He hurtled through the abyss, the scythe's momentum carrying him forward while his mind raced through calculations and possibilities. Water screamed past him as the leviathans pursued, their massive forms visible as disturbances in the darkness, pressure waves that announced their approach long before they arrived.
He had seconds, maybe less. The cuts he had already delivered continued their work, entropy gnawing at the serpent's flesh even as it regenerated. Each wound was a persistent poison, a continuous drain that the creature had to constantly fight. The decay spread at a measurable rate.
The regeneration fought back at another. If he could land enough cuts, if he could push that balance far enough, the creatures would reach a state where they could neither recover nor function.
Thirty more cuts on each, less on the serpent, which already carried the burden of his earlier strikes. But their regeneration speeds varied, their numbers unknown, their capacities a mystery he needed to solve while flying through darkness with three apocalypses closing behind him.
He adjusted his grip on the scythe. The strategy crystallized in his mind as the first of the leviathans emerged from the darkness. He would not kill them. Killing required simultaneous destruction of all three, a feat beyond his current capacity.
Instead, he would wound them, wound them until they could no longer threaten him, until they were forced to divert all their resources to regeneration, until they became irrelevant.
The serpent lunged from the darkness, its jaws opening wide enough to swallow cities, its black teeth gleaming with hunger. Nulls waited until the last possible moment, then used the scythe's momentum to pivot, swinging himself around the creature's strike. He passed within inches of those teeth, felt the pressure of their passage against his skin, felt the displacement of water as the jaws closed on empty space.
He brought the scythe around in a tight arc and carved a trench along the serpent's flank. The blade bit deep, and entropy flooded the wound. Flesh blackened. Scales crumbled. The creature screamed and twisted away, but the damage was done. Another cut added to the tally. Another burden for its regeneration to carry.
A beam from the mountain of eyes shot past his head, close enough to part his white hair. He felt the heat of its passage, felt the pressure wave that followed, felt the nearness of death as it missed by millimeters. He simply adjusted his trajectory and kept moving, his speed remained unchanged.
A tentacle from the tower of fused bodies brushed against his leg, and he felt the flesh tear. The wound was deep, the bone exposed, and he felt the Nexus surge to repair it even as he continued moving through the abyss.
The serpent's head emerged again from the abyss behind him, its jaws opening, its black teeth gleaming with the hunger that had driven it across oceans and through centuries. Nulls brought the scythe around in a wide arc, the blade catching the creature across its snout and carving a trench through scales and flesh that extended farther than any eyesight of mammals could reach.
The serpent recoiled, black blood clouding the water, its scream a vibration that passed through Nulls's bones and into the marrow beyond. He did not pause to admire the wound. The mountain of eyes had already repositioned, its remaining orbs tracking his movement, beams of pressure lancing through the water toward his position.
He twisted, letting the first two pass close enough to part his hair, feeling the third graze his shoulder and tear through the crimson skin beneath.
Flesh shredded, bone exposed, Nexus surged to repair the damage. The wound closed, but the cost accumulated somewhere in the depths of his reserve.
A tentacle from the tower of fused bodies wrapped around his left ankle, the spinning, toothed suckers biting deep. He felt the bones in his foot crack, felt the creature pull, felt himself being dragged toward the mass of fused flesh and silent screams. He swung the scythe downward, the blade passing through the tentacle where it joined his body.
The appendage crumbled, its flesh blackening and sloughing away, but three more took its place. They wrapped around his legs, his torso, his right arm, pulling him in multiple directions, each one trying to claim a piece of him for itself. He swung the scythe in a tight circle, the blade passing through all three simultaneously.
They crumbled, their decaying remains drifting away on the current, but more came. Always more.
The serpent had recovered, its snout wound already closing, the entropy fighting against regeneration in a battle that would continue long after this moment. It circled back, its movements slower now, the cumulative weight of a dozen cuts forcing it to divert more and more of its resources to the constant fight against decay.
Nulls used the time equation, setting the distance between himself and a point directly below the serpent's head to zero. The world blurred, and he appeared there, his body already coiling into the strike, the scythe swinging downward with everything he had left. The blade struck the serpent's skull and carved through it like paper.
The blade carved through the serpent from head to tail, the cut extending farther than the horizon from the highest mountain. The wound gaped open, and from it spilled the creature's intestines, each loop large enough to swallow mountain ranges whole and still remain hungry for more. They tumbled into the abyss in endless coils, their surfaces gleaming with fluids that had never seen light, their mass displacing enough water to create currents that swept smaller creatures from miles around.
Blood flooded out in such volume that it created a second darkness within the already lightless deep, a cloud of organic matter so dense that even the serpent's own senses must have been blinded by it. The creature convulsed, its massive body folding and unfolding as the pain registered through whatever nervous system governed its existence.
The wound healed in seconds. The intestines withdrew back into the cavity. The flesh sealed over. But the entropy remained, gnawing at the newly formed tissue, ensuring that this moment of vulnerability would echo through the creature's regeneration for hours to come.
The mountain of eyes fired another volley. Beams of concentrated pressure shot through the water, each one capable of cracking the ocean floor, each one aimed at his position.
