Only God
Chapter 42 - 39 Everything is Arranged by God

Chapter 42: Chapter 39 Everything is Arranged by God

Yarlessto slowly opened his eyes.

The storm around him had long since subsided, and he stared blankly at the azure sky.

"Are you awake?"

Yarlessto heard a familiar voice, it was his father, Al.

He hurriedly climbed up from the canoe, turned his head, and looked at his father.

His father’s appearance was extremely disheveled; the onslaught of the storm had aged him considerably. Sun-dried hair stuck together, reeking of seawater, his body had grown even thinner, like an old tree in the woods stripped of its bark.

Immediately, Yarlessto thought of something and quickly looked at the canoe.

The canoe in front of him was battered and barely usable, swaying in the sea water. They had lost all their luggage they brought on board and the berries replenished from the island during that storm.

Yarlessto looked at everything in disbelief, he was left only with the Bone Knife he carried with him.

He gritted his teeth, a crushing despair welled up in his heart.

Yet his father’s face remained calm.

Al sat steadily on one side of the canoe, bowed his head, and fiddled with his wrinkled ten fingers, methodically cleaning the debris between his nails.

Yarlessto didn’t understand why his father could still remain so calm at this moment.

"Father, do you really have that much faith?" Yarlessto asked, lifting his face with a bitter smile.

Al shifted his gaze from his nails to him and said in a flat tone,

"The storm yesterday was like the end of the world that God spoke of, yet, we still survived."

Then, Al paused before continuing,

"You were unconscious. Do you know what you were saying?"

"I don’t know."

As the words fell on his ears, Al said,

"You were saying, ’God, why is the path to grace so difficult?’"

Yarlessto was stunned for a moment, then, after calming his emotions slightly, he asked his father back,

"Isn’t it?"

Al showed a rare kindness,

"It’s nothing, my child. Everyone talks in their sleep, even I do."

Yarlessto felt his thoughts were restless and uneasy.

He turned his face away, looking to the distance, where the black mist-like Ancient Chaos stood, the canoe was further from the Ancient Chaos than before.

The father and son fell silent, and they picked up the paddles in tacit understanding and began to sail towards the Ancient Chaos.

However, this time, Yarlessto’s paddle strokes were weaker. Initially, it was just a lack of strength, but then it gradually weakened further.

Yarlessto noticed his own inner defeat.

Confronting this defeat, a sense of powerlessness surged, and he simply remained silent, letting his faith in God and the journey gradually fade.

He looked towards the endpoint indicated by God—the edge of the world, which now seemed so far away, unachievable in a lifetime unless a miracle occurred.

Unlike him, his prophet father, Al, paddled diligently, taking on even the effort Yarlessto should have contributed, growing tirelessly like wheat under the sun.

The entire day passed like this, and soon, dusk fell.

Yarlessto moved his lips, suddenly feeling his mouth dry and parched.

There was no water on the boat, nor any berries; everything they had carried had been lost in the storm. Looking at the water’s surface, Yarlessto saw no sign of fish either.

The sea around the canoe was deep and azure.

Among the Logos people, including Yarlessto, not one had ever seen the sea, and naturally, none knew that one should not drink seawater.

Feeling thirsty, Yarlessto looked at his father, who was undoubtedly just as thirsty.

"Can seawater be drunk? Can it quench thirst?" he asked Al.

Al looked at the sea water and said wearily,

"My child, I don’t know... During the storm, I swallowed a lot of seawater, one gulp was so large that I nearly passed out. It made my throat feel sick; right now, I am not that thirsty."

However, Yarlessto could see that his father was merely enduring; he seemed just as thirsty.

Yarlessto had tasted the seawater during the storm, but perhaps because of his youth, he hadn’t felt dizzy.

He stared at the seawater, hesitant for a long while, like other Logos people encountering unknown mushrooms.

Eventually, driven by thirst, Yarlessto leaned down and took a big gulp of seawater.

The intense saltiness exploded in his mouth, Yarlessto furrowed his brows, yet the tactile sensation of seawater filled his mouth, misleading him to think his thirst might be alleviated.

After drinking seawater, Yarlessto sat on the other side of the canoe; soon after, an even greater thirst surged up from his throat.

