Chapter 8

And in that shattered world, where the echoes of power still reverberated through the void like the last breath of a dying star, the thing that was once Ercolash moved.

It moved with a stillness that defied the world around it. A stillness that wasn’t the absence of movement, but the devouring of it. Each step, a negation of time itself. The broken ground beneath its feet seemed to decay, to crumble away into ash, swallowed by something far older than ruin.

The thing—no, the god—stood in the center of the battlefield, the tatters of reality curling inwards like scorched paper. It lifted its gaze, an unfocused stare sweeping across the remnants of the slaughter. Charred bodies, twisted forms that no longer resembled what they once were, torn limbs strewn like offerings in a grotesque temple of death.

But no.

One still lived.

Leon.

Collapsed on his knees, hands trembling, blood dripping from the corners of his lips. His eyes—those once so sharp, so clear, so unyielding—now wide with something unspoken. A horror that ran deeper than fear. Deeper than death.

And then it smiled.

A slow, deliberate curve of lips on a face that was no longer mortal. The smile stretched, impossibly wide, splitting the shadows across its face like a jagged wound in the fabric of existence itself.

Leon’s breath caught in his throat.

It wasn’t the first time he’d faced the abyss. He had crossed blade with death itself, stood on the brink of madness, clawed his way back from places that broke lesser men. But this…

This smile was wrong.

It was a mockery of joy, a festering wound where meaning festered and rotted. A thing that looked like it could devour the soul by sight alone.

Leon shivered. No, trembled—his body instinctively recoiling even as his mind tried to anchor itself, tried to remember that he was Leon, bearer of Null and Affirm, the one who could deny and affirm reality itself.

He clenched his fists, summoning the last scraps of his power, willing it to respond. Null surged—then buckled. Affirm bloomed—then shattered into a thousand shards, torn apart before it could even take form.

The god’s gaze sharpened, a flicker of recognition passing through the storm of endless hunger.

"Null... and Affirm?" The voice was quiet, soft as a blade drawn in the dark. A whisper that could peel the skin from your bones. "Ah. That name."

It tilted its head, as if tasting a memory long buried.

"That power... belonged to him, didn't it? That self-righteous fool... the one who believed he could bind me. Hah."

The god's voice twisted, deepened, grew jagged, like teeth grinding together in a mouth too wide to be human.

"He called himself a god, but he wasn’t alone. No... they needed all of them—the so-called Divine Host, united, just to cage me. And even then..."

It raised a hand, fingers curling like talons as black veins pulsed beneath skin that seemed too tight, too brittle, too fragile to contain the vastness beneath.

"Even then, they couldn't kill me."

The air cracked as it moved.

In an instant, Leon was no longer on the ground. The god had lifted him, a single clawed hand wrapped around his throat, raising him high like a broken doll.

Leon gasped, hands clawing at the impossible grip, feeling the pressure grind against his windpipe, his vision blurring. His power—his precious Null and Affirm—seethed within him, flaring in desperation.

But it was nothing.

The god reached in.

Not just a hand, but a force, an intent, an ancient hunger that seeped into Leon's bones, into the marrow, into the very core of what he was. It pressed past skin, past flesh, past soul, and gripped the heart of his power.

Leon’s scream tore the silence apart.

It was no ordinary pain. It was the pain of being unmade. The pain of having the core of your being ripped from you, strand by strand, nerve by nerve, memory by memory. Null twisted, affirmations unraveling like threads of silk caught in fire. His body convulsed, wracked with spasms, as if the very structure of his cells was being rewritten, torn apart molecule by molecule.

He could feel it leaving him—his power, his legacy, the force that had been his blade, his shield, his very name.

The god watched, cold and silent, as if inspecting an insect pinned beneath glass.

Leon’s hands fell limp. His body dangled, hollowed out, a puppet with the strings cut. His breath came in ragged, shallow gasps, his vision swimming, darkening.

The god turned the fragment of power it had ripped free—Null and Affirm—a delicate, flickering flame cradled in its palm.

It smirked.

"So fragile," it murmured. "So small, compared to the storm I am."

It crushed the flame between two fingers.

And yet, it did not kill him.

The god paused, studying Leon with a gaze that burned colder than the void between stars. Something flickered in that gaze—not mercy, never mercy—but a cruel, calculated decision.

It spoke, each word a dagger carved into the air.

"I will let you live, little remnant. You will walk this ruined world, stripped of what you were. And you will watch—watch as everything crumbles, as the sky itself weeps, as the earth groans beneath my feet."

It leaned in, whispering into the shell of Leon's ear, the voice like oil seeping into a wound.

"You will see the world die... and when there is nothing left to witness, then you will beg for death."

With a flick of its wrist, the god flung him aside, a broken, hollowed-out husk crashing into the remains of a shattered pillar. Leon coughed blood, a thin, ragged breath scraping from his throat, his body shaking, twitching, barely clinging to consciousness.

And the god—no, the thing that had been Ercolash—turned its gaze to the horizon, where distant cities still dared to stand, where mortal hearts still dared to hope.

It smiled again.

A smile that split the heavens.

And the world shuddered.