FINAL CORE - Chapter 136 (Patreon)

Death laughs at us.

Just look at this mess. Open your goddamned window and look at it. Look at the shambling wrecks that call themselves people, dragging their living carcasses down the streets. Look at the dead houses and the dead cities we’ve made. Look at the dead eyes and the cold hearts you’re surrounded by. Look at yourself in the mirror and see the dead person that you’ve created.

Why the hell is anyone afraid of death?

He’s laughing and taking our souls, because when he does take us from life, he gets to watch our expressions change as we realize the trick that’s been played on all of us.

You’re already living in the world of the dead, and the only escape from it is to die.

~ Manifesto of a poison magic using mass murderer

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Aurin, the Meek

Human, Male, Crusader {Legendary Swordsman}

Location: The Final Core

The world is such a precious, ephemeral thing. It’s easy to think that the world will outlast oneself, that it will always be there with or without the presence of the ilk of men upon its surface. It’s so large, so impossibly massive, so steady and solid, such a serene and pure a jewel afloat in the heavens, that it almost seems as if it would perhaps be better off without being sullied by the feet of the living.

But this is nonsense.

— Aurin sits on his hands and knees, panting, as he looks down at the shaking rock beneath himself, afloat over an endless sea of nothingness.

He lifts his gaze, looking up towards the opening maw of the enemy — the wyrm — the boundless roar of the titan crashing around the world two-fold before it moves to action, lunging forward like an uncoiling serpent, like the whip of God, lashing out towards him.

It’s utter and total nonsense.

The world was made to be enjoyed, it was made to be lived in and cherished for its lifespan — brief or otherwise. Like a sweet, rich piece of fruit dripping with juices, the entire purpose of its creation was for it to be eaten, so that the seed it contains might be spread further, allowing its core meaning to propagate.

Aurin, weaponless, rises to his feet, his eyes meeting those of the serpent, which is shooting towards him, its pupils alone being the size of himself ten times over.

A boot presses itself down on the soil ahead of itself.

And then another.

And then another.

Aurin screams as he moves forward, his body damaged and broken, lumbering from a hobble to a jog, to a full sprint within seconds as he charges across the small, floating piece of landmass he’s trapped on, his howl and the roar of the dragon colliding together in the quickly closing emptiness between the two of them as the two immutable forces come to collide.

(Aurin) has used: [Dragonslayer’s Challenge]

The thing that is meant to propagate from the world, that is meant to be spread by those who would consume its supple, nourishing flesh, is this.

— It’s exactly this.

Two dragons roar as the monster, as large as the tower itself was, crashes into a single man, creating an eruption of stones and dust that fly up into all directions —whether up or down, left or right, is impossible to say as such things seem to have lost meaning in this arena.

Stones and brickwork float in all directions; broken metal and broken bodies hover in the air, trees and water, crystals and metal of many resplendent colors, broken houses and mills, bridges, and all other aspects of the world drift as if at sea, as if underwater.

And as the eruption comes to an end, a pillar the weight of the heavens themselves piled down with their full weight against the arms and legs of a single man who remains standing, two golden eyes of an ageless beast and two hazel eyes of but a man illuminate the distinct void, his hands pressing back alone against the maw crushing down onto him.

The meaning of life is to propagate life and with it the joys that it brings. The meaning of life is to push, to take, to grab, and to then share all of those precious things with the brothers and sisters one has found along the way.

This isn’t selfish.

Thunder cracks in the air from the violent clashing of nearby magical forces as he and the ancient wyrm stare each other down, feathers falling like flocks of snow from above as its armored body is pelted from all sides with the magic of the crusade.

— Push.

The two of them scream at the same time, a force erupting between them and shaking the world.

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Isaiah

“DIE! DIE! DIE-DIE-DIE-DIE-DIE!” screams the drowning voice from all around it as Isaiah shoots from one broken segment of rock to another, flying through and past them as they explode after being violently crashed into, sending chunks of rock out in all directions, but they never fall and instead remain suspended in the air as directionless shrapnel.

Isaiah looks up towards the sky, severed by a great tear that runs through it, as if the tower itself were a needle that had fallen sideways, leaving a great scar in the wake of its razor sharp tip.

— The spirit-world.

It’s open, it’s there. It can be reached, breached. The throne of the gods is within its grasp.

A wave of blackwater rises up before Isaiah in an instant, crashing down and trying to crush the entity. It shoots towards the side, flying through the closing tunnel of the wave and breaking free from its closing grasp just in time, black smears burning its skin and wings.

It reaches out, touching a stone, before looking back at the churning water.

— A shadow rises over its head from behind. Isaiah dodges, shooting to the side, expecting another tendril to come crashing down, but instead a great, white, mass that it first confuses for the tower as a whole flies through the air, tumbling into the crooked island and fragmenting off great chunks of it.

Metal sings as Isaiah lifts its sword just in time, its taloned feet cutting through stones as its blade meets another, as the crusader from before strikes, the random weapon he had picked up on the way cracking and shattering from the impact, metal slivers filling the air like shards of ice.

The two of them jump out of the way just in time, one left and one right, as another tendril crashes down where they stood, destroying the small rock formation.

Isaiah and the wyrm fly past one another, two white bodies grazing each other as they loop through the air, blasts of poison water launching upward, but only ever hitting the gaps they leave behind as they ascend, but the ocean ascends with them, pulling together to grow taller as the avatar of darkness takes a more coherent, sleeker form of a witch’s clawing hand that grasps up towards the heavens.

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Deutero

Human, Male, TRUE HERO

Location: The Southern Edge

“What in the goddamned shit?” mutters Marjatta, Deutero standing at her side atop the carriage, the caravan having reached the southern border that is, in essence, underwater.

The entire southern half of the continent is flooded, as if the whole world had just been tipped at an angle, dipping an entire quarter of the nation beneath the ocean that has risen and crept up to where the road stops, as if the weight of the million sins that had taken place here had been too great for the world to bear, causing it to sink into the abyss.

And there, off in the distance, obscuring the crooked star that hangs over the world like a guillotine, is a mass of writhing, screaming darkness.

“So, uh…” starts Deutero, looking at Marjatta. He points with his thumb at the war zone. “Is that the uh, the thing?”

Marjatta looks back up at him, raising an eyebrow. “Oh, man, you know…” She shakes her head. “I really don’t know.” The monster in the distance changes shapes, turning into a screaming maw with ten-thousand, gnashing teeth. “It’s really hard to say.”

The two of them stare quietly at one another as shockwaves crash over the landscape, causing the water to reach the edge of the shoreline as if it were being moved by gentle waves.

“…I think it’s the thing,” says Deutero, as they watch the world ending from a distance.

Marjatta sighs audibly next to him.