[Last Episode: She smiled, settling back against him, and the two of them sat together at the quiet edge of the city, the distant sound of the festival still drifting faintly on the night air, entirely, completely content.]
Chapter 143, Episode 143
[The Chaos Universe]
[The war had left scars across the Chaos Universe's territory, but three days into the peace, most of them had already begun healing — buildings rebuilding themselves under Sagris's narrative authority, streets slowly filling again with the ordinary noise of people who no longer had to check the sky for tears in reality before stepping outside]
[Sagris sat at his desk in the ruler's hall, a stack of reconstruction papers in front of him, signing each one with the specific, satisfied efficiency of a man who'd earned the right to be bored again]
[Kai let himself in without knocking, dropping into the chair across from him with a plate of food he'd clearly stolen from somewhere on the way over]
Kai: You're smiling at paperwork.
Sagris: I'm smiling at *peaceful* paperwork. There's a difference.
Kai: Fair.
[He set the plate down, sliding half of it across the desk without being asked, and Sagris accepted it without comment — the specific, easy rhythm of two rulers who'd been rivals and friends for long enough that the line between the two had stopped mattering.]
Kai: You rewrote your own death to get back here. Feels like the least I can do is bring you lunch.
Sagris: Appreciated.
Kai: You still owe me an explanation for how, by the way...
Sagris: It's the only one you're getting.
Kai: Rude.
Sagris: Effective, though.
[They ate in comfortable silence for a while, the hall around them quiet, ordinary, blessedly free of anything resembling a crisis.]
Kai: You heard about Leo. The Demon Kings.
Sagris: Heard he made peace with the Creator himself. Michael, wasn't it?
Kai: That's the one. Boy doesn't know how to have a small week.
Sagris: Neither do we, historically.
Kai: Fair point.. enough
[He glanced toward the window, out at the slowly rebuilding skyline, and something in his expression sobered slightly.]
Kai: You think it's really over? The whole thing?
Sagris: No
Kai: "Comforting.
Sagris: I didn't say it to comfort you. I said it because it's true, and pretending otherwise doesn't help either of us prepare for whatever's next.
[Kai nodded slowly, and the two of them returned to their meal, the quiet between them carrying the specific weight of two people who had survived enough wars to know that peace, however real, was rarely permanent.]
[Meanwhile at The Dark Lords Guild — Haschwalth's Departure]
[The Dark Lords Guild hall was in a state of relaxed disarray — Nox Llyord sprawled across a couch nursing a drink, Izar sparring lazily with Nerose in the courtyard beyond, Rose Beatrice half-asleep in a corner chair, Cetus and Mael arguing amiably over a card game]
[Haschwalth Reeliio sat apart from all of it, near the window, staring out at nothing in particular]
Nox: You've been quiet all week.
Haschwalth: Have I.
Nox: You have. Even for you, and you're already the quiet one.
[Haschwalth didn't answer immediately, his fingers tracing an idle pattern against the windowsill.]
[Mael, glancing over from the card game]
Mael: He's been like that since the war ended. Thought it was just exhaustion.
Cetus: It's been three days...
[Haschwalth finally turned, expression carefully neutral.]
Haschwalth: I'm thinking of taking some time. Wander the Primus World for a while. Clear my head.
Nox: That's oddly specific for someone who usually just says 'I'm fine' and changes the subject.
Haschwalth: Would you prefer I said 'I'm fine' instead?
Nox: ...Not particularly, no.
[Rose Beatrice, cracking one eye open from her corner, spoke without lifting her head.]
Rose: You're allowed to just rest, you know. Nobody's going to think less of you for it.
Haschwalth: I know.
[He said it too quickly, too evenly, and Izar — who had wandered in from the courtyard, catching the tail end of the conversation — narrowed his eyes slightly.]
Izar: Something's off with you.
Haschwalth: Nothing's off.
Izar: You've fought entire wars without your voice changing that much. It just changed.
[Haschwalth held his gaze for a moment, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes, and then, deliberately, softened his expression into something more familiar.]
Haschwalth: I appreciate the concern. Genuinely. I just need some time away. I'll be back before anyone notices I'm gone..
[He rose, gathering the little he needed, and made his way toward the door.]
Nox: Haschwalth!!
[He paused, hand on the frame.]
Nox: Whatever it is. You know where to find us.
Haschwalth: I know.
[He didn't turn around, and a moment later, he was gone — leaving the guild hall in a quiet that none of them could quite name the shape of.]
[Izar, watching the door close]
Izar: I don't like that.
Mael: Neither do I. But he's a grown man. Can't exactly chain him to a chair.
Izar: No. Suppose not.
[The unease lingered in the room a while longer, unresolved, before the ordinary noise of the guild hall slowly reasserted itself.]
