Shatter

June 1, 204X. Planet: Earth

Humanity Iteration: 5

Universal Edict: Perfectam Aeternitatem

Zhang Jue felt a chill in the air as he tightened the fallen soldier’s bandages.

“So it's begun.”

The soldier cried out in pain as the bandages threatened to crush his arm.

“Oh sorry.” Zhang Jue chuckled. “I wanted to make sure these didn't fall off. It would be a shame if you had to come back into my hovel because of shoddy work on my part.”

“It's fine, I need to get back to my post.” The soldier began to get up.

“Why the rush? You can barely hold a rifle as you are.”

“Scout reported some explosions happening in the north, perhaps one of our cells is getting attacked. I will be damned if I'm in bed when the army comes knocking down our doors.”

Zhang Jue smiled as he brushed away a strand of his grey hair .

“I like your spirit, just be careful now. Rebellions are delicate businesses, every last drop of blood can be the difference between liberation and death. We need victors, not martyrs.”

“I will be careful, thank you doctor.” The soldier walked off as Zhang Jue closed his office door, put on his stained and well-worn doctor’s coat, wrapped his worn yellow scarf around his neck, and began to walk out of the underground bunker, saying he was going for a walk in the city. Normally he would scold their lax security, but this was an urgent matter far above the political squabbles of the common man.

Zhang Jue had been waiting eons for this moment, when a being of sufficient Urge finally able to challenge Aeternus was born. Ever since Aeternus had taken control of the universal Throne and declared ‘Perfectam Aeternitatem’, humanity was influenced to seek perfection. Those who sacrificed everything to pursue it were blessed by fate. Those who stopped and settled were cursed, crushed by endless pursuit of more.

But what is perfection?

No human has the same definition of it, leaving this iteration of humanity in a constant state of dissatisfaction and greed. Magic is an aberration of reality and thus had no place in Aeternus’ world. Many magic practitioners in history were smothered by Aeternus’ will, never realizing their potential. Those that were strong enough to overcome it were quickly exterminated by humanity and fate themselves. These ‘witches’ were hunted down and burned at the stake with fanatical obsession since the start of this iteration of humanity. Aeternus' rule was was the first Zhang Jue had seen make a world with no magic. No spells, no monsters, no spirits, just cold physics. Even Tyranny, the Demon King before himself, did not go so far. In both of their worlds, magic was part of science and one of humanity's greatest assets. To deny magic is like making humans born with only one eye. In this humble sage's opinion, this made for a rather weak iteration of humanity. 

Yet in spite of reality itself oppressing them, this damaged little girl without a name born from a desolate country that no longer exists is threatening to overwrite the universe with her own color. Zhang Jue was eager to see what color that would be.

Zhang Jue opened the door and felt the breeze of a city at midnight. Only homeless and criminals were out this late, but Zhang Jue had nothing to fear. They knew him and the consequences of harassing him. But if his premonition is correct, soon they won't be able to harass anyone anymore. Such is the sad fate of those who live in the underbelly of human civilization.

Zhang Jue took a winding path through various alleyways until he was far enough away from the rebel cell and jumped atop buildings, quickly heading towards the source of the disturbance, seeing the explosions and flashes of light in the distance, it seems the fight had already begun.

When he landed on the closest rooftop, he saw two figures floating in the distance, facing each other. One was a tall woman with neck length platinum blonde hair in a flowing white and gold dress with three halos floating around her neck. Her striking blue eyes glowered at the woman before her as if she were a stain on her otherwise perfect clothes.

The other was the same woman but in black and red and purple with a dark metal neck crest with spikes jutting out towards the sky. The woman in white was also a head taller than the one in black. There were reports of explosions and air strikes south of the city, where that same little girl's, now a woman, sanctum was. Now she was here.

“Your successor is pouting like a child, this is who you relinquished the Throne too? ” A gruff voice behind him spoke.

Zhang Jue kept his gaze towards the conflict before him as a mass of mercury flowed next to him and formed the shape of a tall, muscular bald man wearing a suit, its lines unnaturally crisp and straight.

“I had my reasons, Qin Shi Huang.”

“YOU WILL ADDRESS ME AS TYRANNY, REBELLION.” Zhang Jue felt a thunderclap of a voice in his head, though he barely flinched.

“We are not Heavenly Demons anymore, nor can we ever rise again to be so, are you that desperate to avenge your loss to me?

“It is you who clings to the past. My rule is a crown, proud and meant to be seen by all. Yours is a miserable pile of regrets that you wish to wash away as if it were excrement. The sole regret I bear in my soul is one that is projected onto me through you, my nemesis, having defeated me.”

“That is a lot of words to say that you are still smarting over something that happened eons ago. Don't you think this obsession with me is a little…creepy?”

“Juvenile response fitting for an uneducated peasant.” Tyranny said as a massive explosion between the two women erupted, the fight had begun.

“Oh how I missed the old days, Tyranny.” Zhang Jue said as the two women darted around in the air, blasts of fire, light and wind destroying the city around them. Yet the two men remain unfazed. "So that's what Aeturnus has chosen to appear like? I wonder what it feels like to fight against yourself."

“Hmph, the woman in black seems to have a high opinion of herself if she thinks that is what perfection looks like. I have found Perfection's inability to stick to a true form irksome. It is cowardly."

"The book that the Xian handed to me taught me many things, but the pleasures of having a woman's body remains a mystery to me." Zhang Jue said wistfully.

Tyranny scoffed. "In more ways than one."

