because he had some divine blessing.
But because he refused to break.
Didn't matter how much the abyss pulled. Didn't matter how hard time itself tried to grind him down, erase him, make him nothing.
He should have shattered.
Should have been swallowed whole.
But instead, he crawled through eternity itself—through every damn second that tried to rip him apart.
And he didn't just survive.
"...It was... it was nothing to him... just nothing."
Her words settled heavy in the air.
A few swallowed loudly, now looking back at the projection, their eyes flickering up and down, trying their best to remain, trying their best to stare at the figure standing there, at the thing Malik had faced head-on.
No hesitation. No fear.
Their Sultan had faced it directly.
He had spoken to it. Sat with it. Drank tea with it.
It handed him Zulifiqar.
No trembling hands, no wide eyes, no overwhelming terror.
No one should have been able to do that. No one.
How absurdly high was mental tolerance?
Again, no one could answer.
The silence stretched long, until—
A voice broke through it.
"Forget all that for a second—where the Hell is Zulifiqar now?!"
The words snapped them all out of it.
"That's what I wanna know! Where did it go?!"
"It was his most famous Holy Relic!"
"It could cut through anything!"
"He wielded it like nothing else in every battlefield!"
"I doubt he would've gotten trapped if he had it with him!"
Zafar turned and glanced at the others beside him.
"That's the same Zulfiqar?"
Noor's eyes hadn't left the ground.
Azeem let out a low, trembling whistle.
"Haven't seen that in almost a year now."
Huda nodded, covering Crimson's eyes while still laying on his head.
"It's been missing from his hands for a while."
Layla, still sniffling, rubbed at her nose.
"So... that's where he got it…"
Roya, eyes sharp, studied the sword, tracing its twin edges.
"A perfect copy of the legendary Zulfiqar… That's what it said."
Zafar's voice was still laced with disbelief.
"Why would that thing just… give it to him?"
"Because he earned it."
Noor answered simply.
"Because he took only ten years."
Azeem added with a smirk.
"Fastest Jinn to reach the depths of its home."
Safira showed a soft smile and murmured:
"A feat no one else had accomplished."
They had all endured centuries. Millennia. Megaannum.
Time lost its meaning in that cursed place, but even then, their numbers had limits.
Sure, it was an unfathomable length of suffering. But even that was nothing compared to what they had just witnessed.
They all had used Holy Relics to keep themselves sane, to anchor themselves, to endure.
No Holy Relic. No guide. No aid.
And he kept crawling, crawling till he was bestowed what he deserved.
The murmurs grew louder, shifting from horror to something else—excitement, disbelief, the sheer legend of it all sinking in.
"You think Zulfiqar is still out there?"
"If it is, who has it?"
"Lost to time... returned, maybe."
"Or waiting to be found by the right person."
Another silence echoed before someone perked up:
"Maybe the Twelvers know."
The second the name Twelvers left someone's lips, the whole damn hall shifted.
Heads turned—all of them.
Every gaze locked onto a group near the back, draped in green and yellow robes.
They stood still, quiet. Too quiet. Like statues carved out of flesh and fabric.
They hadn't reacted to anything before this.
Not to the deaths, the explosions, the chaos.
And not even to the horror currently gripping the hall.
The Twelvers weren't loud. At least, not until someone dragged their religion's pillars into the conversation.
If that ever happened, Templars' annoying chants would seem downright gentle in comparison.
So now? Now that his sword had appeared?
Everyone braced for it.
They expected something.
Fury. Outrage. Maybe even reverence.
Hell, some probably thought they'd drop to their knees and start chanting Malik's name like he was some kind of God.
Not a word. Not a gasp. Not a single flicker of emotion.
Not a shift in stance, not even a single exchanged glance.
A few in the crowd started whispering.
"Are they just gonna stand there?"
"Shouldn't they care? It's their thing, isn't it?"
"They believe in the Twelve, right? Wasn't Zulfiqar one of theirs?"
The murmurs grew louder and louder until—
A sharp, absolutely done scoff.
And then, the same man from Safira's camp—broad-shouldered, weathered, his beard a dark brown, his eyes a bright blue—stepped forward.
He was a man of Nasir Al-Sultan.
Someone who had spent his life fighting for them.
A man who had bled for them, holding back Al-Ayan's uninhibited ambitions.
A man who had witnessed their militia come to a bloodied halt.
A man who lost his father on the same day of their victory.
It was all because of him.
Nasir, which meant 'victor' in Old Tongue, let out a deep breath, stroking his beard like he was barely holding back a laugh.
Not a good laugh. Not an amused one. No, this was the kind of laugh that carried bite.
"Do you think us dumb? We aren't getting worked up over a fucking copy."
That shut the crowd up real quick.
He exhaled. Not quite a sigh, not quite a snort—something in between.
"Being gifted the sword of a man we revere doesn't make the Sultan any less of a tyrant."
The Twelvers wouldn't kneel for a copy.
It was quite dumb to expect every man of faith to be a fanatic.
Most in Templar weren't either; they just liked to scream a bit more than the average person.
In any case, they weren't about to care more for Malik.
Especially not because of what he did to them.
Many of their leaders were buried.
Nearly the entirety of their chain of command.
The strongest militia of the Twelvers had lost their leader as well.
Duban—the son of the fallen leader, young, untested, and unprepared—was forced to step up too soon, becoming the new Nasir. The new Victor.
And because of Malik, Duban's own brothers had turned on him.
It should've been his. His birthright, his place. But no. It turned into a fight. A struggle. A fucking blood feud as they all clawed for power.
And, again, it all came back to one person.
The worst thing that could've happened to them.
The worst person they could've met.
They should've never asked for his help.