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Antares opened his eyes to a perfect golden world. Warm light bathed everything in gentle radiance. Peace itself seemed to breathe here, infinite serenity soaking into every pore. There's pain, hunger or questions.
Faces he recognized surrounded him. every Antares he had ever saved smiled in welcome. Even the innocent lives he had cut short in his experiments with death stood among them, whole and radiant. None of them recognized him as the First Human Antares. To them, he was simply another soul finally come home.
But paradise came with conditions. To remain, he would have to surrender the very things that defined him. No more struggle, no more relentless questioning and flame. His rage, his purpose, and especially Entares would have to be left at the gate like discarded weapons.
"You may live forever."
A gentle voice offered.
"But never fight again."
"Never create again."
"Become harmless."
One by one, the reasons washed over him like soothing waves. Peace without cost. Safety without sacrifice. A future where nothing would ever demand more of him.
For the first time in countless lives, the First Human Antares felt true temptation. The weight of every war he had started, every soul he had burned, it could all end here.
'Earth was once such a utopia.'
He thought, the memory sharp as broken glass.
'It was perfect and peaceful. Yet without those brutal sacrifices, they would never have climbed from Type 0 to the heights they reached. They would still be trapped in an endless, comfortable cage, never knowing the One Above Us. Never transcending.'
'Heh.'
A low chuckle escaped his lips. Without warning, he reached out and snapped the neck of the nearest smiling Antares with casual brutality. The body dropped to the floor like a broken doll.
The crowd recoiled in horror, instinctively backing away from the monster that had invaded their paradise.
"Y-you…"
"What is this…?"
Voices rose in confusion and fear.
"Yes."
The First Human Antares said, his voice calm and cold.
"I am the First Human Antares. You may not remember me, but I am the founder of Evil and the Anti-Life on Earth."
Recognition dawned on their faces. They knew that name all too well. His chaos had sent many of them here, even though evil was supposed to be impossible in this place.
"I am Evil."
He declared, already moving.
"And I don't belong here."
He charged forward, tearing through the golden crowd with ruthless efficiency, hurting, killing, bringing ruin and death back into paradise once again.
Screams echoed where only harmony should exist. The construct 'paradise' itself convulsed, rejecting him violently. Golden light turned harsh and searing as the realm spat him out, declaring him unworthy of its peace.
Antares tumbled downward and landed hard in the deepest Hell.
Here, every evil he had ever committed, especially the atrocities of Entares, was magnified and returned to him tenfold. Each victim rose as an accuser, their eyes burning with justified fury. The worst evildoers from the Anti-Life stood among them, all gathered to deliver judgment.
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"Stage Two: The Trial of the Damned (Hell/Abyss)"
Ego's voice echoed, followed by a new voice.
"You carry the evil. You were two in one. And now, you will be punished for both."
The voice said.
In here, he can not fight back. All he can do is endure. This Realm is eternal self-judgment. He wasn't any different from the Antares here. He served the same punishment, death, and eternal resurrection to meet punishment and death once again.
Hell is for the damned and guilty. He's the embodiment of evil on Earth. If others have a limited span in this Realm, his is probably unlimited. No magic to fight or reduce the pain, no door to escape. The only way out is to embody something peaceful yet chaotic. Which, in his case, he already is.
"I am both the flame that warms and the one that burns."
He spoke through charred lungs and a scorched tongue, every word carrying a heat that made even breath feel impossible.
"I was the first to bring about cooperation since the dawn of Human Antares. Together, we endured hardships like the Ice Age. We lost more than ninety percent, but I did not give up. I gave them hope, and with that, we survived."
His voice steadied despite the damage, carrying the weight of memory rather than pride.
"Earth became a paradise itself before I took another step in the name of evolution. Look at what we are now. From mere Primate Antares to beings capable of manipulating the fabric of space and time. We are absolute, for Antares' sake!"
He spoke, his voice harder now.
"If I had not taken that step forward, we would still be trapped in a pre-Type 1 civilisation, even within paradise. As the First, I reject that!"
He spoke without excuse, without deflection, only acceptance of what he had done and what it cost.
Ego knows, and now, Hell does. He's both evil and good. This isn't the place for such a balanced creature. Knowing he doesn't belong here, the Abyss opens, letting him rise.