Nulls saw them coming and twisted his body, letting some pass within inches of his skin, feeling the heat of their passage, the pressure of their near misses. One beam caught his left shoulder, and he felt the bone splinter, felt the Nexus surge to repair it, felt the strength in that arm diminish for the moments it took to rebuild.
The tower of fused bodies attacked with a thousand tentacles, each one reaching, grasping, hungry. Nulls positioned the scythe and let them come. The first tentacle touched the blade and sliced itself open on its own momentum, the wound blackening and spreading as entropy consumed it from within. The second did the same. The third, the fourth, the fifth. They impaled themselves on the entropy edge in endless succession, their numbers seemingly infinite, their hunger undiminished by the destruction of their fellows.
"Marky," he commanded through the bond, through the connection that linked him to the weapon in his grip. "Maximum entropy on every cut. Make it last."
The scythe responded, its edge deepening in color, its hunger intensifying. Each subsequent cut carried more weight, more poison, more persistent destruction. The tentacles that touched it now did not simply blacken at the wound.
They withered along their entire length, the decay spreading faster than the tower could regenerate, forcing the creature to sever its own appendages to save the rest of its mass.
A beam from the mountain caught him in the right leg below the knee. The bone shattered. The flesh tore. He felt himself spin through the water, the scythe nearly slipping from his grip, his body a ruin that refused to stop fighting.
He regenerated as he flew, the Nexus flowing, the bone knitting, the flesh sealing, but each repair cost something, each moment of vulnerability was an opportunity for the creatures to press their advantage.
He used the time equation, setting his distance to a point directly above the serpent's head to zero. The world blurred, and he appeared there, his body already coiling into the strike, the scythe swinging downward with everything he had left.. The blade struck the serpent's skull and carved through it like paper.
The creature's brain, an organ the size of a mountain range, was exposed to the void. Entropy flooded it, blackening tissue, destroying connections, ending thoughts. For a single heartbeat, the serpent went still. Its eyes glazed. Its body went limp. The constant motion of its massive form ceased entirely.
Then the regeneration kicked in. New tissue grew to replace the old. New connections formed. New thoughts emerged. The serpent shook its head and resumed its attack, but something had changed. Its movements were slower now, less coordinated. The constant battle between decay and renewal was taking its toll, forcing the creature to divert more and more of its resources to survival, leaving less for offense.
The mountain fired again, a volley of beams that filled the water. Nulls swung the scythe, using it as a shield, catching some beams on the blade, letting others pass. One struck his chest, and he felt his sternum shatter, felt his heart stutter, felt the Nexus surge to repair the damage even as more beams followed. He coughed blood into the water, watched it disperse in the current, and kept fighting.
The tower attacked with another wave of tentacles, this time coordinated with the mountain's beams, creating a net of destruction that left almost no gaps. Nulls swung the scythe in wide arcs, cutting through tentacles, deflecting beams, surviving through pure momentum and the weapon's impossible edge. Each cut added to the entropy burden. Each wound deepened the decay. The creatures were slowing, their attacks becoming less frequent, less coordinated, less effective.
He carved a trench along the serpent's flank, a wound that extended farther than the horizon, deeper than any canyon, wider than any river. The flesh blackened and crumbled, and the regeneration fought to close it, but the entropy fought harder. The wound remained, a persistent reminder of the cost of this battle.
He sliced through a cluster of the mountain's eyes, blinding a dozen at once, the wounds continuing to spread even as new orbs formed in their place. The creature's barrage became erratic, some beams firing too high, some too low, some missing by such wide margins that they posed no threat at all.
He cut through a mass of the tower's tentacles, severing hundreds, the stumps blackening and withering even as new appendages emerged. The creature's attacks slowed, its coordination faltering, its hunger seemingly diminished by the constant battle against decay.
The serpent lunged again, its jaws opening wide, its black teeth gleaming. Nulls waited until the last moment, then swung the scythe in a rising arc that caught the creature's lower jaw and carved upward through its snout.
The wound split its face from chin to forehead, exposing bone and muscle and the caverns of its sinuses. The serpent screamed and recoiled, and the entropy spread through the wound, blackening tissue, crumbling bone, ensuring that this injury would haunt it long after the flesh healed.
He was tiring. The constant exertion, the endless regeneration, the relentless attacks were wearing him down. His swings were slower now, his movements less precise, his reactions less sharp. The creatures sensed it, pressing their advantage, attacking with renewed ferocity despite their own wounds.
A beam from the mountain caught him in the left arm, shattering the bone below the elbow. He felt the limb go limp, felt the scythe slip in his grip, felt himself start to fall. He channeled Nexus into the arm, forcing the regeneration, forcing the bone to knit, forcing the muscles to function. The arm healed, but the effort cost him, and the scythe dipped lower, its weight dragging at his exhausted frame.
A tentacle from the tower wrapped around his right leg and pulled. He felt himself dragged through the water, felt the creature drawing him toward its central mass where a thousand mouths waited to feed. He swung the scythe with his left arm, the blade catching the tentacle and severing it, but more tentacles took its place, wrapping around his torso, his arms, his neck.
He was being pulled apart. The tentacles tightened, their strength immense, their grip inescapable. He felt his ribs crack. Felt his spine compress. Felt the Nexus surge to repair the damage even as more damage was inflicted. The scythe was pinned against his body, unable to swing, unable to cut, unable to save him.
