"We are the High Wills. For there is no miracle that does not stem from our desire, that is not our reflection, that is not our Word, the Word that was first made flesh and then sanctified."
Overview[]
The High Wills - also known as the holiness itself, the divine trinity, the Supreme Trinity, the Great Ones, the Three, the High Voices, - are an eldritch, supernatural, god-like triune entity responsible for manifesting the Miracle throughout the land of Cvstodia. Mentioned before and finally revealed in the Wounds of Eventide expansion, the High Wills are the true main antagonist of the game Blasphemous.
Origin[]
The High Wills dwelt in the other side of the dream, an otherworldly realm of clouds, dust, and pale, still, glimmering light. There also existed the procession, without beginning and without end, a "brotherhood of grieving souls, held captive by their own condemnation and benediction", which the High Wills admitted to be even more ancient than them.
The High Wills appeared as a triune of three connected dark-haired, dark-eyed, pale-skinned, ruby-red-lipped human heads. The central head appeared masculine and the other two on the left and right sides appear feminine. They speak in three voices, two masculine and one feminine: sometimes separately and sometimes in unison. From their eyes flowed streams of tears of molten gold, yet their voices and facial demeanours were not emotionally distraught, but disturbingly unemotional, apathetic, calm and sanctimonious. The High Wills' weeping seemingly resulted from their eyes being hurt by the pale, still light in their dwelling.
The High Wills claimed their flesh was once their Word, thus implicitly boasting that they somehow 'had spoken themselves into existence'. Arguably, that was the first true manifestation of the Miracle, which the High Wills claimed to be their reflection. This manifestation, however, happened on the other side of the dream and not in Cvstodia, and so was unknown to Cvstodians. Having become their own Word incarnated in flesh, the High Wills sanctified their own flesh. It's apparently implied that the High Wills came into existence on the other side of the dream because Cvstodians had conceptualized the High Wills and Cvstodians' beliefs had been strong enough for the High Wills to 'speak themselves into existence' (so Cvstodians, out of their religious conviction, had unknowingly and "miraculously" created the High Wills). Cvstodians' guilt-centric and penance-centric religious beliefs and tenets were also implied to have been also responsible for the existence of the other side of the dream as well as the ancient procession there.
Having come into existence, the High Wills discovered the ancient procession. They then used the Miracle to weave threads of Cvstodians' dreams into the Path of the Ancient Procession, a "kingdom", a "domain where faith would unite in one single, uninterrupted act of adoration", which the High Wills parasitically exploit to give themselves "light and time" and make them eternal and "higher-reaching than the sky itself"; in other words, for their own immortality and grandeur.
At some point before the beginning of the prequel comic Blasphemous: The Kneeling and the game Blasphemous, the High Wills was asked by a youngster, to ease his sense of guilt, for pain and punishment, which the High Wills mischievously granted, turning him into the Twisted One and thus manifesting the Miracle in Cvstodia and setting into motion all subsequent events in the lore, the comic, and the game itself.
Following its first manifestation in Cvstodia, the Miracle created four "brothers", four Holy Guardian Visages, from the fervour of four uncorrupted saints (who in life witnessed the Twisted One's contortion) and tasked each visage with keeping one of four wounds: Attrition, Contrition, Compunction, and Abnegation in the soul of His Holiness (i.e. the Twisted One and his successors, including Escribar and potentially the Penitent One). High penance required the soul to suffer the first three wounds (aka Supreme Suffering); meanwhile, the last wound stood for Supreme Absolution and was kept by the Fourth Visage, the one made from the fervour of the only witness who saw the High Wills behind the Miracle, in their sacred, forbidden dwelling. That dwelling could only be breached and profaned by guilt in holy communion with a four-times-wounded soul in a person doing penance, who would then be able to end the eternal cycle of guilt and penance and stop the Miracle's workings by destroying the High Wills.
The fourth Guardian Visage, proclaiming itself "a witness to the truth", attempted to reveal this truth to Cvstodians through Crisanta, to whom it bestowed the Holy Wound of Abnegation. However, it was betrayed by its three brothers, which ripped out its eyes, exiled it, and imprisoned it underground (beneath the Knot of the Three Words) in Cvstodia, at the behest of the High Wills. As if to add insult to injury and injustice, the betraying three smeared the betrayed fourth Exiled Visage as the Traitor. Even so, the Exiled Visage successfully stole guilt's true Apodictic Heart, which it brought along and hid in its own jail-cell.
