[What would you be willing to abandon for a chance to transcend? Your past, your bonds, your very humanity? Would you renounce everything that once defined you… for a power capable of raising you above the gods?]
Those were the questions Eryon would have wanted to hear… before stepping into this hell.
How much further did he have to go for the suffering to end? How much more would he have to destroy to reach the top of that Tower?
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A vast and endless battlefield stretched as far as the eye could see. The sky and the earth had inverted, while beings foreign to reality clashed against figures that had once been human.
Among those countless figures, one stood out in particular, like a demon king straight out of a fantasy tale, leaving destruction and annihilation in his wake.
When that figure threw a punch, the space around him shattered like fragile glass; no matter what being stood in his way, all met the same fate.
It didn't take long before something changed.
A rift opened in the sky, and a sacred light bathed much of the chaos as a celestial being descended, exerting a timeless pressure over all present.
The space trembled, and the entire floor of the Tower shook as an ethereal voice resounded:
"Human, you have climbed higher than any of your kind could dream, and yet you have brought destruction and suffering with your presence. Tell me… what is your purpose?"
"—HAHAHAHA!" an arrogant, almost bored laugh echoed in response, and a "young man" of divine appearance, with silver eyes and hair as dark as the abyss, spoke with irony:
"Do you really think you're in a position to judge me when your legion of angels laid waste to everything in the name of their 'justice'? Tell me, archangel… who is the one truly bringing destruction?"
Time itself seemed to stop, and every being on the battlefield held its breath, unable to break the heavy silence that had fallen.
"I do not expect a mortal like you to understand divine purpose…"
The archangel hadn't even finished speaking when the young man shot toward him, intent on striking him with a punch.
Quickly, the archangel gathered his white energy, concentrating it into his arm and receiving the blow with his palm. The collision unleashed a wave of unimaginable power: the ground fractured, entire mountains were reduced to dust, and the skies split open into cracks that stretched across the entire Tower.
The impact was so immense that entire races were swept away like leaves in the wind: titans were hurled kilometers away, roaring dragons twisted as they fell through the air, and creatures whose very existence resembled nightmares were reduced to fragments by the force of the clash; even those too close ceased to exist in an instant, pulverized by the collision.
The battlefield turned into absolute chaos, with fragments of mountains and floating energy spiraling in defiance of gravity, while the survivors retreated in terror, unable to comprehend what kind of human power could cause such devastation.
And then, Eryon and the archangel began to move—not as mere combatants, but as cores of pure energy. Each blow did not merely strike the other, but twisted the very fabric of the Tower, bending light, time, and space around them.
Blows that could have destroyed continents collided midair, and everything between them was nothing more than a whisper before their confrontation, as the world itself seemed to hold its breath before the clash of two titanic forces.
The archangel, with an expression of pure disbelief and fury, could not comprehend the audacity of that mortal; his silver eyes shone with greater intensity as he released chains of sacred energy that shot toward Eryon.
But the young man was no ordinary opponent, and every divine link was intercepted by bursts of dark energy emanating from his fists, pulverizing the bindings before they could wrap around him.
The battle escalated further and further, and Eryon, driven by an incomprehensible rage and determination, sought not only victory, but the annihilation of the divinity that dared to judge him; his movements were savage and brutal, yet carried a terrifying precision, like a predator that had finally found its greatest prey, and every strike aimed not only to wound, but to dismantle, to break apart that being of light.
The archangel, for his part, fought with the timeless elegance of a celestial warrior, but his face was beginning to show signs of strain, for that "divinity" had not expected such a level of resistance.
At a climactic moment, the two separated, creating a brief pause in the storm of destruction. Eryon straightened, his body exhaling remnants of dark energy and pale light, while the archangel hovered with wings spread wide, radiating a blinding glow as he fixed his gaze on the human with a mixture of horror and astonishment.
"Your power… where did you obtain it, mortal?" the archangel hissed, his voice, for the first time, sounding less ethereal and more human, tinged with genuine concern.
Eryon let out a hoarse laugh, the sound dragging across the fractured battlefield.
"Where from, you say?" Eryon replied, a crooked smile forming that never reached his eyes. "Isn't it obvious? I took it from every piece of this 'hell' you yourselves created. Every pain, every misery, every damned soul that stepped here… all of it is mine now! It's the price of climbing this high!"
And with those words, the air around Eryon thickened into a dark, pulsating mass. Small cracks began to form across his own skin, but from them flowed not blood, but flashes of abyssal energy. It was the price of his power, the sacrifice of his humanity, made manifest.
The archangel understood then. This was not merely a human with unusual power; he was the manifestation of a new era, a being who had embraced darkness to become something more.
A strange, incomprehensible stab of fear—something he had never believed himself capable of feeling—pierced the archangel, and his silver eyes, which had witnessed countless battles and the fall of entire races, fixed upon Eryon with growing desperation. He was an abomination, an aberration that defied all divine order.
"All evil must be annihilated!" the archangel roared, his voice no longer an ethereal melody but a thunder of judgment and desperation. As he raised his arms toward the inverted sky of the Tower, his own existence began to blur, turning faint and translucent, as if he were invoking something far beyond himself.
The reality above the Tower opened wide—not with a crack or an explosion, but with a soft, almost imperceptible fracture.
From that nothingness between dimensions, a flawless eye emerged—immense, beyond any concept of sacred or profane. It was not a pupil, but an abyss of intertwined light and darkness, containing within its depths the truth of countless universes.
With a single gaze, a consciousness that transcended time and space settled upon Eryon. The young man, on the verge of completing his evolution, felt as though a switch had been turned off deep within his being.
He stopped abruptly, his limbs rigid, as the boiling energy surrounding him seemed to freeze in place.
He felt no pain, not even a trace of agony; it was something far more unsettling. He could perceive how his existence—every molecule, every memory, every spark of consciousness—began to be erased. He was not disintegrating; he was simply ceasing to have ever been. The mere gaze of that "BEING" dissolved him from the fabric of reality, as if he had never existed at all.
In his final moments, an avalanche of memories struck him: the faces of his companions, the people he had tried to protect, the endless solitude of his ascent, the rage that drove him forward. And within that storm, a strange relief, a peace he had not known in centuries.
A bitter, self-critical smile formed on his cracked lips.
"I wish I had done things better…" he murmured, his voice barely a whisper before being silenced forever.
And then, in a final flicker, the memory of his first day in the Tower—filled with hope and fear—came to his mind. With a calm gaze, accepting his fate, Eryon closed his eyes.
Just as the last fraction of his being faded away, a voice echoed in his mind… but he could no longer hear it.
(Host in imminent death, consuming all points of ??? for ???)