Chapter Text
The flaxen-haired man kicked at the shards of the roof tiles and watched disinterestedly as they skittered over the edge, shattering on the paving below. Overhead, the Dawn Device on Kephale's back had split open like a gaping maw, rusty red light illuminating the gathering storm clouds. The city below was silent.
Broken plinths and fallen canopies lay scattered around like corpses after a prolonged battle. As the man gazed over the destruction he had wrought, he felt a faint flutter in the empty cavity he had long ceased to call his heart.
Phaino- no, the Delive-, no the Reave- no. Khaslana.
A name he had embraced and abandoned, exalted and cursed in equal measure as the millennia had passed. It mattered not what name he took. The result was always the same, the total devastation of the world he had once called home.
As he stood on the rooftops of Okhema, the man was faced with the memories he had made here. In some cycles, this had been his home. In others, he had led the conquering army of black tide to destroy it. All in an attempt to prevent the birth of the greatest calamity that could be released upon the cosmos. The Lord Ravager, Irontomb.
Ironic really. He thought to himself. This whole world was a simulation, created with the sole intention of raising a being that could destroy an Aeon. And yet... In every cycle, the dying moments before he reset it all again... This was always the moment when the simulation felt the most real.
He spread his wings, and with very little effort, launched himself into the sky. The city fell away below him as he climbed, until he hovered high above the broken Dawn Device. From here, he could see the full extent of the damage. Large swathes of the city still burned, while others phased in and out of existence, the blue outlines of nonexistent buildings betraying the true nature of Amphoreus.
Turning his eyes beyond the city walls, the man watched impassionately as the last remnants of the black tide milled about aimlessly. With the city defeated, there was nothing left for them to attack, and so they wandered among the crater-marked fields outside the city gate, the land scarred and warped from the city's desperate last defence.
Further still, out towards the horizon, a burning pyre reaching to the desolate sky marked the location of the Grove of Epiphany. The black tide was indiscriminate in its endless march, all life was to be extinguished, all civilisation was to be erased. For that was the hallmark of the Destruction. Utter annihilation.
The hovering man closed his eyes and took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of ash on the breeze. He was almost out of time. Every cycle always ended up here, with his confrontation against the Theoros. The traitorous Lycurgus. Every cycle, the antikytheran taunted him with his failure, goading him into giving up his eternal struggle against the inevitable. In 33,500,336 cycles, he had never succeeded in breaking past the Sceptre's defences. And yet...
Irontomb was still not free. The cosmos was still protected, even though it came at the expense of every scrap of what could generously be called his soul. Not that there was much of it left. The man could feel him resolve wearing thin. After so long, he still was no closer to ending this nightmare, and the pieces of himself were getting harder and harder to hold together. In each cycle, he was no longer reborn whole. Instead, his body strained to contain the millions of Coreflames, huge cracks appearing in his skin like porcelain, revealing the indigo core of his being.
He hadn't managed to figure out why it was blue. He supposed it was a side-effect of the Coreflames. But each time he merged with the Phainon of that cycle, his core burned hotter and brighter, becoming the same gold as his blood. And the wings. The accursed wings that currently allowed him to look over the mausoleum of Okhema.
As he continued to hover, knowing he couldn't escape this final meeting, a haunting melody came unbidden into his mind. A half-forgotten lullaby his mother had sung to him back in that first cycle. He had not heard it in any cycle since. Almost without meaning to, the man found himself vocalising along with it, his ravaged throat barely able to rasp the sounds as he sang a funeral dirge for his dying home.
He knew this would likely be the last time he would ever see Amphoreus. The outlander from beyond the sky had promised to take his place, to be the true Deliverer that was promised, not the falsehood he had been perpetuating since the beginning.
And he was tired. So tired of his endless duty. Of being the reaper who came for everyone he loved, ripping the Coreflames out of their chests while they looked at him with such love and understanding that it made him want to scream. He didn't deserve their kindness, or their pity.
A small splashing sound reached his ears, followed by a quiet sizzle. Perplexed, the man opened his eyes, and touched his cheek in confusion. Tears. He rasped out a bitter laugh. He had thought the ability to cry had been stripped from him millions of cycles ago. Maybe this time really was going to be different.
Movement in the city below caught his attention. A lone figure climbing the stairs to the derelict Garden of Life.
Ah, so it is time. The man thought to himself. He tucked in his wings, and dove for the platform, not taking even a moment to hesitate. His landing cracked the few flagstones that were left untouched, the stone melting and bubbling in his wake as the inferno that was his body moved across the plaza.
The approaching figure acknowledged him without surprise. After all, this was hardly their first meeting.
"Another attempt, another failure." Lycurgus' voice was dripping with contempt, the emotionless mask of the Theoros finally falling away now that it was just the two of them left in the whole world.
"I won't remind you how many times you've reached the end of history, but I will still place the choice before you."
