The flesh labyrinth burned, and so did the world around it. When the blinding light finally receded, it revealed the scorched bone plain beneath. The grotesque structure was gone. The sky where it had hung stood empty. The two Supreme presences had vanished as well.
For a moment, there was only silence.Then the soldiers erupted into cheers.
The nightmare creatures they had been fighting crumbled into ash, collapsing as though the Sun of Godgrave itself had chosen to bless the battlefield. Black smoke drifted across the plain, carried away by a wind that felt strangely warm.
And then something even more impossible happened.
Soldiers who had fallen moments before rose again.
Those who had been torn apart gasped as breath returned to their lungs. Eyes that had gone dull flickered back to life. Men and women who had died opened their eyes in disbelief, staring at their hands as if unsure they still belonged to them.
The injured followed.
Broken bones knit together. Torn flesh closed without scars. Wounds that should have been fatal vanished entirely. Their souls burned brighter, their spirits overflowing with renewed vitality.
They stood amid the ashes, dazed and trembling, unable to comprehend what had occurred.It felt like a divine miracle.
"How… how?" a soldier cried out, his voice shaking with confusion and awe. "I died."
He stared at the sky, eyes widening as he beheld the angel of light hovering above the battlefield. Reverence flooded his expression.
"Lady Changing Star!" he screamed.The cry echoed across the bone plain.
"We are saved!" another soldier shouted, his voice breaking with disbelief.
A plethora of astounded cheers erupted, only to be extinguished when the loathsome figure of Anvil of Valor materialized upon the scorched plane.
He regarded her for a moment.
"I have been waiting," he said with a mad smile. "You have grown even stronger somehow. Bringing back the dead?"
Silence met his words. Only to be shattered by deep rumbling that rolled across the battlefield as colossal titans emerged from the distant gates of Ravenheart. More figures crawled out from the hollows of the bone plain. It seemed the Queen of Worms had decided to unleash all of her puppets.
Before the soldiers' dismayed gaze, a single puppet collapsed. Its flesh writhed and condensed, reshaping itself into a woman with exquisite features. Her lithe figure was draped in a scarlet dress.
She wore a strained smile as she gazed at the sky.
"Little Nephis," she said softly. "Vale claimed you were injured, but that appears to be untrue."
Her tone remained even.
"How troublesome," she added, turning her gaze toward Anvil.
"And you," she continued coldly, "how cowardly. For someone who speaks so much of honor, you had the gall to flee into the waking world."
Anvil smiled ."How could I not," he replied calmly, "when you so generously provided me with protection?"
Ki Song scoffed and lifted her gaze toward the sky once more.
"So what are we waiting for?" she said lightly. "Let us kill each other already."
"Stand back, Song," Anvil said coldly. "I will fight her first."
Ki Song frowned. "Then what am I supposed to do?"
Anvil's crimson eyes, fixed solely on the radiant figure hovering above the battlefield, held no acknowledgment of her.
"Just die," he said.
He shot into the air in the same instant, scarlet sparks erupting around him. A myriad of swords condensed from the storm of light, screaming as they formed.
Behind him, Ki Song clicked her tongue. "As if."
Raven wings bloomed from her back as blood, flesh, and bone exploded outward. The remains of fallen titans writhed, collapsing and reforming as her puppetry took hold.
Across the bone plain, corpses twitched. Blood flowed backward into shattered bodies. Thousands of puppets rose at once, their hollow eyes lifting toward the angel of light above. Colossal titans tore themselves free from the earth, their massive forms stitched together from bone and meat. The air filled with the sound of tearing sinew and cracking stone.
The soldiers recoiled in horror.
Before anyone could react, Anvil raised his hand.The storm of swords shifted.
A vast stream of scarlet blades tore away from him and plunged toward the distant Hollows. The space split open as the swords descended, drilling into the cursed depths .
Another torrent of swords veered sideways, ripping across ,dwelling into the depth of the Ashes, the most dangerous region of Godgrave where cursed creatures slept beneath eternal ruin.
Ki Song's eyes widened as she watched the destructive storm.
"Have you finally gone mad?" she screamed. "You will doom us all!"
Anvil did not answer, not even glancing her way.
His gaze was locked on Nephis, and something in it was profoundly wrong. There was neither hatred nor fury.
Only cold, consuming obsession.A smile spread across his face, warped and unhinged, and so profoundly alien that it could not even distantly be mistaken for a human.
From the depths of the Hollows, something answered.
The ground began to tremble.
A shrill, inhuman howl rose from below, followed by another, and another. Black fissures spread across the bone plain as nightmare creatures poured upward like a living tide. Twisted bodies clawed their way free, shrieking as they tasted the open sky.
The soldiers froze shuddering as they saw the nightmarish tide.
"Why…" someone whispered. "Why are there so many…"
From the depths of the Ashes, something rose.
A colossal pillar scraping against the bone plane casting the world below into harrowing darkness, devouring the ambient light. As the pillar mounted, the world beneath it dimmed into a cold gray.
Soldiers collapsed where they stood. Weapons slipped from numb fingers, clattering uselessly against bone. Some fell to their knees, their eyes staring blankly as if the very concept of battle had been wiped from their minds. Some clawed at their eyes as blood seeped from the corners, their gazes unfocused and hollow.
