Chapter 24: Eclipse of the Dawn
"Tell me, treacherous invaders of Valen," the golden figure intoned, taking a deliberate step forward. His voice echoed lacross the shattered expanse.
"Have you ever witnessed the beauty of the sunrise?"
From above, the winter monstrosity's gray eyes regarded him with indifferent detachment, as if the burning sun was nothing more than an unwelcome flicker of light. The veil of frozen dark mist draped over its colossal form stirred faintly, but the beast remained rooted, unmoving.
Beneath the dark, horned helm that encased Dream's face, his hidden eyes gleamed with a flicker of reluctant awe.
How insidious.
He had borne witness to countless sunrises and sunsets—endless ouroboros of color painted by some Substantial creator obsessed with cycles,mere calibrations of time's relentless whims.
To him, they were futility incarnated, Completely devoid of any true beauty.
Yet amidst the ruins, where billowing smoke choked the air and an abysmal chasm of molten rock yawned below, the golden figure cradled the sun itself in his palms. He advanced another step—slow, measured—then vanished in a blur.
Golden trails of energy lingered in his wake. The Dream's eyes widened. This was no mere speed, no crude spatial shortcut. His gaze swept the devastation,the distant ruins, the yawning chasm, all viewed from the fractured spire of the cathedral.
How intriguing.
He sensed the fiery essence lingering, permeating the air like an inescapable haze. The figure hadn't fled;
it had diffused, saturating the very space around him.
Which meant—
The thought shattered as spatial distortions rippled behind him. A blistering heat seared through his armor, scorching his skin beneath, while a gravitational vortex tugged at his form, threatening to twist him into spindles. From the miniature sun now hovering at his back, the golden figure reemerged in a swirl of golden radiance..
Still, instinct drove his hands toward the pale void. He clawed at the fabric of reality, summoning the unholy sword of death—or tried to. It was too late.
"Burn."
A blinding white flash erupted, freezing the world in timeless stasis before fracturing it into iridescent shards. Heat detonated outward in a cataclysmic wave, melting stone and steel to slag in an instant. The architecture within the veil warped and bubbled, then collapsed inward under the gravitational maw, devouring all in a vortex of screaming winds and liquefied earth. It was the death throes of a dying star, devouring its own light; the inexorable rise of dawn, indifferent to the night it consumed.
A Dreary Sunrise..
When the cataclysm subsided, no smoke lingered, no dust settled, no flames crackled. Only a yawning abyss remained where the ground had once been, a void of absolute dark. The golden figure levitated above it all, his fiery eyes wide with disarray and shock, his form bathed in the burning afterglow of scorched air.
Yet his silhouette was dwarfed by the towering winter monstrosity, its apartheid bulk a smothering shadow against his light—like a candle guttering in an endless night. He had watched it incinerated, reduced to subatomic ash.
How did it still stand?
Had this beast always harbored such impossible resilience?
His gaze drifted to where the cathedral's spire had pierced the sky. There, impossibly, the terrifying visage of the helmed figure lounged in midair, as solid and unyielding as if carved from the void itself.
The figure's hands stirred—not to strike, not to defend, but to applaud. A single clap rang out, sharp and mocking, followed by another, then a slow rhythm that filled the silence.
"Was that..." The claps faded as his gauntleted hands framed his horned face, "...the sunrise?"
The winter monstrosity's massive claws, previously locked in apathy, surged forward without regard for distance. They manifested in a smoldering vice, encircling the golden figure and The Dream like encroaching nightfall.
He dissipated in a burst of radiance, reforming above the beast's head. Now it was clear: master and monster were no allies. The roles had inverted—this abomination was the predator, and they,he and this dark horned entity were mere prey.
His eyes flicked to the black-clad form below. The figure stood unmoving, silver hair whipping in ethereal winds, unfazed. As if sensing the scrutiny, the convoluted helm tilted upward, purple vortices swirling within the mask like portals.
Had his speculations been wrong? Damn it. Steins had better hurry.
"It seems you are watching," the dark figure rasped through his obsidian mask. His gauntleted hands rent the air, summoning a sword that warped reality around it—time itself dying in its presence, a blade that promised to unravel his thoughts into oblivion.
The golden figure's radiance flared, his heart pounding as the sun in his chest ignited brighter, a desperate counter to the conceptual dread.
Was that... death?
"Watch well then, epigone. This is how you tame chaos."
