Universe's End

“We may have a problem,” The Architect said over the comms, as the Spear frowned.

“What?” The Rogue asked, beating Spear to the punch.

“Weapons are jammed after that last attack.”

“What do you mean by ‘jammed’? Aren’t they God damn magical?” The Rogue angrily asked.

“Yes, but they still rely on magical systems. That last attack somehow damaged the systems involved, even with my galvanization countermeasures to prevent exactly that.”

“Meaning?’ The Spear asked.

The comm was silent for several seconds before a sigh was heard.

“No more missiles.”

“Yeah, well that’s a BIG fucking problem,” The Rogue all but shouted. “I don’t know if you noticed, but it absorbed those last few shields. Without the damage of those magic nukes, we aren’t going to be able to do enough damage to matter, not before it kills us. We’re running low on resources, and we’re all beat to hell!”

The Architect was silent for several more seconds before speaking.

“I might have an answer.”

“Rory, no,” Another voice, this one belonging to the Vanguard, suddenly interrupted. “I already know where this is going.”

“Going where?” The Rogue asked.

“He is going to blow himself up.”

Silence.

Then.

“Will it work?” The Spear was the one to ask, breaking the moment.

“Alice!”

“What? Eric has a point. This isn’t a battle of attrition we can win.”

“It should,” The Architect answered. “But I’m going to need something to blow it up alongside me; there isn’t a self-destruct button like you might imagine. The weapon's critical systems can be made to cause a cascading explosion, but it's not as simple as pressing a button; putting that system in place wouldn’t have worked to begin with.”

“Let me, I might be able to withstand-”

“No,” The Spear answered, shutting down the Vanguard. “Let me. I’m the only one with Aberrant-grade gear. I might be able to get us out in time if we work together. Zoe, you’ve got more durability, sure, but can you break the rules as I can?”

The Vanguard was silent.

“Then let it be me.”

“Well, just glad it’s not me,” The Rogue answered. “Hiding in the shadows doesn’t work if you’re in the center of a bunch of super-nukes going off; not a whole lot of ‘shadows’ there.”

“Likewise, there is not much I can do for such a situation; I can only freeze so much force,” The Monk added.

“Then it’s decided,” The Architect said. “The Spear and I shall blow ourselves up to take down Phosphorus. The rest of you do what you do best, and open a path for us, whatever it takes.”

Phosphorus felt powerful.

How could it not? After having absorbed three barriers, his power was unmatched. There were no existences like its own. Brimming with vital energy, no amount of damage would be enough to slay it; even one of those massive explosions would be endurable.

Now, if only the Eternal would grant me the privilege to use such power to its full offensive capability.

Brimming with endless energy, it was barely allowed to tap into a small percent of that strength; otherwise, it would wipe away the annoying gnats in a single instant.

Still, it is of little matter.

During their battle, they’d certainly managed to wound Phosphorus more than he had anticipated, but the Heavenly Kaiser could sense their strength was beginning to flag; unable to match a Kaiser like him, even with the sparks of his soul, reserved within his generals, extinguished, he was still far too powerful.

Victory was certain, even if it still took an annoying amount of effort.

If only.

But for all the power of Phosphorus, for all the blessings and boons of his patron World Spirit, The First, there was no going against the decrees of the Eternal.

So, Phosphorus would play out the tired song and dance until he had squashed the would-be invaders.

Of course.

Perfectly on time, one such annoying gnat zipped by as black magic spewed forth from his weapon and struck Phosphorus with the ugly stain of the first night, the terror and endless expanse that it represented like a burning acid to all living things.

Of course, that was only if in large enough quantities. For Phosphorus, as much as it hurt, it was as simple as thinking to erase the damage as if it never happened; the joy of endless energy.

Next.

Waves of frozen conceptual stillness slashed into his scales, but again it was as simple as gathering his immense strength to snuff out the slowing effect.

Next.

