Last Chapter: He said over his shoulder]
Chapter 108, Episode 108
Long, long ago, In a war of Destruction. The kind that didn't just kill people. The kind that broke the sky. The kind that left scars in reality that still haven't fully healed two hundred years later.
[The throne room of the Invictus World had no ceiling]
[It didn't need one]
[The space above the throne simply continued upward forever, through infinite layers of reality that Voriath had built himself, each layer a different universe, each universe answering to him alone]
[Voriath Luminael sat on his throne]
[He wasn't large in the way that powerful things are sometimes large. He was just a man. Young looking. Dark hair. Eyes that were the color of something that existed before color had a name. His armor was simple. Dark. Undecorated]
[His presence did everything decoration was supposed to do and more]
[The air around him was heavier]
[The light near him behaved differently, bending slightly toward him the way light bends near a black hole]
[The floor under his throne had cracked a long time ago, not from weight, but from the sheer fact of him existing on top of it for too long]
[He was smiling]
[Just smiling the way someone smiles when they have already decided what they are going to do and find the decision satisfying]
[Behind him, his seven subordinates stood in a line. Lily. Xuantian. Isadora. Glutto. Mercurius. Galacik. Jaxx]
[Each one was a catastrophe in their own right]
[Together they were something the cosmology didn't have a word for yet]
[At the far edge of the throne room, half in shadow, stood Mephisto and the Null Collapse group]
[They weren't subordinates. They were partners. A different thing entirely]
[Mephisto watched Voriath from across the room with careful eyes]
[Voriath hadn't looked at him once since the meeting began. He didn't need to]
Mephisto: The deal??
[Mephisto said, still stands]
Voriath: Of course it does, You want the Nexus Power. You want the Hyper Soul cores. I want the Primus World opened and every Legendary Justice dead
[Voriath said. He didn't look up. He finally looked at Mephisto]
Voriath: Simple!
[Mephisto held his gaze for exactly as long as was necessary to not look afraid]
Mephisto: And the other universes?
Voriath: They'll fall in line,Or they won't exist.
[Voriath said]
[The Solstice Sisters exchanged a look behind Mephisto's back]
[Caladrache said nothing]
[He was too busy watching Xuantian and Mercurius standing behind the throne and quietly deciding he never wanted to be in the same room as either of them again]
[Voriath stood]
[The room responded. Not dramatically. Just a slight shift in the air, like the whole space took a breath and held it]
Voriath: Tell them we're coming..
[Voriath said to no one in particular]
[Jaxx cracked his knuckles]
[Galacik's hand went to her sword]
[Glutto smiled, green flame flickering at his fingertips]
Three days later - Primus World
[They felt him before they saw him]
[The first warning was the stars]
[Three solar systems on the outer edge of the Primus World went dark at the same time]
[Not destroyed. Just dark. As if something had passed between them and the rest of existence and the light had decided not to follow]
[Ereshkigal felt it in the Afterlife first]
[She stood from her throne of bone and nebulae and looked at the horizon of her realm and said nothing for a long moment]
Ereshikigal: Servants!
[she said quietly]
[All twelve materialized instantly]
[Azrael looked at the horizon beside her]
Azrael: It's him..
[he said with a serious face]
Ereshkigal: Yes..
[Ereshkigal said]
Azarael: Do we have time to—
Ereshikigal: No , We go now.
[She said with malice and ready to go]
[Meanwhile The Legendary Justice arrived first]
[All twelve of them, descending from the space above the Primus World like a wall of light]
[Zenith at the front, his presence pushing against the darkness that was spreading from the direction of the Invictus World]
Zenith: Hold the line.. We don't let him reach the inner worlds.
[Zenith said. His voice carried across dimensions without effort]
[Axel landed beside him, chaos magic already burning in both hands]
Axel: How many is he bringing?
Morningstar: All of them..
[Morningstar said quietly]
[Everyone looked at her]
[She was looking at the darkness]
Morningstar: He's bringing all of them..
