✧ Chapter 34 ✧

Bubbling lava heated up the fiery Infinite Infernum. Strage, who was now given the responsibility to guard four more Eternal Lights alongside Spessarion, had stayed there for quite a time now. Creperus, The Guardian Of Darkness (also known as The Dark One), had ordered them to do so in consideration of what happened to Amethion. Because of this, every guardian of the Omniverse that was left were given new armor that would soon hold their Eternal Lights once again.

Currently, the reason they couldn’t just give them to each guardian yet was due to the fact that these phenomenal sources of power were beginning to act strange. Excessive signs of flickering took place while they attempted to move on their own. It was becoming increasingly frequent and it caused concern amongst what remained of The Guardians Of The Omniverse.

“Fatal One, do you think Styra is the reason behind what happened to the Eternal Lights?” inquired Spessarion.

Strage took notice of The Eternal Lights jittering about inside a special cage it made using its armor to keep them from straying too far. Spessarion rambled on about his concerns.

“At this point I am certain she has done something wrong to them. We only have six Eternal Lights intact without erroneous damage. I worry we may upset our Master with what we did earlier. Who kn—”

“Prism is to blame,” interrupted Strage.

Spessarion started to refute the suggested claim out of his embedded loyalty to Prism.

“Why? Is it not blasphemy to say that about our Master?”

“It lied to us. Besides that, there is something about Styra that intrigues me. She holds a power that was able to reconstruct entire universes and was able to sacrifice her feelings for the sake of how existence itself is structured. If she opposed me and were to annihilate The Eternal Light Of Death, realities would be torn apart and allow Chaosity to thrive on The Omniverse’s destruction. It is painful to let creatures live this way already. To know they will have to die. Allowing them to sleep peacefully without any interruptions is the best I can do. The nature of an Eternal Light cannot be changed by us. Only by Prism.”

“The Laws Of The Omniverse stated to never test the system. Are you saying we should risk punishment in light of an act that further endangers what The Master intended to create to protect us?”

“Apparently, it is up to ‘The Master Of None’ to decide why it chose to build life this way. For as long as we have known, it has been at war with Chaosity endlessly. Knowing that the anomaly is running loose, we are unable to discern the outcomes that come from one. Who knows what Prism would do if we told it about this. It could easily wipe us away if it wanted to.”

“I am convinced we may have made a grave mistake.”

“Understand Spessarion. Styra and Omnikra are not the threats we had thought them to be before. Chaosity is much bigger than us and will use anything to break down any structure of life as we know it. We must be vigorous enough to endure whatever trial comes our way. Only one possibility can rectify our entire Omniverse. Secure it by all means necessary.”

“What possibility do you speak of?”

“The Judgment Warrior.”

“Fatal One, in all honesty, I don’t see how you could possibly agree with th—“

During Spessarion’s attempt to stop Strage from making what it felt was the wrong choice, Death could sense something settling through the air. It did not seem pleasant. It was used to that. That was until a strange dark teal creature had appeared before them. A comma-shaped face sat atop its muscular stature of a body. Even though it was as short as a six-year old child, its arms and legs were flexible enough to balance off its weight. An unnatural amount of deadly electricity stretched out from the lines on his wrists to the middle of his chest where a V shape could be found emanating a strong cyan blue color.

“Who are you and how did you enter here?!” asked Strage who began to form its giant blade hands from its own armor.

Spessarion would follow suit and create the Shears Of Surreality. They were a luminous orange pair of large blades that curved slightly inwards from the handle.

On the other end, this mysterious being stood firm in its position. His fists balled up like a rocky cube.

“Hmph. Such a silly question. What is this to you? Why would I tell you how I got here? That would ruin the entire point of my true purpose.”

Curious about whatever this thing was talking about, Strage questioned him further.

“If you’ve come to steal The Eternal Lights, you have picked the wrong fight. You are both outmatched and outsized. How do you expect to win?”

“I go by the name, Voltaze. For years, I have been imprisoned. Lied to. Now, I am but a slayer of both the living and the dead dreaded by many. For you see, I finally found out the truth.”

“What truth?”

“The Omniverse is a prison. Designed to play out events that forces its slaves to accept the masks they didn’t make. Just so they can hide from the freedom to be who they truly are. Everything is simply chaos containing itself. You are afraid to purge the rules, so you behave in ways that scare you into submission. Which is why, I am here… To break those rules you made.”

Voltaze charged at the cage holding the four Eternal Lights inside. When Spessarion attempted to fend him off, he was suddenly jabbed with a dark pulse that pushed him out of that multiverse’s boundaries. The entire essence of himself was fighting from turning into a dark crust while this started to happen. Before long, it imploded him whole while his Eternal Light came all the way back just to be absorbed into Voltaze’s chest.

“No!” shouted an aggressive Strage.