One of the gnats appeared above him, attempting to bring down the weight of a world upon Phosphorus, but even that weight would not matter. Flicking his tail, he caught the gnat in a net of ephemeral blue lightning and tossed her aside.

There was only one threat in the sky, and it was him.

Within the boxy construct, Phosphorus sensed the presence of one of the gnats piloting it. Individually, he was no more threatening than the others, but it was that flying contraption that had inflicted the most damage, shattering five of his invincibility barriers.

What was intriguing was that the second-most-threatening of the gnats had joined him, vanishing from his back where it had been harassing him the entire time, as if plucked from space.

But why?

That was an oddity. She was a direct threat; the force of her spirit was clad in something transcendental, allowing her to fight at a level beyond what the other gnats could replicate.

So why was she with the pilot gnat?

Curious.

Well, either way, it mattered little to Phosphorus. The flying contraption had taken serious damage during his last attack and was consequently struggling to stay afloat. With as much power as he now had at his disposal, another divine breath would end things, having crossed the threshold of inevitability.

But what fun would that be?

Feeling arrogant, Phosphorus began to lazily draw up power, looking to play with his food, until he paused.

No. Such arrogance may be befitting, but these are invaders granted the right to challenge me to begin with.

Realizing that playing around would be foolish at this point, Phosphorus changed tactics. As he opened his maw, golden light began to gather, a repeat of the last attack, except magnified; the powerful attack of all taking shape.

It is time to end this.

“Ascendant Star: Divine Breath of the Empyrion.”

The world was born of his inner sanctum; thus, the entire world responded, shaking with his intent, as the words reverberated, as if a god had spoken.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

And in this world, was Phosphorus not a god, the one true light bringer?

Flying high above, the draconic breath grew and grew and grew until it had the force to sunder even planets, assuming they were ordinary celestials floating through space rather than an ascended such as his patron.

Their battle had been more exciting than Phosphorus would admit, but it was time to end things.

“Goodbye, insects, those who climbed just high enough to barely be worthy of my time.”

Releasing a ray of light large enough to swallow up entire planets, Phosphorus saw one last thing: the shadow of three gnats flying forward on the dark glider.

But it matters not.

For death illuminated all.

“Are you sure about this?” The Rogue shouted as the shadow glider shot up at speeds that only it could manage.

“No!” The Vanguard shouted back.

Far above, it looked as if a supernova was building, a light that felt bad in a way literally nothing else ever had before- the single strongest attack ever.

“It is not as if retreat is an option,” The Monk mused.

“Can it, Mr. Philosophical!” The Rogue growled. “I can see that as well!”

They weren’t sure what had changed, but it was like the oversized serpent had simply decided to stop playing around, charging up the god damn apocalypse in attack form.

“Hate this, hate this so much,” The Rogue grumbled.

The plan had simply been to open the way for the Spear and the Architect to go suicide bomb the fucker, but no, the fucker in question had decided he would go off script, and now they were scrambling to salvage the situation.

“We have one shot at this!” The Vanguard shouted, pointing out the obvious. “It won’t be fun!”

“Good to know!” The Rogue shouted back over the sounds of the wind whipping by them as they climbed higher and higher, a single black speck flying into an oncoming quasar.

“Here it comes,” The Monk interrupted, pointing skyward.

The beam of death was descending toward them now, strangely slow, though not as if it needed to be fast; there was nowhere to hide, the attack inevitable within the sanctum of the Kaiser.

“Better fuckin’ work, or I’m haunting your ass in the afterlife,” The Rogue grumbled, grabbing the Vanguard’s shoulder. “Nightfall: Singularity.”

The shadows covering the glider and his rifle seemed to writhe and squirm away, relocating elsewhere as the Rogue felt his knees beginning to buckle; he’d actively put everything he could afford into it.

As for where the shadows relocated, that much was obvious.

The Vanguard.

“I suppose it is my turn.” The Monk nodded. “Formminus zero: Silence before the Event Horizon.”

