Chapter 43: "As Hope Vanishes, the World Perishes"

The sky continued to tear apart, the fissures in time and space claiming our corpses. The tempest continued its roar, and Aurethys crumbled before the abyss.

In the perpetual fall, Darek flew toward me, while an avalanche of Plague surged over us.

"Don’t worry, human. I will get you out of here." Jix said, with a stern expression. "Although I can barely hold myself with my roots, I promise you will survive."

Then he absorbed me within himself, navigating through the debris exploding around us before hurling us back toward the ground.

This is a disaster. How could I have accompanied Darek in his battle? How could it be that I was the one responsible for this?

Guilt began to crawl through my body, gnawing at me. I could barely move and could not stop trembling: Darek’s bloodthirsty gaze was etched into my memory.

I just don’t understand. How could a human have accomplished all this? Why? For revenge? Is there such perjury that justifies this massacre?

I began to understand how madness had reached such a point. I was seeking my parents, and he planned to take revenge on his Goddess. Still, witnessing reality in that instant exceeded any expectation of how everything had unfolded.

Yes, there is. He allowed himself to be used like a puppet, despite the warnings we had received. Under the pretext of his ruin, he justifies the massacre with his suffering.

In a sudden shift, gravity returned to normal. The Plague settled back on the ground, and we moved away from the storm.

"Stay strong," Jix told me, as we fell, this time toward the ground.

"Be careful: Darek is near." I warned him.

He is no longer human: he has become something that surpasses mortality, though he is not a God. I sense it, he can feel something flowing through his veins that has eradicated his spirit.

One of the Xeroth’s arms emerged like a colossal serpent, a tangle of dead flesh and pulsing shadows. It closed violently around Jix, and the roots composing him cracked instantly like dry branches in a fire.

"No! Jix," I shouted desperately, inconsolable.

Without him, I will not achieve my goal: everything would have been in vain. The sacrifice of the Knights of Aurethys, Zenith giving her life in battle. No, it cannot be.

A striking certainty invaded my mind: Darek would annihilate even the shadows of the ruins.

Jix was dragged toward Xeroth’s chest. The Plague infiltrated him, devouring him from the deepest roots. His trunk began to shrink, collapsing on itself as if absorbed by an invisible void.

His majestic form withered in seconds: blackened leaves turned to dust, his branches bent, and his body shrank until it was nothing more than a dry skeleton, trembling in the palm of the creature.

It cannot be… This is impossible… How… How… If Jix was a World God, he cannot die!

Darek appeared among the debris and mist, his figure blurring with a glow between light and shadow: it was the Feather altering reality.

No, something is wrong. The artifact didn’t look like this when I used it against Jix in The Nether Hollows. The Feather has mutated, corrupted to its tiniest edge. Like its wielder, it has abandoned Genesis. Now it only destroys, obliterates.

With a fierce movement, he plunged the Feather into Jix’s remains. An explosion tore through the air: black and white, like two colliding seas, spread in all directions, erasing the contours of the world. The void swallowed all sound, and for an instant, not even the wind dared exist.

It is the roar of Silence.

When the glow dissipated, Jix was gone, only his white mask lost in the immensity of the Plague, leaving an irreparable void.

I froze. My hands trembled, my legs barely holding me upright. A terrifying spasm convulsed my chest, reminding me that my guardian was gone.

Jix, why… How… Does a World God perish like this? Darek, how could you have ended up like this? How could you have become this!?

Panic bit my soul, chaining me alongside doubts.

That monster, that creature, neither Jix nor Zenith were able to stop him. What am I supposed to do against the shadow of what was once my companion?

In the distance, Darek lifted his gaze. His eyes, now two opaque pits, locked onto me. He walked slowly. Each step resonating like a hammer in broken eternity. There was no fury on his face, but something much worse: absolute serenity.

The human in him died.

I retreated until the island ended beneath my feet: I was trapped, there was nowhere to run. The void beneath me called with the same cold as Darek’s gaze held me.

"It was inevitable, Zera, and you knew it from the moment The Primordial Eclipse gave me the Feather. Isn’t that so? Isn’t that why you betrayed me?" His voice held no rancor, empty of any reproach.

I stood motionless, petrified by horror. My courage had waned, along with my spirit and hope.

The Lord of Flagellum remained in the rear, observing closely, perceiving that Darek no longer belonged to the world of mortals.

I am defenseless, trapped between the man I once called a friend and the God who crowns him as his herald.

No, it makes no sense to complain. There is something more I can do. But what? Think, think! Find the solution.

If I give up now, not only will I die, but the world will too. Destruction will take over everything, even Creation, even The Genesis.

"Zera, your end has come, I have arrived. Let me be the one to crown you at the threshold of death." Darek pronounced with a foul tone.

Look around you. No, I cannot find the answer. Then? Perhaps within myself, something I have overlooked. But what could it be? What can a simple human do?

With frivolous calm, he tore one of the feathers from his wings and pointed it at me. It had an edge that, even being black, could reflect the terror on my face.

A simple human? I am more than that: I am also a Daughter of Silence, and there is still a Pact I have not fulfilled.

"No, my life is not over yet." I said as determination returned color to my face. "I made a Pact with an Intermediary to resurrect you, and now I will pay it—not with my life, but with yours."

I closed my eyes and searched the paths of the world for the Intermediary who had been watching me since I invoked him in The Nether Hollows.

I must convince him to accept Darek as payment for his resurrection. It’s an equivalent exchange, right? His life for his own life.

Happiness overflowed in my mind: I could cling to a final ray of hope.

However, he did not appear.

What? What is happening? Why aren’t the others here either? And the amalgam of eyes and teeth that dominated these lands from another universe? They are gone too…

"It was a good attempt, I must admit, dear friend." Said a cryptic voice: the Eternal Whisper. "But things do not work as humans wish, they work as the Gods impose."

Opening my eyes, I saw in the distance the Intermediaries capturing Zenith. Not only was the abstract figure of The Eternal Whisper in front of me, but also another, the World God of The Ruin.

The world ceased to tear apart, as its total destruction had already been completed.