void and horizon, sever!
Dropping to my knees, I peered down the gaping hole from which the Empyrean had launched. Its descent tore a golden wound through space, streaking toward Idaten-II—a jaundiced stain blooming across the planet's atmosphere like a spreading infection. The once-clear skies thickened, cloaked in its ominous hue.
Looking up at Thorn, I forced calm into my voice, even as his panic surged through our shared link like a rising tide. "I have an idea. Clear us a path to the outside of the satellite."
"It better be a damn good plan, princess! We've royally screwed ourselves!"
With a burst of silver flame, Thorn ignited—his raven form blazing through the satellite's innards like a comet of molten fury. I followed, sprinting over scorched plating and collapsing bulkheads.
[Skill: Winter Inverse—Adapts for gravity.]
We crashed through the satellite's curved outer hull, bursting into the vacuum beyond. My armored boots magnetized to the metal shell as we emerged into the void—stars glittering around us, cold and distant, as the chaos below churned on. I drew in aether from every node in my body, condensing it into a single violent spear of intent.
[Skill: Imaginary Overlord—Boosts enabled.]
[Skill: Sephiwraith—First, second, and third gates unlocked.]
[Aspect: Taken Devourer—Grasps the forbidden tune.]
My [Aspect] unfurled like an invisible maw, clawing outward toward the Empyrean. It found purchase—grasping the crystalline entity mid-descent. The yellow aura pouring into Idaten's sky sputtered, stuttering as my will latched on.
[Aspect: Taken Devourer—Takes the Symphony of Destruction.]
"Rrrraghh!" I roared through clenched teeth, straining against the Empyrean's immense gravitational cascade. Its plunge slowed. What followed was no graceful victory—just a brutal, grinding tug-of-war between godlike mass and the mad fury of my soul. My skin split under the pressure, markings burning white-hot as aether surged like wildfire through my veins.
"Take it, princess!" Thorn shouted from above, sarcasm tempered by urgency. "Use your hips, not just your weak arms!"
"Do something helpful!" I snapped, my limbs trembling, my focus slipping as pain crackled through my bones.
"Yeah, yeah—fine!" With a frustrated squawk, Thorn dove into my chest. Ghostly talons grasped my three aether hearts, massaging the pressure with delicate, spectral precision. It helped. Slightly. But the pain was still searing—a divine fire licking the edges of my soul.
[Aspect: Taken Devourer—Takes the will!]
The Empyrean's yellow glow flickered, dimming as I drank deeper. Power coursed through me—filling every limb, every cell. I lunged forward. "Take the void! Now!"
[Aspect: Taken Devourer—Takes the space.]
Reality bent. Space itself collapsed between us as I ripped the Empyrean free from Idaten's skies and hurled it into the cold cradle of space.
[The Cadenza Note Empyrean is looking at you!]
[The Cadenza Note Empyrean is angry with your interference!]
Golden screens blinked into being, warping the void with glyphs of wrath—the Empyrean's fury bleeding through the repurposed system. I ignored it. I continued draining it. Its strength, its music, its soul.
But then—a groan. Deep and metallic. I looked down.
The satellite's iron support ring fractured, cracks threading across its structure like spiderwebs. One by one, beams snapped, and my three hearts sank.
"No! Take it all! We can't let it reach the surface!"
[Skill: Imaginary Overlord—Wrath]
[Skill: Sephiwraith—Fourth gate of Chochmah!]
Aether exploded inside me—too much, too fast. My body screamed. The Empyrean faltered... then weakened further, its radiance flickering.
But fate is cruel. The satellite gave way beneath me, the entire structure collapsing in a shriek of metal and heat before it began falling into the planets atmosphere caught by gravity.
"Thorn, grab it!"
He flew out from me like a silver lightning bolt, spectral wings tearing through space. His ghostly form wrapped around the yellow Empyrean just as my psychic grip shattered.
And it fell like a meteor of divine fury.
"WHAT THE FUCK!!!" Thorn's shriek tore through the void as he plummeted, dragged by the Empyrean toward the planet below.
As soon as it breached the atmosphere, the Empyrean reignited—its toxic yellow influence spilling across Idaten-II. Yellow light bloomed across the sky, drowning the heavens in radioactive gold.
Even drained of seven-tenths of its energy, it remained a planet-killer. Below us, Idaten-II began to die.
As for me—I had become an unstable bomb. Two opposing aethers surged through my body like clashing gods. I had less than an hour to release them before I took half the planet with me.
[Skill: Horizon Chain—sanity retention!]
"Damn it all! Hahaha!!!" My laughter spilled out—feral, broken, raw. Aether howled through me, dragging shards of mania to the surface as I crouched on the burning satellite hull. Below, the world cracked. "The universe is so fun in its chaos! Let's elevate it!"
[Aspect: Taken Devourer—Take the resistance!]
My Aspect dug into the satellite's descent, stripping away its inertia—stealing its slowness. It plunged faster, transformed into a meteor of war. The Empyrean blazed ahead like a golden omen. I followed.
[Skill: Horizon Chain—remembrance!]
Chains rattled in my mind—memories clawing to the surface. Faces I couldn't forget. My companions, evacuating the doomed cities. And Ben—still slumbering deep in the satellite's core, his essence steeped in recovery after the Empyrean's corruption.
