Ajax death blade had always been known as an enigma, a prodigy, the child of prophecy to some and in some circles the next great ruler. All that had come to a close however when his father and entire sect had been accused of having dealings with the abyss and creatures of the blight. Ajax had been merely ten summers old then, attaining the rank of acolyte at that young an age was practically unheard of for centuries in the Kol system in an almost unknown galaxy. Thinking back on it now, Ajax should had seen the signs of envy from the other sects as the sect of the reaper slowly began to gain prestige in the eyes of the omega clan.
Prestige however, was won in the eyes of the patriarch of the omega clan and not the clan members who viewed the sect of the reaper as more than a threat to their own families and puppet sects. Moreover, Ajax had been brash, trashing the children of the clan leaders who were peak acolytes and in some cases advocates, proving that skill and talents went a long way than actual ranks in the archailect. Then the master of the singing hammer had arrived, in a system that could boast of no masters themselves, even the patriarch of clan omega himself was simply a peak gold ranker, not even a diamond.
To those in the system who already viewed their gold rankers as something akin to demigods, the arrival of a master was like the coming of the messiah. Entire clans sent their best students to compete for the glory of their sects and the grand prize of the master, a core forged weapon that could be attuned to any aspect should the wielder attain such a height. Ajax’s father, whose name had been literally blotted out of the subconscious of even Ajax himself and was simply known as the garda grim due to the perfect and simple brutality of his path, had been on a journey of self-discovery, leaving the sect or the school of the reaper to his brother and Ajax’s uncle had returned during the finale of the competition.
Ajax had ascended to advocate during the competition, hunting down advocate ranked monsters as an acolyte with nothing more than his flint knife and his meagre acolyte skills. He once again proved himself to be a growing monster, clearing an advocate ranked dungeon by himself with such efficiency that the master of the singing hammer path had wanted to take him under his tutelage as his disciple. Ajax had bluntly declined, much to the amusement of the master but to the insult and horrified stares of the clan leader and members.
It was an insult to the clan leader which was stupid to Ajax as he thought back on it, the master himself had laughed in a loud voice, patting him on his shoulder, applauding his loyalty to his fathers’ sect and legacy. The grim had arrived then, a pathway of bones and the aura of death opening up to see his father with his white skin and in his hand a blade made of midnight dark metal that screamed of extinction stepped out of the portal. Ajax could remember the look of pride in his fathers’ eyes as the singing hammer master had given Ajax the pure golden blade, naming him the champion of the competition. The blade had come with an extra boon of a hundred thousand diamond coins, a mythical and staggering amount of money that not even clan omega could boast of.
The sect of the reaper suddenly grew to unspeakable heights, leaving both the planet and system of clan omega entirely, a funny thought seeing as the clan could only boast of holding two planets but seeing as there were no other powers to contest with them in the system, were therefore known as the de facto rulers of the entire system as a whole. The system of the reaper, a neighboring system where the entirety of the now clan reaper had moved to seeing as numerous schools and sects had joined up under them slowly but surely became a renowned system.
It was from that point Ajax should had noticed, the frequent trips his father had begun to make, the haunted look on his face as well as the faraway look he had when Ajax sparred with him, his hands moving almost automatically to deflect the attacks of his now iron ranked twelve-year-old son without even realizing it. The clan now boasted of numerous planets under their rule and Ajax was destined to become a disciple of one of the larger clans and if possible, the ruling house in their galaxy. It had all come crashing down when his father had returned from one of his trips, his aura and as he later learnt his aspect of the reaper flooding the entire system like an emissary of death.
Ajax had been a bronze ranker then, watching as sirens of alarm rang all over the planet as his father raised on hand sky high. Despite floating over scythe, the prime planet of the reaper system, Ajax could see him clearly, like a sign of the apocalypse, his uncle screaming at him to get the rest of the children and women into shelters, that his father had gone rogue, that he had made deals with the denizens of the abyss itself. Ajax could remember screaming that his father wouldn’t do such, that his father was kind, a man who had braved the vast jungles of their former system as a mere silver ranker to find one of the children of the villages around them who had strayed into the deep woods filled with monsters of even gold rank.
His father was a man who had conquered the path of death but came out a man with a heart full of love, this grim, this being that was about to call down death on their planet was not his father. No one listened though, no one cared anyways, no one deigned to hear his plea as his father prepared to end the world and as he later heard, to sacrifice them to the ravaging powers as he had done to previous systems where he had fought rulers to a standstill and in some cases, mortally wounded them to the point that it would take decades if not centuries for their thrones to return them back to existence at all.
