My Seven Wives Are Beautiful Saintesses-Chapter 238 - 237: The Lie of Dalu

The Sovereigns did not depart after the crushing weight of the truth was finally spoken. They remained gathered in the sealed chamber beneath the Imperial Palace, their massive presences compressed into human-like forms so that the very fabric of Astralis would not tear apart beneath the strain of their existence.

Even with their power held back, the air felt thick and saturated with a heavy, suffocating meaning that no mortal language could ever fully contain.

​Celestine stood like a living wall between Vahn and the door to Valen's sleeping chamber. Her hands were clenched so tightly that her nails pressed deep, pale crescents into her palms, and her knuckles were white with the effort of holding herself together.

​"A child," she said, her voice trembling with a fury that felt like it could ignite the room. "You are standing in my home, in the seat of our life, and you are speaking of a child as if he were a mathematical variable. You are talking about my son."

​Aria, the Sovereign of Principle, did not look away, though her eyes held a depth of sorrow that spanned eons. "We are speaking of the only thing that remains between existence and the void, Celestine. We take no pleasure in the timing."

​Vahn's gaze was like a frozen sea, never leaving the faces of the women he had once known in a different life. "You said Valen is stabilizing the universe unconsciously. You said he is the only reason the erasure hasn't reached the Core yet. Show me the proof. Show me the cost he is already paying."

​the Memory Sovereign hesitated, her form flickering like a candle in a gale. That brief moment of silence was all the confirmation Vahn needed to feel the cold realization sink into his bones.

​"You knew," Vahn said quietly, the words carrying more weight than a shout. "You didn't just suspect. You knew before you even stepped foot on this world today. You knew when he was born."

​Valeria inclined her head slowly. "We suspected the potential when the laws of the frontier began to harmonize around him. We confirmed the reality only when the Outer Force stopped ignoring the stability of this sector."

​Flama let out a bitter, jagged laugh that sounded like breaking glass. "Recently? Don't lie to him anymore, Aria. We knew the moment the stars started yawning, just like the kid said. We knew we were out of time and that he was the only clock left ticking."

​Lilith stood in the corner, shadows clinging to her like a mourning veil. "This should have ended long ago. We have carried this secret like a poison in our veins since the day we left the high domains."

​Vahn's eyes sharpened, cutting through the atmosphere of the room. "Explain that. If this is the end of the line, tell me where the line started. Tell me about the beginning."

​The Sovereigns exchanged a look that carried centuries of shared guilt, a silent conversation between gods that had finally run out of excuses.

Finally, the Memory Sovereign stepped forward. Her form fragmented violently, pieces of forgotten worlds slipping from her outline like gray ash.

​"We must begin with Dalu," she said, her voice echoing with the ghosts of a thousand years. "Dalu was never just a random, insignificant rock in the middle of nowhere. It was chosen with a precision that would make your imperial architects weep."

​Celestine's breath hitched in her throat, a soft, wounded sound. Vahn did not react outwardly, but he felt the Void within him go perfectly still. It was the stillness of a predator waiting for the killing blow.

​"Chosen by whom?" Vahn asked, his voice a low, dangerous hum.

​"By us," Seraphina answered, her radiance muted and dull. "By the very beings you called your wives, your friends, and your enemies."

​The word landed like a physical strike. Vahn looked at each of them in turn, his mind racing back to the dusty streets and the quiet nights of a world he thought was his sanctuary.

"You sent us there. You staged the whole thing. The isolation, the struggle, the peace... it was all a set."

​"We sent ourselves," the green-haired Sovereign said softly. "We descended into mortality to ensure the conditions were perfect. We had to be there to witness the birth of the stabilizer."

​Celestine's voice finally broke, a jagged cry of betrayal. "For what purpose? To play house? To watch us like we were insects in a jar? Tell me why!"

​"To trap him," Lilith said, her voice barely a whisper.

