Chapter 1812: The Caretaker

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Chapter 1812: The Caretaker This palace was gigantic, greater than any structure he had seen except the Arena, and Vyraak expected that he would be hearing a multitude of noise being this close to it, but a greater part of the palace was covered in fog, leaving only the gate visible, and what was most noticeable was the silence. A silence so deep that the Dragon God could hear his heartbeat, and the sound of it felt like a vulgar intrusion in this place of silence. Vyraak knew that what he was feeling was the sensation of being out of your depth. This was not a place for a lesser immortal like him. However, there was no way he was turning back. The corruption in his core had become an itch so great that it was driving him to madness, and he needed to resolve it. The shimmering black gate of liquid chronology beckoned him like a moth to a flame, and Vyraak’s legs were almost moving without his intent. There were promises of answers here, and if not answers, then an end to a life of shame. His weakness, which had led to the extermination of his entire universe, would finally be answered. He would pay the price for mediocrity. As his steps grew closer to the gate, his blade began to heat up so drastically that he could feel a sharp pain pierce through the defenses of his palm and settle on his bones. Vyraak did not discard the weapon; instead, he tightened his fist. The pain was an anchor stone for his consciousness. The Dragon God was a powerful Old One, but he suspected that this place was not meant for Old Ones. Without this sword in his hand, Vyraak had no reason to be in a place like this. Of course, he knew that the maker of this blade had a purpose for it, and the corruption within him also had its purpose, leaving him stuck in the center of two titans, but Vyraak believed that his connection with the blade would break whatever hold its maker had on it. “Stay with me,” he whispered to the blade, “Whatever is to come, it is me and you against everything… To the end.” He stepped closer to the gate, and he began to sense rather than hear a dull thrumming sound coming from it. He closed his eyes to focus all his senses on this hum, as it almost felt as if the gate was trying to talk to him. “That is far enough, traveler.” The voice was calm, conversational, and it came from directly beside him. Vyraak jerked his head around, a low growl rumbling in his chest, and the eye on his chest shining with a red glow. His batlike wings behind him spread wide and his seven tails positioned themselves like scorpions. Vyraak had taken his battle form and was ready to rend and tear anything that was a threat to him. Focusing on the target, Vyraak was a bit surprised at his unexpected nature. A man stood there. He was tall, dressed in simple, grey robes that seemed to absorb the ambient light of the place. His features were sharp and ageless, and his eyes held a peculiar, weary amusement, as if he had witnessed the same joke play out across a million different timelines. He leaned casually against nothing, his arms crossed over his chest. He did not radiate power like Rowan or the Primordials; he felt more like a function of this place. Which was a weird way to describe somebody, but that was what Vyraak felt as he looked at this man. “This is a private residence,” the man said, a faint smile touching his lips. “You can’t just wander in off the street. Especially not carrying… that.” Vyraak’s growl deepened. “Who are you to bar my path? I am Vyraak, God of Dragons and slayer of the divine!” The titles felt hollow and childish, even as he spoke them. In any other place, this would be a grand announcement, but not here. “Titles are noise here,” the man said, his smile not unkind. “Still, I am a man of culture, and I do not slap away an open hand. I am the Third Prince. A caretaker. A janitor, if you like. I sweep up the paradoxes and oil the gears of causality. This place has been kept unkept for so long, you would not believe the difficulty of my job.” 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶 His gaze, which had been fixed on Vyraak’s eyes, drifted downward, settling on the hilt of the Red Moonlight Blade. The amusement in his eyes sharpened. “And I must say, you have brought a particularly troublesome bit of grit with you.” Vyraak’s instinct was to draw the blade, to remind this ‘janitor’ of his might. But the memory of the Arena, of his own powerlessness, stayed his hand. “This blade is mine. It drew me from death, and I have slain endless hosts of two Primordial Domains with it. It has been my companion for ten thousand years.” “Has it?” The Third Prince pushed himself off the invisible support and took a step closer. His body seemed to appear in the next sequential moment of space without crossing the space in between. “Tell me, Vyraak, God of the Dragons. In all those ten thousand years, did it ever feel… too perfect? As if it were not merely a tool, but a partner? As if it knew your desires before you did? Did it ever guide your hand in a fight, showing you a killing stroke you hadn’t considered? Did its hunger for battle ever feel… intelligent?” Vyraak froze. The words struck with the force of a physical blow. Yes. A thousand times, yes. In the heat of a thousand battles, the blade had sung in his hand, its crimson light seeming to anticipate his enemies, flowing into gaps in their defense he had only barely perceived. He attributed it to their profound bond and his own mastery. He had called it the soul of the weapon. “It is a sentient artifact of great power,” Vyraak insisted, but the conviction was gone from his voice. Why did it seem so easy to forget his bond with his blade when this Third Prince spoke about it? The Third Prince chuckled, a dry, rustling sound. “Sentient? Oh, it’s more than that. It’s a splinter. A shard of a will so vast you could drown galaxies in its focus.” He stopped a few feet from the dragon god, his eyes now locked on the blade, his expression one of professional curiosity mixed with pity and a hint of greed. “You didn’t find that blade, Vyraak. It found you. It orchestrated the entire battle with the divine that has consumed your mind for the last ten thousand years. It has been guiding you, herding you, for millennia. Nudging you toward certain conflicts, away from certain deaths, shaping your legend, all to make you strong enough, resilient enough, to survive a very specific cataclysm.” The truth began to dawn on Vyraak, cold and horrifying, and no matter how he tried to deny it, there was no way to hide from it. His epic life, his rise to godhood, his very identity as a warrior… had it all been a script written by another? “The Arena…” Vyraak whispered. “Was the final test.” the Third Prince nodded. “A stress test, if you will. This blade needed a vessel that could withstand the psychic backlash of a Primordial battle and the subsequent chaotic flight through a broken reality. A vessel that would, driven by terror and a desperate, subconscious need for answers, be drawn to the one place in all existence that its maker could not easily locate on his own.” He took one final step and tapped a finger lightly on the dragon’s chest, right over his pounding heart. “The Palace of Time is unplottable. It exists ‘when’ as much as ‘where’. Its location is a state of being, not a coordinate. Its master has been… absent. And in his absence, the defenses have grown rigid, predictable to one who knows him intimately. To one who helped him build them.” The Third Prince’s eyes flickered with an unknown emotion. “To find it, you need a beacon. A key. Not a thing, but a life. A life steeped in the master’s own essence, carrying a tiny, hidden fragment of his will, screaming into the void, ‘HERE I AM, COME AND FIND ME.'” The final part of his words came out in a scream, showing Vyraak the incredible madness hiding under the calm facade of the Third Prince. As if he was aware that his mask had slipped, the Third Prince coughed, and he looked from Vyraak’s horrified face back down to the blade. “You are not a guest, Vyraak. You are the Trojan Horse. And that,” he said, pointing at the Red Moonlight Blade, “is the soldier hiding in your belly. My son has used you. He has turned your entire existence into a delivery system. He sent you here to knock on the door for him.” The warmth of the blade against Vyraak’s hand suddenly felt like a brand, a parasite. The companion of ten thousand years was a lie. His life was a lie. He had not escaped the Arena through his own power. He had been delivered. He had been a pawn, a beast of burden for a power he couldn’t comprehend. A low, broken sound escaped Vyraak’s throat like a whimper of a creature whose world had been unmade twice over. The Third Prince’s expression softened slightly. “The question now, dragon, is what do we do with the package?” Ten FP for the first ten users: ABDHYMCFNEJ6CTL3A

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