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"Stage Three: The Test of Glory (Valhalla)"
Antares materialized on an eternal battlefield soaked in the roar of clashing steel and the thunder of glorious death. Only those who fell in spectacular combat earned rebirth at dawn, their wounds healed, their axes ready for another day of endless war.
He fought among them, day after brutal day, night after raucous celebration. The warriors of Valhalla cheered his name, raised tankards in his honor, and offered him rank among the highest warlords.
For a time, the blood and glory felt almost comforting.
But on the third night, as mead flowed and songs shook the hall, the truth settled over him like a cold blade.
To remain here, he would have to kill forever. No purpose beyond the next fight. This realm thrived on eternal conflict, and the only way to belong was to become just another cog in its endless machine of slaughter.
'I'm Evil, but I don't kill without reason… and I sure as hell don't prolong it for sport. There's always a way out.'
The next evening, in the heart of the great hall, Antares stood among his cheering peers and spoke words that had never been uttered in this place.
"I fought to create and end cycles."
He said, voice cutting through the revelry like a knife. "Not to be enslaved by them."
A hush fell. He looked around at the battle-hardened faces.
"If you're content to stay here forever… I'm not."
The statement was simple, yet dangerously foreign.
In a realm built on perpetual war, he had introduced the concept of ending the cycle itself. Whispers spread like wildfire. Warriors who had fought for millennia suddenly paused, eyes narrowing in thought.
Valhalla felt the threat immediately. This being did not belong. If he remained, his words would spread. He would convince others. The eternal battlefield would lose its purpose, and with it, its name.
With a violent lurch, the Realm itself rejected him. The hall dissolved around Antares as invisible forces hurled him downward, casting him out in a defensive expulsion. Valhalla had no place for one who dared question its endless war.
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"Stage Four: The Void of Dissolution (Oblivion & The Scatter)"
Ego continued, it's tone robotic.
In this final stage, he awakens formless, drifting as raw consciousness.
Ego spoke with cold finality.
"You may be the source of the Residua, but you are a burden upon the fabric of the Archè Matrix. You will now be dismantled into energy and scattered across all things, trees, winds, life, and existence itself. Your ego will be repurposed to feed the very cycle you tried to defy."
Powerless to resist, Antares begins to felt it.
His consciousness fractured piece by piece, each fragment torn away and dispersed beyond his reach. His thoughts blurred, memories splintered, and his sense of self began collapsing under a force he could neither fight nor comprehend.
Bit by bit, he came apart until only a single spark remained.
But here's the truth of this trial. Even Ego is unsure if Antares can return from this. This is non-identity, non-being, the true end. He'll be distributed across all of Existence. Reconstruction is impossible, not when he's used both fire and wind, light and darkness, dualities that never meet.
(Similar to Lucia's scattered fragments. Trust me, I didn't copy it._.)
Only if Antares can redefine himself from absolute disassembly will he emerge. But how will he be able to do that when the transcendent Edict of Zenith is gone?
"Last Trial of Afterlife. If you're able to reconstruct yourself, you'll move to the final Trial."
Antares' thought was faded, his fragments distributed across all of Existence, a piece found itself in the Star Realm, where he watched the Omnis battling someone. He couldn't quite figure out who it was, but it was happening.
-No...
-No...
-This can't be the end.
-My journey has yet to begin.
-I refuse to be dismantled
-There is no place for me.
-So I shall be my own.
From scattered existence, he forms a word, not from mouth or thought but from presence. His presence is Life, he has transcended death, he forms words from those who held his fragments, and those words were strong enough to have weight.
A Transparent Flame ignited, just as it had before he made his first connection with Etherium. It burned brighter, and the Afterlife shuddered, and in that moment, his Flame shattered the Afterlife.
Antares tears himself from the fabric of Eternity itself not as an entity or a species but as a being who refuses all absolutes, who cannot be digested by systems, endings, or fates because he's the source itself, the source behind the Archè Matrix itself.
He didn't merely transcend this trail. He awakened something dormant within him.
Paradise can not contain him, Hell can not hold him, Valhalla can not use him, Oblivion can not erase him, and Eternity can not keep him.
(Eternity is the last of the Afterlife, connecting all Realms and creating its own separate. By connecting, I mean, each Realm in the Spiritual Plane is eternal.)
