Chapter III - The Temple of Flesh

The valley was covered in mist that morning. The air was heavy, humid, as if the entire world was waiting for something. There, in the clearing, hundreds of naked men were already lined up. They were large, powerful bodies, of a beauty that mixed strength and serenity; tense muscles, disciplined gazes, faces where no individual pride remained, only surrender. They wore no clothing. Skin was the uniform.

The silence was absolute. Only the soft creaking of joints as they stood upright, the deep breathing that synchronized without ever having been rehearsed, could be heard. Then he appeared.

The Father.

He descended the slope, semi-naked, covered only by a dark cloak that fell from his shoulders like a brief shadow. The black stone medallion rested on his chest; his perfect, erect flesh gleamed under the gray light. His enormous virility was displayed like a flag, and every pair of eyes followed it with contained devotion, not daring to lift their heads entirely.

He stopped in the center of the clearing. The silence, already heavy, became unbearable. Then he raised the medallion and dropped it against the earth with a sharp blow.

—Today —he said, and the word was thunder— the Temple is born.

Not of stone or walls. Not of foreign altars. The Temple would be themselves, ordered flesh, living architecture.

He raised his hand, and the entire valley obeyed. The bodies arranged themselves in grids, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee, as if they were the blocks of an invisible building. The Voice, one of the Three chosen ones, repeated the order. The Hammer walked through the rows, gently tapping with his knuckles anyone who leaned more than they should. The Anvil remained still at one end, a model of resistance.

—First Form: Prostration.

Everyone descended at once, until their foreheads hit the damp earth. The sound of hundreds of foreheads against the ground was a unique whisper, as if the tide kissed the shore. Humiliation was not weakness: it was the foundation stone.

—Second Form: Column.

The bodies rose abruptly, vertical, straight. A forest of identical torsos, without tremble, without deviation.

—Third Form: Bridge.

They leaned back, arms open, chests exposed to the morning cold. The tensed musculature, the expanded belly, like beams that supported an invisible sky.

—Fourth Form: Stone.

The silence became thick. The order was to sustain immobility. Time became a hammer over each joint. No one fell. Some cried, but they did not move. Pain was not complaint: it was obedience.

The Father lowered the medallion. The Form dissolved. The air moved again.

The Three approached him: the Hammer with a torch, the Voice with a bowl of oil, the Anvil with a clay container full of ash. The Father took them one by one and declared:

—Hear the Laws of the Surface:

1. Nakedness is th...