[she said again]
[The 8 Empire States came next]
[The Empire of the Sun arrived in a column of light, Lucis at the front with Primordial Chaos Magic already crackling at his shoulders]
[Benimaru was moving before he'd fully arrived, Speed Force leaving trails of yellow sparks across the sky]
[The Warriors of Hope came from above, their floating fortress casting a shadow over the battlefield that stretched for miles]
[Thanatos looked out at the approaching darkness and reached for his space magic without being asked]
[Wu Zetian and the Legends of Light came in from the east, the temperature dropping ten degrees in every direction just from their presence]
[Alistair's atomic magic was already vibrating the air]
[Kars and the Octavian Vanquishers said nothing when they arrived]
[They just took their positions. Kars looked at the darkness with his logic magic reading it, calculating, his expression telling everyone near him that the numbers weren't good]
[Nighurath of the Zealots Division arrived with a crack of paradox magic that split the cloud above them clean in half]
[Zepar and the 9 Heroes landed in the center of the forming alliance]
[Rousseau cracked his knuckles. Jagerbauer was already vibrating with speed]
[Icarus and the Guardians of the Galaxy came last, Vexius scanning every mind present in under a second and filing it all away]
[And then, in the spaces between all of them, the Angels came down]
[Raphael. Uriel. Zadkiel. Dina. Galgaliel. Riel. Cielo. Jophiel]
[Eight wings unfolding across the sky like doors opening]
[From the Terra Celestial World, the God of Lunar descended with the Infinite Book sealed at his side, Musaha and Daylight and Bellatrix and Lunar and Celestie forming a line behind him]
[The Fundamental Laws of Cosmos did not descend]
[They did not need to descend]
[Lyra, Draco, and Liam simply appeared. One moment not there]
[The next, present in a way that made everything else feel slightly less real by comparison]
[The Divine Domain above them pulsed once, a slow deep light that passed through every dimension present]
[And then]
[From one direction, a man walked out of a fold in space that hadn't been there a second ago. Plain coat. Hands in pockets]
[The Manipulator]
[From another direction, a wave of heat arrived before the person carrying it did]
[The temperature spiked. The air tasted like the inside of a star]
[Siriusniyo stepped out of his own fire and looked at the gathering]
The Manipulator: Late..
[The Manipulator said to him]
Siriusniyo: I don't rush..
[Siriusniyo said]
[Ereshkigal and her twelve servants materialized at the edge of the formation, completing the line]
[Every force in the cosmology. In one place.
All of them looking at the same horizon]
[The Invictus World opened]
[Not a door. Not a portal. The sky simply split along a line that ran from one end of the visible universe to the other and the light that came through it was wrong]
[Too bright. Too cold. The kind of light that didn't illuminate things so much as reveal them]
[Voriath stepped through]
[He stepped through alone]
[His subordinates came behind him. Then the Hyper Guardians in their thousands, each one radiating enough power to level a continent]
[But everyone was looking at Voriath]
[He stopped on the other side of the rift and looked at the alliance assembled against him]
[Every ruler. Every legendary being. Every force the cosmology had]
[He tilted his head slightly]
Zenith: Is this all?
[He said, Zenith stepped forward]
Zenith: Voriath Luminael, You are in violation of—
[He said. His voice carried the full weight of Law Enforcement Magic]
Voriath: I know what I'm in violation of,
[Voriath said pleasantly]
Zenith: Stand down..
[Zenith said]
Voriath: No..
[Voriath said]
[A beat]
Lyra: Why are you doing this? You were given the Invictus World. You were given power beyond any being in creation. What more could you possibly want?
[Lyra's voice came from everywhere and nowhere at once, the voice of the God of All Existence carrying through every layer of reality simultaneously]
[Voriath looked up at where Lyra's voice was coming from]
Voriath: A reason to exist, and I've found one
[He said simply]
[He raised his hand]
[Jaxx stepped forward first]
Destruction Magic — World End Pulse.
[The shockwave hit the alliance line like a physical wall]
[Buildings in the nearest dimensions crumbled. Half the Warriors of Hope were thrown backward]
[The ground under everyone's feet simply stopped existing for three seconds before it came back]
THE WAR HAS BEGUN!
[It happened everywhere at once]
[Lily moved like a song given form, her True Enchantment Magic weaving through the air and landing on the Celestials before they could raise a shield]
[Musaha pushed back with Odin Pillar, rewriting the past thirty seconds to undo the enchantment]
[Lily had already moved]
True Enchantment — Absolute Binding.
[The ability locked the concept of movement itself inside a golden cage]
[Daylight burned through it with Order Prism, bending the rules until the cage broke]
[Lily was already weaving the next one]
Daylight: She's fast, Almost much faster than the literally embodiment of light itself
[Daylight said]
Bellatrix: She's not fast, She never stops moving
[Bellatrix said, Oblivion Azathpino forming in her hands]
[Meanwhile Isadora went after the Angels]
[She didn't fight them. She put them to sleep]
Dream Magic — Infinite Slumber.
[Raphael caught himself falling and burned through it with holy light]
[Uriel hit the ground before he could stop himself and had to be pulled back by Galgaliel]
[Three of the eight Angels were down in the first minute]
[Cielo, Angel of Wisdom, turned to face Isadora directly]
Cielo: Dream magic against beings of light..You know it won't hold for long
[Cielo said]
Isadora: It doesn't need to hold.. It just needs to keep you busy
[Isadora said. Her eyes were half closed]
[Behind Cielo, somewhere in the chaos, Glutto laughed]
[Green flame erupted across the eastern flank]
Green Flame Swordsmanship — Emerald Annihilation.
[The blade came down and the cut didn't stop at the physical]
[It went through dimensions. Three separate realities felt the edge of it and flinched]
[Zino was already there to meet it]
Infinite Mastered Sword Techniques.
[Steel met flame]
[The impact sent a shockwave through six dimensions]
[Both of them moved so fast the air they'd been standing in collapsed behind them]
Glutto: Good!!
[Glutto said, green fire in his eyes]
Zino: Don't compliment me..