[What none of them knew — what Haschwalth had no intention of telling any of them — was that his path through the Primus World had a destination already chosen]
[He had been watching Leo and Isaac for a long time. Watching the war unfold. Watching two mortal boys claw their way into becoming things that made even Hyper Gods hesitate, while he remained exactly what he'd always been — talented, respected within his own small circle, and thoroughly, permanently outpaced by beings who'd started this journey no stronger than he had]
[He wanted more than that]
[Ivarak had found him three weeks earlier, quietly, in a moment between battles nobody else had witnessed — a conversation that had ended with a simple, patient offer and a promise that Haschwalth had spent every day since turning over in his mind.
[Today, he intended to accept it]
「The World of Space — Ivarak's Hideout」
『The World of Space existed folded into a pocket of the Primus World that no conventional mapping could locate — a quiet, colorless expanse, stars scattered across a black sky that had never known a sun, and at its center, the same throne of frozen causality Ivarak had claimed since his return』
[Haschwalth arrived through a rift Ivarak had left open specifically for him, and found the space already occupied — Zuvarage standing near the throne's base, and Ivarak himself seated, waiting, entirely unsurprised by his arrival]
Ivarak: So you came
Haschwalth: You said I would.
Ivarak: I did. I'm rarely wrong about these things.
[Haschwalth approached, and something in the sheer weight of the space pressed against him the moment he crossed a certain threshold.]
Haschwalth: You told me, three weeks ago, that you saw potential in me. I'd like to understand exactly what that means before I commit to anything further.
Ivarak: Alright let me explain...
[He rose from the throne, descending the few steps toward where Haschwalth stood, and studied him for a long moment with those pale, unhurried blue eyes.]
Ivarak: Haschwalth Reeliio. Your determined to fight...Most beings mistake that discipline for a stupidity, I don't. I see it as evidence of exactly how much further you could go, given the right foundation.
Haschwalth: Leo and Isaac had five weeks under Ereshkigal. I've had years of training and I'm nowhere close to what they've become.
Ivarak: You weren't nearly strong enough to overpower Issac and leo... I'm offering you something the framework was never built to contain.
[Zuvarage stepped forward, arms crossed, studying Haschwalth with the same careful, assessing intensity she carried toward everything]
Zuvarage: You want to be stronger than them. Both of them.
Haschwalth: Yes.
Zuvarage: Honestly stated, at least.
Haschwalth: I don't see the point in pretending otherwise. I've spent this entire war watching two mortal boys surpass everything I've built across a longer lifetime than either of theirs. I'm tired of being the one left behind."
[Ivarak's expression, still and unreadable, shifted faintly — something close to approval.]
Ivarak: Good. Ambition honestly stated is far more useful to me than false humility.
[He raised one hand, and the pale, colorless light of Alpharus gathered faintly around his fingers.]
Ivarak: I am prepared to make you an offer, Haschwalth Reeliio by granting you immense power
Haschwalth: I'm listening.
[Ivarak turned, addressing not just Haschwalth now but the wider, empty expanse of the World of Space — and somewhere, faintly, the presence of the assembled Hyper army could be felt listening, even from a distance]
Ivarak: Come forth.
[Haschwalth stepped closer, and Ivarak raised both hands.]
Ivarak: I hereby declare him my right heir, united with me for pure, total destruction!
[The declaration carried weight far beyond simple words — the World of Space itself seeming to register the statement as something structurally true rather than merely spoken.]
Ivarak: Haschwalth Reeliio, formerly of the Dark Lords Guild in the Chaos Universe, is now the Embodiment of Inviolability. A Hyper God, elevated by my own hand, second only to myself and the few who came before this moment.
[Far across the folded dimensions, in the ranks of the five million assembled Hyper Beings, the declaration reached every ear simultaneously, and a ripple of murmured reaction spread through the formation.]
[A Hyper God near the front, voice carrying genuine disbelief]
Zotoz: A mortal. Elevated to our tier, directly.
Flas: He's not even Hyper-born. How does Alpharus even accept that.
[Zuvarage, watching the murmurs ripple outward, allowed herself a small, satisfied smirk.]
Zuvarage: They'll adjust.
Ivarak: Indeed.. after all Haschwalth is our backup
[He turned back to Haschwalth, expression settling into something more instructional]
Ivarak: you earned my attention by being the only being in that entire war who watched both of them surpass him and responded not with despair, but with the quiet, patient decision to find a different door.
Haschwalth: That's an accurate read.
Ivarak: I don't misread people. It isn't in my nature to.
[He raised a hand, and something small and dense — pale, pulsing faintly with restrained potential — materialized in his palm.]
Ivarak: The Nexus. My own creation. You'll carry it from this moment forward.