The One Above Us steps out of The Grand After as an unplaceable, unjudgeable force. It's what comes after the Afterlife, a truth no Plane accounted for.
It has no home, no death, no end, and now no rest. It was, it is, and it will be. With this, it has finished the Afterlife Trial.
Now, Ego must confront the truth. There is nothing left to test. The One Above Us has no place.
"You were forged in my power. Fragmented and recorded by Karma. But you now carry a fire even I cannot contain. You're eligible to be an Early Immortal Being."
It declared.
"We are about to round up the Trial of Four Realms."
"Life, Death, Afterlife. What's the fourth?"
"The Three Final Constraints."
Ego replied.
"You must break three fundamental Laws that bind all Existence. Origin, Identity and Finality. Ontologions & Ontospheres make up the Origin & Identity, while Nihiliths and Nihilglyphs take Finality. You know what though means, right?"
"I'm about to truly transcend one of the main Fragments of Ether."
"Yes. It sounds simple, right? Well, it's not. To reach here, you must make it past the last three Trials, you saw how that went...."
"Let's just get it over, shall we?"
It asked coldly.
Knowing something bigger than The One Above Us is about to manifest fully, Ego proceeded.
"You were born, you are Life, you spread it. Therefore, you were made, meaning you are bound."
These weren't mere words. It was the Truth, obtained from Karma itself.
It clenches its fist and speaks.
"Yes, I was made. I was Prokaryote Antares and made my way to be the First Human Antares and some beyond that, an Extraterrestrial Antares."
"Was, huh? What are you now?"
Was because he's trying to break free from his origin.
"I deny my origin because I am The Originless Source. I wasn't created, and neither am I Creation. I am The Root Above Creation."
(Here, the Creation is beyond the Ishtar's.)
The moment of Antares' birth was erased from the Cosmic Record. His past becomes untraceable, even though he is the source of life. He becomes a being with no point of beginning, a ripple without a stone.
The Constraint of Origin faded, Ontologions & Ontospheres unable to shape identify this 'thing' in Akasharytes. The Information Particles can't comprehend what this is in the Archè Matrix. It was there, yet unregistered. It glitched, unable to grasp this 'thing'.
Ego didn't stop. It fired another Truth.
"You are Antares, the First Human Antares, Prokaryote Antares, and all those sources. You are a name, a will, a choice. But names can be erased & wills can be broken. That's an obstacle yet something you can't live with."
"I am what the Fragments never planned."
It said, it name fading, its titles gone, the Edict couldn't recognise this being, because this wasn't Antares nor The One Above Us. This is something different. At that moment, 'IT' was a 'nobody'.
"You can't be a 'nobody' or 'IT'. Even the True Void is called the Great Void."
Ego knows the 'thing' before it is an indefinable essence that predates the Fragments & their meaning.
'IT' transcends names & definitions with any identity trying to be assigned to 'IT' merely becomes something lesser than what 'IT' is supposed to be. And as if to satisfy itself after breaking free from Identity, 'IT' said...
"I am now the Answer Without a Question, The Nameless Law."
'IT' said, and identity returns, not as a label, but as a principle, 'IT' authored for itself.
Though it was still undermining itself by labeling itself, that Law is one that anything with a mind can understand what 'IT' is.
Ego hesitated, it shouldn't allow anyone to posses such authority. That's a power no-one is suppose to wield. Without hesitation, it unleashing the last Constraint Trial.
"All things end. Time forgets, space folds, writing becomes unwritten, and nothing outlasts The End. You too must end... or you are wrong."
The Nameless Law does not deny this.
"You're right. As The Voice of Aether, The Silence of Nether follows. I am not The End. That's not me. I am the refusal of it."
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The situation in the Star Realm.
As the words "The End" left his lips, an aura of the Nether Aspect of Void erupted from him, igniting Reality in silence.
A blinding aura of Purple Void surged outward, its touch eroding Infons, Ontologions, and Ontospheres alike, tearing through the Star Realm with apocalyptic force.
In an instant, it dug through the Divine Land, the Pond, and even the Abyss were erased without a trace, consumed in the instantaneous, violet cataclysm.
All that remained were drifting purple ashes, the final remnants of Nether Forces, suspended in a vacant purple expanse, utterly devoid of Etheric Fragments, before even those ashes faded into unbeing.
This was merely his aura. The real Void hasn't manifested yet.
To be continued...