Later, a guilt-wracked woman thumped her chest repeatedly with an effigy of the Twisted One, asking him and the Miracle to "shape her Guilt" and "forge [her] punishment and nail it deep"; her wish was granted: the effigy of the Twisted One became the sword Mea Culpa, whose blade pierced her heart and killed her instantly; and her body petrified into the Kneeling Stone. Mea Culpa was Guilt given shape, though "born" without its true Apodictic Heart. Later on, the Penitent One, from the Brotherhood of the Silent Sorrow, claimed Mea Culpa for his pilgrimage.
Revelation[]
At Mountains of the Endless Dusk, the Penitent One met and dueled Perpetva. Afterwards, he found Perpetva's tomb in the Resting Place of the Sister (accessible via Echoes of Salt), before which he reverently knelt. Impressed by "the audacity of [his] faith", she revealed to him that what he defeated earlier was not her, but only "a lie", a manifestation of the Miracle, which possessed her face & armour but not her voice. She further acknowledged that while the guilt in his heart and hands merit arduous penance (i.e. he must transform the Thorn into Cvstodia of Sin) yet she also saw another path for him (i.e. towards a different ending). However, she admitted that her limited voice could not "disperse all the invisible mists that tangle up the truth and mislead us [Cvstodians]". So she entrusted the Penintent One with the Incomplete Scapular and told him to confront her brother Esdras, so that she would convince Esdras not to fight but to help the Penitent One instead.
Later on, when the Penitent One equipped himself with the Incomplete Scapular and confronted Esdras, Perpetva's silhouette appeared during a brief but intense lightning flash. Esdras, shocked, knelt down and acknowledged that the Penitent One was indeed blessed by Perpetva & able to hear some bits of truth from her. Esdras decided not to fight the Penitent One (who would still receive all rewards except the achievement) and told the Penitent One to meet him at the Chapel of Guilt, where the Kneeling Stone was and where Mea Culpa had been given shape. When the Penitent One arrived there, Esdras gave him the Key Grown from Twisted Wood, which Esdras told the Penitent One to show Diosdado in the Library of the Negated Words.
Once given the Key Grown from Twisted Wood, Diosdado revealed a nearby door "veiled in ancient illusions many aeons ago", which the Penitent One entered and allowed him to access the lower part of the Knot of the Three Words, the jail where the Exiled Visage was imprisoned.
The Exiled Visage related to the Penitent how it had been betrayed, mutilated, exiled, and imprisoned by its three brothers, and implored the Penitent One to bring back its two eyes: the Severed Right Eye of the Traitor from Isidora, Voice of the Dead in a new area in the Albero's ossuary and the Broken Left Eye of the Traitor from Sierpes in Mourning and Havoc (accessible via Echoes of Salt) (ironically, the Exiled Visage's Left Eye fills Sierpes' right eye-socket). Its eyes returned, the Exiled Visage revealed its secrets to the Penitent One: the first secret was the true Apodictic Heart of Mea Culpa, and the second secret was that Crisanta of the Wrapped Agony's will and consciousness are being controlled by invisible chains from the High Wills' dwelling. These chains could only be broken by Mea Culpa equipped with its true, apodictic heart, and destroying those chains would free Crisanta, yet would wound her soul (the opposite of Mea Culpa's default ability to "bring[...] pain to the flesh so the soul could suffer no more", as stated by Esdras).
The Penitent One resumed his journey, reached Archcathedral Rooftops, Apodictic-Hearted Mea Culpa in hand, and again dueled Crisanta. This time, the Penitent One emerged victorious; yet Crisanta, under the High Wills' control, resolved to fight him again even more fiercely. Even so, the Penitent One again bested her. Defeated yet still defiant, she goaded him into purging her Miracle-bitten soul (i.e. into killing her), only for the Penitent One to instead reveal and then break the invisible chains which had been binding her to the High Wills, thus wounding her soul and damaging her faith, yet freeing her from their control (a change detectable by Esdras). She told the Penitent One to meet her again at the Chapel of Guilt and departed.
At the Chapel of Guilt, she assured him that she was not physically wounded thanks to the crimson cords incorporated into her gilded armour. She acknowledged that only Mea Culpa and the Penitent One - Guilt and Penance in holy communion - could end the eternal cycle of guilt and penance, and gifted him with the Holy Wound of Abnegation. She then instructed him to finish his penance and reach the Turned Throne in Deambulatory of His Holiness, where his final ascension would await.