​"To anchor him," Seraphina corrected quickly, her eyes pleading for a glimmer of understanding that wasn't there. "Those are not the same thing, Celestine. An anchor holds a ship safe in the storm. A trap just kills."

​"They are exactly the same thing when the person being anchored never had a choice!" Celestine snapped, stepping toward them. "You manipulated his heart. You used every ounce of his humanity to bind him to a reality that you were too weak to save yourselves!"

​Aria raised her hand in a gesture that was meant to be soothing, but it only felt like another layer of control. "Let us speak clearly now. No more half-truths or poetic metaphors. Dalu was designated by Sovereign decree as a convergence cradle. It was a laboratory for the soul."

​Vahn felt the air in his lungs turn to lead. "A cradle. You talk about a world like it was a piece of equipment."

​Seraphina took over again, her voice thick with regret. "When convergence grows unchecked, the universe seeks a reset. In the past, this was handled naturally. But we interfered. We stabilized the empires, we corrected the tragedies, and we made the universe too rigid. We became arrogant, believing we could manage the cosmic balance through manipulation instead of the sacrifice it truly requires."

​"We became cosmic accountants," Flama spat. "And we forgot that someone always has to pay the bill."

​"And then the Outer Force appeared," Lilith said. "Not as a monster from the dark, but as a biological response. A cosmic white blood cell meant to dissolve the parts of reality that had stopped growing and changed into something static."

​Vahn watched them, his face a mask of iron. "So you stopped it once before. How?"

​Aria hesitated for a heartbeat. "By creating a Prime Principle artificially. We realized that if we couldn't find an stabilizer, we would have to build one. A being born of the highest principles, yet tied to the world by emotional bonds so strong that they could never be severed. We needed someone who would love existence so much they would give up their own self to keep it alive."

​Celestine felt a wave of nausea wash over her. "You used love as a component. You treated our feelings like they were just parts of a machine."

​"Yes," Lilith said, her voice cracking. "Because it is the only force that survives the dissolution of the soul. We knew that if the convergence loved his father, his mother, and his people, he would never let go, no matter how much it hurt to hold on."

​The green-haired Sovereign looked at the floor. "It worked once. It saved the last cycle. But the cost was a hole in our own divinity that never healed."

​Flama slammed her fist into the air, a small spark of fire dying instantly in the heavy atmosphere. "And it damned every one of us! We thought we could play god with the very concept of family, and now look at us. We are standing here in the ruins of our own lie."

​Vahn's voice was so calm it was terrifying. "So Dalu was the cage. And you were the bars."

​"Dalu was chosen because it was isolated," Aria said, her voice trembling slightly. "It was a world where we could monitor you without the noise of the rest of the universe. We needed to ensure that the emotional anchoring was deep, pure, and unbreakable. We needed you to love us so that the child would be born of that intensity."

​"And you were sent there to bind me," Vahn said, the truth finally fully exposed. "To make sure I didn't wander off or die before the experiment was finished."

​No one denied it. The silence was a confession in itself.

​Celestine stared at Seraphina, the woman she had once shared tea with, the woman who had watched over Valen's first steps. "All of you. Every smile, every word of advice, every moment of 'sisterhood' was just you checking the gauges on a pressure cooker."

​Seraphina's shoulders shook, and a single tear traced a path down her cheek. "We were sent to influence the outcome. We had to ensure the child was born of Convergence. We gave our hearts to the cause, Celestine. I didn't pretend to love him. I did love him. That's the part that is killing me now."

​Flama snarled at the ceiling. "We were sent to make him love us so he would stay put. We were the bait, the hook, and the line."

​Lilith's voice was a ghost of a sound. "And we had to make sure he would never, ever abandon the universe, no matter what it asked of him."

​Vahn took a long, slow breath, looking at the ceiling of his palace as if he could see through it to the stars that were currently being erased.

"When did you know? When did you look at that little boy and realize he was the one you were waiting for?"

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