Chapter 20: ANUBIS
The sky hung like a suspended inferno, a firmament of fiery cataclysm where crimson flames licked at the edges of reality. The earth below was nothing more than a dusty, barren plane, plagued by rolling sandstorms that dropped visibility to near zero, whipping the air into a howling frenzy.
And then, piercing through the sandstorms and the blood-red hue of this burning world, two golden specters of light descended from the skies like falling stars. They dragged luminous trails across the scarlet-weeping firmament before colliding with a seismic impact into the scorched plain. The force unleashed a radiant golden ring that briefly subdued the swirling sands, carving a momentary calm in the chaos.
In the heart of the vast crater, the silhouettes of two figures stood unmoved by the fierce tempest or the ravaging sands—or perhaps the very nature of this dead world feared to lay its clutches upon them.
The two figures—one with fluttering blonde hair, the other darker with a stain of violet—dissipated into mere sand, merging with the storm. They vanished from the crater, carried far into the heart of this entropic realm.
When their silhouettes finally graced reality once more, it was before the great stone feet of a petrified god.
The Chained Titan of Death.
Anubis.
A colossus of black bone and carbonized flesh, where its head should have been loomed only a vast, lipless maw. Its opening spanned the width of a mountain range, lined with cracked enamel ridges as tall as tectonic plates.
Above it hovered multiple suspended dark pillars, each the size of an entire city turned vertical. Carved into their surfaces were pictograms recounting the lore of this fallen Titan—an epoch erased from human history. They moved in an arranged orbit, swirling around the great Titan at a steady speed. From their gigantic forms emerged thick chains, grown rather than forged: links of dark iron and refined copper, their surfaces red-hot with eternal entropy, punching straight out as if birthed by the planet itself to serve as restraints.
These chains arced across the void in perfect, geometric lines, burying themselves into the Titan's flesh. They anchored wrists thicker than mountain ranges, ribs like ridged horizons, and a spine that curved across half the visible sky.
Where each chain pierced the Titan's body, the tissue had fused into flawless obsidian glass.
The Petrification.
"This is where my journey ends, Steins," spoke the figure with the dark hair and a monocled purple eye bearing the insignia of a clock. His form devoured the crimson light spilling from the burning skies. "I shall wait for your return, as the Lord has ordered."
Steins watched with great skepticism, glancing at the monocled figure—a herald of Lucian, one he had pleaded to borrow, a necessary piece in his plan.
"Tell me, Herald... about the situation in Valen."
The monocled figure's eye whirled, the clock insignia spinning deep within as it peered across realms. Through the eyes of other heralds at the congress, and the one standing guard over the Prophecy, it saw only:
Destruction. Chaos. Bodies frozen in rictus horror, architectures crumbling into mere debris, quarters leveled to craters. What remained of the people fled in mindless panic.
In the midst of the city raged a great battle: a monstrosity that seemed to drown hope itself, clashing against a glorious knight who held the sun in his palms. Their duel birthed burning supernovas, upheaving the city in compressed waves of annihilation.
The slums were now a burning desert, the noble district a yawning chasm. The entirety of the cathedrals had burned to oblivion—all except the Church of the Hallowed Beginning, which now bore its spires defiantly toward the sky. Only the underground bastion stood firm, where the remnants of the people, yet to be evacuated by the Eye of Wonder, sought refuge.
But even that would not hold.
The monster was relentless, and so was the battle—a clash between light and darkness.
And slowly, inexorably, the darkness was drowning the light.
This was all that was to come.
Soon.
The herald's purple eyes, indifferent, wandered to Steins. "Your time is limited, Steins. Waste so much as a second, and the very bastion of Valen will cease to exist." Then his eyes flashed a dangerous purple. "And I suppose you know what happens when the bones of the deity slumbering within it,graces the surface. The Lord shall do what is needed... even if you rebel against it." His gaze shifted to the base of the Titan's torn maw, where a staircase formed from the tempest, descending toward them. It was a flight of black basalt steps, each kilometer long, rising directly from the cracked ground as if exhaled by the planet itself.
