Moyo’s blade cut a swift arc through reality, clashing with Azael, whose parry seemed as languid as if Moyo was stuck in tar. He shrugged off that malevolent feeling around him as he burned, and burned, and burned, until all that remained of his form was a flaming inferno as bright as a sun. Still, it didn’t seem enough to cut down the Chosen of Chaos, even as Moyo could feel the looming end that never seemed to come.

He felt the connection to all those who wielded the power of reality now, sensing some blaze brighter and others get snuffed out by the taint of chaos. Every breath, every death, every cry of triumph and despair—he heard and felt it all. They rang within his existence as Moyo pushed himself closer to Azael, who seemed to take the fight toward the wall of chaos and Apophis, who battled the awakened supreme beings.

The Reaper must have thought it would change something, perhaps had it been at the beginning of the battle—not now, not anymore, not with what Moyo had begun. Ibere burned bright, all its energies moving toward a single spot, like a churned whirlwind of water. All the power of reality seemed to gravitate toward one place.

Moyo shrouded it from the gaze of everyone and everything, fusing it within the very fabric of reality. He could do that now—bend reality to his whims, like he was its sculptor and architect. The very laws of existence dissolved around him, rewritten to suit his will.

Every ounce, every shred of power he could muster was needed for the level of enemy they faced. He felt Apophis glance at him for a brief second—a moment that might not have even existed, a blip in time, a flash faster than lightning. And yet, it gave Azael the edge he needed. Like a bolt of lightning, the Chosen of Chaos was suddenly before him, his black blade aimed for Moyo's neck. The blade, which ate chunks out of reality with every passing moment, sought to end him once and for all, to sever him from the source of his power.

A blue and gold shield manifested at his side as if it had always been there, formed of runes and unspoken words of power that existed before and at the end of time—a blessing from the supreme of shields and mantles herself. She would pay for that brief moment of intervention; Apophis would make sure of it, Moyo knew, and yet, it helped.

Moyo could have taken the blow, diverted or parried it, or even reduced the damage by transferring it to another part of his body. But with the protective tune that whispered from the shield, which shattered the moment it made contact with Azael’s blade, Tunde’s blade appeared. It burned bright with rage, parrying the Reaper’s attack and biting deep into his body. The Reaper gave a brief shout of agony as Moyo’s aether seared into his very being, his very existence.

Moyo could see it in the eyes of the Reaper, in the roar Apophis let out. For once, reality seemed to strengthen itself in the deadlock it had found against chaos. The pull, the urge—Moyo felt it from Ibere. It would soon be time for everything to come to a head, to reach the final climax, and he knew the supreme beings could feel it too.

Alastor, supreme of edges and blades, blazed to life, his body rippling as he burned and shaped himself into a blade.

The blade

The first to exist, the true edge, the sharpness of reality and all its concepts. To him, it was finality as he swung once, reality echoing with the silent swing of his authority. Liakya, the first ship, the true vessel of innovation and technology, unleashed her galaxy-destroying powers, all of them aimed at the writhing form of Apophis, who shrieked as the blasts crashed into him.

Moyo moved, past the burning power, toward the exact spot he knew the attack would strike. He could sense it all within reality, his blade clashing against the Reaper’s, who grunted in barely concealed irritation.

Ibere had begun to glow, the crystal mountains Moyo had delicately placed all over its surface now attuned to the aspects he had created them for. For a moment, he felt a flash of concern and guilt for what he was about to do, but he understood its necessity. There was no other choice, no other way—Eses, Martha, and even Lotes had checked to exhaustion. He was the conduit, the wall that stood to defend against the end of all things. And yet, he knew there had to be death for rebirth to happen.

With a thought, he triggered the runes all over the mountain, feeling the flood of power siphon from it straight to the palace, to the throne, to the very spot he intended. Apophis’s roar of indignation and surprise filled both whole and broken reality. Azael staggered with shock as he felt it too, his skeletal eyes widening.

"What have you done?" he thundered. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, YOU VILE—"

Lotes’s form crashed into the Reaper as she unleashed a blast of aether that tore through the space between them.

“NOW, MY SIBLINGS!” she thundered, as the supreme beings blazed to life with their full powers, grappling with the impossibly large form of Apophis.

“STOP HIM!” Apophis raged at Azael, who appeared from beneath the supreme being’s attack, broken and slagged, the aura of chaos around him diminished as he shot toward Ibere with all speed. Moyo shot in hot pursuit, his blade swinging with his rapidly declining strength as he sacrificed his essence to the process. He felt his attack connect with Azael, whose roar of rage echoed across the hemisphere of the planet as they burned upon re-entry.

Moyo grabbed onto the Reaper, broadcasting his mind across the planet, his voice loud and clear.

