Arthur's laughter echoed with chilling contempt as he watched the Empyrean, the once-imposing tyrant, scrabbling desperately towards the shimmering fissure. It wasn't the laughter of triumph, but a raw, mocking testament to the absurdity of the man's fall from grace.
"Look at the mighty Empyrean of Yalen!" Arthur's voice boomed over the chaotic battlefield. "Master of time, collector of worlds... reduced to a mewling cur, seeking refuge in a stolen corner of reality!"
He took a slow, deliberate step forward. Each footfall was a miniature earthquake, sending waves of fear through the remnants of the Yalen army and the dazed survivors trapped within the astral cage. "You, who twisted fate, who devoured worlds, cannot even face your death with dignity!"
Arthur's spiritual energy flared, washing out like a tidal wave. It wasn't an attack, but a command to cease their frantic cries of confusion and fear. The people within the cage, real people ripped from their own realities, were struck with a merciful wave of unconsciousness. The pressure, a mere taste of Arthur's true essence, was simply too much for their vulnerable mortal forms. They collapsed in droves, a cascade of bodies rendered still.
As Arthur moved to cut off the fleeing Empyrean, to fulfill his terrible oath, his foot struck something solid amidst the fallen. A wave of disorienting unfamiliarity washed over him, a discordant beat in the song of rage and finality that consumed him.
And then he saw him. A flicker of achingly familiar features amidst the unconscious forms. Oren. His younger brother. A man who, unlike Arthur, had been born of this world. A reminder of a family he'd left behind, a choice made long before he ever faced the Empyrean's monstrous ambitions.
Time seemed to stutter. The storm's fury, the Empyrean's escape… it all blurred in the face of an agonizing truth. He, Arthur Netherborne, was an outsider. This wasn't his world, his time. Even his family, the last vestige of a life before defiance, of a life before Runera, wasn't truly his.
Oren, lying there, unconscious but alive, was of this world. And Arthur… he was the anomaly, the paradox that had been thrust into a reality that could have unfolded perfectly well without him. The question stabbed at him, a blade far sharper than any the Empyrean could have wielded: was this man even truly his brother?
And then, like a cruel mockery of his hesitation, the chance was lost. The Empyrean, scrabbling like the pathetic creature he truly was, reached the shimmering fissure. Distraction turned into disaster – Arthur was too slow, his burning rage a flickering candle in the face of sudden doubt. He turned, lunged, a scream of fury already forming in his throat. But, too late. With a final, desperate motion, the Empyrean disappeared into the fissure, leaving only a fading afterimage, a taunt echoing his failure.
Arthur cursed, a bitter litany filled with the names of gods he'd outlived and promises of vengeance that now tasted like ash in his mouth. This was more than a defeat, more than a missed opportunity... it was an echo of what his defiance had already cost him. He turned, ready to vent his rage on the remnants of the Yalen forces still standing, when something odd shifted in the air.
The fissure sputtered, its unnatural glow pulsing erratically. A strangled cry pierced the air, and the Empyrean was…spewed back out, a graceless heap collapsing onto the ruined earth. Disbelief turned to cold certainty. The old monster howled, not in pain, but in a fury that echoed the very collapse of his schemes.
"Oriole!" the Empyrean shrieked, his voice laced with a desperation that morphed into rage, "He destroyed it! My sanctuary, my collection! It's gone…IT'S ALL GONE!"
The Empyrean thrashed on the ground, a grotesque parody of the tyrant he once was. His power, his control... the illusions he'd woven around himself were shattered. And there, before him, stood Arthur. His resolve, briefly shaken, was now a cold, hard promise. This wasn't a battle anymore. It was an execution, and Arthur Netherborne, the outsider, the defiant paradox, was both judge and executioner rolled into one.
A bitter chuckle escaped Arthur's lips. "Oriole seems to be making his presence felt, even from worlds away," he mused, a hint of grim amusement in his voice. "Strange how defiance works in harmony, even across shattered realities."
His gaze turned back to the Empyrean, who was still struggling with his ruined grandeur and the terrifying finality of his situation. Arthur lifted Nightmare, the spectral dagger vibrating with contained power. Black lightning crackled around its form, a tangible echo of its hunger for annihilation.
The Empyrean, finally sensing the true depth of his despair, started to plead. "Mercy!" he rasped, the word a broken echo of the man he once was. "It was folly…madness! I did not understand…spare me!" His voice rose, a crescendo of abject terror.