[Zino said, and attacked again]
[They didn't go to the front line]
[They went to the foundation]
[Xuantian raised both hands and the space-time fabric of the Primus World groaned]
Absolute Time Manipulation — Foundation Collapse.
[The laws governing cause and effect in the Primus World began to tear]
[Not break. Tear. Like fabric pulled in opposite directions slowly enough to see every thread snapping one by one]
[Nathaniel of the Warriors of Hope felt it in his Physics Magic immediately and screamed]
Nathaniel: The foundation is going!, Someone needs to—
[he shouted]
[Mercurius hit him from the side]
Reality Law — Absolute Physics Break.
[Nathaniel's Physics Magic tried to stabilize the area]
[Mercurius looked at it and declared it illegal]
[The magic didn't just stop working. It stopped existing in the area]
[Nathaniel stared at his own hands]
Nathaniel: My power..
[He said with despair in his eyes]
Mercurius: Is gone.. Temporarily, Everything is temporary right now
[Mercurius said simply]
[He looked at the cracking foundation above them]
[Draco appeared between them. The God of All Multiverse]
Reality Manipulation — Grand Restoration.
[He rewrote the fabric of the Primus World back to its previous state]
[Three times. Each time Xuantian tore it again faster]
Draco: He's rewriting my rewrites..
[Draco said. His voice, for the first time in anyone's memory, had tension in it]
Lyra: Yes, Now Focus!!
[Lyra said from above]
All Omniscience — True Sight.
[Lyra could see every move Xuantian and Mercurius would make. Every single one]
[She began countering before they happened]
[For eleven minutes, the foundation held]
[Then Mercurius looked at Lyra]
[History Wipe]
[He negated the last eleven minutes of her counters]
[Rewound the damage she'd prevented and applied it all at once]
[The foundation cracked down the middle]
[Half of the Eastern World shook]
[Ereshkigal caught the crack with both hands, her multiverse-governing power pressing against it, holding it together through sheer will]
Ereshikigal: I have it, But not for long!!
[She said through her teeth]
The Scene switched to Voriath fighting against everyone in the Cosmos
[He fought them all]
[Not one at a time. All of them]
[The Legendary Justice came at him in a coordinated attack]
[Zenith with Law Enforcement. Axel with Chaos Magic. Jax with Reality Bending]
[Raven tearing reality apart to create gaps in his defense]
[Endless enforcing laws that said he couldn't move. Morpheus calculating his every probability]
[Voriath walked through all of it]
Voriath: — Hyper Presence.
[His presence alone pushed the attack back]
[Not a technique. Not a counter. Just the sheer fact of him being there asserting itself as more real than everything coming at him]
[Endless hit him with Law Enforcement at full power]
Endless — Absolute Binding Law.
Endless: You cannot move
[Endless declared]
[Voriath moved]
[Endless stared]
Endless: That should be impossible..
[Endless said]
Voriath: Laws don't apply to me, My parents wrote the first ones. I've read every word. I know all the gaps
[He said as he looked at Endless steadily]
[He hit Endless once]
[Endless flew. And kept flying. And did not come back]
[Kaida tried to trap him in illusions]
Illusion Creation — Perfect World Cage.
[The illusion built around Voriath perfectly. Flawless. Kaida had trapped gods in it before]
[Voriath looked at it]
[Then looked at Kaida through it]
[The illusion dissolved]
Voriath: That was well made, Try again if you want
[Voriath said]
[Kaida tried again. Three more times. Each one better than the last]
[Each one dissolved]
[Thane stood in front of him next]
Magic of Protection — Absolute Guardian Shield.
[The shield was the strongest protection in existence]
[Thane had never seen it broken]
[Voriath put one hand through it]
[Not a technique. Not a specific power. He simply reached through it the way you reach through smoke]
[Thane looked at his broken shield]
Thane: How??
[He said]
Voriath: Your protection magic defines what it protects against,It doesn't know what to do about me.
[Voriath said]
[He flicked Thane backward gently. Gently enough that Thane survived. Just barely]
[Nova tried technology magic. Thanos tried shadow]
[Vex tried to break him psychologically and found there was nothing in Voriath's mind that could be reached that way]
[One by one the Legendary Justice fell]
[Morpheus pulled back]
[Morningstar pulled back]
Morpheus: We need a different approach..
[Morpheus said. His probability magic was running the numbers. They were not good]
[Legendary Justice]
"Together!!!!"
[Full power. All remaining members at once]
Zenith: Agreed..
[Zenith said. He was bleeding. One of the first times he had ever bled]
[Remaining eight Legendary Justice]
"All at once"
[Eight remaining Legendary Justice gathered their power]
[The attack they launched together was not something that had a name]
[It was everything they had combined into a single point]
[Reality Bending and Shadow and Illusion and Chaos and Dreams and Law and Probability and Protection all fused into a beam of force that rearranged the molecules of space as it traveled]
[Voriath raised one hand]
Voriath — Absolute.
