Chapter 414:Leaving

Chapter 414: 414:Leaving

"The Nirvana occurring across the connection between the worlds pulled you back toward your origin."

Atheline stood silently. He’d been caught inside a loop. He died here. His soul escaped the reset and went to Earth. He lived an entirely different life there and died on Earth.

And somehow the same mechanism that should have returned everyone else to their proper places dragged him back into this world.

Atheline released a slow breath.

"So I’ve been moving between two worlds while everyone else simply resets."

"Not endlessly."

Atheline frowned.

"What does that mean?"

"This recurrence is different."

"Because of me?"

"Partly."

Atheline thought about everything he’d changed. His marriage to Lilith, his relationships with people who should have been enemies, the political alliances, the Sovereign cores, the corruption, and the fairy sanctuary.

Even Yander and Caius were living completely different lives from the ones he’d just witnessed.

Atheline looked into the darkness.

"What determines the original course?"

"The World Will."

Atheline had heard the term before, usually in old books and religious theories, but he’d never treated it as something literal.

"The world is conscious?"

"Not as you understand consciousness. It does not sit upon a throne and decide what each person will eat tomorrow. The World Will maintains continuation. It chooses pillars, creates opportunities, directs coincidences and establishes destinies capable of carrying an era toward its intended conclusion."

Atheline immediately understood something.

"Destined ones."

"Yes."

"People like protagonists."

"If that is the word you prefer."

Atheline almost laughed.

"So there really are protagonists."

"There are individuals favored by destiny."

"And villains?"

A pause followed.

"Destiny requires opposition."

Atheline’s expression hardened.

"So the World Will creates villains."

"Sometimes it chooses them. Sometimes circumstances create them. Sometimes it merely permits a person to be pushed toward a role because that role strengthens the destined path of another."

Atheline thought of Lilith. His amusement vanished completely.

"She was made into a villain so someone else could become important."

"That is an incomplete interpretation."

"It sounds fairly complete to me."

"A villain may reject destiny."

"How?"

"Strength."

Atheline waited.

"Understanding. Authority. Transcendence." Then the voice finally said the word that mattered. "Sovereignty."

Atheline’s eyes narrowed.

"A Sovereign."

"A true Sovereign has begun stepping beyond the authority of the World Will."

Atheline thought about Draco, the Sovereign of Ice, and the ancient Sovereigns he’d seen in the memory. Lilith was only one step away, and so was he.

"The World Will can’t control Sovereigns?"

"It can influence their surroundings. It can move others against them. It can create circumstances. But it cannot easily dictate the destiny of one who has established a true Law and become Sovereign over it."

Atheline suddenly understood why that rank had always felt so fundamentally different from everything beneath it.

SSS.

EX.

Mystic.

Those were measurements of power. Sovereign wasn’t merely another amount of Aether, it was authority.

"Then what happens when someone who isn’t supposed to become a Sovereign reaches it?"

The darkness seemed to deepen.

"They become an anomaly."

"Like me."

"Potentially."

"And the World Will tries to remove them?"

"If their existence threatens the intended recurrence, yes."

Atheline’s expression hardened.

"How?"

"Calamity, destiny, other Sovereigns, destined individuals." The voice paused. "And sometimes gods."

Atheline’s thoughts immediately went to one person.

"The Moon Goddess."

Silence followed at that. His eyes narrowed.

"Is she trying to kill Lilith?"

"No."

The answer came immediately. Atheline hadn’t expected that.

"You’re certain?"

"A true god bound to a species cannot freely exterminate those upon whom that divinity depends."

Atheline frowned.

"Because of faith?"

"Faith, worship, recognition, and existence. The exact relationship differs between gods, but divinities dependent upon mortal belief cannot recklessly destroy the people who sustain their authority. A goddess associated with a people may punish, guide or oppose individuals within limits, but deliberately erasing her own faithful carries consequences."

Atheline remembered the Moon Goddess directing them toward the Sun and Moon Crystals.

"So she isn’t our enemy."

"Not presently."

"That’s not reassuring."

"It was not intended to be."

Atheline sighed.

"Then which gods would want Sovereigns dead?"

"Those who covet what Sovereigns possess."

Atheline frowned.

"Gods need something from Sovereigns?"

"Some do." The darkness shifted. "Not everything worshipped as a god completed true ascension."

Atheline became more attentive.

"What does that mean?"

"There are those who reached Sovereignty and attempted to transcend it, yet failed before establishing complete divinity. Their mortal limitations were broken, but their ascension remained unfinished."

"Failed gods."

"Unnamed Gods."

Atheline remembered encountering the term in obscure texts, usually surrounded by contradictions.

