Chapter 1985: Understanding Pain The eyes of Asteroath that were once twin stars blazing with unmatched radiance were now dim embers. His glorious wings were gone, and only their shadows remained in the air. There was only a single feather left that drifted towards his cooling body, and Nyxara closed her fist around the falling feather. Her hands were shaking as rage filled her to the core. She squeezed the feather, but she did not absorb it, not yet. Turning her gaze, which held sorrow and indecision, to her siblings, Nyxara did not see the Primordials they had become; instead, she saw children whose parents and their entire world saw them as curses. The seven of them were siblings by blood, and every time their mother was giving birth to them, the moon above turned blood red and caused rain of blood and poison all through their world. This sight had driven their parents mad, and their people had cursed them, for their births always led to the deaths of millions. It did not matter that the children were born innocent, and their talents, while dreadful, could still be harnessed for good. But they were rejected, beaten, cursed, could barely feed themselves, and every day had been an endless litany of danger and wickedness, and if Enoch had not found them, Nyxara knew that they would not have lived for another month. Despite all of these tribulations faced by them, one single thing kept them together, and that was the knowledge that they had each other. It was a miracle that they were able to live for so long as mortals when an entire world wanted to eradicate them, and the only reason for that was their unity. Even as Primordials, they never lost this bond, and for it to be severed in this manner broke something inside Nyxara. Beside her, Xylos trembled in demonic rage. He once thought he had lost the ability to feel pain, but he was wrong. Asteroath was not the youngest, but in spirit, he was. Brash and loud, he did everything without hesitation, and when it came to battle, he pushed himself to the front, even when he was technically a glass cannon. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦 Eldrithor was silent for the first time in eternity; he was chaos, yet this chaos had become almost orderly. Such was his shock that he had forgotten to please his innate nature and could only stare at the body of his brother that was slowly dispersing into ash in the arms of his sister. They had seen more deaths than anyone in Existence, and yet they had never seen their own. If they were going to die, a part of them believed it must be by the hand of Enoch or even Eos, not Death... not this dirty beast whose function was to be their whetting stone as they prepared for the true battle ahead. Xyris stared into futures that suddenly branched into true darkness. It was a strange thing for him to look into the future and not see the light of his brother. While it was true that he no longer had the ability to see the future, he could still speculate with near-perfect accuracy, and he no longer saw light. Where that warmth had always been and seemed forever, now there was... nothing. Elgorath, remembering everything about his brother and wishing he could never forget, but he knew it was no longer possible. Unlike his siblings, he could still see Light, still hear his voice, and if he wanted, he could touch him, but even these memories were beginning to fade. Death had taken him away so thoroughly that not even the memories of Light remained, and from this point on, only a few would remember that Asteroath ever lived. Vorthas, the Primordial of Life, hovered his hand over the dissipating body of his brother, and he could not sense any spark that he could fan into a greater blaze. Hearing the sound of burning, he looked at the ground, and he noticed that he was weeping tears that burned the earth. Of all his siblings, he disliked Light the most; his nature made Vorthas annoyed, but he was his brother, and even all of existence could not equal a single hair on his head. Vorthas had always loved death, but that was because he knew that it could never touch anyone whom he held dear. All of their eyes fell on Nyxara, and she looked deeper into the Realm, fiery tears burning holes in her face as her gaze pierced toward the hidden core where the Beast waited. She was silent, then her voice, when it came, was quiet. Deadly quiet. "The game changes now. We have been shown many times in the past that we were not ready, and yet we did not take this lesson to heart. Sleep well, brother, if there is anything of you that remains in the bosom of the Beast, we shall take them." Slowly coming to her feet, the remains of Asteroath collapsed to ash around her, and even that ash faded away to nothing. To kill a Primordial meant eradicating everything that they were; nothing of them could remain, or they were never truly dead. Slowly opening her fist, Nyxara looked at the feather, the last part of Asteraoth she was able to keep because Primordial Light, the moment he was about to die, stripped away his consciousness from his Light, leaving millions of Origin Forces of Light behind. In death, Primordial Light had also been victorious; he had protected his power from falling into the hands of Death. Nyxara growled in pain as she pressed the white feather to her chest. It sank in as it burned into her heart, and she grimaced in pain. She drew in a long breath, and silence filled the realm of Death, and as she exhaled, a new wing erupted from her back, white, but veined with black soul-threads, creating a hybrid light that cast no warmth. Pain tore through her as two Origin Forces warred for dominance within her essence. Nyxara did not flinch. "Let’s kill this Beast," she whispered. Her words carried the resolve of the Primordials; they were filled with the promise of pain, as Asteroath did not just preserve his Origin Force, but he had called out the name of their enemy, causing them to remember them. The Architects of End had been remembered. Death had played deeper than any of them imagined. And for the first time since the war began, the remaining Primordials understood that they could lose.