Chapter 17: Part 2- The Revelation of the Covenant

3 days later.. The Vatican

The Vatican’s marble halls had never felt so hollow.

What had once been a palace of faith now carried the hush of desperation. Candles flickered against tapestries depicting saints and martyrs, their stitched faces seeming to watch as the last religious leaders of Earth gathered in the grand chamber.

The pope sat at the head, robes muted and weary, beside him the Dalai Lama, the Chief Rabbi, imams, priests, monks, and shamans—all relics of a fractured humanity, clinging to belief as the One Light hung unblinking beyond the stained-glass windows.

John stepped forward from the crowd, his long coat trailing, eyes burning with conviction. The Order of the Gnostics flanked him in silence.

He began without preamble.
“In 1999, I stood in a ruin in South Africa. Yihizo Ye Langa. And there, I found a seal.”

Murmurs spread immediately. John’s voice cut through them.

“That seal was no monument. It was a key.” His gaze lingered on the pope. “A door pressed shut since the beginning. A door your scriptures warned of, but you chose to veil it in parables.”

 

He reached into his coat and drew a page worn thin, the ink black and steady. His voice lowered, almost reverent:

“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain—for the former things are passed away.”

 

He folded the page once more and looked up, smiling faintly.

“Revelation promised an end to pain, suffering, and death. The seal is the way to that promise. Not the devil’s trick, not false light—simply the door back to what was always meant to be.”

Some leaders gasped. Others muttered curses.

“The seal almost came undone,” John continued, calm as if lecturing children.

“It spoke to us, manipulated us- it forced our hands to break its edge. And when we did—partially—the world cracked. One hundred thousand people around the world died instantly. This is what is called the Nostradamus event.”

The chamber erupted with shouts. “Blasphemy!” “Lies!” “Delusion!”

John raised a hand, smiling faintly. “If words are not enough… then see.”

He gestured, and Anya stepped forward from the shadows. She bowed her head slightly before raising her hands. Fire bloomed from her palms, rolling like liquid. Gasps echoed as she spun it into ribbons, weaving heat into shape. In a smooth motion, the fire leapt, twisting, reforming—until a lion made of flame prowled the air above her, roaring soundlessly.

Silence. Awe. Fear.

The pope surged to his feet, voice thundering:
“This is the work of the devil!”

John laughed. A sharp, genuine laugh that rattled the chamber.

“The devil? Oh, I had forgotten how you still tell that story. That your god made the world in his image, how you play shepherd while the sheep rot.”

He strode toward the pope, unhurried, each step echoing.

 When he reached him, John laid a hand gently on his shoulder.

“Rewind.”

The pope blinked—then jolted as his body folded backward into his seat, as though time itself had been spliced. The cardinals nearby recoiled in terror.

“This is not the work of the devil,” John said softly, smiling down at them. “This is what those AZO dogs call Spiritual Essence. A power stitched into the very fabric of reality itself.”

The Dalai Lama, calm but grave, lifted his gaze. “If that is so… then what is your goal, John? Why show us this? Why now?”

John turned, coat sweeping, addressing the entire hall.

“Our goal is salvation. True salvation. The seal must be opened.”

A storm of protests erupted. Fists slammed tables.

The leaders fell into uneasy silence, eyes locked on him.

“The seal must be opened,” John said again, firmer now. “But not just anyone can open it fully. Not me. Not even one of the Celestial Zodiacs.”

The pope, trembling, forced the words out: “Then who? Who is worthy?”

John reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a folded page. He opened it carefully, revealing a symbol inked in black: twelve stars in a perfect circle, one bright star in the center, and a thirteenth placed outside the ring.

He held it up for them all to see.

A rabbi gasped, voice breaking the silence.

“The twelve stars of Israel!”

Whispers surged through the chamber like a rising storm.

John’s smile was faint, patient, as if he had been waiting for the words.

“Close,” he said. “But they don’t symbolize tribes. These twelve are the Celestial Zodiacs—from Capricorn to Sagittarius. They are instruments of judgment and destruction, whose task is always the same: to end what was, so the cycle may begin anew.”

He tapped the center star.

“And here, the one we call the source. The Sol. The First Light. That which makes reality visible at all.”

Then his hand shifted, pointing to the star beyond the ring.

“But this one—this one is different. The Thirteenth. The one who stepped outside the circle. The witness who saw the beginning… and who must stand at the end.”

 

A monk’s voice cracked through the hush, half-pleading: “Witness to what covenant?”

John’s gaze swept the chamber, the faintest glimmer of triumph in his eyes.

“The same covenant bound since the first breath in Eden. With Adam and Eve, with Noah, with David. And now… the cycle nears its end. The covenant waits to be completed.”

The silence that followed was heavy, oppressive, as though even the stone walls were listening.

John’s gaze swept the chamber, the faintest

 John whispered, eyes gleaming. “They alone are worthy to open the seal.”

A hush fell over the Vatican, broken only by the faint crackle of candles. No one dared move.

 

The chamber held its breath. John’s words lingered like smoke.

The pope’s face tightened, not with outrage now, but with something closer to fear—an old man remembering scripture too closely, realizing that some metaphors might have been truths in disguise.

The Dalai Lama’s calm cracked; his eyes darted to the symbol, then to Anya, then back to John, as though searching for a thread of compassion and finding none.

Around the hall, the others whispered fiercely—priests and imams muttering prayers under their breath, rabbis trading fearful looks, monks staring as if the floor might split beneath them. The sound was a rising tide of disbelief and horror.

“The witness…” one bishop muttered, crossing himself as if the gesture might shield him.

“Witness to what?” another leader demanded, voice breaking.

John only smiled, folding the page neatly and slipping it back into his coat.
“To the truth.”

The silence that followed was heavier than any sermon. Shadows stretched long, swallowing the faces of saints woven into the tapestries. Their stitched eyes seemed to glimmer in the dim light, as though the thread itself remembered.

No one moved. No one breathed.

The pope’s lips trembled with the shape of an old prayer, but no sound left him. A shaman clutched the beads at his wrist until they snapped and spilled across the marble. Somewhere in the chamber, a monk whispered apokalypsis—revelation.

John folded the page and slid it back into his coat, as though sealing away the truth itself.

The silence that followed was not merely silence. It was heavy and alive, as if something beyond the stained glass had leaned closer to hear.