CHAPTER 489

THE PURPOSE

A column of space collapsed temporarily, revealing a tumbling void beyond. Soon after, a figure stumbled out, white coat tattered at the edges, a few smears of dried blood visible across its smooth surface. ‘1’ carved on the forehead still billowed out smoke, though with faintly less grandeur than before.

Alladin landed on the stone-paved platform, squaring himself immediately, resetting his breathing. Looking about, he quickly realized he was alone. The platform stretched in a rectangular shape, one side much longer than the other, perched on top of nothing, standing alone in the sky. Pavilion of Dreams, that’s what they called it. Why? Myths. Legends. Tales that were never true.

He sat down, sighing, his brows scrounging up into a frown, eyes dulling in an inward gaze as he turned to his thoughts. His short bout with the Empyrean was supposed to scare the lad, to rein him in slightly, make him conscious. It didn’t work. Rather, it was a complete failure. This is dangerous, a thought escaped him.

He’d fought Empyreans before, more than once, but he’d never come out of the battle worse for wear -- never, not even once. Until today. What was the difference between that lad and the rest? There were plenty, Alladin knew. Primal Chaos, that unchained Will of his, that strange sword that danced the edge of Origins -- many factors came together to make the myth of the Empyrean. However, not even all of them combined could account for that raw beating he was handed.

Replaying the battle in his head, he still failed to spot the chunks and pieces that he believed were missing from his assessment. What exactly was he missing? He couldn’t say. The lad, not unlike himself, defied the restraints of the Noterra. That, however, wasn’t strange. The Laws of the World are only as strong as the entity governing them. They could not restrict those that existed above them.

Both moved at speeds that defied all logic and reason; what the few spectators saw was less than a flash -- they'd exchanged thousands of blows in less than a minute. He could still hear the thundering roars of the sword, the tumbling of his organs each time he'd deflected the strike, could still feel the blood in his veins freeze when he, for that brief account, locked onto those eyes. Yes, he jotted it together, it was the eyes. Perhaps not the eyes themselves -- but something beyond them.

That figure, juxtaposed between two absolutes, standing there, indomitable, like the Edifice itself. Even Alladin felt it -- just for that singular flash -- the desire to kneel. To bow. To give in. He'd resisted it, but it still left a permanent mark on his heart.

“--you look like you’d seen a ghost.” a tumbling voice snapped him out of his stupor. Glancing sideways, he recognized the newcomer immediately, draped and clad in eerie black from head to toe, the pair of eyes the gems of infinity -- Biyung. How did she know to come here? “Though, I imagine, you finally had.”

“... you’ve seen them as well?” Alladin asked, frowning.

“Ay,” Biyung nodded, walking over toward him, though her eyes veering past, into the distant horizon. “For a moment. They draw you in, don’t they?”

“Yeah,” Alladin nodded. “I suspect they are connected to the Primal Chaos, somehow.”

“No--well, yes, but... no,” Biyung mumbled. “They are somehow... above it.”

“Above it?” Alladin quizzed, confusion wrapping his expression.

“Hm,” she nodded, sitting down, facing his eyes at last. “It’s dangerous, little human-pretender. I think... Ataxia is way over his head with this one.”

“... I don’t think so,” Alladin said. “If he’d lost the control, he’d have snapped the bond and crippled the lad already. There must be a reason he’s still sticking with him.”

“--wouldn’t you?” Biyung asked. “For better or worse, that boy is the closest we’ve ever come to having a proper key. Ataxia’s mind... had waned. Too many years had passed. I don’t blame him; I’m the same. He must see it as a glimmer of hope -- one he’d do anything to cling onto.”

"You've always deemed him lesser than the rest of us," Alladin chuckled strangely, shaking his head. "Ataxia... there's a reason why he led us, Biyung. Others may have chosen to forgone the return, discarding him as a relic of past, but I... I can't. I want to go back home, if possible."

“You don’t have a home.”

“I’ve seen it.”