"You only ever had concubines who could not leave or disobey you, and no wife. I think you are in no position to speak about charming women, let alone romance." Zhang Jue said flatly.

"Bah, wives are only needed to produce heirs, an immortal has no need of such things. Otherwise, wives are liabilities." Tyranny waved his hand at Zhang Jue and turned back to the fight. After a moment he spoke.

"I have crushed countless Demon Champions in my time, yet the woman in black is abnormally strong for one.”

“In such a short time too. All in spite of Aeternus’ anti-magic edict.” Zhang Jue pondered for a moment. Under Aeternus’ reign, all magic is suppressed. Only Demon Kings were completely immune to it. Aeternus’ did not consider their power magical, only the natural abilities of a higher being. Of course the arrogant fool thought themselves above their own rules. Perhaps that exception led to a loophole allowing others to rise up? Or perhaps-

Zhang Jue felt the earth quake beneath him, feeling the building he was standing on begin to crumble. He and Tyranny jumped to the next building, only for that building to also crumble. They realized that the earth had split open from a blast of light, the flames that covered the hole were so hot that they turned the ground into magma.

“Oh my, these youngsters are energetic. Reminds me of the old days.” Zhang Jue laughed.

The fight continued for several hours. The entire city was destroyed. The fight continued for several days until all life on the surface was gone. Then the planet was shattered into asteroids. As they darted between asteroids, they both shot light from stars light years away at each other, creating a shower of light that slowly darkened space, robbing the area of light for millions of years as the light must travel countless lightyears to reach their naked eyes. When they ran out of stars, they pulled in planets to crush each other either through sheer mass or the gravity produced by so many large objects converging into a single area. The only light in the sky was the two flaming stars of death before them, but even they are dwarfed by the mass of space rubble they concentrated here. It continued to grow in seconds, seemingly attracting every last bit of matter across the universe, forming a mess of asteroids and broken planets.

Zhang Jue sat nearby in a small air bubble marked in taoist symbols, while Tyranny sat on a palanquin carried by a small entourage of mercury soldiers running with long strides covering lightyears. He long abandoned his suit in favor of robes that looked like a cross between a general’s armor and robes reminiscent of the ones he wore as Emperor of China. They were a metallic gray and had glowing red symbols of Qin on his breastplate, shoulder plates, and the back of his cape.

“All this time and there's still no sign of victory? This has gone on long enough.” Tyranny said as he stood up and began to call upon the power of his Color.

“Both of us have long lost the power of the throne, we cannot hope to match them in battle.” Zhang Jue said.

“It is through the power of the Throne that we have transcended death.” Tyranny scoffed.

“Are you hoping to beat them both and reclaim the Throne? We cannot reclaim it once we have been removed from it.”

“My will is iron, those two upstarts are clearly too weak to hold it. They are no match for a true Demon King. You can stay here and tremble in your impotence.”

Tyranny let out a battle cry that seemed to shake all of space.

“Demon King of the 3rd Heaven: Shàn biàn guīzé (Mercurial Rule)!”

Zhang Jue suddenly had a familiar crushing weight upon his body, threatening to crush him against the walls of his own bubble. Even the two women fighting each other paused as they were suddenly pressed down against rubble which also fell downwards.

It was Tyranny’s ultimate art granted to him by the throne and given shape through his Urge. A gravity field that forces all within its range to kneel or be crushed. It also projects thoughts of surrender and subservience into the minds of its victims, barraging their mind with images of them giving up their free will to become a slave of Tyranny. The bliss of not having to make any decisions or take any responsibility overwhelms the senses to sap your will.

Zhang Jue knew of it all too well, having nearly died and having to kill his men because of it. It was not comforting in the slightest. Yet, why was Tyranny doing this? In his state this would not stop them for long. Heavenly Demons, Demon Kings that sit on the Throne, are granted immortality and immense power tailored to their unique Urge, far beyond any normal Demon King. But if a Heavenly Demon became weak enough, they could lose the Throne’s favor, stripping them of its power and leaving them weaker than if they had not ascended to the Throne. Such Demon Kings retain their immortality as a parting gift. Thus the gap between Tyranny and the two women before him was insurmountable.

Tyranny split himself off into four mercury clones and surrounded the mass of asteroids from the four cardinal directions. Zhang Jue felt the gravity crushing him lift away as it began to concentrate towards the mass of space rubble. The rocks and planets were pushed against each other into a single mass from all directions. Bursts of flame and light shot out of the mass as the two women were blasting through the rubble. They would soon break free.

“Wait, he can't be serious!”

The four copies of Tyranny began to concentrate gravity into their fists and launched themselves at the rock with a loud battlecry. The impact made a loud crack as the rock began to implode and become string-like as a black hole formed.

The two Demon Kings that were fighting easily escaped the black hole’s grasp in a burst of flame and light.

“Ha! Did you think you old timers could kill me with tha-” Tyranny flew past Aeternus as he made a gravity tube launching him straight into the black hole. Once he reached the singularity, the center where all of mass is concentrated into a single point in spacetime, where the bounds of reality are stretched to its absolute limit, he put all of his power into crushing the singularity. Even though it was inanimate matter, it was barraged with thoughts of breaking and surrendering, as if Tyranny was commanding reality itself to bow before him. The matter could not compress any further. Tyranny smiled as he heard a crack all around him, and saw white cracks spread from the singularity all the way to the entrance of the black hole.

Reality shattered and the four Demon Kings fell into a vortex of rainbow thread.