Chapter 44: "Reign of Annihilation"

"Why? Why did you do this? How did you know when I would use my Pact? How could you have planned even that detail? Is that the power of the Gods?" I asked, defeated.

"Through the Eternal Whisper, I attempted to forge vassals who would free him, without depending on reincarnation. I sowed in you your gift, the ability to forge Pacts with the Intermediaries at will, so that Silence would germinate and expand within you."

Those are not the words of the Eternal Whisper, they are of the Primordial Eclipse. I knew he was only an extension of its body, but this time it is different.

His rose in my mind like a murmur piercing bone and blood.

His figure blurred in the air. It had no face or defined form, it was a whirlwind of echoes, as if shadow itself were attempting to gain a body.

"Why? Why did you do it? Why did you consider me fit to be a Daughter of Silence? Why did you grant me that curse?"

The difference of power between us is overwhelming. I stepped into ground I did not know, I underestimated it. Now, not only will I pay the consequences, but reality itself will too.

"When we met I told you: let me tell you a little story. I found Darek in the Abyss of the Forsaken Faiths."

"Zenith told me the same: you used him as a vessel and tried to kill her." I said defiantly, now invaded not by fear but by boundless rage.

Darek watched the Immutable Matriarch from behind his shadow. Absorbed, his mind had only one purpose: to see her die.

Why? Where was this obsession of Silence born, to see Zenith dead? What is it hiding from me?

"I failed, but I did not give up. I altered his memories, making him believe she had betrayed him. Then, I made him kill Lodric to reclaim you, Zera, Daughter of Silence. With you at Darek’s side and with the Feather, Zenith would fall in an instant."

The Eternal Whisper did not speak with passion, but with the coldness of one revealing a long-kept secret. Its words slid with an abysmal weight, like invisible chains meant to drag me to a fate she had not chosen.

One of the paths that crossed through the other universe became visible, letting in the swarm of Intermediaries. The Goddess writhed in the chains they had imposed on her.

"What will you gain with Zenith’s death? What is it you desire? Why have you caused all this suffering?"

"The Primordial Eclipse can only silence the elements born of The Ruin and The Genesis. Because the Silence’s nature: it creates upon The Ruin and destroys upon The Genesis."

"However, the Sacrum element was created later from human beliefs. That is why Silence cannot end it by its own means." Intervened Akula, the Devourer of Time.

The curses around him kept his silhouette from further deforming, giving me a horrible sight of how his own flesh devoured itself.

"We gods are limited by our nature." He continued. His voice was a roar that split the air. "That is why we use humans: because their nature is greed, the desire for more, always more. You carry out what the laws of the world forbid us."

"But you are part of The Ruin. Why do you help them if you know your God will be destroyed by Silence? Is he not your enemy?" I asked desperately, seeking an ally.

"Because without Zenith, nothing will stop The Primordial Eclipse from rising again. And if it does, its seal will break, Creation will be freed once more, and with it, The Ruin and The Genesis."

He admits that The Ruin can do nothing alone against Silence, that it requires a new Creation to be able to defeat it. Is that why they caused this hell?

Darek pressed a feather against my neck, threatening me. He had become a slave, a minion of greater wills.

"This is the end. Welcome to your fate, to our fate, Zera." Darek declared.

An abyss opened behind Zenith. She no longer resisted, she had lost her strength. Then, one of the colossal arms of the Scourge Lord pierced her body, lifting her into the air like a trophy.

The Goddess did not scream: her light broke into fragments and fell like burning rain upon the earth. Her corpse was thrown into the void, where reality erased her existence.

How could I have allowed this? How could I have fallen into their deceptions? If only I had reacted earlier, if only I had stopped him in time. And to think that the Feather was mine, and I defiled it with my arrogance, stripping Jix of his power as World God.

In that instant, the world bled symbols. Red cracks opened the skin of the ground, from them poured ancient signs that writhed like living creatures. They flowed like rivers of writing, rose to the clouds, and marked them with luminous strokes.

The air smelled of iron and ink, as reality tore apart, unable to contain itself. The earth trembled, the sky collapsed, and the night ignited completely.

From the depths of the cosmos, from the deepest Abyss of all, from absolute darkness, wings left behind the stone that covered them, taking flight once more.

"That is the awakening of The Primordial Eclipse." said Darek, sentencing the future of the world.