446. Rose new world, 6

(Rose)

This is the end.

Where it all led to.

As I begun to fly away, I saw the world’s end.

A rain of fire and darkness quietly drew thin lines of void, from space to Earth.

Each drop of that rain from the end of times dragged and drew a line of void across the atmosphere, and probably deep down the depths of the ground as well. These quickly cumulating lines were erasing the entire landscape.

My hearing was gone. My ears were bleeding, but I think it was Blume who did that to save my brain and life. All was quiet.

The land that I had seen as dead and depressingly empty for so long, was now crushed by a scope of destruction hard to describe.

The ground of rocks I had thought solid was boiling like soup.

The land boiled, erupting rocks that were often struck above the surface by the dark rain of fire and void.

The rain striking them was stopping the boulders in their flight, consolidating a paralysis of things touched by that absence of light raining over the land.

Between the rain erasing time and light and the vaporising ground, all turned to death.

Blume and I had completely panicked as we tried to fly away from there. That vision of apocalypse was making us unable to think. Only panic.

The dead land was being destroyed even further, to an unthinkable degree.

Because I had asked a god to change.

As I realised that, my intelligence returned from the momentum of panic. I swiftly turned around from an escape that was doomed to fail under that apocalyptic rain.

The only way out of this alive would be now by defeating god.

And first, we would be sheltered from the rain of void under the mountain I thought.

Blume was completely panicking as she saw us flying back to the heart of the storm.

There was no choice anymore. I had already chosen to open that door.

Now we would face the consequences together, until the end.

~

I was partially right. The rain didn’t quite pierced through the mountain, but there was an ominous activity inside as well.

The boiling land had ruptured to a point where the warm light of lava could be seen in the dark depth of the world. Fissures of amber ruptured the upside down sky. The most ominous of suns was rising, glinting at an eruption that would swallow and flood all. Fissures of bright amber had begun rupturing this sky of dark rocks.

Unfortunately, to some extent, this volcano being soon born was the least of my worries.

The rain did reach the inside of the mountain a little.

And more importantly, the core above us had turned bright awaken. The globe was shining a bright light with magenta tone. This blinding light was the awaken wrath of that god.

This was its heart, its energy, activated.

It was the god itself. A magenta sun under the mountain.

It was about to erupt a light worse than mine we could tell. Everything under its light was about to turn to dust, if not into nothingness entirely.

Being still swift in the air, we returned outside in a now much darker world, but climbing the mountain swiftly, flying along its vines.

The flash of light ending all life occurred from within. The rocks were scorched and fragmented as if it were an explosive blast.

Even as I was outside, everything inside of me burned. Though we were out of direct reach, I fell the burnt. The sky beyond had been cleared from the rain as well, for a little while.

A moment of calm after the rain and the flash to destroy all foreign bodies.

Nothing was yet over. My heart was still shocked somewhere, as it didn’t feel as if it was still in my chest.

And something else happened.

I saw a memory appear in the dark skies. One of my own memories, as if we were in a theatre. Was it just a trick of my mind, or some other part of reality had begun to collapse?

A little of both.

As I tried to fly upward again, following the slope that was horizontal to the pull we faced, we saw the mountain beginning to shake. Dark fumes sprouted everywhere around from the rocks. Some of them were showing hazy pictures from some of my memories, old or recent.

The light had caught something of me.

Something had attempted to take a picture of my entire self, and caught more elements from my mind than I wish it could.

God was trying to contact me, or simply to better see its enemy.

We flew back inside, now closer to the core to attack. The air was turning into flames outside the mountain.

Gravity was all over up there, down there, around that bright glowing globe. As if the world kept shifting around us at great speed.

An idea emerged in me.

As the light was about to strike again, we returned outside and hid. Fire was in downpour outside, rain turning all ablaze all around. Only the heart of the storm was meagrely spared, but the rain was coming closer regardless. How far in the sky did this power reach.

I cracked a wish stone and surrounded us with darkness as the light hit. We could feel the tremor from the ground as the light burnt and cracked the surface of the rocks. It was violent.

I heard the mind of the thing reaching mine, as clear as Blume heard it before.

All there was, was a will to destroy me. Erase everything, as soon as can be, at any cost.

And as I flew toward the hollow area between the summit of the mountain and above the core, I was reaching its weakest spot. The one place where mindless destruction would wound it more than us.

Another tool was needed to fight there, and it had already created it, and sent it to me in a hurry.

I knew it. I saw it through the light? I don’t know.

I landed over the glowing orb, feeling its wrath permeate through my feet. The next shot was coming fast.

All I knew there, was the only thing to do.

God was focused on me. Only me.

I ripped my wings out of me, ripping Blume out of my back and through my chest. I ripped half of me out. Blood dripped everywhere, but I was already consuming another stone to turn flesh into light.

I felt Blume’s panick as she was exposed to this reality on her own.

