The big bad - chapter 56
Inside the Prism Cathedral, the light of countless colors reflected across the crystal walls.
The cathedral had become a temporary refuge in the chaos of war.
At its center stood Arthur.
His armor was broken. Blood stained his side. His breathing was slow and heavy.
Only one thing kept him standing.
The Light of Creation.
The same power that allowed him to regenerate was now the only reason he remained alive after his clash with Oblivion.
Around him stood the companions of his journey:
Ethan
Clarita
Leo
Jay
Enligh
Leyla
Jack
Marco
They had all escaped the battlefield and regrouped here.
The war had changed everything.
Immortals could now die.
For the first time in centuries, the battlefield had real stakes.
Leo crossed his arms, staring at Arthur with excitement.
"I heard that guy was powerful," Leo said.
"But you were better. That's so cool."
Arthur chuckled weakly.
"I heard you beat a Demon King," he replied.
"That was impressive."
Arthur looked at Leo more carefully.
Then he narrowed his eyes.
"But something feels different about you."
"You're not just a demigod anymore."
Leo blinked.
"What do you mean?"
Arthur shrugged slightly.
"I don't know... your presence feels different."
Leo grinned proudly, clearly enjoying the compliment.
But Ethan suddenly spoke up from the side, completely serious.
"So does that mean Leo isn't actually Leo?"
The group turned toward him.
Ethan adjusted his glasses.
"What if he's a shapeshifter?"
Silence filled the room.
Then everyone burst into laughter.
Even Arthur couldn't stop himself.
The tension of the war eased for a moment.
Just a moment.
Then asked Leyla
"i though the guy supposed to be death why you didn't die from direct attack?"she said as Arthur then spoke
" harbingers and primodials above rules they won't be affected by death powers unless killed"as if he point the obvious "
Oblivion pov:
Far away, in a completely different part of the End World, another figure collapsed.
Oblivion.
The Harbinger of Death and End fell to one knee.
His body was torn apart from the battle with Arthur.
Unlike Arthur...
He had no friends.
No allies.
No one waiting for him.
Only silence.
The world around him was strangely colorful, filled with people walking through streets and markets.
But Oblivion didn't see them the way others did.
He saw ghosts.
He saw how every single one of them would die.
Their endings.
Their final moments.
The war had already written their fate.
Oblivion flinched slightly.
For a brief second-
He realized something.
He cared.
He looked at the civilians passing by.
Families.
Children.
Merchants.
All of them doomed by the war spreading across dimensions.
For a moment, the Harbinger of Death hesitated.
Then he slowly stood up.
His expression hardened.
A dark energy spread through him.
"Empathy..."
He whispered.
The power of his Harbinger authority activated.
He erased the concept from himself.
"...is useless in a world where time is running out."
Suddenly, the air around him distorted.
Ripples spread through time itself.
A voice echoed across reality.
Kronos.
"Hell has fallen."
The message spread like a shockwave across dimensions.
"The first dimension has collapsed."
Oblivion clicked his tongue.
But Kronos continued.
"And in response..."
"The Dimension of Life has been destroyed."
Reality trembled.
Countless realms had been wiped out.
Many survivors escaped to allied dimensions, scattered across the war.
"The fall of Hell is only the beginning," Kronos' voice continued through the ripples of time.
"This war will demand sacrifice."
Oblivion frowned.
"Yeah, yeah."
He waved his hand.
"Shut up already."
Just then, several civilians approached him carefully.
They helped lift him back to his feet.
"Thank you," one of them said.
"You scared away those invaders earlier."
"Those warriors... the ones fighting here."
"Arthur and his group."
Oblivion looked at them silently.
Then he nodded slightly.
"...You're welcome."
The civilians thanked him again before returning to their homes.
Once they were gone, Oblivion's expression changed.
The moment of softness vanished.
He raised his hand.
Dark Harbinger energy spread through the air.
A communication channel opened.
The abyssal voice of Tartarus answered.
Oblivion spoke calmly.
"Prepare the forces."
There was a pause.
Then he finished the sentence.
"We're going to siege Arthur's dimension."
Different pov though ?????!
Darkness spread.
Not like night.
Not like shadow.
Something deeper.
Something alive.
Across the battlefields of the twelve remaining dimensions, the sky slowly dimmed. Stars flickered. Suns weakened.
Then it appeared.
A grin.
Massive.
Stretching across the sky like a tear in reality itself.
The Boogyman had awakened.
Hell had fallen.
But that was never the end.
It was the beginning.
For eons, Hell had acted as the prison that limited him. The seven estates of sin were more than kingdoms-they were organs, finite structures that allowed the impossible to be killed.
Now they were gone.
Destroyed.
And with them, the last things that made the Boogyman finite.
A voice echoed through countless minds at once.
Soft.
Calm.
Terrifying.
"Freedom..."
The darkness spread across the outer edges of every dimension.
Not attacking the main warfronts.
Instead-
The rear realms.
Small worlds.
Civilian lands.
Forgotten dimensions.
Wherever the darkness touched, reality twisted.
Cities melted into nightmare landscapes.
Mountains turned into jagged spires.
Entire realms became new Hells.
Screams echoed across space.
And then the Boogyman spoke again.
"You have two choices."
His voice reached billions.
"Die."
"Or become Willborn."
The beings who accepted his offer transformed.
Their eyes burned with unnatural light.
Fear.
Desire.
Anger.
Hope.
Every emotion twisted into something new.
They were no longer mortals.
They were Willborn.
Creatures who existed purely to enforce their own will upon reality.
The cruel irony was obvious.
The Boogyman was the entity who had originally created emotion and free will.
Now he had turned those gifts into weapons.