An ascended let out a weak laugh, which curdled into a sob. Another stood frozen, his skin graying, veins darkening beneath the surface as his body slowly, painfully twisted into something wrong, before he slumped to the ground and ceased moving altogether.
Saints fared little better. One screamed ,her inhuman shrieks carried by the dead winds, before her voice failed. Another staggered back, dropping to one knee as if the weight of the world had suddenly crushed her.
Many simply fell. Their will extinguished.
The storm of swords Anvil had unleashed faltered midair. The blades trembled, lost all cohesion, and rained downward like dead metal. Ki Song's puppets convulsed in a massive, synchronized spasm before collapsing, their blood running still and dark across the ground. Even the colossal titans froze, their animation arrested.
The pillar continued its ascent.
Then, slowly, it began to change. The surface split. From within, a figure emerged. It possessed a humanoid form, yet no recognizable detail. Where a face should have been, there was only absence: a hollow space that devoured color itself. Wherever that void turned, the world bled into gray, as if meaning and vitality were being drained away. It seemed to exist everywhere and nowhere at once as if reality itself did not bother to hold it together.
The incandescent white flames of the angel dimmed before it's presence. Their brilliance dulled, their warmth receding into something cold and tired. Soldiers who had been shouting moments before fell into a collective silence. Some stared at the ground, unable to lift their eyes. Others turned away entirely, curling inward as if seeking escape from existence itself.
The weakest nightmare creatures simply stopped moving and collapsed, their bodies unraveling into dust. The greater ones reacted with a frantic shriek, driven into a blind, desperate frenzy, tearing at the ground and each other. Without purpose, without will, only madness endured.
The few Saints who remained standing did not dare look up. Their movements were heavy, slow, as though each step cost a conscious, terrible effort. Wounds appeared across their bodies, bleeding quietly, mending only sluggishly beneath the dying white flames. Even the healing power struggled to continue its work.
Ki Song staggered backward. Her eyes trembled as she stared at the towering presence, her lips parting in utter disbelief.
"…No," she whispered, her voice shaking.
"…Desolation."
Nephis gritted her teeth as she stared at the fallen deity. From the ruins, something vast and formless continued to bleed into the world. Desolation.
She felt it pressing against her Domain the moment it manifested.
The white flames surrounding her dimmed, their brilliance paling as if drained of meaning. They still burned, yet the fire no longer felt absolute. It was weaker,and slower.
Her newly found authority over continuation faltered. As if the world itself rejected the idea that anything should endure or rather desolation itself rejected it .
Within her Domain, countless fragile presences trembled.Shadows of the dead hovered at the boundary, lingering in the narrow space between life and departure. They had not yet crossed into the Shadow Realm. They wavered, pulled by two opposing forces.
She reached outward instinctively, trying to restore the bond that tied body and shadow together, just as she had done before. She had not revived the dead. She had only forced the connection between shadow and flesh to hold before it crossed into the Shadow Realm.
That was the limit of her power.
The Knowledge of Restoration and Continuance had granted her this authority. Not to defy death, but to delay it. To deny the cold mercy of its completion for a fleeting moment.
Nephis focused her Will and reached again.
White flame surged outward, spreading across the battlefield, searching for those fading presences. For a heartbeat, she felt them answer her call.
Then something else responded.
The air grew unbearably heavy. Color drained from the world, turning the battlefield dull and gray, the radiance behind her standing in stark contrast to the lifeless shade ahead.
The shadows recoiled violently, slipping through her grasp.
Her flames sputtered.The connection to her Domain fractured.
Nephis gasped.Her Will crashed against something vast and absolute. It did not oppose her authority.It denied it.
Desolation did not resist continuation.It erased the need for it.
****
Ki song bit her lips, her gaze dropping to check on her daughters. They had suffered injuries, yet were relatively whole. 'How dare a mere fallen deity defy the will of the Children of the Beast God?'
They were faring well for now, but she knew the spreading desolation would consume them soon enough. Had she not sworn to protect them? Were they not all the kin she had left? Then why had she started a war, dragging them into this madness? She had hated Anvil of Valor for his cold indifference,why had she become the very monster she despised?
She lifted her gaze to the sky, a cold and resolute expression settling on her face.
She forced her tyrannical will, turning her body and the corpses of the collapsed titans into a single, monstrous spike of flesh and bone, desperately struggling to resist the consuming will of the fallen deity. The spike shot skyward, tearing apart the clouds with its ascent, aiming to peirce the sun.
Rays of annihilation poured downward as the clouds parted , washing across the battlefield. It turned a portion of the soldiers below to ash, and immolated the maddened, nightmare creatures.
The rays of destruction fell on the fallen deity.
The great spike however, unable to resist the sun , lost its cohesion. It crumbled into a pile of ash, scattered instantly by the dead wind.
****
My oh my, how long has it been? A month perhaps?
But alas the promised day has arrived. Needless to say I've been haunted by the demon of procrastination and have yet to finish the fic. But fret not I intent to stay true to my promise!!
So see you tomorrow.