[The beam hit his palm]
[He closed his fingers around it and instantly crushed it]
[The shockwave of a combined Legendary Justice full-power attack being destroyed at close range shook three universes clean off their foundations]
[Ereshkigal caught them. Barely]
[The eight remaining Legendary Justice stood in the silence after]
[Zenith looked at his hands]
[Then at Voriath]
Zenith: We are beings beyond the concept of space and reality and logic,We exist outside the laws of death itself.
[Zenith said slowly]
Voriath: I know...
[Voriath said]
Zenith: And you stopped that attack with one hand.
Voriath: Yes
[Zenith was quiet for a moment]
Zenith: Then what are you..
[He said]
Voriath: My parents' son..
[Voriath said]
[He moved]
[He moved through all eight of them in under a second]
[Seven of the eight dropped]
[Morningstar ran]
[Not in fear exactly]
[In calculation. She was the Dreamweaver]
[She had seen this outcome coming and had already decided while everyone was talking that her job was not to win]
[Her job was to survive and carry the memory of this day forward]
[She ran and didn't look back]
[Voriath watched her go]
[He didn't chase her]
[At the other end, Siriusniyo and The Manipulator arrived as they witnessed that he has absolutely destroyed the Legendary Justice]
[They arrived at Voriath's position together]
[Not as allies exactly. More like two people who happened to be walking in the same direction]
[Siriusniyo's fire was already burning at a level that was warping the space around him]
[The Primordial Hearth form, his skin the texture of cooling magma, white plasma where his hair should be]
[The Manipulator had his hand in his pocket.
Voriath looked at both of them]
[For the first time, something shifted in his expression. Not fear. Something more like interest]
Voriath: You two..
[He said]
The Manipulator: Us two??
[The Manipulator agreed]
Siriusniyo: I wondered when you'd come.
We were busy watching your subordinates work.
[Siriusniyo said. Gathering information]
The Manipulator: And?..And we have enough..
[The Manipulator said]
Probability Collapse.
[He collapsed every possible outcome in the space around Voriath, forcing reality to arrange itself into the single worst configuration for Voriath possible]
[Voriath walked out of it]
[Not unaffected. He slowed for a half second. But he walked out of it]
Voriath: Interesting..
[Voriath said]
[Siriusniyo didn't wait. He swung Sutur's End]
Sutur's End — Conceptual Cut.
[The blade didn't aim at Voriath's body. It aimed at the concept of his power]
[It tried to slice his ability to fight out of the timeline entirely]
[The sword connected]
[And stopped]
[Siriusniyo felt the resistance through the blade and into his arm and then into his entire body]
[Like trying to cut something that was simply more real than the sword]
Voriath: You can feel it??
[Voriath said]
Sirusniyo: Yes..
[Siriusniyo said]
Voriath: What does it feel like??
Siriusniyo: Like hitting the floor of existence..
[Siriusniyo said]
[Voriath nodded]
Voriath: That's accurate.
Siriusniyo — Fundamental Burn.
[He didn't aim at Voriath. He aimed at the concept of Voriath existing in this timeline]
[Tried to burn him out of the sequence of events that had led to this moment]
[Voriath's presence pushed back]
[The fire bent around him. Not deflected. Just refused to apply]
[Siriusniyo pulled back and looked at The Manipulator]
The Manipulator: Lie..
[The Manipulator said]
[Siriusniyo nodded once]
The Manipulator — Power of the Lie.
The Manipulator: Your existence.. is a temporal error
[The Manipulator said, looking at Voriath]
[The Lie hit reality]
[For three seconds, the multiverse believed it]
[Voriath's form flickered. His timeline shook]
[The lie was working]
[Then Voriath looked at The Manipulator]
[And the lie unwrote itself]
[Not because Voriath did anything]
[Simply because his existence was more fundamental than The Manipulator's lie could reach]
[The Manipulator stood still for a moment]
Voriath: Hm, First time?
[Voriath said and also asked]
The Manipulator: First time, How does it feel?
[The Manipulator confirmed]
Voriath: Yep...
The Manipulator: Instructive
[The Manipulator said]
[Siriusniyo hit Voriath with Sutur's Final Singularity]
Sutur's Final Singularity — Multiverse Melt
[The sword went into the ground and the entire multiverse began pulling toward it]
[A zone of absolute fire where everything became fuel. Stars. Laws. Concepts. Gods]
[Voriath stood in the center of it]
[His presence was pushing back against the melt]
[Not easily. For the first time something was genuinely requiring effort from him]
[His form was brighter. His eyes sharper]
The Manipulator: Better..
[He said]
[The Manipulator used three abilities simultaneously]
The Manipulator —Infinite Phantasm.
[He declared Voriath's defenses to be illusions]
[They became illusions]
[Ghost Strike. He hit Voriath in two timelines at once. Both hits landed]
The Manipulator —World Shard Fracture.
[The ground beneath Voriath split along universe-level fault lines]
[Voriath stumbled]
[One step]
[The assembled alliance watching from the surrounding positions went silent]
[Every ruler. Every legendary force]
[Voriath had stumbled]
The Manipulator: Together..