Endgame[]
The Penitent One confronted Escribar, who had been expecting his arrival. After a brief skirmish with an illusion of Escribar, the Penitent One gruellingly fought Escribar's true gigantic Last Son of the Miracle form, which gorily decayed when defeated and allowed Escribar's crimson spirit to ascend. After having heard a brief explanation by Deogracias, the Penitent One scaled the mountain of ash for his "final Communion with the Miracle" and, upon reaching the top, was lifted up to the other side of the dream, and landed atop the Eternal Procession. Here the Penitent One again encountered Escribar's Sentinel of the Eternal Procession form, whom the Penitent battled and, with Crisanta's occasional yet important assistance, successfully vanquished, killing Escribar for good.
At Crisanta's urging, the Penintent One confronted the High Wills, which nonchalantly rebuked the Penitent One for "breaking all laws", "desecrating his Holiness himself" (i.e. killing Escribar for good) and "bringing guilt (i.e. Mea Culpa)" to the High Wills' sacred, forbidden abode. The High Wills declared that the Penitent One's and Crisanta's intention to atone for their sins - by destroying the High Wills' flesh, silencing their "Word", and ending their "Work" - would leave the Miracle "bereft". Their destruction imminent, the High Wills used the Miracle for the last time and willed, for both Penitent One and Crisanta, "eternal condemnation. In life and in death, in hunger and in thirst, in sleep and in wakefulness. Buried under layers of ash, the ash of your flesh, bones and sinew. Execrated in visage. Forgotten in name. For ever and ever." and that no penance could exonerate this sin: the price for "the ultimate blasphemy".
Undaunted by the High Wills' threat, the Penitent One lunged at the High Wills' central head, plunged Mea Culpa into its left eye, and Crisanta clove its face in two, mortally wounding it. As the High Wills were just one triune entity with three constituent heads, killing one head would kill all three: the High Wills' flesh gruesomely rotted and melted away, revealing three skulls which violently burst into blue flames; their remains then imploded into a luminous singularity, which again exploded, dissipated the overhanging clouds (the metaphoric "embroidered mantles") and revealed the real bright, clear, blue sky.
The Penitent One then met the Twisted One himself, who amiably tapped on the Penitent One's shoulder, as if to thankfully appreciate the Penitent One's efforts, before disintegrating into wood chips and dissipating; the same happened to Mea Culpa's blade. The Penitent One was then carried away, probably dead at last (as his many resurrections had been caused by the Miracle, which could no longer work without the High Wills' desiring it to), by Crisanta and Deogracias; the Penitent One's body was then laid to rest in a stone sarcophagus, which Deogracias sealed while Crisanta prayed.
In the post-credit cutscene, a beating heart-shaped womb was ominously lowered from above the clouds into Cvstodia, with a mysterious crimson human figure in fetal position insides.
Legacy[]
Incarnate Devotion, the last boss of the sequel Blasphemous 2, styled itself the "heir to [the] all encompassing light", the "Magnum Opus", the "very flesh", the holder of the "very heart" of "Higher will, incorporeal and inscrutable fathers", very likely the High Wills.
Dialogue[] | |
|---|---|
| Upon meeting the High Wills | Penitent One, who comes into our presence.
Bringing guilt to the most sacred of places, to the most forbidden of temples. Breaking all laws and thus desecrating his Holiness himself. We are the High Wills. For there is no miracle that does not stem from our desire. That is not our reflection. That is not our Word. The Word that was first made flesh and then sanctified. Penitent One, does not the pale, still light of this vast horizon hurt your eyes? Of this procession, more ancient than us, that extends out before you without end nor beginning? Of this brotherhood of grieving souls, held captive by their own condemnation and benediction? This is the Path of the Ancient Processions. The Kingdom that the Miracle wove from threads of dreams. A domain where faith would unite in one single, uninterrupted act of adoration. That would give us light and time. That would make us eternal. And higher-reaching than the sky itself. You have come to this place to atone for your sins, to put an end to this Work. It is the price to pay for the ultimate blasphemy. Destroying our flesh that once was Word and now is but silence. Making us cast down our eyes, leaving the Miracle bereft. And so the last of our wills is your eternal condemnation. In life and in death, in hunger and in thirst, in sleep and in wakefulness. Buried under layers of ash, the ash of your flesh, bones and sinew. Execrated in visage. Forgotten in name. For ever and ever. There is no penance that can exonerate this Sin. |
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