The air was thick with the stench of chaos.
From her place suspended high above the city square, the elderly woman floated like a light above a desolate plane. Her robes whipped violently around her aged form, the rune floating in her hands glowing fiercely, streaming brilliant arcs of blue energy that cut down the sporadic masses of minor Conflicts below.
Every beam was precise. Every strike purposeful.
—Thirty-nine… Forty… Forty-two...
She counted inwardly with a detached calm, keeping tally not just of how many abominations she'd felled, but how many had slipped past them all — fallen through the breach high above, past the shield dome that strained against the endless pressure of the Outer Realm.
Too many. Dammit, too many have escaped...
The majority of her aged strength, she knew, was locked into maintaining the fragile block on the breach. Without it, she could have annihilated the swarm in moments. But reality was cruel — and now, her margin for error was shrinking by the heartbeat.
Especially without my Artifacts... she thought bitterly, finger steadily injecting energy into the rune.
Her keen gaze flickered through the mayhem, always scanning, always calculating.
That was when she saw it.
The larger Conflict — the one that hadn't moved since this slaughter began — was finally stirring. The sheer scale of it was obscene, like a nightmarish tapestry stitched from blackened void and deadliness, shifting in impossible geometries with each moment.
Her muscles tensed immediately. If it moves against the civilians—!
She didn't even finish the thought. Her mind was already mapping battle routes, decisions fracturing in her head at blinding speed.
But then...She saw what it was looking at.
Turning her sharp, weathered gaze, she followed the line of its eyeless stare — and found herself staring at a battered figure sprawled across the cracked marble of the stage.
The Zenith boy.
His last creation.
His body was crumpled — torn clothes on his back, visible wounds from his crash into the pillar with parts of his spine coming out.
In one limp hand, he still clutched the glowing Codex, its golden radiance shining brightly.
By the Emperor... I'd forgotten about him... the woman cursed inwardly, her brows furrowing in frustration at herself.
The larger Conflict was moving now, a slow, inevitable slither toward its prize. It wasn't interested in the panicked masses. It was interested in him.
The memory of that towering white light that had erupted from him not so long ago flashed through her mind, and she instantly understood.
The White Destiny.
No matter how hated the Axiar race might be, no matter how dangerous they were considered, if he truly bore that kind of destiny… he had to be protected.
Even if it meant diverting precious time from the defense of the people. Even if it meant risk.
Gritting her teeth, she prepared to dismiss her current rune — carving the initial lines of a more devastating one, one meant to combat a Conflct of such strength.
But then —The world... changed.
Without warning, a strange, unnatural stillness fell over the battlefield.
The cries, the wails, the shrieks — all muted as if someone had pulled a shroud of silence across the city. The very air grew thick, vibrating with some primal, ancient force.
Even she, an experienced Unchained who had seen more than most, felt a ripple of unease curl through her gut.
The Conflicts, savage and mindless moments before, stopped.
Every single one of them.
Their malformed heads twisted in eerie unison toward the stage.
Even the terrified civilians, bleeding, crawling, sobbing — found themselves helplessly turning their gazes toward the same point.
The High Solicitor's heartbeat slowed. Her hands froze mid-weave of her next rune.
Slowly, she allowed her gaze to drift back toward the center of the stage — back toward the source.
There, amidst the cracked marble and pooling blood, the boy moved.
Xayne's fingers twitched. The Codex, still clutched in his grasp, began to darken.
The brilliant golden light that had once burned from it began to fade, like a dying star.
In its place, a crimson radiance began to seep outward — slow, hungry, malevolent.
The golden sun emblem emblazoned on its cover twisted, contorting into a new shape.
A crimson star — four-pointed, jagged, and radiating a feeling of... wrongness.
The High Solicitor narrowed her eyes, feeling a chill roll down her spine despite the oppressive heat.
What is happening...? This… this isn't right.
Xayne, broken and battered, began to rise.
At first, it was almost comical — like watching an ancient skeleton being forced upright against its will. His limbs trembled, spine arching unnaturally as he struggled upward.
But as he reached his full height, a different, darker feeling flooded the air.
A sense of inevitability.
Of something that could not — would not — be undone.
His head hung low at first, dark hair veiling his face in shadow.
Then slowly, almost reverently, Xayne lifted his gaze.
And when he opened his eyes —the world froze.
