CHAPTER 471

BREAKING THE CHAINS (IV)

A strange sensation of silence permeated the Great Lake, so much so that even the fires had calmed and dulled, as though in reverence of the two figures stationed on opposite ends. Ashtar still held onto a faint smile, his countenance calm and aloof, while Lino's expression remained placid. He glanced around the Lake as well as the mountain itself, realizing there was nobody else anywhere near them. It was just the two souls, staring at one another emptily.

“Where are your armies?” Lino asked, curling his lips into a smile as well.

“I may be the Devil,” Ashtar chuckled. “But I nary wish to see my kin burn beneath our flames, Empyrean. This fight is not theirs to uphold.”

“—how noble,” Lino chuckled. “Are you that confident in defeating me?”

“Defeat or victory… don’t matter,” Ashtar shook his head. “They are my children as much as Aaria is yours. Would you summon her to defy the God of Chaos by your side?”

“… no.” Lino replied simply, somewhat alert over how Ashtar knew Aaria’s name.

“Don’t worry,” Ashtar grinned, as though having read Lino’s mind. “Not unlike you, my name has been sullied-a-plenty. I have simply been bound by an oath, is all.”

“Aren’t we all?” Lino sighed, glancing around once more. “Do you want to fight outside? I can’t say how much this place will suffer.”

“… the first thing I saw when I was born,” Ashtar smiled faintly, ignoring Lino’s question. “Was a night's sky. So boundless, so pure, so alight. I grasped toward it, in vain. Ever since, I've been fascinated by the boundless stretch of the cosmos. Yet, no matter the temptations, I have never sat up off this Throne since the day I was put on it. I truly wish to go out, to see it all, to discover the array of truths."

“… why didn’t you?” Lino asked.

“… my Fate is here, young Empyrean,” Ashtar said, suddenly getting up. Each one of his movements seemed to distort the spacetime around him. The fires in the Lake slowly woke, bubbling and sizzling and crying and weeping. The sky above thundered, the ashen-gray clouds turning faintly crimson. By the time he stood upright, the entire world was shaking in reverence. “The chains… are too heavy.”

"…" Lino's expression turned solemn for a moment. In that second, he recounted the recognition of his own soul inside Ashtar; a trace, a single thread, bound them together. It was powerful, so much so that Lino suddenly felt sick whilst thinking about killing him. "You come with plenty of tricks…"

“Tricks? No,” Ashtar shook his head, chuckling. “In a way, you and I, truly are kin, Lyonel. Soulbound, even. After all, what I had started – you shall end. We are two ends of the linear tale of time, of Fate of this world. The Truth is shaken, for it disallows us to co-exist. It disturbs it.”

“… what are you talking about?” Lino frowned, rapidly thinking, trying to decipher the cryptic language.

“—you know plenty, yet little,” Ashtar sighed. “I know my Father is rather… stubborn when it comes to telling truths. But, I always imagined you would have connected the dots eventually.”

“—that is enough, Ashtar,” suddenly, a black-clad apparition appeared next to Lino alongside the symbolic, robotic voice he was all-too-familiar with. “He knows all he needs to know.”

“… I’ve served you patiently, all this time,” Ashtar said, glancing at the apparition, the look in his eyes one of complexity. “Done all you have asked. In return, I only ever wanted one thing. Yet you kept saying soon. Soon. Soon. Soon. There is no soon, is there? You’ve synthesized him as well, haven’t you?”

“—I haven’t,” Ataxia replied. “So serve patiently for a little while longer.”

“… no, you have,” Ashtar sighed, shaking his head. Lino frowned, trying to process and understand what they were saying; he was suddenly reminded of his youth, where he usually couldn’t grasp almost anything from when people were talking about things-greater-than-him. “I don't blame you. He was… too large of a variable. Since the time immemorial, perhaps only Eldon and One ever stood a chance of matching him. Unfortunately… alas. What is done is done. At least tell me what you had done with him.”

“… do you really want to know?”

“Yes.” Ashtar nodded.

“… I’ve fed him to Biyung.” Ataxia replied. “I didn’t expect, however…”

“That it would drive her insane?” Ashtar chuckled as Lino finally began connecting the dots slowly. “You should have. Biyung… was never stable. The Crossing had splintered half her mind. As it splintered nigh all your heart.”

“—I did what needed to be done.”

“… I know,” Ashtar smiled suddenly; his smile was genuine, one full of warmth and gratitude. “Without you… we’d have all perished back then. Do you think it has calmed?”

“No…”

“… shame,” Ashtar said, sighing. “Before death, I truly wished to gaze upon our home one last time.”

“…” Ataxia spoke no more, glancing at Ashtar one last time before withdrawing into Lino. The latter stood somewhat stunned, realizing that there were still many things he didn’t know. However, this brief exchange did confirm several things he did suspect.