The mountain of eyes gathered its remaining orbs for a final volley, all its beams focused on his position. The serpent circled back, its jaws opening, its teeth ready to close. The tower pulled him closer, its thousand mouths opening in anticipation.
Nulls looked at the scythe pinned against his chest. He looked at the tentacles holding him. He looked at the mountain preparing to fire, at the serpent ready to strike, at the tower waiting to feed.
He spoke one word through the bond, through the connection that linked him to the weapon in his grip.
"Marky!"
Entropy exploded from the blade in all directions, a wave of decay that passed through the tentacles holding him and turned them to dust. It passed through the water and struck the mountain's remaining eyes, blinding it completely. It passed through the serpent's jaws, blackening the teeth, rotting the gums, decaying the bone. It passed through the tower's mass, withering a thousand mouths, crumbling a thousand eyes, reducing a thousand tentacles to ash.
The creatures recoiled. The mountain stopped firing. The serpent pulled back. The tower withdrew its remaining appendages.
Nulls hung in the water, the scythe before him, his chest heaving, his body a patchwork of wounds and regenerations. The creatures hung before him. His remaining leg trembled with exhaustion. The scythe hung from his grip, its weight almost too much to bear, wounded, exhausted, their attacks ceased, their hunger temporarily overwhelmed by the need to survive.
He looked at the serpent. Its body was a landscape of entropy, blackened wounds covering its entire length, its regeneration fighting a losing battle against the decay that consumed it. It hung in the water, barely moving, its eyes half-lidded, its breath shallow. It was at the edge of death's scythe, one foot in the grave, the other sliding toward it.
The serpent hung before him, its body a patchwork of wounds, its regeneration fighting a losing battle against the entropy that saturated every tissue. It watched him with eyes that had dimmed, that had lost their hunger, that now held only the awareness of approaching death.
Nulls raised the scythe. He gathered what remained of his strength, what remained of his power, what remained of his will. He swung.
The blade caught the serpent across the throat, carving through scales and flesh and bone, opening a wound that extended beyond the horizon's reach. Black blood poured into the water, clouding it, darkening it, adding to the organic debris that now filled the abyss.
The creature's head separated from its body, the two halves drifting apart, the eyes still watching, still aware, still caught between death and the regeneration that could no longer save them.
The serpent hung at the edge of death's scythe, neither alive nor dead, caught in an eternal moment of transition that would last for hours or days or weeks. Its body would continue to fight, would desperately continue to regenerate flesh whose sole purpose now was to decay, trapped in a cycle that had no end.
He turned to the other two. The mountain was blind, its remaining orbs dark, its barrage silenced. The tower was withered, its tentacles reduced to stumps, its mouths closed and blackened. But they still moved. They still sensed him. They still hungered.
They were still there. Their animalistic intelligence recognized him as prey, recognized his weakness, recognized the opportunity that his exhaustion presented. They would attack again. They would always attack again.
Nulls smiled through the blood that covered his face.
"Two left," he said. "Such a shame such beautiful numbers must be reduced to zero."
The mountain of eyes lunged toward him, its remaining orbs blazing with desperate fury, beams of pressure lancing through the water in a continuous barrage that left no room for hesitation or error. Nulls swung the scythe in tight arcs, deflecting what he could, dodging what he could not, feeling the heat of near misses as they passed close enough to part his hair and tear at the already shredded edges of his clothing.
The tower of fused bodies attacked from the opposite direction, its thousand mouths opening to release waves of psychic agony that pressed against his consciousness like physical weight. Each wave threatened to break his concentration, to make him drop the scythe, to leave him vulnerable to the mountain's beams. He pushed through them, the Nexus within him burning brighter with each assault, the cost accumulating somewhere in the depths of his reserve.
A beam struck his left shoulder, spinning him through the water, the flesh there vaporizing instantly. He felt the Nexus surge to repair it, felt the drain, felt the growing emptiness where his power resided. He did not have much left. Neither did they.
The mountain's wounds were visible now, great craters in its flesh where his earlier cuts had landed, each one blackened with entropy that continued to spread despite the creature's desperate regeneration. Its beams came less frequently now, the damage forcing it to divert resources to survival rather than attack.
The tower's form had changed, its fused bodies sagging under their own weight, the connections between them weakening as entropy gnawed at the bonds that held them together. Its thousand mouths still opened and closed, still released their waves of agony, but the power behind those waves had diminished.
Nulls gripped the scythe with both hands and charged.
He swung at the mountain first, the blade catching a cluster of orbs and carving through them like a knife through rotting fruit. The creature screamed, a vibration that passed through the water and into his bones, and more beams fired wildly in response. One caught his leg below the knee, and he felt the flesh dissolve, felt himself list to one side, felt the Nexus surge to begin regeneration.
He did not stop swinging.
Before he could reach the mountain, the tower's remaining tentacles wrapped around his ankles, his wrists, his throat. They pulled in opposite directions, trying to tear him apart, trying to separate his limbs from his body. Nulls slashed at the tentacles holding his right wrist, the coated claws passing through them like vapor, and they ended.
The tentacle around his throat tightened, cutting off the water he had somehow learned to breathe in this abyss. He brought his claws up and slashed through it, feeling the pressure release, feeling air flood back into lungs that had started to burn.
