Chapter 51: Primus
[Three Days Later]
Hugo stood in the center of the ship's main chamber, having assumed his [Stone Saint] form, he moved with a fluid grace Truly worthy of being a True warrior.
[Nothing] swirled in his grasp, its grey mist coalescing into the shape of a long blade.
Against him danced seven smaller, cruder figures of similar stone, with eerie darkness inside their rocky skins.
These were the minions born from his own [stone saint] form Tyrant ability.
He had severed shards of his own Saint-form, imbued them with a spark of his will and essence to animate them as mindless Dormant Beasts.
Hugo had reabsorbed all of the minions created from his other tyrant ability in hopes of creating slightly stronger minions but that sadly didn't work due to his current strength.
As an awakened tyrant, he could only create dormant creatures, but once he progress in rank, he will be able to create stronger minions.
Similarly, once he forms his terror core and. Becomes a terror, Hugo would gain the ability to create minions of the same rank as him gradually increasing his powers.
But as of now, the minions were terribly weak, to the point that the negatives of using them far outweighed the positives.
And so the current spar was... Not much of a spar. The minions lacked any true intelligence or skill, their attacks predictable and incredibly clumsy But for Hugo, it was still a necessary exercise because of the fact that It honed his control over this form's unique balance of immense strength and surprising agility, it also tested the limits of his multi-tasking as maintaining his own combat flow while subtly directing the minions movement was a bit straining on his mind.
He deflected a clumsy hammer-blow from one minion, sidestepped a lunging stab from another and used the flat of his [Nothing] blade to parry the third's wild swing, sending it stumbling back and slamming into it's fellow minions.
From the sidelines, his two skeletal passengers observed with an air of detached amusement. Their empty eye sockets tracking his every pivot and strike with strange interest.
To them, millennia old ancient figures, he was a fascinating novelty of sorts which was deeply embarrassing for Hugo.
"Hmmmm" Azarax mused, his bony fingers tapping on the crystalline table where he sat. "Your battle style in this form is… interesting. It carries the echo of Nether's children leveraging the stone saints Precision and endurance... Well It makes sense, considering what you are right now."
Hugo didn't even look at the ancient supreme as he kept fighting "Is that a bad thing?" His voice in this form was strangly... Cool and seductive for some strange reason.
"Bad? No," Azarax clattered. "From what I see, you possess an innate affinity for combat in this form, call it muscle memory if you will. It means you could absorb and master external battle arts with relative ease, well in this form at least. Tsk, tsk... You have it rather easy, don't you? A different perfect body for every problem that comes your way."
Hugo dropped his center of gravity, letting a minion's charge pass over him, and swept its legs out with a low kick that sent it flying "Oh, believe me," he said, his tone dry even through the Saint's voice "this Aspect has brought me more trouble than anything else in my life... But still, I wouldn't trade it for anything".
The complications were sadly a part of him now, even though he did not like them.
Azarax let out a booming laugh. "It makes sense to grow attached to your chains if they are gilded! Ah, it makes me miss my own Aspect... That shadow-casting bastard… did he really have to seal it away along with everything else?"
There was a genuine grievance in azarax tone which was quite uncharacteristic of the ancient supreme warlord.
Hugo felt an unexpected pang of pity for him, for both him and eurys...
Despite their likely monstrous histories—deeds that had warranted divine punishment—the eternity of imprisonment they described seemed a cruelty beyond any crime... But then again, who was he to judge? Perhaps Shadow God was not a benevolent deity, or Perhaps their punishment was perfectly fitted to their sins...
The morality of gods is not something that he was equipped to navigate but he still felt that the punishment was too harsh, after all, even shadow god was dead and yet, the two Skeltons remained, centuries later.
"Hey, Azarax," Hugo said, dismissing the minions into his body, they instantly crumbled into shards which flew back to him, reabsorbed into his stone skin.
He remained in his Saint form, its humanoid shape and calm demeanor was the most comfortable for Hugo.
"You said you were a mighty king, so What did you do that pissed off Shadow God so much that he made you immortal?"
Azarax went still for a long moment. The boisterous energy he emitted faded, as he seemed to gaze into a distant past...