The skies had lit up then, the ships of the brigade breaking through the skies along with hundreds of masters, thousands of diamonds and an unholy amount of construct weapons to take down a mere master. He had learnt then of the cult of the abyss, people he hadn’t seen in his entire existence but whom the clan omega had sworn were a part of his clan. The man who he would later learn would go by the name of Rohan had been his fathers’ adopted son, a fact he knew was not true even till this day and time. The battle had shaken the planet, cracked it even and if not for the pure willpower and authority of a ruler on some healing path that managed to mend the planet just in time, even he himself would had died.
Later on, Ajax would had wished he had died on that planet, for when the battle was done, and the grim was in chains that bound up his core, Ajax, a mere twelve year old bronze ranker had been dragged in chains also, stoned by those he once called family and even his uncle turned away from him. Brought before a panel of rulers and harbingers, he was accused of being an accomplice of his father's diabolical crimes, a most infuriating and quite ridiculous idea when you thought of it, for what could a mere twelve year old hope to accomplish?.
Nevertheless, he had been sold to house Dracon like a piece of meat, to serve as reparations for the crimes of his father. Tied like an animal, his core had been bound, his hair shaved and his blade, the gold blade given to him by the master of the singing hammer, the same master who had denied him and had cursed the very day he met Ajax seized and broken, shattered by Azar himself into a hundred pieces and put to work in one of the numerous lava mines on a distant world, a bleak place where despite being technically one of the strongest beings on the planet, was bullied due to his bound cores.
He remembered the nights he had gone to bed hungry, his anger and revenge keeping the worst of his hunger at bay. He remembered nights when the matriarch or the female ruler of the prison, a Dragonoid with a perverse taste for young children had dragged him screaming and fighting to her lair, having her way with him, making him feel filthy and disgusted with himself. Still Ajax trained, even as the skies darkened and Rohan ascended to the position of an avatar of the abyss, he trained. He grew, his muscles becoming as hard as steel, his heart as cold as cooled lava, his hands capable of crushing molten rocks and his mere strength able to break the bones of even silver rankers without his core, he trained, the archailect empowering him without giving him the benefits of his rank.
The matriarch in some sick perverse way had thought she could have her way with a now twenty year old Ajax. Perhaps she had been foolish to see he neither struggled nor said a word as he tied him up with chains of bronze ranked quality, thinking him bound and weak, a mere bronze ranker herself. Ajax had ripped through her chest cavity with his bear hands, tearing her heart out with his hand and biting into it even as she trashed in the throes of death, her blood seeping everywhere.
He had torn through the guards of the mountain like a hot knife through butter, he and his fledgling rebellion of slaves who had committed one crime or the other to the throne of house Dracon itself. They had in the coming weeks cut off all communications from the world to the entire system of planets that served as prison walls, taking over mountains after mountains in their sweeping victories. It had been bloody, Ajax on a rampage that drove the fear of the supreme beings straight into the hearts of his fellow rebels as well. Soon enough the entire planet was theirs and whatever force that came to the planet to figure out just what was going on down there were summarily cut down like wheat, their weapons confiscated, and their bodies thrown into the ever-burning lava.
Ajax had become the de facto leader of the rebels, renaming them Ajax’s ire, not deigning to give a pack of murderers and rapists the honor of claiming to be members of the reaper sect. Soon enough they had gathered their strengths and their conquering of the outer planets had begun, bringing down planets after planets in quick lightning-fast victories, Ajax growing his latent strength strong enough to rival gold rankers even with his core bound and his skills half the strengths of what they should had been if they even worked at all. House Dracon were greedy and stingy and Ajax had taken advantage of that, their obsession with hierarchical power and control had been the chink he had exploited.
The experts of house Dracon were relatively weak for their ranks, their skills a shadow of what it should be with only those close to the royalties of house Dracon even remotely representing what expert rank could attain. The planets had fallen to Ajax and his goons, leaving them a smoking ball of wreaks, however their victories had come to a grinding halt when house Dracon had shown up in their full strength, led by master Anala herself, they had bombarded the planet they took as their HQ.
With orders to take Ajax prisoner, they had cut through his troops with ease, taking Ajax in chains even as he trashed, rending their bronze rankers limb from limb with his bare hands, scorched till he looked like nothing akin to a human any longer, Anala herself deciding to end his existence till the overseer of the galaxy, an old man that screamed with power that brought everyone to their knees had appeared, casually holding Anala’s hands like an adult holding an infants. His words were expressive, Ajax would not be killed unless the leader of the brigade himself Xerxes said so.
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With that agreed on, Ajax was taken in chains without his wounds being treated back to the nest, home world and prime planet of the draconian empire to be presented as an enemy of the great draconian state, a foe vanquished by their brave experts he had torn apart like a rabid wolf. Tanya, vice leader of the dragons’ brigade had appeared then, stating that his prison sentence had been called over and unlocking his core. Ajax could count on one hand the number of times he had felt pleasure as much as he felt then, his instant ascension, his rank solidifying at peak gold and his skills rising to abnormal heights.