Unlike the Rogue, the Monk really did collapse, as the Rogue snatched his arm.

After all, the Rogue had needed to keep just enough power for one last shadow step.

“Good luck,” The Rogue huffed before both he and the Monk fell away from the glider, vanishing in the shadow cast.

The Vanguard had no words, no thoughts, nothing.

Everything was erased save for her single-minded purpose.

Had she been more self-aware, she might have found herself wondering if this was what the Architect had meant by what it felt like to briefly embody one’s vocation to perfection, a moment of perfect unity.

But Zoey wasn’t there, no. For the moment, she was only the Vanguard of a New Era.

Given freely, in one hand she felt the weight of the Primal Night, handed over by the Primordial Rogue, the darkness that would exist when all else faded into darkness.

And grasped within her other hand, frozen stillness, colder than even an extinguished universe, gifted by the insight of the First Monk.

And then there was she, the burning core of a world.

It wasn’t enough. She needed to be more. Not a World on Fire. Not a Black Hole Drop. No, she needed to be even more than a mere supernova.

And so, she did; she brought everything together. No one else in existence could have borne the burden that she did in that moment, but she was no mere person; she was a concept, the Vanguard given life.

As the world-ending light fell, the Vanguard spoke.

“Fusion Art: Universe. On. Fire.”

From the endless cold, the terror of the scream before the first light, everything was born.

She was that primal chaos; for a single moment, she was the primordial fire from which all were born.

The world-ending light fell, but rather than wash away existence, it met a force that could contest it, a single figure that refused to break.

And in the end, it was the light that broke first.

Struck down the center, the world-consuming beam of light split in two; the force of the punch, while not enough to defeat the world-consuming light outright, was at least enough to part the sea.

And that was all she needed to do.

Because the rest was up to them.

As the Vanguard faded, Zoey found herself smiling as she fell for miles.

Give ‘em hell, Alice.

“And that’s our go-signal,” The Architect shouted, slamming a crank forward as the SFAH lurched ahead with a burst of speed the limping, airborne vehicle shouldn’t still be capable of.

“Clever,” The Spear said, doing her best not to chew on her lip as she watched a figure fall from the sky after splitting the Armageddon ray straight down the middle. “Fake that it’s in worse shape than it really is.”

“Oh, it’s in that bad of shape,” The Architect corrected. “But if you’ve got no intention of flying back, you don’t mind ripping the wires out of the walls if that’s what it takes.”

The duo had been waiting, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike after the Architect had grabbed hold of the Spear’s aura and flickered her back inside the SFAH.

They just hadn’t been expecting Phosphorus to opt to suddenly end things in one go.

Almost fucked that one up, The Architect thought to himself; he hadn’t actually considered the titanic serpent would stop playing games and instead mobilize as much power as it could.

Hell, even restrained, that much power would have been enough to wipe away Earth like a supernova; the attack had been meant to end them, no games or ifs, ands, or buts.

Faced with that, all that the two of them could do was instead trust in the instincts of their compatriots.

Which proved the correct move in the end.

Punching it as hard as the SFAH could manage, the flying brick rapidly closed in on the Kaiser, whose giant serpent eyes squinted for a moment, clearly noticing its advance.

Spent as it was, that didn’t mean it was completely out of energy to attack; blue lightning sprang into existence and leaped toward them, as if the sky were filled with heat-seeking barbed wire.

The Architect did his best to outmaneuver the lightning, but as beat up as the SFAH was, there was only so much he could do.

But then, he didn’t need to make it there in one piece, just in enough of one piece.

“Alright,” The Architect finally shouted, leaping away from the control console. “It’s set course.”

“Our turn?”

“Our turn,” The Architect confirmed. “We need to act in unison, with enough of our mantle baked into it to override the usual defenses that would prevent external damage from seeping in. Our mantle will make us ‘recognized’ and allow bypassing.”

“Even me?” The Spear asked.