The man snorted. "If you've lost count, let me tell you. This is the 33,550,336th ending. And yet, even after all this time, your arguments remain the same: repetitive, uninspired. If you had any hope of breaking me, you should have spent those endless cycles refining your rhetoric. You had infinite chances to sway me into the future you want... And yet, here we are. The score: 33,550,336 to 0."
Lycurgus' face is unchanged, but there is now a mocking undercurrent in his tone.
"How unfortunate. This was never a fair game. I have all the time and patience in the world. I can wait for you at the end of history another billion times... and another billion after that. But you? You will never escape this cage. You can claim victory of the spirit if you wish. But we both know — the moment that score shifts from 0 to 1..."
The man laughed, a cruel sound that echoed around the crumbling structure. After all this time... It was a relief to know he had reached the end of his long fight. Lycurgus took an unconscious step backwards, away from the terrible sound that was emitting from the man's mouth.
"Your incompetence disappoints me, but what truly makes me laugh is your utter lack of self-awareness." The man spat the words at the antikytheran, letting all of his bitterness leech out into his words.
"Think about it. In this story, who is truly the one in chains? Who is the one shackled to mindless "vengeance," mistaking courage, the courage to rebel against the gods for foolishness? Perhaps you're right. Maybe I should have tired of this futile struggle long ago. But even so, I will never accept the mercy of your release."
He took a step forwards towards Lycurgus, the scorching heat in his chest nearly unbearable, new cracks forming in his porcelain skin and weeping golden blood that reflected the crimson light of the dead Dawn Device.
"Because you... you are both a prisoner to the gods and to me. And tell me, what right does a mere prisoner have to speak of fate and choice? What right does a mere prisoner have — to look upon my fury!?" His words reached a crescendo, his ravaged throat screaming, hurling the words at the one who had been the orchestrator of this entire tragedy.
For the first time in the many millions of cycles, a hint of fear undercut Lycurgus' voice. "You know this is pointless. You can't kill me."
The man laughed that cruel laugh again. "Of course not. But I am tired of being measured against a worm the gods keep as a pet."
He turned his back on the former Theoros, and strode to the edge of the Garden of Life, to the lip of the plaza where it looked out over the corpse of the Holy City.
"Listen well, creator of Destruction. This cry comes from all your abandoned creations..." The man howled at the sky, the words ripped from his throat like oxygen consumed by flames.
"A sun is about to fall, ready to incinerate this absurd space-time dimension in an instant! That sun is me — all the countless versions of me from the past — along with my countless brethren, dragged into existence against their will, drowning again and again in your golden blood. The very essence of this world's suffering and despair, fused into the purest hatred, the fiercest rage!"
The roaring in his ears matched the thundering of his long-dead heart, blazing to life again in his fury. He was rage incarnate, a torrent of heat pouring out from every crack in his skin.
He cried out to the Aeon that had birthed him, their gaze the catalyst for his transformation. "Nanook, you arrogant fool! You think we were born only to serve as fuel for the fire? Fine, then — just as you wish, let the fire burn!"
Bunching his legs, the man launched himself skywards, rocketing up ever higher beyond the sky. Smashing through the feeble remnants of the firmament of the false god Aquila, the man ignited the core of Destruction inside him and became a torch screaming through the atmosphere.
As he flew, his mind was filled with memories from the eternal recurrences, dancing with Hyacine in the streets of Okhema under the light of the Dawn Device, study sessions with Castorice late into the night, every honeycake he had shared with Trianne, Tribbie and Trinnon, a wardrobe of garments Aglaea had made him, a lifetime's worth of lectures he had received from Anaxa.
With the last of the breath in his destroyed lungs, the man continued to scream his challenge. "If I was born as the blazing sun of Destruction, then let you and your lackeys be the flares erupting from my core! And let this rage, burning futilely for thirty million epochs, engulf everything! And grant you a dawn where all stars burn to ash!"
The final memories burst into his unresisting mind, images from that very first cycle. His best friend Cyrene flipping tarot cards over in her hands, yet always he would pull the Deliverer. And Mydeimos. His beloved Undying Prince, who he had been forced to slaughter over and over again until the shattering of that tenth thoracic vertebrae haunted his every waking moment and chased him from sleep every night.
Laughing now as he blazed ever upwards into the cosmos, the man launched his final words into the void. "Are you ready, Nanook! I brought you destruction!”
The man could feel his skin blistering and peeling away, his bones melting and cracking like logs on a fire, until all that is left is that golden core, burning hotter and hotter until the flame is almost white. He struck out at the face of Nanook, leaving a deep cut that drips the same golden blood that runs through his own veins.
And then, he is falling. His wings have burned away to ash, his body is spent, the dying embers of what used to be a man hurtled back down until they are embraced by the darkness, and a giant red eye consumed them. High above, the man did not see the eye of Nanook watching him as he turned into nothing.