Another cut opened a trench along the mountain's flank, the wound extending farther than the horizon could reach, black blood clouding the water for miles in every direction. The creature's regeneration fought back, but the entropy was too deep now, too widespread. The wound would not close. It would never close.
The tower's tentacles wrapped around him from behind, dozens of them, hundreds of them, pulling him away from the mountain, dragging him toward the mass of fused flesh where a thousand mouths waited to feed. He swung the scythe behind him, the blade passing through tentacles that crumbled into blackened ash, but more took their place.
He needed something more. Something decisive. Something that would end this.
The idea came to him as a tentacle wrapped around his throat, as the pressure built in his skull, as the edges of his vision began to darken. The scythe was entropy given form. It could be changed. It could be reshaped.
He focused his will on the weapon, on the Marky within it, on the fundamental nature of decay that it embodied. He commanded it to change, to condense, to become something new.
The scythe responded.
Its form began to shift, the long haft shortening, the double blades merging, the metal flowing like liquid as it transformed into something else entirely. The tentacles holding him felt the change and recoiled, their primitive awareness recognizing danger, but it was too late.
The sphere formed. It was small, no larger than his fist, and utterly black. Not the black of absence, of darkness, of shadow. This was the black of something that had never been anything, that had never existed, that existed now only as a violation of existence itself. The water around it did not boil or freeze or vaporize. It simply ceased to be.
Molecules broke down into constituent atoms. Atoms broke down into particles. Particles broke down into quarks. Quarks became strings, vibrating threads of potential that had no place in this reality. And the strings became something else, something nameless, something that human language had no words for and human minds could not comprehend.
A thin membrane formed around the sphere, containing it, stabilizing it, holding it in a state of temporary balance. Nulls reached out and touched it, and the membrane flowed onto his hands, coating his claws with a layer of absolute decay.
He could feel the timer now, a countdown in the back of his mind. Six minutes. He had six minutes before the membrane failed, before the sphere destabilized, before the entropy consumed everything within range. Including him. Including the leviathans. Including this entire section of the ocean floor.
Nexus from an external source. Yog had warned him. This would count.
Four minutes if he was careful. Three if he pushed. He would need to be fast.
The tower's tentacles reached for him again, their hunger overriding their fear. He raised one coated claw and slashed through a cluster of them. Where his claws passed, the flesh did not simply decay. It ceased. It became nothing. The tentacles did not crumble or blacken or dissolve. They simply ended, as if they had never existed.
The tower screamed, a thousand voices unified in sudden understanding of what it faced.
Nulls kicked off from the creature's mass and shot toward the mountain. He reached it in seconds, his claws raised, his timer counting down.
The mountain's remaining eyes, dozens of them clustered together in desperate defiance, all focused on him at once. Every orb fired simultaneously, a volley of pressure beams that filled the water between them with converging lines of force.
Nulls raised his coated claws and met the barrage head-on, the beams striking the membrane and dissolving into nothing, each impact sending vibrations through his arms that threatened to tear the claws from his grip.
The last beam slipped past his guard and struck his side, carving a trench through flesh that exposed ribs beneath. He felt the Nexus surge to repair it, felt the drain, felt the seconds ticking away. He did not stop.
First cut. He slashed across the mountain's central cluster, where the largest orbs clustered together. The wound gaped, a canyon of absence where flesh had been, and from its edges, the entropy spread outward like living darkness consuming light.
The mountain's remaining eyes watched in horror as the nothing grew, as their companions blinked out one by one, as the creature's own body became its enemy.
It fired another volley, weaker now, desperate, and Nulls caught them on his claws without slowing. Each beam he absorbed fed the membrane, made it pulse brighter, made the timer tick faster. He could feel the seconds burning away with each impact.
The mountain screamed and tried to pull away, but he was already moving, already positioning for the second cut.
Second cut. He carved along its flank, following the line of an earlier wound, deepening it, widening it, turning a trench of decay into a chasm of nothing. The creature's body began to sag, the structural integrity of its form compromised beyond repair.
The mountain's body sagged, its structural integrity compromised, but its remaining eyes fixed on him with something that might have been rage. It gathered every orb that still functioned, every beam of pressure it could still generate, and fired them all at once in a final desperate barrage. Dozens of beams converged on him from every angle, leaving no space to dodge, no gap to exploit.
Nulls crossed his claws before his face and let them come. Beam after beam struck the membrane and dissolved, each impact driving him back through the water, each one costing seconds he could not afford. The last beam struck his leg below the knee, and the limb ended, severed cleanly, the stump cauterized by the beam's heat before the Nexus could begin repair. He did not slow. He kicked with his remaining leg and closed the distance.
The tower attacked from behind, a mass of tentacles and fused flesh slamming into him, driving him away from the mountain. He spun in the water, claws extended, and slashed through the creature's mass in a wide arc.
Third cut. The tower's form split along a line that had no business existing, its two halves separating, the connections between thousands of fused bodies severing all at once. Organs spilled out, each one large enough to swallow cities, each one trailing fluids that turned to nothing where they touched the entropy coating his claws.
The tower's two halves separated, organs spilling from the wound, each one trailing fluids that turned to vapor where they touched the water. But the creature was not dead. It could not die.
