An immense pulse of power ran through Somnus"s body. The blue mana pouring off his wings turned entirely black. The halo above his head caught black fire once more.Expression of Order"s eyes widened.
Somnus found it strange; Seeing his own face stare back at him with that expression of fury and surprise. Why did Expression of Order look like him?
The flames of his halo melted down into a metallic liquid that seemed to fill an invisible cast. Solidifying, the flames formed a third ring that resembled a flattened crown.
[Releasing limiters]
Another pulse of power struck him like a lightning bolt. The flow of mana from his wings turned into six distinct jets that extended for hundreds of meters. The jets of mana became outlined with a dark red color.
Somnus felt his connection to that primordial dimension deepen. He felt as if he reached the center—the origin point—of a vast and incomprehensible force that constantly expanded outwards, devouring nothingness itself. A force that was the very nothingness it was devouring. [The End of All Things].
He now understood why Expression of Order looked furious. This was not merely Destruction. It was greater than that—deeper and more meaningless. It was a force that carried the purpose of being purposeless. This was the reason why Aurora was ordered to stop him.
"Die!" Expression of Order howled, its words echoing inside Somnus"s mind, shaking his already stunned consciousness. Expression of Order freed his sword by carving through the rest of Somnus"s body.
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Somnus began to fall, black blood spilling from his wounds. The blood turned to ash.
As he fell, Somnus glimpsed the rift in the sky and he felt a strange connection to it—a deep familiarity that cannot be reasoned or explained.
"Aeon…" Somnus whispered. "You did not become a herald of the Destroyer…"
Somnus reached out with his hand to capture the blood spilling from his wounds, and watched it turn to ash in his hand. He felt no pain, only wonder.
[Affirmative. Designation Aeon is the Herald of the End.]
"The End of All Things?" Somnus asked.
[Affirmative.]
Somnus chuckled. It was a bitter pill to swallow. He realized then, he was not the protagonist of Humanity. He was the Enemy. He was the very thing he swore to destroy.
"I get it now," Somnus said. "I was the key."
[It does seem that way.]
Aeon"s reply was surprisingly coherent and human-like.
Cras.h.i.+ng to the ground felt more like falling on a mattress of pillows than hard dirt.
"The reason why the G.o.d of War rescued me—us—from that dimension was because you made a pact with him. That was the plan from the beginning," Somnus said.
[Yes.]
"Aurora protected me from Seraph. That means Seraph was trying to kill me from the beginning. Seraph was your enemy."
[Indeed. Seraph allowed Aurora to attempt her method on the condition that she deals with me first.]
"She lied to Seraph…"
[How so?]
"Aurora could see the future and the past. She knew this would happen."
[Aurora could only see the future of the Pattern—the Information Dimension. I was not part of the Pattern. She made a gamble that she could save you and paid for it with her life.]
"What about that thing, then?" Somnus asked, pointing at Expression of Order.
[A weapon developed by Seraph. Cunning creature. Seraph predicted this outcome and prepared.]
"That is why he was creating Vessels. He was experimenting… The Vessels were prototypes for creating a new type of Vessel—a principle of the world."
[So it would seem.]
Somnus looked at his hand. Black cracks ran through it, and his skin s.h.i.+mmered. He was composed entirely of mana now, even though his skin looked like just that—flesh.
"This is not what I had in mind," Somnus said.
[It is already done. We are past the Divergence Failure, and the Rift is already open. Whether you wanted it or not, you are the Relentless Gears of Extinction, a cosmic principle of the End of All Things.]
"So s.h.i.+non knew? He called himself a servant of the Relentless Gears of Extinction," Somnus said.
[Someone informed him.]
Somnus chuckled. "You all manipulated me, lied to me, and conspired to destroy me. Even now, when I know this, you still expect me to play my part?"
[I never manipulated y—]
"Silence, worm," Somnus growled. "Do not use me as the tool of your designs. I am no one"s p.a.w.n. Not the world"s or yours."
[Very well. Now what?]
Somnus looked up at the sky, where Expression of Order waited for him. The cursed creature did not even try to go after Somnus. There was nowhere for Somnus to run, but into Expression of Order"s arms.
"We finish what we started," Somnus said.
[Flicker]
The world seemed to s.h.i.+ft in Somnus"s eyes. One moment he was standing on the ground, the next he was in front of Expression of Order.