The monstrosity's gigantic palm clamped down with seismic force, seizing the dark figure in a timeless grip. What followed was a spray of ichor and iridescent bone, erupting in glistening heaps that plummeted into the abyss far below the beast's feet. The winter monstrosity had lost not just its palms, but its entire arms—only for new ones to re-exist in writhing pulses of frost and shadow.
The golden figure stared at the carnage, awe twisting into doubt. Was this horned helm their ally? A rogue divinator, perhaps? Or the entity Lyra had named...
The Dream.
"Yes. I am."
The voice slithered from behind him, carrying a deathly chill that coiled around his limbs. He conjured another sun—not from colliding matter, but from the raw convolution of his essence—a volatile orb of gold far more unstable than before. He hurled it backward, the sphere erupting in a blaze meant to consume the intruder.
"I deem that glorious light of yours... a futility."
The sun flickered, then dwindled to harmless golden sparks, scattering like dying embers.
It was a feint. His true intent burned hotter: he dissipated once more, rematerializing behind the night-cloaked entity. His blazing sword arced in a crimson crescent, aimed to sever the neck with cataclysmic force—enough to birth a new chasm in solid ground if there had been..
But no blood spilled. The figure dissolved into shadow, leaving only echoes.
"Open your eyes... it's all a dream."
Reality fractured like glass under a hammer's blow. Perceptions realigned in a dizzying rush, and he found himself rooted in his original position, untouched.
Had it all been...
Darkness swallowed him before the thought could form. The monstrosity's claws loomed mere meters away, a wall of glacial fury. He countered with a vertical cleave, his sword birthing a white twinkle that exploded into a pillar of entropic energy—red flames that ravaged the beast's arm, detonating it to a smoldering stump before erasing it entirely.
Yet the flames hadn't died before another arm tore from behind, the monstrosity's form regenerating with unnatural speed. A creeping cold invaded his radiance, dimming its edges, while a cacophony of whispers clawed at his mind—screams that mangled his name.
"Lancelot! Lancelot! Lancelot!"
The frenzy ripped through his subconscious. He winced, the sun in his chest blooming fiercely to burn away the corruption. The voices faded to echoes.
His hands rose to impale the beast with his sword of the Divine sun, but the world locked around him. The chill deepened, winter's grip freezing space itself into unyielding crystal, pinning him in place.
Frozen space
His essence could counter it, but the deadlock held firm. Terrified eyes met the monstrosity's apathetic gray stare. Its second palm surged through the void, ignoring the frozen distance, aiming to crush him in an iron clasp that would crater mountains.
Is this the end?
He had promised Steins they would rise together, attain the same heights.
He had—
The palm behind him halted—not by choice, but impaled by a vast canyon of shadow laced with distant stars. It anchored the limb to the abyss below, yanking it from the fray. The golden figure's eyes widened as the horned entity glided toward the crimson veil, its dark sword poised to pierce through to the world beyond.
"It's up to you now.. Burning Knight"
That being was breaking free—into Valen, which hadn't been evacuated. Lyra. Eva. Ros'e.
He had to..
His gaze locked on the encroaching palm, now joined by a freshly re-existing twin..
He had promised Steins. He would stall until his return.
Even if it...
"I'm sorry, Ros'e." Golden flames surged around him, intensifying to blinding white. In his mind's eye, a vision flickered: a smiling child no older than five, dark-haired and dark-eyed, confined to a wheelchair. "Big brother probably won't be around anytime soon."
His eyes erupted in iridescent fury.
"Solarus..."
His body detonated in a blaze of pure white light, like a star igniting at the universe's heart. The radiance saturated the void, wings of golden fire unfurling from his back. The monstrosity's colossal limbs withered under the onslaught, transmuting to streams of absorbed energy that fed his ascending form. The purifying brilliance bathed the beast and the Dream alike, a holy purgatory that erased corruption in waves of searing warmth.
The spectacle froze the Dream in place, his advance halting amid the blinding expanse. Vortagem's distant report—success in uncovering the Prize—faded to irrelevance. Beneath his helm, he tilted his head.
This monstrous torrent of energy... it transcended mortality. He clenched his fingers in the newborn white realm, eyes narrowing on the monstrosity locked in cycles of erasure and rebirth.
Now he was certain. This was the essence of a god—a lesser one, perhaps, but undeniable.
Cracks spiderwebbed across his pristine pale skin as the weight pressed in, a magnitude of purity that tested even his dominion.
His eyes danced to the winged figure walking towards his form amidst the brightness..
Is that you... Solarus?