[The Manipulator said to Siriusniyo]
[Siriusniyo was already moving]
Siriusniyo — Total Fire Despair.
[All futures collapsed into one]
The Manipulator — Omni False State.
[The Manipulator started transforming]
[Beginning]
[The white light of the Omni False State and the absolute fire of Total Fire Despair hit Voriath at the same time from two different directions]
[The explosion took out three universes.
Ereshkigal caught them again]
[Her twelve servants were working at full capacity. The Silent Ones had descended for the first time in memory]
[When the light cleared Voriath was on one knee]
[One knee]
[The alliance couldn't believe it]
Benimaru: He's on his knee
[Benimaru said somewhere in the back]
Kars: Don't celebrate, Look at his eyes
[Kars said immediately]
[Voriath looked up from his knee]
[He wasn't hurt]
[He was smiling]
Voriath: There it is, That's what I was looking for.
[He said with malice]
[He stood up]
[And released]
[What came out of him wasn't a technique or an ability. It was just him. His actual presence without the filter]
[The weight of the son of the Hyper Gods, the king of the Invictus World, a being that had been born from the founders of existence themselves, finally, fully present in this dimension]
[The sky went out]
[Every light source in the Primus World turned off simultaneously]
[Then came back. But different. Colder]
[Ereshkigal looked at the crack forming in the foundation of reality and for the first time in her endless existence said]
Ereshkigal: I cannot hold this.
[Her multiverse-governing power was pressing against the crack with everything she had. Her twelve servants beside herp
[The Silent Ones fully committed]
[The crack grew and grew]
[What followed was not a battle]
[It was a survival]
[Voriath moved through the alliance and nobody could stop him for long]
[Lyra rewrote reality around him and he rewrote it back]
[Draco restored the foundation and Xuantian tore it again faster]
OLiam tried Visionary Manipulation to change the story of the fight and found that Voriath was already outside the story]
[The 8 Empire States fought in rotating waves so nobody burned out alone]
[Lucis and his Primordial Chaos Magic held a position for eleven minutes before Lily's enchantment pulled him out]
[Wu Zetian froze an entire front with ice magic and Galacik walked through it]
[True Darkness Flame burning it off like morning frost]
[Nighurath of the Zealots used Paradox Magic to make Voriath exist in a state where hitting things was impossible]
[Voriath hit Nighurath]
Voriath: Paradox negated..
[Voriath said]
[Nighurath did not get up quickly]
[Zepar tried Gravity Magic to pin Voriath to a fixed point]
[Rousseau hit him with infinite strength from below at the same moment]
[Voriath absorbed the gravity. Caught Rousseau's fist with one hand]
[Rousseau's infinite strength met Voriath's presence]
[The ground in every universe in the Primus World cracked simultaneously]
[Rousseau's fist didn't move]
Voriath: You're strong, More than you should be.
[Voriath said]
Rousseau: Thanks..
[Rousseau said through his teeth, pushing]
Voriath: It still won't be enough.
[He let go. The release sent Rousseau backward so fast he passed through dimensions]
[Mercurius and Xuantian were destroying the foundation layer by layer]
[Every time someone repaired it they went deeper]
[Xuantian was in Absolute State Hyper Form now, hundreds of versions of himself occupying every millisecond, making it impossible to predict which hit was real. Mercurius had shifted into Full Absorbed Space Time, seeing the logic lines of every combatant and simply cutting the ones he needed to]
[Both transformed]
[Ikki of the Warriors of Hope was fighting Xuantian alone]
Flame Magic — Supernova Lance.
[The fire hit Xuantian's past self. His present self was already somewhere else]
Xuantian: You keep targeting where I was..
[Xuantian said from behind Ikki]
Ikki: I noticed, So let me try something different.
[He said and turned at the same time]
Flame Magic — Absolute Fire Wall.
[Every point in space within a hundred meters burned simultaneously]
[No past. No future. Just everywhere, right now, on fire]
[Xuantian's form flickered. Three of his simultaneous selves were caught]
[He regenerated instantly with his Time Loop but his expression had changed]
Xuantian: That's works better
[he said]
Ikki: Thanks for the tip..
[Ikki said. He was already burning again]
[Ereshkigal appeared directly in front of Mercurius]
[She didn't speak. She just looked at him]
[Her presence, the governing force of twelve infinite multiverses, pressed against Mercurius like a physical weight]
[Mercurius looked back at her]
Mercurius: Goddess..
[He said]
Ereshikigal: You're breaking my foundation..
[She said]
Mercurius: Yes
Ereshikigal: I'll warn you once..
[she said]
Mercurius: I appreciate the warning..
[Mercurius said]
[He used Void Genesis]
Mercurius: Let me show you something welcoming
Void Genesis — Dimensional Positive Nothing.