Years of fighting without the use of the archailect had served as extra training boon to him, his body healing and his aura blasting out like the coming of death, Anala snarling as everyone on the entire island where the festivities were to be held were frozen in fear, and as Ajax later regretted, even the children and infants as well.
However Ajax had been given his freedom, departing the galaxy and system of house Dracon, his first order of business had been to hunt down the pieces of the shards of his unnamed blade, and hunt them down he did. Where he needed to bully, intimidate and coerce his way to obtain them he did, and whenever he had to leave a body behind he did. It had taken him an entire year, but he had obtained the shards, he had gathered them together and had made his way from there back to the system of the reaper, where his uncle now ruled over the system as a diamond ranker as lord of the sullen blades.
Ajax considered it a mockery of the path of his father, he watched in secret as uncle boasted that he had been the one to spot the evils of his father, they even held a celebration for the vanquishing of the grim. That was nothing compared to the shocking realization that his uncle had become the disciple of the master of the singing hammer, the omega clan becoming close allies as well. Perhaps he shouldn’t had acted in rage as he had done then, perhaps he should had dug deeper into what conspiracies surrounded his uncle, but Ajax didn’t care then, his became the anointed of death in that moment.
He started with clan omega, wiping them out in one single day and ascending to the rank of diamond, then he had mounted the head of their patriarch on the very gates of his uncles’ gates. The entire systems of reaper and omega had been thrown into chaos and even as the sects, schools and families fought over the spoils of clan omega, Ajax moved in on his uncle. The diamond ranker had barricaded himself deep within his mansion, hundreds of bodyguards and mercenaries protecting him. Ajax had cut through them with the silent blade of the reaper himself, sending them to the sweet embrace of death without them even realizing it and standing before his uncle covered in gore.
He had dueled with his uncle who had become weak and lax, slowly dismembering him alive as he pleaded and later cursed at him, blaming him for his mother’s death at childbirth. Ajax ripped his skull apart from his mouth, ending his vile existence once and for all. He had retrieved his fathers’ blade and even as the planet slept peacefully that night, unaware of the horrors that had taken place, Ajax left the planet after taking the metals native to his planet, going on a journey to find whatever master or ruler would smelt the metals and blades, reforge the into one weapon.
He had come across Altair then, a new ruler with a budding house and had sworn to complete tasks for him with the boon of his help in reforging his blade. For reasons unknown to him till this day, Altair had accepted, sending him to persuade a planet with a small clan to join his infant house. Despite not being his strong suit, Ajax had accepted, taking on the journey to travel to this unknown planet.it was there he had Fiona blazing princess, heir to house Garuda and despite his rough life had seen something good in him.
Ajax had for once in his lifetime felt peace, a sense of purpose and something akin to joy, that was until Vesh of the phantom scourge had arrived. Somehow, some idiot had opened a pathway to the abyss, damning the once peaceful planet into agony and death as scores of blights and abyssal monsters had come through, led by none other than Vesh the elite of Molrik, lord mutator of the abyss. It was there that he and Fiona, diamond rankers had held back the forces of the abyss single handedly till the brigade and galaxy overseer had shown up to beat back the forces of the abyss. Ajax had watched as children and adults alike had been killed and those that hadn’t soon wishing they had as they mutated into creatures of horrors and nightmares. A good number had been saved, however thousands in millions were a low amount and despite the firepower the clan had employed, it had proven nothing in the face of the overwhelming force of destruction that Vesh phantom scourge had brought to bear on the planet.
Ajax had felt guilt in that moment, guilt for not defending his father enough, guilt for the rebels that had joined him in his rebellion, guilt for the untold millions that had died on this planet. He had joined the dragons brigade for a short while as a neophyte, passing through their brutally insane training regimen to come out at the top of his class. However, he knew deep in his heart that should he stay within the confines and rules of the brigade, his plans wouldn’t be realized, the brigade were the good guys, the knights in shining armor, Ajax however was not. He had declined the bestowment of the path of the sun-burning dragon, shocking everyone and dropping out of the brigade to chase his own dreams and ambitions.
Becoming an ascender for hire, he had gone on to retrieve his blade, travel round the galaxy as he found former members of clan reaper who had gone to ground, hiding in every day mundane citizens of wherever they were. Although most were dead by the time he found them, eidolon crystal eye, one of the elders of the reaper sect when it had existed, the elder had been his only link to his old life, a reminder for what he was expected to do. Ajax had gone on to rename his newly forged blade, giving it a name in his native dialect, ‘Krial’ meaning death bringer. Altair had called him for a job, to train a mere fledgling new to the archailect and in a restricted galaxy no less. Ajax had taken the job out of pure amusement and the fact that he could become an emissary that way seeing as none of the two children of the thousand blades wanted to fill that role.