I gave Blume the thunder wish stone and a few others.

Go.

Fly.

Do it.

For all things, and both of us.

Blume left. I turned around, a cold hole and hollow in my chest, sword still in hand and hair turning white.

A Priest was landing and facing me.

~

Hell was still erupting in the land beyond our bright glowing cave. It blurred all my senses.

The floor was about to erupt its magenta light very soon as well, no matter the risk for the structural integrity of the monument.

Memories still appeared out of myself and around me. So for a second, I doubted its reality.

But Priest was really standing in front of me, getting on all four to charge me. Another hateful priest of that god to be. I wasn’t thinking anymore and shared the impulse.

Blume, I’m counting on you.

Make it work while I hold them back.

My sword flailed as we all were engulfed in the erasing light of the core.

~

I turned into darkness, opposing that light. With the shape of one of them, I faced that Priest. I was hit with dreadful strikes, but I retaliated just as well.

My body was melting after each strike and regenerating instantly in that energetic chaos.

His cut off limbs as well were growing back in seconds. It seemed pointless, but it was hatred let loose from him and his master, and buying time from me.

That nightmarish waltz dissolved into painful light eventually found a violent end.

The ceiling ruptured, broken by an explosion above.

The light trying to dissolve us receded in shock.

I saw myself reappear there as my dark shroud vanished as well. My body ruined, but remaining.

The mountain above us had begun to collapse. Priest briefly looked around, shocked, and then back at me.

Your master is in danger, because of me...

P - Rose... Daiûa!

His roar gave me back my hearing as I heard him, and I heard the pink god through him as well, distinctly calling me that way. Surprised at first, I managed to grin.

Pulling my strength back into my trembling knees and legs, I stood up. Yes.

R - Yes! I am the god slaying daiûa!

A moment of madness.

The god was about to fall in the volcano it had opened below our feet, kilometres below.

We would all fall, caved in first by the collapsing keystone over us, then in the annihilation of the outside, the end of the world it had begun.

But something was stronger than a wish for survival for that Priest, and for the god speaking through him.

The desire to kill us. The will to end humans. The will to kill me the daiûa.

Like heroes, it valued its will and fight above its own survival now. Only this will.

I was down to my last wish stone.

My body was probably already dead anyway after all that... If it’s over for me, might as well go all the way.

I crushed it in my hand and became fully light again. We charged each other to make our own end.

It’s probably what it thought.

I dodged the strike, and escaped the strife. I passed him and jumped through the collapsing walls to escape.

God was already falling. So I was trying to leave this place alive.

~

The outside of the cradle was still an apocalyptic picture. It wasn’t raining darkness nor flames anymore, but the land was now so pulverised and the skies so saturated with dusts and embers, I couldn’t distinguish where either started or the other ended.

Out of this global landscape of darkness around me, fires and ruptures rocks everywhere around, one thing only then appeared.

The sun, behind the dust and clouds, as a mere gleam. I was still upside down as I was trying to recover my sense of gravity while in mid-air.

The sun became more clear, and more pink. I felt the shiver. It wasn’t over.

A winged rosebush reached me on my shoulders like a bird. Blume...

It warmed me a lot in this possibly final moment.

The magenta god below was attempting to fly.

Shockwaves were repeatedly spreading in this ochre mist.

That small sun was destroying the earth around, making it erupt everywhere. I couldn’t get what was happening right away.

Blume spoke to me inside my head.

B - I hear it. It’s trying to fly into space, but it’s too heavy. It’s about to rip apart.

R - So... Did we win?

B - If it explodes on the ground now, it would make unimaginable damage to the continent...

R - How can we stop it from blowing?

B - We... can’t.

I began flying toward it. Blume caught up with me.

I couldn’t feel my breathing anymore, as there was more dust than air around.

I had to act. I had to try again to make it right...

Blume reattached herself to me, superficially, covering me with brambles and her flowers.

We exchanged a last few words.

One last thing, to avoid the worst future to come.

We would blast the top of that thing, forcing it to explode but only upward.

A spell to release that accumulated wrath and power toward space, and spare the ground therefore.

B - It’s... Worth a try...

R - If we make it...

Blume was giving me back the thunder she had left. We charged something together that I would fuse with my toxic light.

Everything was about to explode down there, one way or another...

Hopefully it would be the way bringing a good end and future to all this...

R - If we make it Blume...

B - Yes?

R - Then...

We threw the light, the darkness, the thunder, the gravity, and other particles whose names I forgot.

The sun below was ripped apart in its erupting volcano.

I saw a rainbow in the umber skies. A full circle and its echoes.

I felt warm and cold at the same time. It reminded me of the nuclear explosion I had witnessed before.

T.I. has the power to create life, and to make them vanish for ever, even them.

The solar fire grew, swallowing everything.

I hope I was right...

I hope the new world that will be born over this one will be nice.

And that flowers may bloom...

~