[The space around Ereshkigal began losing its history. Its name. Its physical form]
[Ereshkigal reached out and caught the nothing with both hands]
[Held it]
[Her power forcing it to remain something rather than become what Mercurius wanted]
[They held that position]
[Mercurius pushing the nothing forward]
[Ereshkigal holding it back]
[For forty seconds neither of them moved]
[Then Ereshkigal pushed back]
[The nothing reversed]
[Mercurius felt it hit him and for the first time in this battle his form wavered]
Mercurius: You're stronger than I calculated..
[He said]
Ereshkigal: I am older than your master, I have governed death longer than your universe has existed.
[She said]
[She released her multiversal power at full force]
[The shockwave sent Mercurius through eleven dimensions]
[He came back, damaged. Slower]
[But he came back]
Mercurius: Infinite Adaptation
[He said. His body had already built immunity to her attack]
[Ereshkigal looked at him]
Ereshikigal: Then I'll use something else
[She said]
[The battle between them continued for three more hours]
[Meanwhile The God of Lunar stood at the edge of the war and held the Infinite Book sealed at his side]
[Musaha stood beside her]
Musasha: Use it.
God of Lunar: I can't
[She said]
Musaha: It contains every power in existence, Voriath is—
[Musaha said]
God of Lunar: I know what Voriath is, And I know what happens if the Book is opened without a proper bond.
[He looked at the war. At Ereshkigal holding the foundation together]
[At The Manipulator and Siriusniyo pushing Voriath harder than anything else had]
God of Lunar: If I force it open, it destroys me and everything near me. The Book chooses its user. I cannot choose for it.
[Musaha looked at the cracking sky]
Musasha: Then what do we do, My Queen?
[she said]
God of Lunar: Buy time..
[She said]
[He stepped forward, the Book sealed, and entered the war without opening it]
[His Odin Pillar rewrote the past in rapid succession]
[Daylight locked down Voriath's movement rules temporarily. Bellatrix erased his attacks before they landed]
[Lunar nullified his power in the immediate area]
[For six minutes the five of them held Voriath in a zone of combined pressure that was the most powerful sustained attack in recorded history]
[Voriath walked through it in the seventh minute]
Voriath: Impressive, Truly.
[He said with a confident smirk]
[She looked at the sealed Book at the God of Lunar's side]
Voriath: Open it..
[Voriath said]
God of Lunar: No..
[The God of Lunar said]
Voriath: It's your best weapon. Use it.
God of Lunar: It's not mine to open..
[She said]
[Voriath tilted his head]
Voriath: You're afraid.
God of Lunar: I'm careful
[She said]
[Voriath hit her]
[The God of Lunar went down hard. Musaha caught him before he stopped moving]
[Celestie stepped in. Divine Seraphim switching fate and law and destiny simultaneously]
[Voriath walked through it like it's nothing, erasing the literal fate and deleting law itself]
While the main war raged, the Null Collapse moved quietly.
[Mephisto wasn't fighting. He was watching. Recording]
[His Acausality Magic keeping him untouched by the cascade of cause and effect breaking down around him]
[Callista was pulling data. Which Hyper Soul signatures were active]
[Where they were hiding. Who didn't know what they were]
[Caladrache was watching Xuantian's moves and filing them away]
Mephisto: We're not here to win this war, We're here to watch it
[Mephisto said quietly]
[The Solstice Sisters stood beside him]
Solistice Sisters: And when it ends?
Mephisto: When it ends we'll know exactly what we need to know.
[Mephisto said]
[Blaise, the Null Collapse's cosmic manipulator, looked at the destruction around them]
Blaise: They're losing.
Mephisto: Everyone is losing, That's the point
[Mephisto said]
[He watched The Manipulator and Siriusniyo hit Voriath from both sides again]
[Watched Voriath push back]
[Watched the foundation crack further]
Mephisto: Someday, when all of this is over and the strong are tired and the heroes are counting their dead, we'll be the ones still standing. That's the deal
[He said as he smirked]
[Meanwhile Voriath found them one by one]
[Thanos tried shadow. Gone]
[Kaida tried illusion. Gone]
[Vex tried psychological breakdown, Voriath looked at him once and Vex went still]
Voriath: Your power requires me to have something you can reach, I don't
[Voriath said]
[Gone]
[Nova used every piece of technology magic she had. Machinery. Systems. Weapons built from the future pulled into the present]
[Voriath walked through it all and put his hand on her shoulder gently]
[She went still]
Voriath: You were the most creative.
[He said]
[Gone]
[Endless used Absolute Law]
Endless: You cannot destroy us, We exist beyond the concept of death. The law of our existence prohibits it.
[Endless declared]
[Voriath killed Endless]
[The law didn't stop him]
[Axel came at him with full Chaos Magic]
[Screaming. Pouring everything he had into a single attack that tore reality to pieces just by existing]
[It was the strongest individual attack that had been thrown at Voriath all day]
[Voriath caught it]
[Held it]
[Looked at Axel through the chaos]
Voriath: Good, That was a good one.