At first he had felt nothing for the kid, watching with grim amusement, but something had resonated in him as he watched the helpless fledgling struggle to survive during those early hours of his survival. He had seen himself in the kid, although Moyo was far from the generational talent that he himself was, he had seen the stubborn will to survive, to bite back at the archailect for what it had done to him and for the second time in his existence, Ajax had seen something to protect, a child of his own. He had often winced at the brutal nature he had used in training the titan blade, pushing all the agony and pain on the kid as early as possible to build his resilience to the evil of the archailect.
He had built a monster in his image, he had hoped to pass on the style of the reaping katana to this kid, a fresh start and to die protecting the kid from those who would damn him for following such a path, but fate however had another plan for him. He had watched the boy blaze past the ranks of ascension even somewhat faster than him, his rank now skewed like some cheat code character and still the child never lost the humility he held, never wavered in his goal to protect those dear to him.
And so Ajax would spare him the realization of what he was about to do, what he was about to unleash in his crusade of vengeance. His uncle and the clan omega were the first casualties, he intended to rid the archailect of the abyssal plague if he could, he most definitely wanted a showdown with Rohan, to clear the name of the sect of the reaping katana and clan reaper once and for all. Most of all, he wanted to clear the name of his father, clear the legacy of the man named grim and show the archailect how fucked up of a mistake they had made in damning him.
As he tore his way into the flesh lab of Vesh phantom scourge, laying waste to all his defensive mutated creatures, most not even documented by the archailect, he began picking the vials he was after. Vials filled with green liquid that sloshed within them, throwing them into his vault as they disappeared into the shadowy realm. He loved the titan blade as a son, the son he never had despite Fiona pressuring him to bear his offsprings, the heir of house Garuda caring only for strong genes like the rest of the great houses, he declined, let the curse of his house die with him.
Stepping out of the lab, the destroyed walkway and the slowly burning area filled with dark flames, an aspect of the reaper he now slowly grew accustomed to, his gaze homed in on the command deck in the distance, feeling the path of coordinated destruction Moyo had left in his wake, he smiled. The titan blade was akin to a boulder, albeit a very sharp boulder that could cut, meaning his destruction was somehow orderly if it made sense. Ajax on the other hand was an apocalypse given form, the hand of destruction, the harbinger of pure annihilation and he smiled at the thought.
There would be no restitution for him, no salvation arc for him, he was damned through and through, for if Moyo was light, he was darkness, and light cannot exist without the presence of darkness. So he began moving, tearing through the fortress like a wraith as blights ran from him, screaming in terror as his aura passed them by, sensing oblivion emanating from him. He felt his core resonate with that word as something clicked in place for him and he stopped, eyes glowing black and silver as he shuddered, his core and aspect feeding on the very abyssal energy around to somehow ascend without the presence of the archailect.
It pushed out the aspect of the thousand blades, taking its full position as an aspect in his body as he ascended. Laughing maniacally as he felt the abyss recede, the blights burning away into nothingness,
He was the end of all things,
All things died with him,
He was the omega,
Yes, he liked that, path of the omega blade,
Snorting at the irony that he seemed to now bear the name of the clan that betrayed them, he bent his willpower into reality, willing it to impress his thought on his path as his core shuddered and he felt it accept it on a fundamental level. The archailect was merely a guide, a framework to the infinite possibilities that was reality, and even as he crushed the vials he had stolen from Vesh, watching his aspect scrub it clean of the mutation sub-aspect, he grinned. What was left in its place was pure abyssal power, the stuff of chaos itself and he bent it to his will, ridding it of the taint of the abyss.
The truth was, there was chaos, and there was the abyss, and while the powers of the archailect had tried their possible best to keep it a secret from the greater archailect and to great success, Ajax had found it out. The abyss was a taint on reality and chaos alike, drawing from chaos in a perverse way to taint reality, but Ajax was here now, he was here to solve that, to clear his family and absolve them of their perceived sins. He watched his mantle of the reaper burn away, replaced by a tattered cloak that screamed of the pure power of chaos and oblivion intertwined, empowered by both reality and chaos combined, technically having access to both the archailect and an untapped fundamental core of existence.
His feet touched the ground as he grinned, his HUD fizzling to life despite the absence of the archailect and aether around. His blade shattered into a thousand pieces before chaos and reality forced it back together again into one seamless midnight black blade with gold lining its sharp edges. He could feel the power held within the blade, one cut literally having the power to wipe anything from existence. He could feel his new rank that would no doubt reflect as soon as the archailect was restored around,
Ajax death blade, no, omega blade had ascended to the rank of ruler,
The omega blade had transcended life and death, he was oblivion, he was the end,
And even as he grinned maliciously, whistling to himself as the abyss bubbled and fizzled away close to him, he grinned to himself,
Perhaps it was about time he paid those lizards a visit, after saving his disciple of course.