No longer were his irises dark.
No longer human-like.
They were crimson four-pointed stars, gleaming with malevolence and fury — mirrors to the star etched onto the corrupted Codex he still held.
The woman felt her fingers tighten against her palm, her heart hammering against her ribs.
This boy... he has become something else entirely.
The rune in her hand flickered uncertainly, responding to the tremors in her spirit.
Around her, not a single soul breathed.
Not even the Conflicts.
Because every living thing within that dome — whether human, Conflict, or otherwise — knew on some primal level:
Something wrong had been born.
***********
Xayne's crimson-starred eyes stared outward across the ruined square.
It was strange — he wasn't even looking directly at most of them.
For the terrified civilians scrambling for shelter, for the seething hordes of Conflicts clinging to the wreckage — his gaze barely grazed them.And yet, they felt it.
That cold pressure sliding across their skin, whispering against their bones, commanding some primal urge inside them to run.
A mere twitch of his fingers, a subtle shift in his stance — and the entire plaza flinched.
Slowly, Xayne lifted the hand that held the Codex.
The once-pristine tome had been utterly transformed: the golden sheen replaced with a deep, malevolent crimson, the sun-symbol warped into a jagged, four-pointed star bleeding tendrils of eerie light.
A faint grin tugged at the corner of Xayne's bloodied lips as he stared at it, exhaustion etched into every line of his face.
"…There goes that motherfucker's legacy," he muttered hoarsely, his voice little more than a raspy chuckle.
As if those words were a trigger, the Codex began to crumble.
ash flaked from its surface, spiraling upward like dying embers.Piece by piece, it disintegrated — until nothing remained but a stream of bloody light flowing into Xayne's chest.
The moment it touched him, Xayne staggered, his knees buckling as he dropped forward, catching himself with trembling hands.
He was panting hard now, sweat matting his hair to his forehead.
What the hell... just happened?
His mind raced to make sense of it — the confrontation with the Original Paragon, the odd expanse, the attempt to steal his body, his actions in taking it, and the bastard's legacy.
But strangely, none of it filled him with fear.
None of it felt... wrong.
It wasn't some alien power manipulating him.
It wasn't some ancient spirit whispering in his ear.
It was just him.
His anger.
His hatred.
His stubborn, defiant will — that relentless need to spit in the face of everything that bastard decided for him.
And somehow, that had been enough.
He coughed weakly, tasting blood again.
Should I be more worried about this? he thought dryly.
Or maybe he should be more concerned about how surprisingly fine he felt considering he had his spine relocated not long ago.
He turned his head, looking back over his shoulder at the shattered wall he'd slammed into earlier.
Yep. The splintered wreckage, the blood trail — that was definitely him.But the pain he'd felt back then, the sensation of broken bones grinding together — was all gone.
Just tired. Bone-deep tired.
"Well, that's weird," he muttered.
A sound drew his attention forward.
He lifted his gaze—and found himself face to face with a nightmare.
Towering over him was a monstrous figure, its body a swirling mass of void and jagged tendrils, its gaping maw lined with eyes within— one too many of them, all unblinking, all staring directly at him.
Xayne leaned back instinctively, feeling profoundly uncomfortable under its scrutiny.
"...Did your mother never teach you it's rude to stare?" he quipped, his voice still raspy but laced with the familiar sting of sarcasm.
The Conflict, unsurprisingly, didn't answer.
Before Xayne could decide whether to poke it with another insult, a voice cried out sharply from above.
"RETREAT FROM THE CONFLICT, YOU FOOLISH BOY!"
Xayne looked up, squinting into the swirling sky.
The elderly woman hovered there, her palm blazing with the runic light as she formed a new rune, desperation carved into every wrinkle of her face.
"Who the fuck it this bitch?" he mused.
For a moment, he wondered why she looked so panicked — then he remembered.
Conflict.
Right.
This thing — this bizarre, unsettling creature — must've been the one that smashed into the stage, shattering the ceremony, setting all this insanity in motion.
He'd heard about Conflicts in tales — monstrous entities beyond comprehension, enemies of Mythiax and all sentient and non-sentient things.
But honestly...
He expected something a little more terrifying.
Other than the creepy mouth-eyes thing, this one was just—
Crunch.
The world blurred.
Before he could even react, the Conflict lunged.