[Haschwalth accepted it, and the moment it touched him, something in his posture changed — subtle at first, then unmistakable, power settling into him the way water settles into a container finally large enough to hold it.]
Haschwalth: I feel it.
Ivarak: You'll feel considerably more before this is finished.
[Ivarak pressed one palm flat against Haschwalth's chest, and light — the same colorless, ancient light that had wrapped around his own reclamation of the Nexus — poured outward, slow and total]
Ivarak: A new vessel. Not the full inheritance I carry — that remains mine, and mine alone, for reasons you'll come to understand...
[Haschwalth's breath caught as the process unfolded — his form shifting, subtly, the specific quality of a body being rebuilt from the inside to hold something considerably larger than what it had been designed for.]
Ivarak: And now — Alpharus. Half of what I carry. A whole Alpharus in untested hands would unmake you before it ever served you. Half is more than enough to make you a genuine terror to anything beneath my own tier.
[The colorless light deepened, spreading through Haschwalth entirely, and slowly, faint black lines began tracing along his face — starting near his jaw, climbing toward his eyes, the specific marking of something ancient settling permanently into a new host.]
[His eyes, when he finally opened them again, had changed — the color beneath them shifted into something that held no single hue, the way Ivarak's own gaze carried a stillness that predated the concept of expression.]
Haschwalth: This is—... what an tremendous power
Ivarak: Considerable. Yes.
[Haschwalth flexed his hand, watching power move through it in ways his body had never before been capable of holding, and something like genuine awe crossed his expression before he forced it, carefully, back into composure.]
Haschwalth: Thank you, Your Majesty.
[Ivarak inclined his head slightly, accepting the title without comment, and turned to Zuvarage.]
Ivarak: Zuvarage.
Zuvarage: Majesty...
[She stepped forward, and Ivarak repeated the process — the Nexus, already partially bonded to her through her long service, deepening its hold; the Vessel settling into her with the same slow, total transformation; and finally, Alpharus, half of it, spreading through her the same colorless light that now marked Haschwalth's own eyes.]
Ivarak: You've served longer than he has. You've earned this without needing to ask.
[Zuvarage, eyes closing briefly as the power settled]
Zuvarage: I won't waste it...
Ivarak: I know you won't.
[He turned from both of them, and raised his arms fully, the pale light of Alpharus spreading outward now across the entire folded expanse of the World of Space and beyond it, reaching the full assembled ranks of the five million Hyper Beings simultaneously]
Ivarak: Rise, all of you, into what you were always meant to become.
[The transformation swept through the formation like a tide — every Hyper God across the ranks feeling their own power surge, amplify, deepen, a hundredfold increase settling into muscle and magic and mind all at once]
[True immortality took root where mortality's shadow had still lingered. Wisdom, ancient and total, unfolded behind five million pairs of eyes simultaneously. Reaction speed sharpened past the point where thought and action remained separate events.]
[Leaders emerged within the ranks almost instantly, certain individuals among the five million suddenly, unmistakably, standing apart from the rest — commanders forged in the same instant as the amplification itself, each one carrying strength that would have, mere hours earlier, ranked among the most fearsome things in the current cosmology.]
[Ivarak, watching it settle]
Ivarak: There. An army worthy of what's coming.
Zuvarage: They feel it.
Ivarak: They should. I've given them more in a single moment than most beings earn across an entire existence.
[Once the amplification had fully settled, Ivarak turned back to Zuvarage and Haschwalth, expression returning to its familiar, unhurried stillness]
Ivarak: I have work of my own to attend to. Mercurius. Xuantian. Jaxx. Isadora. Galacik. Their essences withdrew with the Nexus when it returned to me — I intend to restore them properly, as Embodiments in their own right, rather than the borrowed servants Voriath once commanded.
Haschwalth: That will take time.
Ivarak: It will. Which is why I'm sending the two of you elsewhere while I attend to it. I want you tested, and I want it done somewhere that won't draw premature attention to what's happening here.
Zuvarage: Where.
Ivarak: The Abyss Sea World. The Sage Pillar. Eight Pillar Kings, ancient, powerful, entirely unprepared for what the two of you have just become
[Haschwalth and Zuvarage exchanged a glance, and something passed between them — not quite camaraderie, but the specific, mutual understanding of two beings who had just been handed the same terrifying gift and intended to use it fully.]
Haschwalth: Understood, Your Majesty.
Zuvarage: We'll report back once it's done.
Ivarak: I know you will.
[He turned back toward his throne, already returning his attention to the slow, patient work of restoring five fallen Embodiments, and behind him, a rift tore open leading toward the distant, ancient multiverse of the Sage Pillar.]
[Zuvarage and Haschwalth stepped through together.]