The Fatal One started to swing both of its blades towards Voltaze who annihilated them with ease with the kick of his feet. It was then that a danger began to emerge. The Infinite Infernum was beginning to shake viciously as a colossal silhouette swarm of shadows that looked like Voltaze busted from up under the magma and rocky crusts. Trillions upon trillions of each one started to latch onto Strage’s armor and spread like a hive-minded virus. Tightening their grip started to tear down the massive guardian, causing it to plummet after struggling to recover every single version of itself as it turned into a monstrous crusty husk.

For the rest of that time, Voltaze watched without blinking an eye as these two Guardians Of The Omniverse were now completely defeated. His focus then directed towards collecting the other five Eternal Lights which seemed just as intrigued as The Eternal Light Of Surreality when it came to understanding his established views on chaos in itself. As a result, the rest of these colorful sprays of light absorbed into the V symbol on his chest at his command.

“Finally, I have destroyed the Guardian Of Death and his little accomplice. The voice that spoke to me in my chamber was right. After escaping that hell of a world, I now have the chance to enact my plan. When my transformation into The New Guardian comes, I will take down every single planet there is. Their cores are the perfect catalyst for the capture. Those damn scientists didn’t know what they were messing with. Soon, they won’t be able to stand for themselves when they’ll have to face The Omniverse’s greatest nightmare.”

When he was about to leave the Infinite Infernum, anonymous whispers from The Eternal Lights inside of him echoed through his head. The message they were trying to communicate came in the form of repeatedly saying the words “Amethion” and “Styra”. Voltaze knew they had to be names. One was brought up when that voice in the prison chamber was speaking.

He recognized Amethion’s name. The acclaimed Guardian Of Time. But what was a Styra? It sounded familiar. Still, this didn’t strike as something that he would have known. Since nothing came out of trying to understand it by himself, he used The Eternal Lights as the mysterious voice had taught him how to. By remembering how all ten functioned and what the abilities pertaining to each one were, he opted in summoning The Eternal Light Of Time which he figured Amethion would have connections to this being named Styra.

What Voltaze found started to give him ideas on formulating the next step in his grandiose journey. Apparently Styra was connected to four out of the six Eternal Lights he had. Her bond with them was existent because she befriended the guardians that were attached to them. This would require him to break that connection for sure. Only one probable outcome could help him achieve that desired goal. Before that could happen though, there were a few visitors he needed to get rid of.

Flying out of The Infinite Infernum, Voltaze deconstructed the death world and the husk of Strage with The Eternal Light Of Death. Then, upon storing this place into The Eternal Light Of Surreality, he accessed a hidden power that the mystery voice said would allow him to create a fractal hole. Upon doing this, the fractal hole opened a doorway outside of the Omniverse where he entered within its vacuum range undetected.

“This is where it all begins,” he told himself as the fractal hole closed behind him.

∗ ∗ ∗

In the GNz-15 galaxy, Styra and Eternika had finally arrived on the rejuvenated Perenorbius. Observing the now giant planet garnered much more satisfying things to see. Plant life was much more diverse and prosperous; growing to lengths that were about as tall as a skyscraper. The two first anticipated on blitzing through the north and south poles. Styra herself was the most amazed at what could be found just by searching around ever since she witnessed what the world of Frostice offered.

Intelligent life in those snowy regions turned out to be a bit scarce. Of those that existed, one type of plant known as the arctic vellestalk was considered a common source of edible vegetation. Seeds from their insides would be spread out across soil for the cycle of reproducing through the frozen temperatures.

After exploring that biome, they visited Fantastele Forest to do rain checks on the new generations of Perenorbius’s species to make sure the creatures were going to be safe and healthy without them being there. Once it was done, Styra decided to show the weapon one last place that she used to visit and call her own.

“What do you call this place of yours exactly?” asked Eternika.

“Yraden. It’s like my personal thinking space whenever I get really depressed. There’s a reason why I used to come back here everyday unless an important emergency came up. I had a lot of questions about this hidden passageway. The farthest I got to knowing what happened was that one of the alpha tripedyra said alien visitors left white dots all over this wall here. The image still confuses me to this day.”

White dots? Eternika was curious as to what she meant by that. As they entered Styra’s Yraden, an unusual silence encapsulated the area. Underground echoes scaled the stones and vines which were like steps that dispersed upwards in every direction throughout this enormous yet damp cave. To their left, Eternika began to connect the dots before realizing that something seemed off. In fact, the convenience of it having been there all this time was starting to become more concerning.

“Styra… Do you know what these visitors you were talking about were trying to say?”

“Umm… Was it about their life history?” she replied.

Eternika, knowing that she was oblivious to the situation at hand, used its four blades simultaneously to trace and connect the dots to unveil the bigger picture.

“This… Is a warning.”