Its vast maw snapped open, closing around Xayne's upper body in an instant.
The bite was so swift, so absolute, that the elderly woman — couldn't even begin to cast her attack in time.
"NO!" she screamed, rune flaring desperately.
Fury blazed in her chest as she unleashed a barrage of blue energy beams toward the monster.
The air shuddered under the force of her power — enough power to level wipe the plaza.
But the Conflict had anticipated it.
Even before the first bolt reached it, a writhing mass of smaller Conflicts surged upward, leaping like ravenous piranhas into the sky.
One after another, they threw themselves into the path of the attacks — their bodies bursting into black mist on contact with the searing blue energy.
Yet more came.
And more.
It was like a living shield — dozens, hundreds, suddenly — sacrificing themselves without hesitation to protect the greater beast.
Each shot she fired was caught, smothered, neutralized.
The larger Conflict, still half-engorging Xayne, remained untouched.
The elderly woman's heart clenched as she floated there, helplessly watching the nightmare unfold.
What is happening? How did they multiply so quickly? she thought, desperation gnawing at her mind.
Xayne was still alive — she could feel it.
But for how much longer...?
This can't happen. I can't let him die. I can't—
She gritted her teeth, pressing even more energy into the rune in her hand. The glowing symbol in her palm blazed brighter, hotter — crackling with power — and a hailstorm of blue beams rained down from the sky.
She didn't stop to think.
She couldn't.
Each shot was aimed with ruthless precision, intended to pierce through the swarm of smaller Conflicts shielding the larger beast.
But for every one she destroyed, another sprang forth — throwing itself into the path of her attacks like a zealot seeking martyrdom.It was maddening.
I can clear them, she thought fiercely. I can wipe them all out if I have to—
But the real question gnawed at her relentlessly.
Can I do it fast enough?
Her sharp eyes flickered downward, catching sight of the civilians trapped below.
The chaotic bloodbath had, strangely, quieted.
The smaller Conflicts had abandoned their mindless slaughter to form their living barrier.
Leaving the people below untouched — and confused.
Some of the civilians collapsed to the ground in brief, trembling relief, others stood paralyzed, uncertain whether to run, hide, or pray.
None dared move too much.
The magical dome caging them all still loomed overhead, shimmering faintly with cruel finality.
The woman forced her focus back to the battle.
But her worst fear unfolded before her eyes.
The monstrous Conflict, its maw grotesquely distended, finished swallowing the boy whole.
A heavy silence fell.
The beast shifted slightly, as though adjusting to the weight in its gut.
A low, guttural rumble vibrated from deep within its form.
Victory.
Satisfaction.
In the abyss of its primitive mind, the Conflict processed what it had just done.
The golden book, the human boy — both gone.
When it had first seen that object, a deep, alien fear had gripped it — a primal command from some distant place in its being, warning it that this thing could not be allowed to continue.
It did not want that fear.
It did not want the boy to exist for carrying it.
And when the Codex changed — when the golden light had been swallowed by crimson fire — the fear had twisted into something worse: an unbearable, wrong feeling.
Something unnatural.
Something it didn't have words for — not like it needed them.
If it had the sentient mind to understand, it would have realized the civilians had felt it too: that gut-level revulsion, that wrongness radiating from Xayne after the transformation.
But it didn't care for understanding.
It cared only for survival.
Swallowing the boy was a necessity — a way to erase the threat before the elderly woman could intervene.
Even if she killed it now, she would kill the boy too.
And if she hesitated, then the boy would simply perish trapped within.
Either way, it would be over.
Satisfied, the Conflict turned its massive head upwards, fixing its countless eyes on the old woman floating in the sky.
It would tear her apart next.
But it never got the chance.
A sudden, searing heat flared within its body.
The Conflict froze — confusion and alarm clawing through its instincts.
The civilians below, already tense, felt the sudden shift in the air and stared upward.
The elderly woman, rune still burning in her hand, widened her eyes in horror and dawning realization.
Within the beast's writhing form, something was moving.
The Conflict let out a deep, distorted groan — a sound like stone grinding against bone — but it was too late.
With a wet, visceral rupture, a hand burst outward through one of its countless eyes in its maw.
A human hand.
Coated in thick, crimson blood.
The moment it was exposed to the air, the blood ignited into flames.
Not golden flames.
Not blue.
But flames of a deep, violent crimson.