[Voriath said]
[He closed his hand]
[Axel. Gone]
[Morpheus ran the numbers one last time. Every probability]
[Every combination. Every possible timeline where some version of them survived]
[One timeline. Out of infinite]
[He turned to Zenith]
Morpheus: There is one outcome where we win
[Morpheus said]
Zenith: What is it
[Zenith said]
Morpheus: Morningstar survives, That's the outcome. Not us winning. Just him surviving
[Morpheus said]
[Zenith was quiet]
Zenith: Then that's enough
[he said]
[He turned to face Voriath]
Zenith — Law of Absolute Enforcement.
[The attack was everything Zenith had. Every law he governed, compressed into a single point directed at Voriath's chest]
[Voriath raised his hand]
[They collided]
[The universe between them ceased to exist for three seconds]
[When it came back, Zenith was gone]
[Morpheus followed three seconds later, having spent those three seconds ensuring Morningstar's path of escape was clear]
[Only Morningstar remained]
[He stood at the edge of the war, Magic of Dreams burning in his hands, watching]
[Voriath turn to look at him]
The Manipulator: Run!!
[The Manipulator said to her without looking away from Voriath]
Morningstar: I know pal!
[He said]
[He ran]
[Voriath watched her go]
[The Manipulator stepped in front of him]
The Manipulator: You're going to let him go..
[The Manipulator said]
Voriath: Yes
[Voriath said]
The Manipulator: Why.
Voriath: Because a story needs a witness, What's the point of all this if nobody carries it forward.
[Voriath said with interest]
[He looked at The Manipulator]
Voriath: You understand that, Don't you?
[He said]
[The Manipulator said nothing for a moment]
The Manipulator: Unfortunately, yes
[He said]
It comes down to the Final Push
[Every remaining force gathered]
[Lyra and Draco and Liam together]
[Ereshkigal and all twelve servants and The Manipulator and Siriusniyo side by side]
[Every ruler of every universe still standing.
The Angels. The Celestials. Every guild. Every hero]
[They hit Voriath with everything at the same time]
[The result was not a sound. It was beyond sound. It was an event. The kind of thing that gets recorded in the bones of reality itself and stays there forever]
[Voriath was pushed back]
[Ten feet]
[Ten feet against the combined force of every power in the cosmology]
[He planted his feet in the ground of the Primus World and stopped moving]
[Raised his head]
[And looked at all of them]
Voriath: Is that everything
[He said]
[The silence that followed was the worst silence in recorded history]
[Because everyone knew the answer]
The Manipulator: Yes,That's everything
[The Manipulator said]
[Voriath nodded slowly]
Voriath: Then it's my turn..
[He said]
[What happened next lasted six hours]
[Six hours of Voriath alone against everyone who remained]
[He destroyed the foundation of reality three more times]
[Ereshkigal repaired it each time, her servants breaking down one by one until only Azrael and the Silent Ones remained standing beside her]
[He killed no one]
[But he broke almost everyone]
[The Manipulator and Siriusniyo stayed with him longest]
[Three hours after everyone else had been pushed back or incapacitated, the two of them were still standing in front of him]
[Siriusniyo was in True Flame Hellfire form!as his sword the size of a continent]
[His fire rewriting the laws of the space around them]
[The Manipulator was in Unsealed True False, seven lies stacked over reality, his Omni False State beginning to build]
[Voriath was standing with his hands at his sides looking at both of them with genuine respect]
Voriath: You two,...are the best thing this cosmology has produced.
[He said with suprise and curiosity]
Siriusniyo: We're going to seal you..
[Siriusniyo said]
Voriath: No, You aren't.
The Manipulator: We're going to try,
[The Manipulator said]
Voriath: I know, That's what I respect about you.
[Voriath said]
[He moved]
[Three hours later, Siriusniyo was on one knee, Sutur's End planted in the ground, using it as a cane to stay upright]
[The Manipulator was still standing. Barely]
[His coat was undamaged but the air around him was doing something wrong, his reality manipulation struggling against Voriath's presence in a way that had never happened to him before]
[Voriath stood in front of them, completely undamaged]
Voriath: Done?
[He said]
The Manipulator: No
[The Manipulator said as he attacked again]
[Just as everything was going in Voriath's favor]
[A sudden rift opened above everything]
[Not the Invictus World's rift]
[A different one. Older. Coming from a place that predated the Invictus World and the Primus World and the Divine Domain and everything anyone present had ever seen or heard of]
[Everyone stopped]
[Including Voriath]
[He went very still]
[Two figures came through the rift]
[They were not large. They were not dramatic. They simply were, in the way that fundamental things simply are]
[Their presence didn't press against the world the way Voriath's did. Their presence was quieter than that. More complete]
[Like the world had been slightly unfinished before they arrived and was now whole]
[Ivaraj and Starix]
[The Hyper Gods]
[The founders of existence]
[Two million years old]
[They looked at the war around them. At the broken foundation]
[At the fallen Legendary Justice. At the exhausted alliance. At Ereshkigal holding the last crack together with her bare hands]
[Then they looked at their son]
[Voriath looked back at them]
[Something passed between them that no one present could read]
Ivaraj: Voriath.
