Chapter 139: The Descender

After Estrella left, Grandmother raised Navali alone.

During that time, a heavy rainstorm passed through, causing the lake to overflow. Since their home was built very close to the water, Grandmother moved to another residence within the village. Fortunately, most of the money Estrella had left behind remained unspent, and the funds she occasionally sent from overseas were more than enough to cover the relocation.

As time passed, the village population grew. Many city dwellers, fleeing the increasingly chaotic urban environment to avoid dying from the stray bullets of narcotics traffickers, chose to "de-urbanize." They settled in these barren, impoverished rural areas where only basic crops could be grown and large-scale industrial farming was impossible—areas largely ignored by Mexico's various criminal syndicates.

Consequently, as the village became vibrant once more, the spiritual demand for traditional prayers and rituals was reignited. Shamans regained their significance, and the lives of Grandmother and Navali became increasingly comfortable.

Until ten years later.

The day Estrella returned to the village, Navali did not realize at first glance that this woman was his mother.

She was gaunt, with sunken cheekbones and a shadow of gloom perpetually lingering in one eye. She walked with a slight limp. Despite this, traces of her former beauty remained beneath her emaciated appearance. Underneath her long, dark, curly hair, her face was still striking; though worn by the passage of time, it still held a faint, lingering glow.

The tall woman stood before Navali as he walked home, her brown eyes emitting a cold, chilling light.

"Hey, kid, do you know where the Turnbata family lives now?"

Navali looked up at the woman, his expression habitually blank, though he felt a flicker of surprise inside.

"...Turnbata? Are you looking for my grandmother?"

"Grandmother?"

It was the woman’s turn to be stunned. She scrutinized Navali’s face in detail for a long time. Finally, muttering something to herself like, "You don't look like them at all," she walked straight toward him and grabbed his shoulder. With a familiarity that felt unsettling, her right hand clamped firmly onto him.

"Let’s go. Take me to your house."

Navali’s body flinched, but he did not move immediately, staring at the woman's face.

"Who are you?"

The woman smiled. She parted her lips to reveal yellowish front teeth, with a distinct gap between the upper and lower rows that looked as if they had been smashed from the middle.

"Who am I? I am your mother!"

"—Let's go. Take me to see your grandmother, my mother, Turnbata."

This was the first encounter between Navali and Estrella where both were fully conscious, a reunion after ten years of separation.

After stiffly leading Estrella to his home, Navali watched her enter the room. He wanted to follow, but the moment Grandmother saw Estrella, she understood exactly what had happened. With a rare severity, she barred the boy from entering and told him, "Navali, go play outside for a while."

Then, Grandmother slammed the door shut.

Navali was left alone outside, feeling deeply uneasy. He thought about what he had just seen and what the woman had said. Although his face remained expressionless, his heart was on the verge of turmoil.

That woman said... "I am your mother"... Mother... She is Estrella... Is it really her?

Navali hugged his arms, his emotions teetering on the edge of fragmentation. He had heard rumors about the mother he had never met since birth; whispers occasionally drifted into his ears from the village. As a child, Navali had sometimes looked forward to the moment he would meet her. She was like the omnipresent background in the fusion of subconsciousness and dreams—without a clear outline, yet blending into the shadows everywhere, allowing him to breathe in her existence at every moment.

...But Navali had never expected that his first meeting with his mother would occur under these circumstances.

Moreover, her appearance was completely different from the woman he had imagined—even though he didn't truly know what his mother should have looked like. Most importantly, Navali did not feel a shred of maternal warmth from her.

When she grabbed his shoulder, the tension that gripped Navali’s body wasn't just because of what she had said; it was the sensation of her hand touching him. It was a cold, oppressive, slick sensation, like the tongue of a viper. There was no love in it—only a cold, viscous desire for control. The moment Estrella grabbed him, Navali felt a visceral sense of disgust and agitation.

Navali stood outside the house, waiting anxiously for the conversation between Grandmother and the woman to end. He did not know what they were talking about, how long it would last, or what it had to do with him. He knew nothing of it; his heart was filled only with fear—fear of that woman.

To combat the fear in his heart, he looked up at the sky.

But at that moment, he suddenly noticed a small speck in the heavens.

...That is...

Navali’s mouth hung slightly open.

The speck—that small dot—suddenly became infinitely large, as if covering the entire sky, yet it also seemed infinitely small, condensed into the tiny space in front of him. It seemed to exist, yet it also seemed not to.

In the gap between its existence and non-existence, the phantom slowly unfolded, and information belonging to a time beyond this age poured out.

A rift...
The Void...
God...
God...

Finally, a man, the figure of a man, appeared abruptly before Navali.

"...Oh, kid."

The man’s skin and hair were also dark, but he looked completely different from any other Mexican Navali had ever seen. He smiled brightly and playfully, beckoning to Navali with a light wave of his hand.

The man’s face was incredibly handsome, but—most bizarrely—Navali found it impossible to provide an accurate description of him. Although the man stood right before him, with every blink, Navali would forget what he looked like. Only when his eyes were open, actually looking at him, would Navali realize he was truly seeing the man’s face.

It was a profoundly contradictory feeling.

It made Navali realize the stranger's identity in an instant—

"Are... are you a god? Are you—Tezcatlipoca?"