"I told you " he finally said, his voice softer this time, lacking its usual bravado. "I was king known for his Pride and Strength, my arrogance made me believe that my kingdom's destiny was mine alone to carve, answering to no higher power... And so, I waged a war against the gods... Well I wasn't the one who waged it but I still participated in it, either way, you can see how that turned out... My kingdom and domain are probably destroyed by now..." He shifted slightly , bones clicking. " although I wonder where the bones of my city lie now... Probably ground to dust or swallowed by another collapsing realm..."
Hugo walked closer to the table sitting on one of the crystal seats... Perhaps he could comfort the skeleton a little.
"Do the names 'Ravenheart' or 'Bastion' mean anything to you? They're human Citadels in the Dream Realm."
Azarax tilted his skull. "No. Should they?"
"Never mind... I thought one might have been your kingdom..." Hugo felt a bit awkward due to the sudden question but then again, he couldn't really blamed.
After all, The Dream Realm was a patchwork of graveyards, so it wasn't impossible that azarax kingdom might have became a citidal somewhere.
The Supreme skeleton hummed, thinking about something. "Tell me, child, Are there any Kings in your world? By kings I mean Supremes humans. "
Hugo shook his head. "The Nightmare Spell alongside the dream realm descended only a decade ago and so The strongest humans are Transcendents, those who have conquered the Third Nightmare but even They're rare and few... So no, There is no human Supremes, at least Not yet."
"I suppose that makes sense " Azarax nodded. "In my age, the emergence of a Supreme was a historical event, as all of them were special and somehow, everytime a new one emerged, something very bad would happen... But I am surprised no mad, ambitious bastards have thrown themselves at the Fourth Nightmare to force that ascent... I know I would have." He paused, then added casually "It's how I killed my father, after all... My grand act of defiance to rise to the Supreme rank."
"You killed your father?" Hugo asked, not even surprised anymore.
"Yes, it was a messy ordeal, really, He was a sentimental fool, clinging to godsa and their worship while our enemies sharpened their—"
Azarax suddenly cut himself off, his jawbone clacking in irritation. "You scoundrel! You tricked me into revealing that!"
From his seat, Eurys let out a loud chuckle.
"What did you expect from a Child of War? Cunning and deceit is what they're best at, after all... well aside from enslaving and murdering the innocent." He turned his skull slightly toward Hugo. "And as for the lack of Supremes in your realm… I would not be so sure that there are none."
Hugo froze, turning fully to the cryptic skeleton.
"What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I said, I doubt humanity has produced zero Supremes under the Spell's relentless pressure... It is more likely they exist but choose to remain hidden. Otherwise, I question how your fragile civilization has endured the Corrupted tide for this long."
"So you're saying they're hiding? That doesn't make any sense, Why would a Supreme hide?"
Eurys's laughed again, this time more mocking. "Naive child, There is a million reasons for powerful individuals to conceal themselves. Fear of competition, A desire to suppress rivals and control the ascent of others or perhaps To manipulate events from the shadows. The games of the powerful are intricate and eternal, even in our era. "
A spark of genuine annoyance flared in Hugo as he took in eurys wlrds...
The idea seemed only selfish but catastrophically stupid... But it also seemed... So human.
"Why would anyone waste energy on that while the world is literally being invaded by Corruption?"
"Boy," Eurys said, his tone shifting into one of genuine hatred "The Children of War have played this game since the dawn of time, If they are not fighting external civilizations or invading other realms, then they are scheming against one another. A Supreme, by nature, seeks to dominates and so Their very existence creates factions, invites challenge, and demands control especially if there was multiple of them at the same time and place. "
"As if you spirits are any more virtuous!"
Azarax snarled, his sadness disappearing as the title of supreme was being slandered Infront of him.
"We have our own flaws," Eurys said with a shrug. "But it doesn't matter anymore, Let the children of war gut each other if they want, I don't care about their petty dynasties anymore..."
The two ancient beings fell into their usual bickering but Hugo's focus drifted as their words sunk and replayed in his head.
Were humans truly that self-destructive?
Was tribal stupidity so hardwired into their brains that even an existential threat couldn't override it?
Hugo Desperately wanted to refute that statement but evidence he had come across said otherwise...
For example there was The existence of the outskirts, where the desperate preyed on the desperate due to the government shortcomings.
There was Gunlaug's Bright Castle, where countless acts of cruelty were committed between sleepers despite the fact that they were all together in hell...
Even the greatest warriors of the waking world weren't exempt from this... Infact they were the core problem.
This terrible chain of thoughts proved that eurys was right about his hatred for the children of war...
surely this statement didn't just apply to humans from war god realm...
