Chapter 1986: A New Pact

เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 มี.ค. 2569 08:45

Chapter 1986: A New Pact Half of the Realm of Death lay in ruin, and a greater part of the damage had occurred after the fall of Primordial Light. Before the fall of the Primordial, the fight had been tense, but both parties were pulling their punches; the fall of one of their number broke the last lock on the Primordial’s restraint. No longer holding back, the Primordials unleashed all the Origin Forces they controlled, and the Realm of Death, infinite in its depths, melted before their might. Countless regions were shattered, and armies without number could not even get the chance to know how they perished. The Primordials paused for a moment, observing their work and finding no joy in it. Shattered fractal shards floated like broken glass in the void, reflecting distorted echoes of the battle that was growing more heated. Trillions of Regions had been erased in the cataclysm, their harvested souls dissolving into wisps of unremembered smoke. The air, if such a thing existed in this deeper layer of the Realm of the dead, hummed with the aftershocks of burned Origin Forces, a low vibration that set the remaining Primordials’ wings trembling. They had begun to burn their Origin Force if they detected any hint of resistance, ensuring that there would be no way for Death to ever surprise them. Their strategy was brilliant as several Mandal of various elemental forces were discovered, and if they had been any less careful, some of them might have died. The Beast that they helped create had more teeth than they originally believed. Nyxara stood at the center of the Primordials, her new hybrid wings casting a cold, uneven glow over the devastation. The white feather’s light, now threaded with her black soul-essence, illuminated the faces of her siblings, Xylos, his demonic features twisted in barely contained fury; Eldrithor, chaos subdued into an unnatural stillness; Xyris, his temporal senses reeling from futures that had suddenly darkened; Elgorath, golden frameworks dim as he etched Asteroath’s final scream into eternal memory; Vorthas, green wings drooping, sap-tears carving furrows in his skin. They formed a circle for mourning and not defensive purposes. Asteroath’s death hung between them like a black hole, pulling at their resolve. They thought that the sting of Asteroath’s loss would begin to lessen after a while, but the reverse was the case; they felt his absence more deeply than ever. The plans they had made that spanned endless eons now felt fragile. They had burned through tens of thousands of Origin Forces in that desperate rescue, ramping up from their cautious thousand to levels they hadn’t touched since the betrayal of Enoch. And still, it hadn’t been enough. In the heart of Nyxara, she remembered the screams of Rowan when she showed him the dying souls of his mother, children, and his friends. She had seen his pain, and it had amused her that someone so powerful and graced with so much potential could be so... fragile. ’Is this what he felt every time we broke his heart? If so, why does he continue collecting the weak around him?’ "We press on," Nyxara said, her voice steady but laced with an undercurrent of something new, uncertainty. "Asteroath’s light fuels us now. We adapt. We—" The Realm of Death shuddered, and the Primordials had to call their powers to surround them as something deep inside it was stirring. Look of astonishment flew from the eyes of the Primordials as they looked at each other, for a moment, the power they had felt had exceeded anything they had ever come across before. The ground, compressed layers of ancient corpses, split open like a wound reopening. From the fissure rose a presence that dwarfed the Mandalas that had taken the life of Primordial Light, the generals of Death and their infinite legions. It was not an army. It was the source. The Beast of Final Rest emerged. It did not charge or roar. It simply... was. Its form defied the Primordials’ senses, even their higher-dimensional perceptions. To mortal eyes, it might have appeared as a colossal crow, bloated and grotesque, feathers matted with the ichor of devoured souls. But to the six, it was a shifting amalgam, a black hole wearing the skins of every death it had ever claimed. Faces flickered across its surface, gods, titans, entire realities, screaming silently before sinking back into the void. Its wings were not appendages but absences, vast stretches of nothing that swallowed light, time, and memory. Its eyes were twin abysses, reflecting not the present but the inevitable end of all things. The realization that they were looking at the true form of Death was terrifying. More than anyone, it had worn its mask more closely than they anticipated. The Primordials believed that the growth of Death had depended on the number of Realities dying inside of Existence, but the Beast saw farther than they did, and it exploited previous doomed Existences to further its agenda. Perhaps it was due to its nature, but Death had secretly grown to a degree it had begun to equal the Primordials when they were filled with madness, but unlike them, who could not handle the strain of countless different Origin Forces, Death was able to perfectly integrate the Deaths from all previous Existences into itself. The Beast hovered before them, its size encompassing the entire ruined nexus, yet somehow it was still too close, almost intimately, as if it were standing beside them and whispering directly into their essences. The air grew heavy with the scent of decay—not rot, but the sterile finality of extinction. The Primordials tensed, wings flaring instinctively. Xylos summoned demonic swarms from his feathers, Eldrithor stirred pockets of chaos, and Xyris prepared to age the Beast into oblivion. But Nyxara raised a hand, her new white-black wing pulsing with restrained power. "Wait," she commanded. "It comes not to fight." The Beast’s voice emerged not from a mouth, but from everywhere: the ground, the shards, the very void. It was a whisper that echoed like thunder, layered with the final breaths of trillions. "You have tasted true peril, children of madness. Asteroath’s light is extinguished. I have proven my point; even Primordials can end. Your arrogance blinded you to this truth, but now you see. Continue this war, and more of you will follow him into the nothing I guard. One by one, your Origins will feed my hunger, until only echoes remain." The words hung in the void, heavy with inevitability. The Beast did not gloat; it stated fact, as dispassionate as gravity. Elgorath flinched, his golden wings flickering as fragmented memories of the Architects of End surfaced unbidden, erased knowledge bubbling up like blood from a fresh cut. Vorthas’s eyes shook erratically. Even Xylos, ever the tempter, felt a chill in his abyssal core. Nyxara stepped forward, her hybrid wing casting elongated shadows that danced like living things. "You emerge now, Beast? After millennia of hiding behind your harvested hordes? Speak your purpose, or we resume the digestion of your Realm, and if you believe this form would stop us, then you do not know what we truly are." The Beast’s form rippled, faces of fallen Primordials, long-forgotten siblings from ancient cycles, surfacing briefly before vanishing. "I have no need to hide. I am the end that awaits all. But you... you are anomalies. Disruptors. You sought to consume me, to reshape Limbo in your image. Yet in doing so, you have awakened older powers. The Architects stir. The Temple of End watches. Your war risks more than your own unmaking; it risks unraveling the fragile balance that even I respect." A pause, the void seeming to inhale. "Now that I have proven you can be killed, proven it with the blood of your brother, I offer not surrender, but agreement. A new pact, forged in the shadow of true death." The Primordials exchanged glances, a silent communion born of eons together. Xyris saw branching timelines where acceptance led to betrayal, rejection to annihilation. Eldrithor sensed chaos in the offer, probabilities twisting into knots. "Speak the terms," Nyxara said, her voice a blade sheathed in silk. "We listen. For now." The Beast’s eyes deepened, pulling at their gazes like event horizons. "I claim the power of End. The absolute cessation, the erasure that even Primordials fear. In exchange, you acquire all the powers of Origin. The raw creation force of Enoch’s cradle, untainted by his chains. You become the architects of new beginnings, reshaping Limbo’s desolation into whatever madness or glory you desire. I remain the guardian of endings, ensuring balance. No more war between us. We divide Existence from this point forward, you birth, I reap. And together, we stand against the Architects, against Eos, against Enoch and all those who would stand against us, should they deem our pact... unacceptable."

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