Before Expression of Order even had time to react to Somnus appearing in front of him, Somnus struck out with [Eclipse], carving into his doppelganger from shoulder to hip. [Eclipse] cleaved through bone and organs as if they were made of air, spraying golden blood at Somnus in the process.
With a kick, Somnus freed [Eclipse] and made to slash at Expression of Order again, but where he saw empty air a moment before, there was now a blade that burned with the flames of a thousand suns—and output the same amount of light. It was that causality thing again—the world simply did not want Expression of Order to die. The effect was so subtle, Somnus did not even notice a change in the Record.
It took everything he had to slow down and stop before he impaled himself on that sword.
"Ruin!" Somnus exclaimed, initiating the spell sequence before even aiming it at Expression of Order. A rising hum emanated from Somnus as the energies collected from the atmosphere, funneled through the apocalyptic halo, and by the time Somnus pointed his finger at Expression of Order, the spell was ready.
A darkness so deep that it seemed to devour reality itself pulsed from Somnus"s finger, devouring Expression of Order in its annihilating halation and continued on to erase mountains in the distance, as if they never even existed in the first place.
Yet, when the pulse of darkness pa.s.sed, Expression of Order was gone. Somnus did not even have a chance to wonder if the lack of Expression of Order"s presence was caused by the spell, when he felt a sharp pain in his right side, and was sent flying towards the capital city of the Empire.
Even though he felt his ribs and organs explode by the impact—a kick—Somnus oddly felt fine. His body was made of pure mana now, or at least most of it was. He no longer possessed the same metabolic processes that a normal creature would. The fact that [Slay Negate] did not activate when his heart and lungs were destroyed was proof of that. He no longer needed lungs or a heart. Could he even still die?
Somnus"s fall was arrested by colliding with one of the silver spires of the Empire Capital. To his surprise and disappointment, the spires were not made of superalloy. At least, these ones weren"t. Ever since he saw the spires in the Gram capital, Somnus wondered whether they were made of Superalloy, or something that just looked like Superalloy. Proper superalloy would easily withstand an impact like the one the spire just suffered, without exploding like a porcelain dish that was. .h.i.t by a train.
Somnus"s next destination was the hard cobble streets of the capital, through which he plowed like a railgun sh.e.l.l on re-entry trajectory.
Even though his body was made of mana, and he did not need his lungs and heart anymore—it still hurt. He had not suffered this kind of damage or felt this much pain since he came to this world. In fact, even in the previous world, he did not feel this much pain. His entire skeleton was smashed to pieces by a simple kick and a litho-braking maneuver.
Still, he felt fine. It hurt—but he knew that this was not related to his actual level of injury.
His skeleton pieced itself together, even without using [Reform]. As if the world knew that he was not really injured, and was simply making things right. Odd, considering the world wanted him dead. If anything, it wanted him dead by its own rules.
As Somnus crawled out of his impact crater, Expression of Order slowly descended before him, landing on the ground with imperial elegance and poise.
Expression of Order"s sword output so much heat that the houses nearby instantly caught fire—the very stones themselves caught fire and started to melt down into slag. Even the people who were unfortunate enough to stand nearby turned to ash in an instant—those farther away suffered an even worse fate, as the water content in their bodies turned to steam and expanded.
"Are you ready… ready to accept… your fate?" Expression of Order asked.
Somnus gritted his teeth. He didn"t want to give up, but no matter what he thought of doing, his elevated consciousness showed him the result of each attempt—failure and death. To be precise, even the attempts that had a chance of landing a blow only showed him that far, and Somnus knew what happens when he lands a blow on Expression of Order. The world doesn"t want him to die, and would find a way to avoid that, even altering causality itself.
There was no possible victory. Somnus knew that from the moment he fought Gemma and felt the power of Phynion who used similar methods. Even so, Somnus doubted even Phynion could defeat Expression of Order.
Maybe Hashmal could?
Somnus lowered his sword. "I have no other choice, it seems. I cannot kill you, when the world doesn"t want you dead."
Expression of Order nodded, raising his sword.
"Edict of Annihilation," Somnus said with a commanding tone.
Expression of Order blinked, lowering his sword. "What?"
"This is my fate; To become the Relentless Gears of Extinction," Somnus said.
"The Heart… Heart of the World… is dead…?" Expression of Order"s lips moved, mouthing out the words even though he spoke directly into Somnus"s mind.
"Now I can kill you," Somnus said, pointing a finger at Expression of Order.
"Extinction." A pulse of annihilation devoured Expression of Order, and nearly half of the Empire Capital.