The thought was deeply unsettling... Making Hugo feel an incredible amount frustration...
And at the same time, he was starting to feel glad that he could become another race, even for a couple of hours.
———
"...Really?"
"You are phenomenally bad at this."
The scene had shifted, Now, Hugo sat in his Diamondhead form, his crystalline body reflecting the soft light of the chamber. Eurys and Azarax were crowded close around the crystalline table, which had been transformed into a strange board of sorts.
Its surface now etched with divided regions, upon which stood dozens of small, finely detailed figurines carved from crystal by Hugo's own hand.
This was the Death Game.
Hugo had gotten awfully bored these days due to the fact that their journey was extremely long and above allow very silent.
the lack of food amplified this boredom, making Hugo slowly revert to the state he was in before meeting the skeletal due..
Eurys and azarax were used to this boredom due to the fact they've been hung up on a tree for ages but Hugo certainly wasn't...
And so he had asked the duo if they knew any interesting games from their era...
And sure enough, they did.
The Death Game was a complex, strategic board game which mixed in multiple ideas such as chess, role-playing and territorial warfare.
Firstly, Two players each created a "Tyrant" piece, defining it's attributes and abilities within the game's rules, They then designed a "domain" for it and populated that domain with lesser pieces—Beasts, Monsters, Demons and devils —each with their own simple stat sheet. The board represented a contested region, and the goal was total domination over the area or slaying the enemy's Tyrant.
The rules were quite simple:
– The Tyrants would always be equal in rank.
– you gained strength in your own territory and weakened in your enemy's
– and lastly the loss of your Tyrant meant defeat.
Hugo, thinking his modern strategic mind might give him an advantage, had thrown himself into it...
He was obliterated by Eurys in under twenty minutes...
"This game is terrible, and you're definitely cheating." Hugo grumbled, the unnatural petulance of his Diamondhead form coloring his tone.
Eurys chuckled once again looking at Hugo with a slightly excited look, somehow.
"Don't feel too diminished! This was a game created and played by the Daemons themselves. I once had the… pleasure… of challenging the Daemon of Dread himself to a match And I won!."
Hugo looked at the sacred skeleton Infront of him with a deadpan expression, resisting the urge to punch him in the face.
Of course This entity had not only known Daemons, but he had also gamed with them.... And won.
"Although," Eurys continued "this is but a pale shadow of the game, The true Death Game was played with higher stakes."
"What do you mean?"
"The Daemons did not use figurines, instead They would trap real, living creatures in a pocket realm. The players would then influence them indirectly, guiding their fates, stirring wars and engineering calamities for territorial gains. The losers were bound to grant the winner a single wish, of any nature, no matter the cost... you can probably guess how much of a terrible idea that is when divine beings are involved in the bet."
Hugo felt an alien revulsion appere in his mind... His Diamondhead form had a childlike fascination with creation, the kind that included growth, structur and beauty and so This casual cruelty toward life through such a brilliantly crafted game was disturbing to him.
"Why would anyone create something so vile?"
"You cannot judge the Daemons by the morals of humans, or even Noble creatures" Eurys said, his tone devoid of judgment. "Our concepts of 'vile' or 'sin' are rarely applied when it comes to such creaturs... although I somehow agree with the fact that they were despicable, them and the gods, of course."
"Enough yapping!" Azarax suddenly shouted, shoving Hugo aside. "Eurys, you ossified relic, bullying an awakened child like this! let a true Supreme show you how strategy is done!"
The two ancient beings squared off over the board....
Thirty minutes later, Azarax's forces were in disarray, his Tyrant cornered and all of his Territories taken..
"Son of a bitch..." Azarax began, raising a bony finger to point accusingly.
Although He never finished the myriad of curses...
All three of them—Hugo, Eurys, Azarax— suddenly snapped their heads toward the viewing wall of the ship..
Outside, the endless expanse of white sand stretched to a stark horizon. To the south, a harrowing black pyramid stood sentinel, but luckily, they were not headed that way.
Directly ahead, to the east, a new landmark dominated the view.
A wall.
It was not made of stone or metal, but of strange translucent green energy that rose from the desert floor and vanished into the upper atmosphere, extending to the left and right as far as the eye could see.
Hugo somehow knew what this strange sight meant...
After days of travel through the nightmare desert, they had finally reached The boundary of this cursed realm.
