"What is the meaning of this, Otto?"
The question emerged wrong... like a flaw in reality itself.
Even the air trembled as it carried the words, uncertain whether it was permitted, or sufficient to bear their weight. For that reason, the question fractured as it traveled, spoken in overlapping tones and voices, reverberating across the world like words uttered before the end of all things.
"I am unworthy to stand beside you. Such presumption alone warrants banishment from the universe," Otto replied, his voice heavy with reverence.
"But, Second Order… this act is not born of my will. It is the will of the First."
With every utterance of First and Second in the universal language, reality convulsed.
The universe glitched helplessly... its laws stuttering, its structure faltering... as though it were too insignificant to comprehend those titles.
The two beings hovered in mid-air facing eachother, yet the place around them was unmistakably wrong.
Pale orange fog drifted endlessly, swallowing all sense of direction. Beyond it lay the world in its entirety... yet even that was failing.
Below, existence unraveled.
Children of every race flickered between ages, elderly to infant... before being dragged back into their mothers' wombs, only to be expelled once more into their former places. Graves split open. The dead surged back into life, reverted into infancy, and collapsed again into death in an endless, broken loop.
Integrators dissolved into fading particles of light, reassembling into whole forms only to disintegrate again, over and over, without end.
It was not destruction.
It was confusion.
Time itself wavered. Concepts hesitated.
Reality did not know how to exist in the presence of what was unfolding.
"What does 'The One' seek to achieve by hindering my ascent back into authority?" the Second Order demanded.
"The reason lies beyond my comprehension," Otto answered. "But it is a will I cannot fathom defying."
The Second Order was shrouded in dense orange fog. The form it assumed resembled a colossal fox, crowned with nine vast tails that swayed behind Him, obscuring all certainty of shape.
Otto was no clearer... an incomprehensible humanoid mass of darkness, exuding an aura that devoured everything unfortunate enough to touch it. Even the space that housed him corroded and vanished.
"It is my fate to contain you, to ensure you do not ascend beyond the World Realm," Otto said quietly. "I must..."
The second order interrupted.
"If memory serves," He said calmly, "then the fate you speak of is one of the Orders I embody."
The fog churned violently.
"I will free you of it once I ascend back into Orderhood. Even if you erase me now, no matter where I restart, I will return. Stronger. When I defeat you and reclaim my place, it will be your final existence. The Darkness Source will be reduced to nothing more than a forgotten tale whispered by other Sources."
Silence followed.
"Please forgive the defiance of this unworthy one."
Otto spoke in helpless finality.
"Universal Imposition: Ontological Deletion."
There was no sound.
No resistance.
No collapse.
Everything simply ceased to exist.
The fog vanished.
The world vanished.
Its laws, its history, its meaning... revoked.
Only Otto remained, standing within the void that replaced existence.
Yet billions of miles away, something persisted.
A pristine white fox stood within the emptiness, vast beyond comprehension. Upon its forehead rested a black symbol, the shape of nine.
"May the King of Fate live for eternity."
The voice was feminine... pure enough that the void itself seemed to listen.
"Unseal… World Imposition: The King's Will."
The invocation carried a catastrophic backlash. The fox convulsed as the authority burned through Her, forcing Her into deep slumber, Her colossal form collapsing until only the length of a child's arm remained.
Still, She endured.
Waiting, to see her King one final time... Before the following centuries of slumber.
But what She beheld was not Him.
It was the revived world. The very world that had been deleted.
"…Was this," She whispered,
"the King's will?"