It has been some time since the thing that calls itself Azriel appeared to him. Well, perhaps it has been some time to Wesker, but it has been only moments for the thing that is leaning against the corner of his desk when he enters his office. To that end, he picks up as if they’d been speaking mere minutes ago.
“Question,” Azriel begins nonchalantly, examining a cut stone that had until now been undisturbed in its display in the corner — treasure from the Kijuju mines, no doubt. “This…great remaking. What kind of god will you be, hm? The…oh, what is the — laissez-faire deity, leaving his creation to whatever eventuality its natural laws would determine? Or maybe you’ll lead it along. Little bread crumbs here and there. Signs, prophets, manifestations. Oh, to let the new world fend for itself, or to forge in your image?”
His blue eyes flick up from the diamond momentarily, and for an instant they are not irises and slit pupils at all but tiny windows of vast, endless, star-peppered sky. The depth is palpable and maddening. Even more mind-bending is the way his face becomes simultaneously man and grinning beast, at once handsome and well-formed and the sharp, lightning-crowned skull-contours of a wolfish thing with too many eyes. It defies perception, yet Wesker can perceive it anyway — is this the beginnings of great power, hallucination, or a vision of which the Thousand Storms has decided he has become worthy?
“You see, humans, even of the current world, explain their existence in all these ways. They both have no grasp of the powers which govern them, and yet know they exist. How would you play that, I wonder? Will you put this world on its knees and turn away, or will you offer your hand, your voice, through its despair?” He sets the gem down on the desk.
“What would the Tyrant-God have them believe?”
Wesker feels strangely compelled to respond to this being. It is no hallucination—not in the traditional sense. He knows himself better than that. He has fine control over every bit of his physicality, and why not? Had be not been designed for this? So what if Spencer’s initial plans for the Wesker children were sidelined by other projects, or by his own failure and lack of foresight. There had been survivors, but all of these were mad, dead, or…
Just him. He is the remainder, the last man standing, the lone survivor. Why shouldn’t he be deemed worthy of the godhood Ozwell Spencer and his arrogant cohort had so desired. They had squandered their chance, placed their faith in themselves—and they had fallen short. In a way, Wesker is grateful to them. Their efforts did create something, but it is not up to them whether or not he reaches apotheosis. That is for him to decide.
What kind of world, indeed?
He sets aside his work and stands, adjusting his gloves and moving around the desk to stand face-to-face (to-face-to-face-to face—there are too many to count) with the being who has introduced itself as Azriel. He stares into that infinity and for a moment, Wesker can almost feel tears forming at the corners of his eyes. These depart as quickly as they had been conjured as the visions of that which no mortal should ever see dissipate as if they’d never been. Or maybe they have always been and he is only just now noticing them. Is this Apotheosis?
“What I will do,” he begins, “has nothing to do with belief.
“Humanity, in its arrogance—no, hubris—sought godhood… Tiny, small-minded, selfish, ignorant mortals. They sought it for fear of death, rather than to achieve any form of real supremacy. I am the culmination of those efforts,
yet I am still not a god. Not yet.
“To become a god, therefore, one must either ascend to the heavens with the blessing of an unseen force.” This, said with contempt, his lip curling, an uncannily sharp canine making itself known for a fraction of a second.
“Or one must redefine godhood.”
Without saying one way or the other, it is very clear what the tyrant intends to do.