Its thousand mouths opened and released a final scream, a wave of psychic agony so intense that Nulls felt his vision darken, felt his grip on consciousness waver, felt himself start to fall.
He caught himself on a fragment of the tower's flesh, his claws sinking into it, the entropy spreading from the contact. The scream continued, went on and on, and with it came images, the faces of every creature absorbed into the tower, their terror, their pain, their endless awareness trapped within the fused mass.
Nulls saw them all, felt them all, and through it, he held on. He held on until the scream faded, until the mouths closed, until the tower's halves drifted far enough apart that the connection between them finally broke.
Fourth cut. He drove his claws into the creature's core, into the place where its consciousness resided, into the heart of what made it a single entity rather than a collection of parts.
The mountain's core gave way, entropy reaching whatever passed for consciousness in this thing. Its body convulsed once, twice, then went still. Most of its remaining eyes dimmed, their light fading into the nothing that now filled its wounds. But one eye, a single orb among thousands, held a faint glimmer, still watching, still aware and waiting.
He pulled his claws free and pushed away. The mountain's body hung before him, massive and apparently still, caught in what would become the endless cycle of regeneration and decay. It would never threaten him again. Or so it wanted him to believe.
The tower hung nearby, its two halves barely connected, its thousand mouths silent. It too twitched, its fused bodies still trying to maintain their union, still trying to hold together against the entropy that now saturated every bond between them.
Nulls floated between them, his chest heaving, his coated claws still extended, his timer reading four minutes remaining. The membrane on his hands pulsed with contained destruction, waiting to be used again, waiting to end whatever it touched.
The mountain moved. One of its remaining eyes, a single orb among thousands, swiveled to face him. A beam of pressure formed, weak compared to its earlier attacks, but still dangerous. It fired.
Nulls caught it on his claw. The beam ended. The eye that fired it went dark.
The tower's two halves separated, organs spilling from the wound, each one trailing fluids that turned to vapor where they touched the water. But the creature was not dead. It could not die. Its thousand mouths opened and released a final scream.
Nulls looked at his timer. Three minutes left. Two minutes if he pushed.
He turned to face the tower. Its thousand mouths were silent now. The tower's two halves drifted further apart, the gap between them now wider than cities, but still they twitched, still they tried to reconnect, still their fused bodies fought against the entropy that saturated every bond. Nulls approached the larger half, his claws raised.
He did not need to kill it. He only needed to ensure it could never threaten him again. He slashed across its base, where the fused bodies met the ocean floor, and the connection ended.
The half toppled, settling onto the sediment with an impact that shook the abyss. Its thousand mouths opened one final time, but no sound emerged.
They simply hung there, open and empty, as the creature's awareness faded into the endless twilight between life and death. He turned from the dying thing and looked toward the distant darkness where the mountain had fled
Nulls looked at his claws, at the membrane that coated them, at the power that waited to be used. He could end the inconvinients. One cut each, and they would be gone, truly gone, their existence erased from this reality forever.
They would never threaten him again.
He dismissed them from his attention and turned toward the darkness where the mountain had fled. Its massive form was still visible in the distance, moving away as fast as its wounded body could carry it, leaving a trail of black blood and decaying tissue in its wake.
The battlefield had grown quiet around him. The serpent's twitching had slowed. The tower's halves drifted further apart. Only the mountain remained, fleeing into the abyss, desperate to escape the predator that had broken its brothers.
Nulls kicked off from the ocean floor, ignoring the fatigue that screamed through every muscle, ignoring the pain that should have overwhelmed him, ignoring the timer that had somehow, impossibly, held.
The mountain fled before him. He pursued.
The mountain's eyes. He scanned the battlefield, searching for the creature that had caused him so much trouble, that had fired beam after beam, that had nearly killed him a dozen times over.
It was gone.
The mountain of eyes, the one that had led the attack, that had coordinated with the others, that had shown something almost like intelligence in its tactics, had fled. Its massive form was visible in the distance, moving away from the battlefield as fast as its wounded body could carry it.
Nulls's timer read one minute fifty seconds.
He looked at the fleeing creature, at its damaged form, at the wounds that still wept entropy into the water around it. One more cut. One more cut and it would join its brothers, suspended at the edge of death, no longer a threat to anyone.
He kicked off from the ocean floor, ignoring the fatigue that screamed through every muscle, ignoring the pain that should have overwhelmed him, ignoring the timer that continued its relentless countdown.
The mountain fled before him, its remaining eyes swiveling to track his approach, its beams firing wild and desperate. He dodged them, caught them, ended them, closing the distance with each passing second.
One minute remained.
This was personal now. They had wounded him. They had nearly killed him like an animal. They had made him fight for every inch of ground, every moment of survival, every breath he drew. And now one of them thought it could run.
Nulls's claws extended before him, the membrane pulsing with contained destruction, ready to end whatever it touched.
The mountain fled through the abyssal water, its massive form a dark blot against the already lightless darkness, its remaining eyes swiveling frantically to track his approach.
Beams of pressure shot toward him, wild and desperate, each one carrying less force than the last as the creature's wounds sapped its strength and its will.
A volley of beams shot toward him from the darkness ahead, the mountain's remaining eyes firing blind, desperate to slow his pursuit.