"Hah! As mad as I am—everything remains within my grasp, aether!" My silver eyes gleamed, gold now pouring into their edges. Aether churned inside me, wild and raging, but it obeyed.
I was the kralscell of sentience. The king-function of will and the archon of severance. And my mad rule is what the universe shall obey!
"Trust me! Trust the broken joy of your mad knight! Trust us!"
[Aspect: Taken Devourer—Take the Horizon!]
[Skill: Conceptualization—particle shift!]
With a thunderous crack, I slammed both gauntleted hands against the satellite, flooding it with aether. I felt its structure—its atoms, its soul—bend beneath my touch. And I reshaped it. Matter unraveled beneath my command. Protons became fluid. Electrons melted. I rewrote its composition—not metal, not machine, but purpose.
Aether jets roared from my back, flaring across the satellite like the broken wings of a dragon as it became an extension of me—no longer a weapon, but a vessel.
"This entire station is mine!" I screamed into the void. "Let's take the stars together! Ahahaha~!"
[Aspect: Taken Devourer—Take the stars!]
***
From my perch atop the skyscraper, I watched the descent through an enchanted spyglass, my heartbeat syncing with every pulse of atmospheric friction. The yellow star plunged like a judgment, tearing through the firmament with cataclysmic grace. And there—just barely visible against the blazing trail—was the raven-shadow, Thorn, wrapped around it in vain, wings straining against gravity's inevitable pull, desperation etched in every flicker of his spectral form.
The sky above Idaten-II boiled in sickly hues. Yellow bled into every cloudbank, the atmosphere itself glowing like an infected wound. The Empyrean's corruption had taken root—twisting nature's palette into something unrecognizable. Groves of blueglass forest trees dimmed in the distance. Rivers that once shimmered with crystalline light now pulsed faint yellow, sick and slow.
[
[
[All residents of Idaten-II are to evacuate immediately.]
The omnipresent
Thousands still remained—frozen in awe or fear. Civilians clustered in high-rises, workers stranded in spaceships, children peering through cracked windows. Most had their eyes locked northward.
To the titans.
Their battle shook the bones of Justinian Prime, each clash between godlike entities resonating through steel and stone. Buildings trembled. Dust rained from cracks in monolith towers. The north district was a ruin of elemental warfare—sonic bursts, shifting gravity, shrapnel of buildings. And amid it all, that yellow spear from the heavens—unstoppable, inevitable.
"Sathuna! Sathuna, do you read me?!" Heru's voice crackled through the radio beside me, pierced with static and desperation.
Calmly, I lifted the device and pressed the side button. "Relax, Heru. Strife was never meant to stop the Empyrean—just delay it."
"Delay it?!" he roared. "What about your infamous backup plans?"
A soft chuckle escaped me, indulgent. "How charming, Heru. Tell Clara to stay near Wukong. No matter what falls from the heavens... they'll need a doorway."
As if to underscore my words, the satellite breached the upper atmosphere with a bone-deep groan, becoming a second sun. A roaring inferno that eclipsed the twilight, hurtling toward the surface like a divine sentence. Its course was unmistakable: the arena—once a place of glory, now an evacuated relic.
From this height, the scene was surreal. Beautiful in its brutality. The arena, long dead, now the target of a celestial execution. The yellow skies streaked with fire, and behind it, a silver-amber trail shimmered like the tail of a comet—Strife hanging on, mad and radiant as wings of aether blew out from his shoulders like roars of flame.
"The fireworks are here," I murmured, raising my porcelain cup and sipping my tea, the flavour almost drowned by ozone.
"SATHUNA!!!" Heru's scream crackled one final time through the comms before I switched it off.
Silence settled over me like a shroud. For a moment, I closed my eyes. Then whispered, "Tell me, Traveler... how far does your wish extend? Beyond imagination? Beyond delusion? Or to the place even memory refuses to name?"
The winds howled louder now, pressing against the building's reinforced glass. I opened my eyes beneath my blindfold just in time to witness it.
The satellite hit. But not as metal, nor as ruin. As divinity.
A blinding explosion of silver-orange light carved across the sky, cleaving the yellow corruption like a blade through cancer. The sound didn't arrive—it resonated, vibrating through my bones, warping the clouds themselves.
Then came the miracle. The satellite didn't break. It transformed.
Split down its axis, it unravelled into a cascade of silver-orange feathers, each humming with a lilac glow, each a fragment of purified matter, of rewritten purpose. They drifted through the sky like divine ash, blanketing the city in twilight calm.
Where they landed, buildings pulsed with gentle energy. Crying children went silent, panicked soldiers became calm, and fleeing civilian's stared in quiet awe. All of them entranced by the ethereal rain.
One feather landed in my tea. Its hum sang in perfect pitch. Not melody—but memory. The frequency of Strife and Thorn. A song composed of mad harmonies, broken laughter, and the weight of infinite longing.
Madness, wishes, and eternally infinite horizons.
"I see your answer, Strife." I smiled as I placed the teacup beside me, eyes never leaving the sky.
There—cutting across the heavens—the silver-amber comet soared downward still as an arbiter of will. Chasing the wounded Empyrean. Chasing purpose.
"The horizon's infinite heart, then," I whispered. "How very you."
But even as the feathers continued to fall, I knew the answer he gave wasn't for me alone. It was for everyone below.