[The Abyss Sea World — Arrival]
『The rift deposited them at the edge of one of the Sage Pillar's outer realms — vast, layered space-time stretching in every direction, structured by rules older than most of the current cosmological framework』
[Guards stationed along the realm's border noticed them instantly]
Guard Captain: Halt. State your business in the Sage Pillar.
[Zuvarage looked at him with mild, unbothered curiosity, and Haschwalth's black-marked eyes swept the assembled border garrison with the same quiet, assessing stillness Ivarak himself carried.]
Haschwalth: We're not here on business, exactly.
[The guard captain's hand went to his weapon, sensing something in the two intruders' presence that his instincts flagged immediately, urgently wrong.]
Guard Captain: Sound the alarm—
[He didn't finish.]
[Zuvarage moved, barely more than a step, and the entire border garrison — dozens of trained, capable soldiers — simply ceased, the specific, total absence of violence or struggle marking exactly how far beyond them she now stood]
Haschwalth: That was efficient.
Zuvarage: Thanks..
[They continued forward, unhurried, and wherever the Sage Pillar's defensive forces gathered to meet them — armies, war-mages, entire garrisons built to hold this realm against threats that had, historically, never come close to testing it — the result was the same]
[A formality, ended before it began, buildings and defensive structures burning in their wake as the two of them advanced steadily toward the realm's center]
[The disturbance reached the Sage Pillar's central chamber before either intruder did — the eight thrones, arranged in their ancient circle, each one home to a king who had held dominion over this multiverse since before most current cosmological structures existed]
[Lionet Sai rose first, the First Pillar King's presence carrying the weight of holding every timeline's root]
Lionet Sai: Something is burning the outer realms.
[Hypnos, rising beside him, Law Creation already stirring at his fingertips]
Hypnos: I feel it. A presence I don't recognize.. what the heck, this is far beyond our level.. what an immeasurable presence..
[Zarathustra, void magic coiling low around his feet]
Zarathustra: Two presences.
[Kato, calm as still water despite the alarm in the room]
Kato: Strong enough to erase our entire border garrison without slowing down.
[The eight of them moved as one, descending from the chamber toward the source of the disturbance, and found Zuvarage and Haschwalth standing amid the wreckage of the outer defenses, entirely unbothered, waiting.]
Storm Vinx: You're the intruders.
Haschwalth: We prefer 'visitors,' but I understand the confusion.
[Arthurio, necromancy magic thick and cold around him, studied Haschwalth for a long moment, and something in his expression shifted from wariness into genuine, startled recognition]
Arthurio: I know you.
Haschwalth: Do you.
Arthurio: Dark Lords Guild. Chaos Universe... you are Issac and Leo friend...and fought the war
[Haschwalth inclined his head slightly.]
Haschwalth: ya...sure
[Luxias, gravity magic humming low and dangerous]
Luxias: Then explain yourself. Why does a Chaos Universe guild member arrive at the edge of the Sage Pillar with enough power to erase an entire garrison without effort?"
Haschwalth: Because I found a door the war never showed me. And I walked through it.
[Ignatius, the Seventh Pillar King, stepped forward, expression hardening]
Ignatius: You serve someone??
Zuvarage: We serve His Majesty.
Ignatius: Who.
Zuvarage: You'll learn the name soon enough. For now, understand this — we're not here to conquer your realm today. We're here because our Majesty wanted a test, and the eight of you seemed like a reasonable measure.
[The eight Pillar Kings exchanged glances, the specific, wordless communication of ancient rulers who had governed together long enough to think as a single coordinated unit.]
Lionet Sai: You intend to fight all eight of us.
Haschwalth: If you insist on it.
Lionet Sai: We do.
[He raised his hand, and around him, the other seven Pillar Kings settled into ready stances — Hypnos with Law Creation coiling bright, Arthurio's necromancy rising in cold waves, Zarathustra's void deepening, Storm Vinx gathering whatever his own domain granted him, Luxias's gravity bending the space around his feet, Ignatius's presence sharpening, and Kato's water rising in slow, patient columns behind him.]
Lionet Sai: The Sage Pillar has stood since before the current cosmological framework had a proper shape. We do not yield to unnamed intruders.
Haschwalth: You're not being asked to yield.
[He raised one hand, and the black-marked eyes beneath his brow flickered with the pale, colorless certainty of half an Alpharus already settling comfortably into use.]
Haschwalth: You're being shown, plainly, exactly how far beyond you this has already gone.
[Zuvarage drew alongside him, expression calm, patient, entirely certain of the outcome.]
Zuvarage: Eight ancient kings.
Haschwalth: Against half of everything Ivarak carries.
Zuvarage: Should be quick.
[The eight Pillar Kings surged forward as one, and the fight — the first true test of what Ivarak had just built — began.]
To be continued...