Entire armies began turning against themselves.
Some people accepted the offer simply because they wanted the war to end.
Others did it for power.
Others out of despair.
The war began eating itself from the inside.
What was once a contained horror...
Had become a cosmic disease.
High above the collapsing realms, the Harbingers watched.
Some observed in silence.
Others seemed almost... curious.
A few even allowed the destruction to continue.
But those allied with Abyss reacted immediately.
Lightning shattered the sky.
Zeus descended with divine fury.
He raised his hand, invoking the Divine Principles-laws meant to restrain cosmic threats.
Golden chains of authority shot toward the spreading darkness.
They passed through the Boogyman's grin like mist.
The chains dissolved instantly.
Zeus clenched his fists.
"Impossible..."
A voice echoed beside him.
"Not impossible."
"Just beyond rules."
Three figures appeared.
Sytrhina.
Sergon typhoon
Primordial forces.
Entities older than most gods.
Zeus frowned.
"Then we destroy it directly."
But even he could feel it now.
The truth.
Primordials.
Harbingers.
Conceptual entities.
They existed above most laws of reality.
Which meant the Boogyman could not be stopped by ordinary divine authority.
Zeus looked toward the spreading darkness again.
His priorities had changed.
This war had just become something else entirely.
Meanwhile...
Far below the oceans.
The armies of Atlantos advanced toward the Underseas.
Spears glowed.
Soldiers marched through massive currents.
The siege was beginning.
Atlantos walked at the front of the army, holding twin spears carved from ancient sea bones.
Then the water behind him twisted.
Darkness formed.
A ripple of illusion appeared.
From it stepped a woman.
Mirage.
She leaned casually against nothing, smiling.
"Well, well," she said.
"I see where you're going, buddy."
Atlantos slowly turned.
His grip tightened around his spears.
Mirage continued.
"But you're not getting there."
Atlantos raised his weapon calmly.
"That," he said,
"would be dangerous for you."
Mirage grinned wider.
"Oh."
"I love dangerous."
The ocean around them began to distort as illusion and reality started colliding.
The siege of the Underseas-
Had just gained a new battlefield.
Their also one more pov though
Mount Olympus was in chaos.
Broken pillars of marble lay scattered across the sacred mountain. Fires burned across the once-perfect temples.
And in the middle of the destruction stood Abyss.
Anyone who came close-
Died.
Gods, soldiers, spirits.
None could even approach him without feeling their existence begin to fade under the pressure of his aura as he simply rebuild the broken pillars.
Then three figures approached.
Angila.
One of Abyss's demigod sisters.
Beside her walked Dionysus, wine god and reluctant prophet.
Behind them stumbled the old goat Silenus.
Angila looked at Abyss seriously.
"Abyss... be ready."
Dionysus rubbed his temples.
"Otherworldly darkness is rising."
Abyss raised an eyebrow.
But Dionysus immediately corrected himself.
"Actually no. That's not what I said."
Angila blinked.
"What?"
Dionysus pointed toward the sky.
"I said Erebus is coming."
"Don't be vague."
Angila's eyes widened instantly.
"Wait... you're serious?"
"I thought you were having another drunk vision about the world ending."
Silenus raised a finger.
"For the record... he's not even drunk right now."
That statement alone made things worse.
Abyss finally spoke.
"When?"
Dionysus pointed toward the sky again.
"Now."
Abyss followed the direction.
Above Mount Olympus, reality was splitting open.
A massive black rift tore through the heavens.
Pure darkness spilled from it.
The kind of darkness that swallowed light itself.
Abyss sighed.
"...Great."
He stretched his neck slightly.
"Time to clean this up."
Then he waved his hand toward the others.
"You guys go do something useful."
"Like hygiene."
Before anyone could respond-
Abyss shot into the sky.
He flew straight toward the rift.
Then-
BOOM
He punched the tear in reality.
The rift shattered wider.
Beyond it was an endless ocean of darkness.
The domain of Erebus.
Or so it seemed.
But something was wrong.
Instead of Erebus himself-
Strange creatures crawled out.
Twisted bodies.
Disfigured limbs.
Eyes growing in places they shouldn't exist.
Abyss looked at them with mild annoyance.
"...Really?"
The creatures charged him.
He swatted them aside like insects, ripping through them while continuing to shout into the rift.
"HEY!"
"Are you coming or what?"
"I don't have all day."
Another wave of monsters rushed him.
Abyss destroyed them instantly.
Then he yelled again.
"Come on, Erebus!"
"You opened the door, at least show up!"
The darkness suddenly thickened.
The creatures stopped moving.
Then the shadows themselves began to speak.
A voice older than gods echoed across the sky.
"You act as though you desire a Primordial's attention."
The darkness gathered together.
Forming a massive shape around Abyss.
"I am Erebus."
"The eternal darkness."
"The name even gods feared to speak."
Abyss floated calmly in the center of the forming shadow.
"Yeah yeah, dramatic entrance."
"I already knew it was you."
He pointed at the monsters still crawling around.
"But seriously."
"What the hell are those things?"
Erebus answered calmly.
"They are children."
"Born of Nyx and I."
Abyss blinked.
"...I should've guessed."
He made a disgusted face.
"That weird family marriage again."
"No offense, but your kids are ugly."
For a moment the entire sky went silent.
Then the darkness exploded outward.
The sky of Olympus was swallowed instantly.
The last thing visible was Erebus' voice echoing across the battlefield.
"Then let us see..."
"Whether absence can truly erase darkness."
As Erebus ended the chapter by engulfing it in darkness
Fun fact of the chapter:
Abyss original line is not weird family marriage but straight up"incest"but I changed it cause why not😼