"It is destiny."
Steins exhaled, the sandstorm grinding to a halt around his form. His hands slicked back his blonde hair, his silhouette cast aglow by the fiery burning sky.
"How much time do I have?"
The herald summoned a transparent hourglass from his hands, but inside swirled dark sand, slowly filling the empty compartment below.
"An hour here corresponds to a minute in the waking world, where your body resides. Thus, you have no less than ten hours—a long time indeed. But within the bowels of this Titan, time flows as you perceive it to be." Its monocled eyes wandered to Steins.
Whose figure now stood amidst the lingering sands, before the spiraled dark stairs from which dust billowed out but never receded downward.
"Don't speak to me of what I already know." Then his blue eyes flashed. "Stick to watching the time." His hands tucked away the locket—it was useless here. In Anubis, time did not flow in the patterns humans calibrated it to be.
His form ascended the steps. With each ascension, the step behind dissolved into nothing. The monocled figure watched in silence.
He had been here before. He knew the nature of these steps; it would take no less than five hours, twenty minutes, twelve seconds, and ninety-nine nanoseconds to reach the Maw of the Titan.
A testament to how gigantic the Titan was.
Warping directly toward the opened maw was impossible—the spin of the great pillars negated all laws exerted in that field, and these steps existed only because he still trod upon them.
So, in the end, the most logical choice was to ascend as swiftly as possible.
It was the first law of this dying realm: patience.
"Bless me, Pure Mother," he muttered, clasping his golden crucifix as he ascended. His eyes wandered the body of the bound deity—dark, jagged flesh like molten steel. Within it were great cracks, chasms compared to his visage, where he saw nothing but darkness, a black void of silence.
One that threatened to erode his sanity. He withheld his gaze.
Gazing farther was risking madness.
And so he walked on... and on... until five hours, twenty minutes, twelve seconds, and ninety-nine nanoseconds had elapsed.
He could feel the stairs resonate with a low hum, along with wisps of golden energy that plagued his body like lightning—a jolt in his astrality.
The effect of the great chains now overlaying the stairs. Coming into contact with a stronghold holding a god bound would mean the demise of his essence.
For at this point, time was dead, so was gravity. It was the weight of his astralith and will that still held him in place against the laws of this universe.
And so he pressed on, beads of sweat exhaling from his face, dissolving into nothingness the moment they kissed the surface of his skin. He could see the maw behind the horned head, possessing a shape he couldn't describe—an idea lost in the First Epoch.
His senses avoided the obsidian glass where the great chains met the polished skin of this god; each reflected the horrors of the forgotten epoch when gazed upon.
Nor did he bother to read the colossal glyphs on the bodies of those pillars. They possessed knowledge far beyond the grasp of his consciousness.
A temptation.
Well, reading the entirety of a knowledge artifact had its perks, didn't it?
When his silhouette finally reached the end of the stairs—before the huge open maw of the Titan—he wasn't certain how much time had passed in the herald's doomsday clock.
But there wasn't much time left. Beyond this dark vortex lay where the real journey began. He heaved himself up, his silhouette traversing from the last step into the rims of the fossilized gray teeth, each as huge as cathedral spires. Before him stretched a labyrinth of gigantic thorns, jagged and unyielding,..
He navigated the maze with deliberate precision, his boots scraping against the enamel ridges that jutted like petrified fangs. The vortex loomed ahead, a swirling maw of pure nothingness, pulling at him with invisible gravity, promising oblivion or revelation.
At last, he emerged before it, slicking his hair one more time. His mind pictured the visage of Lyra, his personal aide... the whole crew. Lancelot, Eva.
A smile spread across his features, as if pleasant memories played before his eyes.
A sigh escaped his lips, as if his mind had been cleared of the fog of doubt—even as his body was about to delve into one far deeper.
The words of Lucian, his advice during his first descent, played within the confines of his mind:
"Be certain of what you wish for..."
With that finally in mind, he descended into the bowels of the great Titan.
The deity's great maw closed shut without a single sound, yet it sent seismic vibrations across the dying realm.
As if it ushered no return.