Lilith Between Flesh And Spirit

Chapter Sixteen: Soulless

"In less than forty-eight hours, Yaldaboath will have an army of soulless humans marching with him towards the gates of the Pleroma. They will obey him to the letter and sacrifice everything until the place becomes entirely his."

That sentence sums it all up, and it comes from one Archon who now forms a steeple with his hands. He reclines on his leather seat, with two of his brothers sitting on each of his sides.

Black-cladded demons strong under their hood, crimson-twisted long nails over pale frail hands—all embed into the cold decor of a room made of a shattered darkened glazed mirror wall. There are only six of them here, but their cast reflections made them appear to be an army of them, chopped into all directions.

That's the Archons' headquarters, and from there they control everything happening in the material world. There is a screen in a corner instead of the glass showing the disastrous consequences of a war, with on its opposite side the same information shown from the perspective of another country supporting it.

That's how hate rules the world by dividing the minds.

The video suddenly freezes on Norea; her image enlarges and displays all over the room. She is back in the material world.

"We could have Norea eliminated by now if it wasn't for you, Astaphanos!" He says as his crimson eyes glow under his hood towards this one Archon in front of him—this one Archon that doesn't fit among them. She is filing her long red nails in her glittering metallic tube bowknot jumpsuit, with her long silver hair resting over her left shoulder.

Silence thickens and becomes unbearable, and yet she has answered nothing back to the accusation thrown at her. The first Archon who has spoken taps his fingers over the rest-arm of his chair in impatience before his mood escalates to frustration. A loud grunt escapes through his gritted teeth as he removes his hood. Crisscrossed in many red streaks and ridges with craters that form into the thin lips of a mouth and tall cliffs to become ears. That is their face—the face of all the Archons without distinction over an eyeless, hairless clay skin. This one doesn't differ from another, and he hits his foot on the ground, waking Astaphanos up from her daydream. Among them, only she possesses the face of a human.

She only gives him a hmph. "Excuse me, I was outnumbered there!"

Another indivisible Archon stands up. He moves in front of Astaphanos, his hands violently gripping on the base of her seat, making her jerk back. "Maybe if you were with us at the ballroom instead of getting yourself into that ridiculous outfit, they'll have been dead by now!"

Astaphanos raises on her feet, unafraid of the threat. "Nothing wrong with getting the best outfit for the job, right?"

"Our job was to eliminate Norea and Lilith from this lifetime?" Another Archon interjects and Astaphanos silences him with an ugly stare.

"I always wonder what was wrong with you, Astaphanos, for quite a while now?" The first Archon says before clearing his throat for a sip of a red liquid from a black cup. "That doesn't look like you!"

"That!" The Archon standing in front of Astaphanos repeats with a laughter of mockery as his eyes stare at her from head to toe. "That has never been you or any of us?"

Protruding her eyes, Astaphanos leans closer to him. "Define, what's us then?"

None of them dares to answer apart from the last one of them who hasn't made himself heard yet. "We are the Archons, male demons, engineered by Yaldaboath to assist him!"

"Male?" Astaphanos chuckles.

"You're just strange since you swallowed that crystal!" The one standing before her says this before pushing her back into her chair to draw his face closer to her. His icy breath whipped over her, causing her red iris to squint. "Maybe we should show him his part so he can't remember what he truly is!"