Arthur's reply was devoid of emotion, a listing of crimes far too vast for any mortal court to judge. "Countless worlds shattered at your whim…. innocents trapped in a living death for your amusement… but the true depth of your evil, old man … was seeking to twist Oriole as you have so many others."
Again, the Empyrean whined, a pitiful symphony of pleas and excuses. Arthur, with a coldness in his eyes the Empyrean couldn't comprehend, raised Nightmare.
"Last words?" Arthur asked, his voice devoid of all mercy, devoid of all hesitation. A flicker of the defiance this world had never seen bloomed behind his eyes.
The Empyrean, sensing the finality of the moment, went silent, then a twisted grin spread across his withered face. "Do you think it ends here?" He cackled, the sound broken and pathetic. "Word has already been sent. My brethren know! They know an outsider defiles their domain!"
Arthur lifted his gaze skyward. He didn't need refined senses to feel the change. Five more presences blotted the very heavens, vast and alien. The Yalen army, the last survivors of the devoured worlds...they were irrelevancies now. The Empyrean had thrown down the gauntlet, and a far greater threat loomed.
And Arthur Netherborne…grinned. A grin that held no laughter, just chilling, absolute certainty. He glanced back at the Empyrean, his voice low and laden with scorn. "Is your life worth this much groveling? Worth unleashing horrors you cannot control to save your own pathetic skin?"
The Empyrean was silent, his bravado replaced by a flicker of true fear.
"Doesn't matter," Arthur continued, his voice a rumble that shook the shattered earth around them. "Even if five more of your kind descend upon us, you die today." It was less a statement than a vow, a declaration of defiance that defied reason itself.
Golden mana exploded from him, not in a burst of destruction, but as a surge of overwhelming creation. It flowed around them, a shimmering vortex that tore at the very fabric of reality. This wasn't just a barrier, but an imposition of will. A declaration that their duel was beyond even the interference of his vile brethren.
The heavens themselves seemed to cry out in protest as the first wave of attacks struck Arthur's golden prison. And within the sanctuary of his wrath, a world bathed in defiant golden light, stood Arthur and the Empyrean. There were no tremors, no cracks in this space. This was no longer a battle of mortals. It was a struggle for the soul of the world itself, and Arthur Netherborne, the outsider turned judge and executioner, would see it through to its bloody end.
"My greatest flaw," Arthur said, almost conversationally, his gaze locked on the Empyrean, "has always been mercy. In the end, my enemies never learn. They plot, they scheme... and in the end, I have to tear down all they've built... again."
His eyes, burning with a cold, ancient light, flickered towards the golden barrier shielding them from the escalating assault of the other Empyreans. "In my short life," he continued, a hint of self-mockery in his tone, "a mere blink in the span of your foul existence, I've seen one truth: people don't change. The world does...when they are removed from it."
A grim smile touched Arthur's lips. "So, tell me, Yalen's parasite... how will the world change once you are gone from it?"
The Empyrean of Yalen, his fight finally extinguished, stood amidst the swirling golden energy. Gone was the arrogance, the desperate pleading. A heavy silence fell, broken only by the relentless assault of his brethren against Arthur's barrier, a futile attempt to change what was already written in the blood-soaked ruins of Giant Garden.
Finally, the Empyrean spoke, his voice hoarse, devoid of its former power. "They were right," he admitted, a lifetime of plots and manipulations distilling into this singular moment of stark realization. "You… were a threat."
With a defeated sigh, he lifted his head. Regret, not fear, filled his eyes as he stared at Arthur Netherborne, the outsider who had unmade his world. "I... accept defeat," he rasped, the finality of his words washing over him. He squared his shoulders, a flicker of defiance echoing in his withered frame. "Grant me a clean death, if you possess an ounce of mercy."
Arthur's amusement was tinged with bitterness. "Mercy?" he echoed. "This isn't death, old man. This is an erasure. No reincarnation, no heavenly reward. Your existence, your soul, will be severed from reality itself. It's a fate worse than any afterlife your feeble gods could offer."
Something within the Empyrean finally broke. Fear flickered across his face, a fear far more profound than the end of his life. Yet, as quickly as it came, it faded, replaced by something akin to weary acceptance.
"A loser…cannot complain." His words were a soft, final surrender. "You have won, outsider. I leave the rest to you."
It was the end of an era, a pathetic, bloody end to a lineage of tyrants. And as Arthur raised Nightmare, its spectral form alight with the promise of oblivion, the air thrummed not with mercy, but the cold, ruthless edge of his decision.
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