“I made sure that all the Founders would be recognized by the systems of the SFAH, even if I figured the chances of it coming up were slim to none. Funny how that worked out.”

Flicking a drop of blood toward the Spear, the image of what exactly she was striking filled her mind as she sprinted away, not bothering to double-check given the image was drawn directly from his own memories.

The Architect, meanwhile, flickered to where one of the Big Momma missiles was stored, each in their own area so they wouldn’t accidentally interface with one another and go kaboom.

Exactly like they were trying to force now.

Laying his hands on the warhead, he mentally counted down, sensing the moment The Spear touched hers.

Three. Two… Now!

With perfect timing, the two Founders discharged a burst of their own energy into the system, which allowed the energy in rather than ground it out as it would with any other external energies attempting to invade the magical warheads.

“Perfect,” The Architect said, already feeling the independent systems starting to go haywire. One of them losing control might have been salvageable, but two?

Two was a cascade waiting to happen.

Flickering over to where the Spear stood, she had her hands on her hips.

“Now what?”

“Well, about that,” The Architect nodded. “Yeah, even your Aberrant armor won’t survive this.”

The woman sighed before shrugging. “I figured such might happen; I just-”

“Bah, ah, ah, no time for final words,” The Architect cut off. “You didn’t want your sister to take your place; it doesn’t matter, blah, blah, blah. Your armor won’t be enough to survive it directly, but it might be the key to survival.”

The entire ship was beginning to shake, sparks flying everywhere, some from the intricate magical systems beginning a waterfall effect of failures, others from the lightning slamming into the oversized brick.

“We’ve got… Ehm, seconds, so I’ll keep it short. You can break reality and cause and effect with that armor. I have a mental palace and a domain. I’m going to try to use that together and drag us physically into my mental palace.”

“Physically?”

“Yep,” the Architect glanced to the side, wincing. “Yepppp. Totally never tested, but hey, we don’t have any more time, so time for a miracle.”

Pressing his hands to her armor, the Architect could feel the woman ‘granting’ him access, not that it really mattered because ultimately, he was its creator.

Having been entering and exiting his mental palace for decades, plus decades of spatial knowledge, and even recently, firsthand experience being dragged into a place that was somewhere between the liminal and the physical- that being the world of shadows- the Architect believed what he was attempting to do had a shot at success.

The exact percentage was… well, not important when it was do-or-die.

“And… here we go.”

Phosphorus was stunned.

Ascendant Star was not meant to be defeated. It was a final attack to keep things from going wrong.

And yet, while it hadn’t been outright defeated, it had been split, struck through just enough so that the gnats were still flying.

And then the two most threatening ones had suddenly begun flying toward him in haste.

He would need time to recharge fully. Ascendant Star was an attack possible by channeling all the energy he could readily spare, an attack that transcended the limits of tier eight, even rivaling the highest realms of tier nine. That wasn’t to say it used all of his energy, but the Eternal had put a very clear boundary between what could be used offensively to keep things ‘fair.’

Phosphorus hadn’t understood why it would matter, but now he did: all the energy in the universe, yet unable to draw from those vast reservoirs that were cordoned off.

Whatever energy Phosphorus could spare for attacks was thrown out, shredding the flying brick, but there was zero regard for safety, for self-preservation. Even if Phosphorus could physically strike the ship from the sky, that would have the same outcome as letting it crash into him.

Something Phosphorus knew would end terribly; his instincts screamed that much at him.

Yet, fleeing was literally not an option. As a Kaiser, running was impossible; they were made unable even to comprehend the notion, and to avoid a head-on confrontation went against the very basis of their existence.

And so, tearing apart the failing sky fortress with lightning, there was nothing that Phosphorus could do as it barreled directly into him, hardly recognizable from its former grandeur, torn through by lightning and countless of his spawns, but still fighting on.

Perhaps much like the Founders of Aelia themselves.

I underestimated them.

A final thought, for a final moment, as the sky became dominated by a single heaven-defying exploding star.