Nulls raised his coated claws and caught the first three beams directly, their pressure dissolving into nothing against the entropy membrane. The fourth beam slipped past his guard and struck his shoulder, carving through flesh and exposing the bone beneath.
He felt the Nexus surge to repair it, felt the warmth of regeneration spreading through the wound, felt the cost accumulating in the depths where his power resided. He did not slow.
Nulls dodged the last beam, letting it pass close enough to part his hair, feeling the heat of its passage against his already burned skin. The second, he caught on his coated claw, the pressure dissolving into nothing as the entropy membrane absorbed it completely. The third missed entirely, the creature's aim compromised by its injuries and its fear.
The mountain was afraid. After everything, after all the damage it had inflicted, all the wounds it had survived, all the battles it had fought across millennia, it was afraid of him.
One minute forty seconds remained on the membrane's timer.
He pushed harder, kicking through the water with strokes that tore at muscles already pushed beyond their limits. The distance between them closed, mile by mile, second by second. The mountain's wounds left a trail in the water behind it, black blood and decaying tissue that dissolved into nothing where it touched the currents.
The creature knew it could not escape. Its massive body, built for power and endurance rather than speed, could not outrun the smaller, faster predator that pursued it.
The mountain twisted in the water, its massive form turning to face him directly, its remaining eyes all focused on him with something that might have been understanding.
This was where it would make its stand. This was where it would fight or die. A volley of beams shot toward him, a dozen at once, their paths weaving and crossing in patterns designed to leave no gap.
He raised his claws and met them, the beams dissolving against the membrane, each impact sending vibrations through his arms that threatened to tear the claws from his grip.
Its remaining orbs tracked his approach with growing desperation, each one firing beams that grew weaker with every volley.
One beam slipped through his guard, passing between his claws and striking his chest. The impact drove him backward through the water, the beam carving a trench through his torso that exposed ribs and organs beneath.
He felt the Nexus surge to repair it, felt the warmth of regeneration spreading through the wound, felt the drain on reserves that had almost nothing left to give. He did not stop. He kicked forward again, closing the distance, his claws extended before him like the blades of the scythe they had once been.
A tentacle, one of the mountain's feeding appendages, lashed out toward him. It was thick as a city block and lined with suckers that spun like drill bits.
The appendage wrapped around his waist before he could dodge, its thickness greater than any building he had seen in this world, its grip threatening to crush the breath from his lungs.
He brought his coated claws down on it, the entropy membrane slicing through the flesh as if it were vapor, and the tentacle ended. The severed stump trailed fluids that turned to nothing before they could cloud the water.
Another tentacle took its place immediately, wrapping around his throat, cutting off the water he had learned to breathe. He slashed through it without slowing, feeling the pressure release, feeling air flood back into lungs that had started to burn.
One minute twenty seconds.
The mountain's central cluster of eyes, the ones that had caused him so much trouble throughout the battle, swiveled to face him directly. A volley of beams shot toward him, a dozen at once, their paths crossing and weaving in patterns designed to leave no gap.
Nulls did not dodge. He raised both claws and met the barrage head-on.
The first beam touched his left claw and ended. The second touched his right claw and ended. The third, the fourth, the fifth. Each one met the membrane and dissolved into nothing, their energy absorbed, their threat nullified. The last beam passed between his claws and struck his shoulder, tearing through flesh and bone, spinning him through the water.
He felt the wound, felt the Nexus surge to repair it, felt the drain on reserves that had almost nothing left to give. He did not stop. He could not stop.
Fifty seconds.
The mountain's form filled his vision now, its bulk so massive that he could see nothing else. Its remaining eyes, fewer than a hundred now, all focused on him with something that might have been recognition, might have been acceptance, might have been the final understanding that this was where it ended.
Every remaining eye fired at once, a concentrated barrage that filled the water between them with converging lines of pressure. Nulls saw them coming, saw the pattern of their approach, and knew he could not dodge them all.
He raised his claws and let them come. Beam after beam struck the membrane and dissolved, each impact sending shockwaves through his arms, each one costing seconds he could not afford.
The last beam struck his leg below the knee, and the limb ended, severed cleanly, the stump cauterized by the beam's heat before the Nexus could begin repair. He did not slow. He kicked with his remaining leg and closed the distance.
He raised his claws and struck.
The mountain's flesh resisted the blow, tougher than any he had faced, denser, more vital from centuries of survival in this abyss. The entropy membrane flared bright as it worked, consuming layer after layer, each one taking seconds he could not spare. The creature screamed, a vibration that passed through the water and into his bones, and its remaining eyes tracked him with desperate hatred.
He pushed harder, forced the claws deeper, and finally the flesh gave way. A wound opened along the mountain's flank, extending farther than the horizon could reach, and from that wound, black blood poured into the water, clouding it, darkening it, adding to the organic debris that now filled the abyss.
The first cut carved across the mountain's central cluster, the blade of entropy passing through a dozen orbs at once. The orbs did not all end at once. Some resisted, their inner light flaring brighter as the entropy touched them, fighting against the decay with desperate intensity.
Nulls felt them through the membrane, felt their resistance, felt the seconds burning away as each one fought its own private battle against annihilation. One by one, they dimmed, their light fading, their awareness ending, their presence in this world reduced to nothing. But each one took time. Each one cost him seconds he could barely afford. The timer in his mind ticked down, relentless and ceaseless.