[Ivaraj said. Just his name]
[Voriath said nothing]
Starix: This ends now
[Starix said]
Voriath: No, Not yet.
Ivaraj: Yes, Now.
[Ivaraj said]
[They moved together]
[Not fast the way Benimaru was fast or the way Siriusniyo was fast]
[Just present at Voriath's position in a way that bypassed the concept of distance entirely]
[Voriath fought them]
[He fought his parents for seventeen minutes]
[The cosmology held its breath for all seventeen]
[What they did to each other left marks that still existed two hundred years later in the dead spaces between dimensions]
[Places where reality had been so thoroughly stressed by three beings of that caliber pushing against each other that it had never fully recovered]
[Voriath was stronger than every other being in the cosmology]
[His parents were stronger than him]
[Not by much]
[But enough]
[In the seventeenth minute, Ivaraj caught his son's arm]
[Starix placed both hands on Voriath's shoulders]
[Voriath stopped]
[Not because the seal was complete]
[Because his parents were holding him and for one second something human moved across his face]
Voriath: Not like this, Quietly.
Ivaraj: Yes, Like this.
Voriath: I wasn't done..
[Voriath said]
Starix: We know
[Starix said]
[The seal began]
[It wasn't light or sound or force. It was something older than all three]
[A sealing that came from the people who had written the first laws of existence and knew every word of them]
[Voriath looked at The Manipulator across the distance]
Voriath: Remember this
[He said]
The Manipulator: I will..
[The Manipulator said]
[Voriath looked at Siriusniyo]
Voriath: You're the most dangerous thing made of fire I've ever seen.
[he said]
[Siriusniyo said nothing. His hand was tight on Sutur's End]
[Voriath looked at the sky. At the cracked foundation. At the dead universes on the edge of the Primus World]
Voriath: Next time, I won't stop. THIS WAR ISNT OVER, I WILL SURELY COME BACK!!, and this time, I will erase the entire cosmos myself, You will see the true meaning of despair itself
[The seal closed]
[The light went out and then came back]
[The aftermath was a silence so complete it had weight]
[Ivaraj and Starix stood over the sealed space where their son had been]
[Neither of them moved for a long time]
[The remaining alliance didn't speak. Nobody had words for this. Nobody had trained for the silence after something like this]
[Ereshkigal let go of the foundation crack. It held. Just barely. Held]
[She straightened up slowly and looked at the damage around her]
[Her twelve servants. Eight were down. Four standing]
[She closed her eyes]
[Lyra's voice came from everywhere]
Lyra: It's over..
[She said]
[Draco said nothing. He was already rebuilding the foundation with everything he had]
[Liam looked at the place where Voriath had been]
Liam: No, It's paused
[Liam said quietly]
[Voriath's seven subordinates had stopped fighting the moment the seal closed]
[Not because they chose to. Because the power sustaining their full forms came partly from Voriath's presence and without it they had nothing left to stand on]
[One by one they flickered]
[Lily looked at her hands as the enchantment magic dimmed]
[Xuantian looked at the sky]
[Mercurius said nothing]
[Isadora closed her eyes]
[Glutto let the green flame go out]
[Galacik sheathed her sword]
[Jaxx put his hands down]
[And then they were gone]
[Erased from the present. Pulled back into the void that their power had been borrowing from. Not dead. Not alive]
[Existing somewhere between sealed and waiting]
[Until the day the seal broke]
[The Manipulator stood in the ruins of the battlefield and looked at where Voriath had been]
[Siriusniyo stood beside him]
Siriusniyo: Well..
[Siriusniyo said]
The Manipulator: Yes..
[The Manipulator said]
Siriusniyo: We didn't win, No!
[Siriusniyo said]
The Manipulator: No, We didn't lose either, We survived, That's the best anyone did today
[The Manipulator said]
[Siriusniyo looked at the cracked sky]
[At the dead stars on the edge of the Primus World. At Ereshkigal standing in the ruins of her servants' positions, holding herself together through something that wasn't just willpower]
Siriusniyo: He said next time he won't stop
[Siriusniyo said]
The Manipulator: I heard him..
[The Manipulator said]
Siriusniyo: Do you believe him?
[The Manipulator looked at the space where Voriath's presence had been]
[Where the air was still slightly wrong two seconds after the seal]
The Manipulator: Yes
[He said]
[They stood there for a while]
[Two of the most powerful beings in the cosmology, standing in the middle of the worst day in recorded history, looking at the work of someone stronger than both of them]
Siriusniyo: We need to be ready, Voriath is a very powerful Hyper God, A man who took on everyone in the entire cosmos, even Fate, and the embodiment of death and Law don't affect his presence. Just how strong has he gotten, I wonder how strong he would become if the seal breaks again
[Siriusniyo said]
The Manipulator: Yes
[The Manipulator said]
Sirusniyo: Are we going to be?
[The Manipulator thought about it]
The Manipulator: Ask me again in two hundred years, Voriath Luminael is a terrifying opponent to go up against
[He said]
[Foundation will be rebuild again after 200 years]
To be continued...