———
As the ship closed the distance, Hugo dismissed his Diamondhead formto let the Omnitrix recharge.
He stared at the colossal energy wall with a strange expression on his face...
It was less a border and more a cliff face of some sort of alien force... (I'm sorry, I had to add that in)
Hugo looked at his skeletal companions. "Eurys Can't you tell me anything about primus? Pretty please?"
The ancient skeleton was silent for a long moment as if shifting through millions of memories from a long gone era.
"I do not know its current state," he began, clearly not interested in the subject. "But I knew of it, once. It was an artificial realm created by the First Thinker."
Hugo's grimmiced at the mention of the first thinker...
The figure named Azmuth never failed to surprise him.
"How a being who was not even sacred managed such a feat… I never understood... Nothing was ever simple or logical when that… frog… was involved But I do knew that this place was conceived as a sanctuary where life, in all of its myriad forms, was meant to exist in a state of perfectio..."
'So this is the origin of the omnitrix...' he thought, recalling [Primus] trait description.
[Primus] Trait Description: [The Omnitrix can guide its master to its origin.]
Hugo's felt a mix of awe and dreadful anticipation by that fact...
After all this was the realm of his Aspect's creator...
It would either be a preserved paradise , or a literal hell... Given the nature of the Dream Realm, he knew which was more likely.
The ship finally reached the wall, waiting to pass through it.
THUD.
A deep shockwave rattled through the vessel as it rebounded, stopped dead by the impassable green energy. .
A sudden wave of doubt and fear suddenly crushed on Hugo's shoulders...
A dead end? After sailing through two death zones, escaping the clutches of a great terror, Was this a final cruel joke?
Then, a familiar mechanical voice spoke in his mind but to his shock, it was not not the Omnitrix's voice...
[Scanning authority…]
[Omnitrix signature recognized.]
[Granting entrance.]
A pulse of emerald light, identical to the original core of the Omnitrix symbol, erupted from Hugo's wrist and enveloped the entire ship. The resonant thrum of the wall changed pitch, Then, they passed through without any problem.
Hugo gasped.
Primus was not what he expected...
Hugo had thought he would come face to face with a hell infested with thousands of monstrosities... But the results was the direct opposite..
It was a garden, pure and true, The sky held the soft, bruised purple of eternal dusk, lit not by sun or moon, but by the gentle, ambient phosphorescence of the world itself... It was a light that cast no harsh shadows, only a beautiful soothing glow.
The ground was a living carpet of deep blue moss, from which grew structures of shimmering, crystalline wood resembling the ones generated by his diamondhead form.
The were buildings... Ones that were intact and mixed between trees and technology.
They were organic yet undeniably beautiful.
The most shocking part was the fact that Life was everywhere and it was breathtaking.
Volaticus biopsis, creatures like delicate dragonflies crafted from stained glass and gossamer, glided between the crystalline trees, their wings catching the twilight and scattering rainbows. They carried strange seeds that glowed like embers as the flying creatures implanted them into the ground.
A four-legged creature with purple fur and silver eyes paused to watch the gigantic ship that had appeared out of nowhere, its gaze intelligent and calm, untainted by corruption.
There was no wrongness here which made it even worse for Hugo...
And at the heart of it all stood the volcano. It was a menacing dark peak but still oddly majestic nonetheless, it's obsidian stone decorated with glowing emerald veins. The volcano seemed to have erupted thousands of years ago but there was no detestation anywhere.
From its wide caldera, pure green liquid was nestled there instead of the usual magma, that same liquid was spreading across the entire region, forming rivers.
Hugo felt nothing wrong... He didn't even feel corruption anywhere, instead he felt the opposite, he felt pure divinity radiating from the heart of the area.
But then, Before Hugo could wrap his head around the strange sight, the same voice from before resounded in his ears:
[Unauthorized activation of Divine relic detected within Primus biosphere.]
[Containment protocol engaged.]
[Vehicle's power being neutralized.]
[Unsummoning sequence initiated.]
"What—?" was all Hugo managed before the world exploded into a myriad of white sparks.
Hugo quickly realized that with it wasn't the world that exploded, but instead it was Azmuth's Ship being unsummoned.
The Divine memory was somehow being forcibly deactivated and at the same time, getting pulled back into his soul sea against his will by Primus's own ancient security systems.
The white sparks finally faded.
Causing him, eurys and azarax to fall to the ground at a terrible speed.