The creature screamed, a vibration that passed through the water and into his bones, that shook the ocean floor and sent currents racing in every direction.
The second cut followed the first, deeper this time, reaching through the flesh behind the eyes, into the core where the creature's consciousness resided.
The mountain's core resisted him with everything it had left. Flesh regenerated as fast as the entropy consumed it, the creature pouring every remaining drop of its power into the desperate fight to survive. Nulls felt the battle through his claws, felt the push and pull of creation against destruction, felt the seconds burning away as the two forces fought to a standstill. His timer ticked down.
He pushed harder, channeled more of the membrane's power into the cut, and felt the core begin to give. One thirty. One twenty. The resistance weakened, faltered, failed. The core ended. The mountain went still.
Thirty seconds.
The core ended. The membrane on his claws flared bright as it touched something vital, something essential, something that made this creature a single entity rather than a collection of parts. The mountain's body convulsed one final time, then went still. This time, the stillness was real. The feint had failed. The mountain would flee no more. It hung in the water before him, caught at last in the same eternal cycle that held its brothers.
Twenty seconds.
Nulls pulled his claws free and pushed away from the dying creature. Its body hung in the water before him, massive and dark and still, caught in the same eternal moment of transition that held its brothers. It would regenerate and decay in endless cycle, never recovering, never dying, never becoming anything more than a monument to the battle that had broken it.
Ten seconds.
The membrane on his hands pulsed one final time, then began to destabilize. He felt the entropy within it stirring, felt it reaching for something to consume, felt the timer reaching its end.
Eight seconds.
The membrane on his hands pulsed once, twice, three times in rapid succession, each pulse brighter than the last, each one sending vibrations deep into the bones of his arms. The entropy within it had grown restless, hungry, aware that its containment was failing. Nulls felt it stirring, felt it reaching for something to consume, felt the timer counting down to a detonation that would erase everything within range.
Seven seconds.
A low hiss emanated from the membrane, a sound that passed through the water and into his skull, a warning that the end was approaching. The water around his hands began to behave strangely, molecules breaking down into constituent atoms, atoms into particles, particles into something that had no name. A sphere of absolute nothing expanded outward from his claws, growing by millimeters with each passing second.
Six seconds.
He could see it now, the destabilization spreading through the membrane like cracks through ice, each fracture a pathway for the contained entropy to escape. The cracks grew wider, longer, more numerous, their edges glowing with a light that was not light, a darkness that was somehow visible against the already absolute black of the abyss.
Five seconds.
The sphere around his hands had grown to the size of his head, and within it, reality simply ceased to exist. Not destroyed. Not unmade. Simply never having been. The water that touched its boundary did not boil or freeze or vaporize. It became nothing, and the nothing spread.
Four seconds.
Nulls felt the timer reaching its end, felt the entropy within the membrane preparing to release, felt the coming detonation with a clarity that transcended thought. This was it. This was where he died, where the leviathans died, where this entire section of the ocean floor ceased to exist. All because he had pushed too far, had held the membrane too long, had gambled and lost.
Three seconds.
The cracks in the membrane joined, forming a network of failure that covered its entire surface. The sphere around his hands expanded faster now, its boundary racing outward, consuming water, consuming light, consuming the very concept of existence. He could feel it reaching for him, feel its hunger, feel the nothing that waited at its heart.
Two seconds.
He looked at his hands, at the claws still coated with the membrane, at the entropy that was about to consume him. He thought of Yog, of the contract, of everything he had done to survive this far. He thought of the leviathans behind him, of the mountain fleeing in the distance, of all the battles still to fight.
One second.
The membrane began to tear.
Nulls closed his eyes and reached into the entropy with his will, not to contain it, not to control it, but to speak to it. To the Marky within it. To the beast that had taken this form. He did not command. He did not demand. He simply asked, with everything he had left, to hold on. Just a little longer. Just enough.
The membrane held.
The tearing stopped. The cracks froze mid-spread. The sphere around his hands halted its expansion. The entropy, for one single moment, listened.
Nulls opened his eyes and saw the destruction frozen at the edge of his vision, saw the nothing that waited millimeters from his skin, saw the power that he had somehow, impossibly, convinced to wait.
He pulled the entropy back into the sphere, back into the membrane, back into the form that Marky had taken. He pulled with everything he had, with every drop of Nexus that remained in his reserves, with every fiber of his being that refused to die in this abyss surrounded by the corpses of creatures that had tried to kill him.
The sphere shrank. The membrane reformed. The cracks sealed.
The entropy, sated for the moment, returned to its contained state.
Nulls hung in the water, his chest heaving, his body shaking with the effort of what he had just done. The membrane on his hands pulsed once more, a single pulse, gentle this time, almost apologetic.
The entropy flowed away from him, spreading into the water in waves that dissipated as they traveled, their destructive power fading into nothing. The sphere that had been its source collapsed in on itself one final time, and Marky returned to its scythe form, the weapon materializing in his grip as if it had never been anything else.
The timer reached zero. The entropy was gone. The danger was past. He had held on, had asked, had been heard, and the abyss had not claimed him.
