The loom is dust, the thread is fire,
To build the world on the funeral pyre.
A hand of iron, a heart of soot,
To crush the star beneath the foot.
The weaver rises, the weaver is cold,
To break the laws of the ancient and old.
For in the silence of the final cry,
The only truth is the reddened sky.
The transition into the Final Void was not a passage of distance, but a massacre of geometry.
As the Sun-Eater—now a skeletal, necrotic leviathan of black-wood and weeping iron—breached the membrane of the Twelve Architectures, the super-void didn't just end; it perished. The ship was smashed apart by the sheer weight of "Absolute-Origin." Every bolt and pylon was reduced to dust in a millisecond, leaving Daxian, Vane, and Silas suspended in a sea of white non-existence that smelled of ozone and ancient, frozen flesh and blood.
Daxian was a miserable state of a god.
His right side, the structure of iron-wood he had grafted to his soul, was cracked and bleeding a thick, violet-black ichor. His skull was partially exploded, the violet crystal pulse now a jagged, frantic strobe of "Pure-Noise." His eyeballs had popped out, and he hung in the white nothingness with a gaze so blood red it seemed to ignite the very vacuum.
"DAX... THE... MATH... IS... EATING... ME!"
Vane's voice was a miserable neighing rasp. The Lord of the Forge was floating beside him, his brass skin peeled ruthlessly by the "Static-Wind" of the Origin. His bones were fractured in many places, and his left arm was a massacre of raw muscle and shattered bones that jutted out of the body. He gritted his teeth, his unrivaled spirit the only thing keeping his "Concept" from being formatted.
"The... math... is... a... lie, Vane," Daxian whispered, coughing out blood that floated in the white void like beads of mercury.
The Fighting Scene: The Massacre of the Architects
The slaughter reached the climax when the True-Architects manifested.
They weren't "Sentinels." They were the First Father's Peers—beings of "Infinite-Singularity." They didn't have bodies; they were towering pillars of "Zero-Point-Logic," their wings made of Absolute-Definition. They moved with lightning speed, their hands glowing with an enormous force that could smash apart a galaxy.
"DAXIAN," the Architects spoke in a synchronized miserable neighing of power. "YOU HAVE BROUGHT THE SOOT TO THE ORIGIN. YOU SHALL PERISH."
Daxian didn't wait. He charged forward into the white fire.
He didn't use a weapon. He used his Spite.
He slammed mercilessly into the first Architect, his meat-and-wood arm smashing down ruthlessly on the pillar of light. The enormous shock of the impact smashed apart the "Absolute Logic," turning the silver-fire into meat paste and logic-dust.
Daxian laughed malevolently, his smile of disdain carved into his wooden face.
He grabbed the Architect's conceptual core. His enormous piercing fingers sank into the "White-Sun" of the being's heart.
POP.
The Architect's skull exploded. Eyeballs popped out of reality as the being was reduced to dust by the raw "Noise" pouring out of Daxian's soul. Daxian didn't stop. He wreaked havoc on the Origin-Sector.
"YOU WANT... TO... REFRESH?" Daxian roared, his voice an enormous piercing of the silence. "I'LL... GIVE... YOU... A... VIRUS!"
Behind him, Vane was a lunatic taking risks.
He didn't have a floor to stand on, so he kicked off the debris of the Sun-Eater, charging forward at lightning speed. He met a wave of "Logic-Sentinels" with an enormous punch.
Vane's bones were fractured upon impact, his skin opened and flesh split by the silver beams, but he laughed madly. He grabbed a Sentinel by its geometric throat and smashed it ruthlessly against another, the enormous force turning both into meat paste and shattered bones.
"IS THIS THE CLIMAX?" Vane screamed, coughing out a breath of turbid air.
He was unhindered by the enormous shock of the beams that bombarded his chest. He racked his brains to find the "Edges" of the Sentinels' perfection. He peeled the skin ruthlessly off their white-fire forms, revealing the hollow vacuum beneath.
"I'VE... GOT... ENOUGH... GRIT... TO... BURY... THE... WHOLE... ORIGIN!"
Vane was a massacre in the white void. He smashed apart the "Standardization" until the super-void was a blood river of silver and red. He was intensely struggling, his bones jutting out and his flesh reduced to dust, but his smile of disdain never faded.
Up on the Throne of the Shattered Crown, the High-Peer sat.
He was the "Zero-Point." The source of every "Architecture." He looked at Daxian with a dumbstruck expression that quickly turned into a smile malevolent.
"YOU... ARE... A... SOVEREIGN OF ROT," the High-Peer whispered, the voice an enormous piercing that caused Daxian's skull to partially explode again.
Daxian crashed heavily into the white floor, the impact forming a deep pit of meat paste. His eyeballs popped out, his skin was opened, his flesh split. He lay there, a miserable state of a god, his unrivaled spirit flickering.
"Look... at... you," the High-Peer mocked, descending with lightning speed. "A corpse that intensely struggles to be a Fact."
The Peer smashed down ruthlessly on Daxian's chest.
Daxian coughed out blood, his bones shattered and his flesh and blood reduced to dust. He was unhindered by the pain, but his body was filled with injuries. He looked like he was about to perish.
But as the Peer raised his hand for the final massacre, Daxian curled up his lips and laughed malevolently.
"The... soot... is... the... only... Permanence," Daxian whispered, coughing out a breath of turbid air.
Daxian didn't use his power. He used the "Final Redundancy."
He reached back to the Republic of the Broken. To Kael. To Elio. To the millions of ghosts who were slaughtering each other and rebuilding their pipes in the mud. He didn't ask for their power. He asked for their "Entropy."
A wave of "Pure-Ugliness"—the smell of hot grease, the taste of rust, the weight of a charred copper ring—erupted from Daxian's heart.
It hit the High-Peer with an enormous shock.
The white light began to crack and bleed. The "Absolute Logic" began to peel ruthlessly, revealing the meat paste of the "Original-Mistake" beneath. The Peer's skull nearly fractured from the sheer weight of "Human-Noise."
"WHAT... IS... THIS?" the Peer shrieked, his voice a miserable neighing.
"This is the Right to be an Error!" Daxian roared, charging forward from the pit with enormous force.
He grabbed the Peer's head with his meat-hand. He smashed mercilessly into the light, his bones jutting out to anchor the kill.
"PERISH!" Daxian screamed.
The enormous shock of the explosion sent a blood river of silver and red across the super-void. The massacre was over. The High-Peer perished in a cloud of meat paste and logic-dust.
Daxian stood in the center of the ruins of the Origin. He was reduced to dust in most places. His bones were shattered, his eyeballs popped out, his skull exploded. He was a miserable state of a man.
He looked at Vane and Silas, who were floating in the silver dust, filled with injuries.
"Dax... we... we did it?" Vane wheezed, coughing out blood.
Daxian didn't answer. He looked at the Throne of the Shattered Crown. It was empty. It was broken.
He walked toward it, his bones jutting out with every step. He sat down.
The white void began to turn violet-black. The "Soot" began to settle over the Origin. The universe was no longer "Perfect." It was Broken. It was Real.
The Archive is closed. The Architects are reduced to dust. I have slaughtered the light, and I have turned the Origin into a Home for the Errors. There is no more 'Law.' There is only the 'Scratch.' And the scratch... the scratch will never stop growing.
Daxian gritted his teeth, his blood red eyes closing as the silence settling slowly over the final massacre.
"Fix... the... pipes," he whispered, before crashing heavily into the Sovereignty of the Soot.