He shifted his body and suddenly realized he was weaker than before, feeling as if he had withered.

Yarlessto looked astonished, his mind went blank in an instant.

This Logos man clad in animal skins stood tremblingly from the canoe, staring blankly at the vast seawater that he desperately wanted to replenish.

Thirsty Yarlessto sadly murmured,

"That can’t be drunk, it can’t quench thirst!"

Despair finally crushed all his faith, and he staggered back, collapsing disconsolately onto the boat.

.........

Yarlessto and Al had helplessly drifted at sea for three days.

God had not come to rescue the father and son, as if neglecting them, abandoning them in the vast, clueless ocean.

The dawn of the fourth day arrived unnoticed.

Yarlessto, frail, leaned against the ship, his skin dry and clinging to his bones, he lifted his head, gazing at the sky while the sunlight shone on him, feeling as though his blood was about to be evaporated.

He had always prided himself on approaching God through doubt, never one of little faith, yet now, he stared blankly at the sky, at the light that fell on him but extended no helping hand.

Yarlessto didn’t know what he was thinking.

All he knew was that his spirit was slowly crumbling.

I am going to die...

Yarlessto felt a sincere fear of death.

He lowered his head, no longer looking at the sky, his gaze shifting to his father on the other side, who was still deep asleep.

With white hair and advanced age, having suffered through a storm, his father, a Prophet, a chosen one, now had sunken eyes and a sallow complexion.

Thirst also dominated his father.

Neither he nor Al had had the energy to argue these past two days.

The Bone Knife he carried was cold against Yarlessto’s chest.

He looked at his father’s dangling wrist and shuddered.

Blood...

A terrible thought entered his mind.

I must be insane!

Yarlessto couldn’t help but feel terrified.

He lay blankly in the canoe, time passing by the second, thirst... thirst slowly took over his entire being, craving water, just a bit of thirst-quenching water.

The desire to survive, the fear of death, or rather, the animal instincts had long since subdued his body, and now, were slowly conquering his spirit.

The sunlight was particularly harsh, mercilessly taking moisture from Yarlessto’s body.

Yarlessto lifted his eyes; he saw his father still deep in sleep, motionless, as if dead, only his breath was steady.

"Like dead..."

Yarlessto murmured.

A colder fact than the seawater confronted him.

At this rate, both of them would die here.

He ran his fingers over the Bone Knife in his embrace.

In the storm, all gear, berries, had been lost, and he had only the Bone Knife he carried.

It was as though arranged by God.

"God’s arrangement..."

Yarlessto murmured.

His emotions further disintegrated; he heard it, the enticing voice of the survival instinct telling him,

It’s all God’s arrangement...

It was God who had guided them on this arduous journey, to the edge of the world, facing the Sea Demon, the Unicorn whale, and this brutal storm...

Everything had been predetermined.

Yarlessto stared intently at his father’s wrist.

So...

Whatever happened next was God’s arrangement.

The desire to survive built a barricade in Yarlessto’s heart.

That barricade was named after God, not man.

Yarlessto stood up from the canoe, legs trembling, his mouth parched, the desire to survive began replacing reason, taking over control of his body.

He slowly drew out the sharp Bone Knife.

Step by step, quietly, nearly soundlessly, Yarlessto moved closer to his sleeping father.

He had built an impregnable barricade...

It’s all God’s arrangement!

Yarlessto approached his father, slowly lifting the Bone Knife, by then, he had made up his mind, his hands not trembling in the slightest.

He murmured in his heart:

Whatever happens next, it’s all God’s arrangement.

The Bone Knife hovered in mid-air, then slowly descended.

Right as the sharp blade was about to pierce the flesh,

he suddenly saw his father’s lips moving unconsciously,

Al murmured in his sleep:

"Yarlessto, my child, I am thirsty."

He froze.

A mere mumble in a dream from his father shattered all the barricades he had preemptively built.

Yarlessto dropped the Bone Knife, lowered his head, and embraced his deeply asleep father, who was so thin, so old.

Holding his father, the child embraced the entire world, his body trembling, crying uncontrollably like a baby, disregarding everything.

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