Nulls hung in the water, his body a ruin held together by will and the last dregs of his power, and for one long moment, he simply existed. He breathed the water that wanted to kill him. He felt the pressure that should have crushed him. He umanifested the scythe that had almost ended him.
Behind him, three leviathans hung in the water, their massive forms twitching with the endless battle between decay and regeneration, their eyes dark, their screams silent, their existence reduced to nothing more than monuments to the fight that had broken them.
The mountain hung in the water, its massive form twitching with the endless battle between decay and regeneration. Its remaining eyes, those that had not been destroyed, tracked his movements with something that might have been recognition, might have been fear, might have been the first stirrings of understanding that its existence had changed forever.
Nulls raised his hand and began to trace. The sigil formed in the water before him, lines of purple light hanging in the current, each stroke precise and deliberate.
The geometry was complex, drawn from the same equations that had created the talismans on his own body, adapted now for a different purpose. When the final line connected, the symbol pulsed once, twice, three times, each pulse brighter than the last.
He flicked his wrist, and the sigil shot toward the mountain. It struck the creature's flank and sank into its flesh, disappearing into the mass of decayed tissue and struggling regeneration.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the mountain shuddered, a ripple passing through its body from the point of impact, and the entropy that had been consuming it began to slow.
Nulls traced another sigil. Then another. Then another.
Each one followed the same path, striking the mountain at different points, sinking into its flesh, taking root in the chaos of its wounds. The creature's twitching grew less frantic, its remaining eyes losing some of their wild fear, settling into something closer to acceptance.
Twenty sigils in total. One for each major wound cluster, each major organ, each center of neural activity that still functioned within its ruined form.
When the last one landed, Nulls turned to the tower. The creature's two halves drifted separately through the water, their distance from each other growing with each passing moment.
Organs continued to spill from the wound that divided them, each one trailing fluids that turned to vapor where they touched the water. A thousand mouths opened and closed in silent gasps, their screams exhausted, their consciousness fragmented between two dying halves.
Nulls traced the first sigil and flicked it toward the larger half. It struck and sank in, and the creature's thrashing slowed. He traced the second and sent it toward the smaller half. The effect was the same.
Twenty sigils for the tower. Ten for each half, distributed across their forms, taking root in the chaos of their shared existence.
The two halves stopped drifting apart. They hung in the water, separate but connected through the sigils that now bound them, their thousand mouths closing one by one as the entropy within them stabilized.
Nulls turned to the serpent. The creature's body stretched for miles through the darkness, its scales dull, its eyes dim, its form a patchwork of wounds that would never fully heal. The cut that had nearly separated its head from its body still gaped, the flesh around it blackened and crumbling, the regeneration too weak to overcome the entropy that saturated every tissue.
He traced the first sigil and sent it toward the serpent's head. It struck and sank in, and the creature's remaining eye blinked once, slowly, deliberately.
Twenty sigils for the serpent. Distributed along its length, from the tip of its snout to the end of its tail, each one finding purchase in the chaos of its wounds.
When the last one landed, Nulls extended his right hand toward the three leviathans. His fingers curled into a fist, and the sigils responded.
Chains erupted from every point where the symbols had landed, black metal forming from nothing, wrapping around the creatures' bodies in spiraling bands that covered every inch of their ruined forms. The chains tightened, pulled, bound, their links glowing with the same purple light that had illuminated the sigils.
Black chains erupted from the sigil, spreading across the serpent's body like living things, covering every inch of its rotting flesh with links of absolute darkness. The chains wrapped around its wounds, around its coils, around its head and tail and everything between, binding it in an embrace it could never escape. Where the chains passed over the wounds, the entropy slowed, the decay easing, the creature's suffering diminishing by fractions that would still leave it in agony but no longer at the edge of death.
For the tower, the chains wrapped around both halves simultaneously, pulling them together even as they held them separate. The distance between the two pieces remained, but the chains connected them, binding them into a single entity despite their physical separation.
The creatures thrashed once, twice, a final protest against their new reality. Then they went still.
Nulls lowered his hand and looked at them. The mountain, its remaining eyes fixed on him with something that might have been expectation. The tower, its thousand mouths closed, its two halves hanging in perfect stillness. The serpent, its single eye watching, waiting.
"Mind yourselves while I'm away," Nulls said, his voice carrying through the water, reaching each of them despite the distance. "Father has work to do."
The mountain's eyes blinked in sequence, one after another after another. The tower's mouths remained closed, but a vibration passed through its fused bodies that might have been acknowledgment. The serpent's eye closed once, slowly, then opened again.
They understood. Or they would understand, when the sigils finished their work and the false memories took root. They would remember him as the progenitor from which the creature had sprung, to which it owed existence, to which it owed loyalty, and obedience, the paternal figure who had given them existence and purpose. They would forget the battle, the wounds, the endless struggle to kill each other. They would remember only him.
Nulls turned away from them and began to swim toward the surface. The scythe pulled him forward, its weight a comfort now rather than a burden, its entropy waiting to be used again when needed. Behind him, three leviathans hung in the darkness, bound by chains of black metal, their wounds stabilized, their existence preserved, their minds slowly being remade into something new.
The abyss swallowed him as he ascend. He did not look down, no need. They would be there when he activated the sigils, waiting for his commands, ready to serve whatever purpose he required.
The eschaton continued.