"You've seen the ruin it became," Biyung said. "You were born amidst the Crossing, One."

“... you’d still deny me the right?”

“What right?” Biyung scoffed. “You all are blinded if you believe it is possible to restore our home.”

“It is possible!” Alladin exclaimed. “I know it is, Biyung. Time isn’t as impervious as we’ve made it out to be. It cracks, wanes, like the rest of everything. It is not shielded from the same vestiges the rest of us are bound with.”

"... you sound eerily a lot like him," Biyung said after a short silence, her gaze turning strange. "When he made a plea... before he sacked the Silver City, exterminated his own blood, condemned the world to the eons of chaos."

“... I don’t condone that,” Alladin said. “Even if I understand it.”

“He stretched himself too thin too many times, Alladin,” Biyung said. “The boy... he should have ended their bond decades ago. The moment the boy restored the Seed of Chaos... Ataxia should have ended it. It is not proper. We are not the Exalted, beset to dabble in the Engines of Creation. I think that is what doomed us the first time. Has everyone already forgotten it?”

“... what condemned us was weakness, Biyung,” Alladin said. “We couldn’t fight--”

"Fight?" Biyung interrupted, scoffing. "Moron. You speak of fighting... but do you even realize what we would need to fight? As I said, you weren't there. You didn't see. You didn't experience it."

“...”

“The time here had truly dulled us,” Biyung sighed. “Even Ashtar had gone and ended himself, putting his hopes into an ordinary mortal. They are still watching, probably laughing at our incompetence. They were right to exterminate us.”

“Biyung!!”

“What? Am I wrong?” the look in her eyes sharpened, her voice growing colder. “Look around, Alladin. What have we brought to this peaceful world if not war, if not death, if not pain? Had we left it alone, it would have sprouted into a brilliant seed, grown into a corrupted flower, and burned to ash just like we did. Yet, for selfish reasons, we extend its lifeline. Feeding it darkness, time and again, in the name of the greater good that is dead. There is nothing for us left. The Cycle should have never been restored. We should have ended our lineage, locked ourselves in the Silver City, and gone to eternal slumber.”

“--do you not wish to go back home?” Alladin asked her, his tone growing strangely somber.

“... no,” she shook her head, her answer startling him. “Adur has perished, Alladin. Gone up in flames, leaving behind the Pillar of Condemnation as a reminder to the rest of Creation not to act the role of fools. You... and everyone should make the peace with it. This... is the end of our journey.”

Without waiting for his reply, she turned into a streak of smoke and vanished, leaving behind only the trailing scent of ash and soot. Alladin remained sitting, his head slumped low. He wouldn’t change his mind, he knew. Nothing, no matter how compelling it might have been, had changed it.

He moved his arm sideways, tearing open a hole in the space, yet not the like which exposed the void beyond. Instead, he gazed upon the world of the wobbly transformations, lines running into infinity, the Weave of Time. He spotted it immediately, tearing open the continuity -- black, lightless, ever-growing. It dragged the traces of Time itself toward it, swallowing them. The tempest of destruction, the spirit of desolation -- the beast that had streamed through Adur... even if Adur was already dead by that point. Still growing, still in the embryonic stages of existence... but it would reach that point. That point of growth where Time itself broke apart under its weight and its sheering force. He'd bet it all on this small black hole, on this tiny prune. His life's work.

Gazing at it tenderly for a moment, he closed the tear in space right after, taking a deep breath, getting up. Though the battle with the Empyrean had shaken him slightly, it didn't matter; all of these were simply temporary distractions, a way for him to pass the time. His purpose was to feed it, to help it grow, to expand it. He didn't care about the supposed restrictions, about the Invincibility of Time; he would reverse it. He would bring back the world forgotten, undo the Ashening, restore the Tears that had given him birth in the first place. He believed that was his purpose -- the point of his birth. To undo Adur's destruction, to restore the world, and to find those who destroyed it, and avenge all those souls of Adur that were sacrificed to make him who he was today.