“You gleaned plenty, yet so little,” Ashtar chuckled, meeting Lino’s gaze squarely. “Biyung… you’ve met her before?”

“Hm,” Lino nodded. “Isn’t she your mother?”

“Mother?” Ashtar tilted his head in confusion before bursting out into laughter. “Ha ha ha, mother? Is that what she told you?”

“Hm?” Lino frowned.

“… no, young Empyrean. The reason why my Father is ashamed whenever her name is brought up… is much simpler. Though, irrelevant to your cause, I’m afraid. However,” he said, his expression turning serious for a moment. “In lieu of our bond, I will answer one of your questions. Any one question. However, it needs to necessitate a single answer and no more.”

“…” Lino frowned once again, surprised by the offer. He couldn’t find a trace of deception within Ashtar, not within the voice or his appearance; however, he could hardly trust the Devil to be honest. Yet, that inexplicable bond, the thread binding them, told him to do exactly that – trust. Have faith. Even if he did, however, what question should he ask? One question? He had thousands. And then thousands more. “Just one?” he grinned sheepishly.

“—just one,” Ashtar grinned back. “Even one is too much if I'm being honest. I'm afraid you'll ask about some things you should not know just yet.”

“… as am I,” Lino chuckled. “But, very well, one question then. Where is Ataxia from?” Ashtar smiled faintly, seemingly having expected something like that.

“—indeed, I wasn’t wrong about you,” Ashtar chuckled strangely for a moment before continuing. “Father is one of the remnants of Adur, World of Dreams. He is specifically from the last-generation Boroughs of Flatfields, House of Cosmic Collection.”

"…" Lino sighed. "Yo, dude. You do realize that means absolutely nothing to me. I already knew he's not from Noterra…"

“… fair enough. One last piece of information, then,” Ashtar chuckled. “He was nary a Writ, let alone one of Chaos, while homebound.”

“—what…?” Lino mumbled, his eyes turning into saucers briefly before he calmed down. Taking a deep breath, it finally hit him that layers that he knew were still rather insignificant.

All this while, although he suspected that Ataxia was not from Noterra, he always suspected he was a genuine incarnation of Chaos – a realized sentience of the scattered bits. If he wasn't, however, then how did he become one? It was impossible to glean what kind of existence he was prior to becoming a Writ, even if he knew the exact place of his origin.

In addition, Ataxia's original form hardly mattered; what mattered was how and when he became the Writ. From the subtle implications, Lino suspected that it didn't happen prior to the point of him leaving his homeworld – Adur. That is to say, someplace between there and Noterra, he became an incarnation of Chaos.

He sighed deeply and shook his head; it was pointless to guess, as this answer merely brought about hundreds more questions.

He shifted his gaze back onto Ashtar who stared at him bemusedly; he seemed to take a faint sense of pleasure in giving him such a headache over simply saying a few ‘inconsequential’ words. Meeting Lino’s gaze, he chuckled faintly, showing his pearl-white teeth.

“—believe it or not, you still don’t even rank in top ten when it comes to knowing as much about Father as possible when it comes to the Empyreans,” he said. “So, you can only imagine their headaches, no?”

“… isn’t that the ever-expanding paradox of reality?” Lino chuckled. “The more you know, the less you know.”

“… it indeed is,” Ashtar sighed. “I myself know plenty… yet so little. So many things about the cosmos… are a pure mystery. If you think Laws are a difficult concept to grasp,” Ashtar said, glancing at Lino with a faint smile. “I pray you never learn of the Truths.”

“… I keep hearing the term tossed around frequently,” Lino said. “Does it have anything to do with the First Scripture?”

“… the First Scripture?” Ashtar looked at Lino dubiously for a moment, shaking his head. “Don’t ponder too deeply on the First Scripture. Even if you found it and studied it, it would give you even fewer answers than I have. It’s a relic, something that has lost its purpose a long, long time ago.”

“—maybe I’m just that curious.” Lino grinned.

“Well, it was you, humans, who thought up the phrase – curiosity killed the cat.” Ashtar grinned back. “For a good reason, I imagine.”

“… you keep telling me which things are irrelevant,” Lino said after a short pause. “How about you tell me, then, what is relevant to me?”

“—you already know.” Ashtar said. “And any more of what I say, wouldn’t clarify it even slightly. Alas, that is the case with many things.”

“…” Lino realized he wouldn’t get much out of Ashtar anymore, causing him to sigh. He wasn’t disappointed, however; despite his mind bombarding him with more and more questions, this was after all the most answers he’d gotten about anything he asked in a long while. Most of what he knew he had to scrape together and hope it was the truth. Beyond the surface of what he was told, Ashtar also told him many things subtly – knowingly or not. “Indeed,” Lino said, grasping the handle of the Edge. “Thank you.”

“… my pleasure,” Ashtar said. “Now, let me test you, little Empyrean. Can I forgo my life... and give you my Throne?”