"Why unnamed?"

"Because the ancient laws forbade their recognition."

Atheline’s expression changed.

"They’re illegal gods?"

"In the simplest terms." The voice continued. "A true god possesses a completed divine authority and a recognized place within the higher order. An Unnamed God possesses fragments of divinity without completing that transformation. Many cannot maintain themselves indefinitely."

"So they need something."

"Authority."

Atheline understood.

"A Sovereign’s authority."

"Yes."

The implications were unpleasant.

"If someone becomes a new Sovereign..."

"An Unnamed God may attempt to kill them before their authority stabilizes."

"And steal it."

"Consume it. Merge with it. Corrupt it. The method depends upon the failed divinity."

Atheline remembered the ancient battle. The Sovereign of Fire, the spear, and the Supreme Sovereign being stabbed through the heart. Then Klaith standing before a seal with a Death Core.

Atheline’s expression slowly hardened.

"What does Klaith have to do with this?"

No answer came.

"Klaith is connected to one of these Unnamed Gods, isn’t he?"

Silence.

Atheline waited.

Still nothing.

"The Sovereign of Fire?"

The darkness trembled almost imperceptibly.

Atheline noticed.

"What happened to the Sovereign of Fire?"

"You have not yet seen enough."

Atheline clenched his jaw.

"You’ve shown me my deaths, the destruction of Lilith’s kingdom, a man I trusted wearing the Protector’s garments and holding a Death Core in front of a seal, but now you’re concerned about telling me too much?"

"Yes."

Atheline stared into the darkness.

"Why?"

"Because knowledge changes destiny."

Atheline almost laughed.

"I think we’re well past that."

"Not enough."

The answer was strangely ominous. Atheline became quiet.

Eventually he asked, "Will Nirvana happen again?"

The darkness didn’t immediately answer.

"It can."

Atheline’s chest tightened.

"If we fail?"

"If the pillars of this recurrence collapse beyond recovery."

"So everything resets."

"Perhaps."

"And me?"

Silence. Atheline’s expression hardened.

"You don’t know."

"No."

That frightened him more than anything else he’d heard. He might return, je might go to Earth again, he might disappear entirely, or perhaps after breaking the cycle this badly, there wouldn’t be another place for his soul to go.

Atheline slowly exhaled.

"Then I simply make sure it doesn’t happen."

The voice remained silent. He looked upward despite there being nothing to see.

"When Lilith becomes a Sovereign I’ll become one too. And whatever caused this cycle in the first place..." Atheline’s fingers curled into a fist. "We end it."

For the first time, the darkness almost seemed to respond approvingly. Then something inside Atheline’s chest moved.

He gasped.

His hand immediately pressed against his core. The orb, or rather, whatever had remained after the ancient orb entered his body in the Doom Cave. It had been quiet for a long time but now it was reacting violently.

Atheline staggered.

"What is happening?"

Cracks of white light appeared across the darkness. His Aether surged before his elements erupted. All six elements appeared around him without being summoned.

But there was something between them, something he’d never been able to identify. The mysterious presence that had been trying to awaken ever since he reached Peak Mystic.

Atheline clenched his teeth.

"What is this?"

The voice finally answered.

"Almost time."

Atheline looked up.

"For what?"

No response.

"Almost time for what?"

The darkness began collapsing inward. Atheline tried to move, but his body wouldn’t respond.

"Wait!"

The voice returned, quieter now.

"Understand what you have witnessed."

Atheline’s eyes widened.

"You will need it."

"For Klaith?"

No answer.

"The Sovereign of Fire?"

Nothing.

"The corruption?"

Still nothing.

Atheline felt irritation overwhelm his confusion.

"Can you give me one direct answer before throwing me out?"

The voice almost seemed amused.

"No."

Atheline stared blankly into the darkness.

"Wonderful."

The last remaining light disappeared. His elements vanished, then he felt something.

Atheline froze.

Something had entered his body, simply appearing inside him. It was cold at first, then impossibly warm.

His core reacted instantly. Atheline gasped as a pulse traveled through every vein in his body.

"What did you just put inside me?"

No answer.

He tried to examine himself but found nothing. Whatever had entered him disappeared so completely that he couldn’t locate it even with his Peak Mystic perception.

"Wait."

The ground suddenly vanished. Atheline fell through absolute nothingness.

Then everything stopped. He heard something distant; real wind, he felt sunlight against his skin and stone beneath his body.

His fingers moved. Aether existed around him again. Atheline’s breathing was shallow as fragments of everything he’d witnessed continued flashing through his mind.

His eyelids trembled, then Atheline opened his eyes.