**********************************

Ajax had been separated from the rest of his team, a tidal fury of chaos creatures pushing through their ranks, tearing across the embattled lines of the defenders of the crystal mountain they had been sent to. He was alone, and the enemy immediately recognized the prize within their grasp. Hundreds of chaos creatures closed in from the miasma of chaos aspect that surrounded the mountain, roaring with eagerness to rend his flesh.

His mantle sparked with impacts from the creatures' attacks; for the moment, it withstood the assault, but even his barely powered mantle was not immune to the full might of chaos concentrated against him. Ajax had lived by one rule of battle above all others, a rule learned the moment his life had turned upside down and his home was destroyed.

He knew that attack was the strongest form of defense.

Ajax fought with silent fury, charging into the ranks of the creatures with his blade spinning in a blurring figure of eight. He crashed into them without slowing, his sword cutting them down. Oily, barely material forms were cleaved with every swing, and black viscera spilled onto the earth. Polluted blood showered him. All around, he smelled the corruption upon the very ground of Ibere. Their corruption was a corrosion of flesh, soul, and the material realm itself.

Ajax fought without the finesse he had always been known for, but with the doggedness and determination that had intensified since the fall of reality into darkness. No matter how many he killed, they pressed at him without cease.

In the thick of them, he was safe from the firestorm they unleashed; hand-to-hand combat was on his terms, not theirs. The creatures, even with their limited sense of identity and self-preservation, favored disciplined lines for some reason and overwhelming close-range attacks to bring down their enemies, taking whatever they received in return with reckless abandon. He refused them their preference, leaping among them, barging through their ranks before they could form.

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Ajax fought unpredictably, throwing off the offensive of his foes, who rightly guessed he wished to rejoin his comrades. The explosions of their aether-fueled attacks still rang dimly around him. Though he rushed them, cutting diagonally through their formations, always the pattern of his movements took him closer to the core of their numbers. If he was forced to take fifty steps away from the glowing mountain to throw them into disarray, he would take fifty-one back.

Ajax’s fury would have inspired a thousand swordsmen had any been able to witness it. The fog made his fight a lonely struggle. Hidden from all knowledge of what was happening in the broader fight, he faced the creatures of his once-father alone, his very position jammed by the overwhelming miasma of their presence, even as they died from being near it. The enemy fell by the dozens, for not one was a match for the once-death blade.

But even though Ajax fought like the rulers and ancients of old tales passed down to him, he was but one being against an army, and not even Ajax was tireless or supplied with infinite battle fortune.

The first cut to break through his mantle came after his four hundredth kill. A creature with long, barbed hook-scythes for hands and a centipede-like lower body lunged at the back of his knee while he was engaging four others in front. The weapon it sought to slay Ajax with was nothing but its serrated claws, but perseverance pushed it through the barrier of aura even as its form bubbled. Ajax felt the blow as an angry, hot sting, and the attacker paid for the injury with its very existence.

He smashed backward with his blade’s pommel, his aether-given strength caving in the rotting carapace and the greening head beneath. Ajax bellowed in anger, slashing across at chest height to drive back the hordes in front of him. Three of them died in a storm of aether and blade intent, their evaporating innards laid open to the fog. A fourth lost its left arm, and a fifth took a blow to the head that spun it around and knocked it down. Ajax would have finished them, but he was reaching instead to mend his mantle and aura barrier that had been damaged, trying to pull out the chaos aspect burrowing into his left shoulder.

At his first attempt, his fingers tore off a blood-slicked barb, too small for his hands. His second attempt was foiled by a renewed attack.

The barb penetrated a few more inches into his flesh, interfering only minimally with the bones of his joint. He had suffered far worse from deadlier weapons and fought on, trusting his body to blunt the pain as it had done countless times. He pressed forward, but surprisingly, he felt the strength running from his body along with his unstaunched blood.

Another creature died, then another. Explosives were raining down on him now from the far end of the enemy's side, as the creatures shelled their own troops in their lust to kill him. Ajax wondered if the Reaper saw his battle there and grimly ordered his death, whatever the cost to his creations. There was a soulless pragmatism to the act, typical of the one once called Lord of Death.

The fog swirled with the rain of fire born from the techniques that seemed to grow all around him. As it lifted, it revealed a horde of even more humanoid creatures in the dirty, muddied black of the legions of chaos. A hotness spread from the piercing barb as Ajax grunted, feeling it infect his body with a fever.

Incredulously, Ajax fought on, but the touch of worry grazed his heart. Never in all his days had he been ill, but he instinctively recognized the disease growing in him. He was human, after all, on some distant level. His bones ached like ice, and his flesh blazed like a forge. Sweat dripped from his brow.

The signs were all there, coming together as a loud gong echoed from the mountain. Ajax felt it beginning to siphon not just aether from the air, but chaos aspect as well. Each bell echoed with the closing procession of the Archailect, the long-awaited end Moyo had seemed to herald. And with it came the stark realization that he, along with everyone else fighting this grim, dark battle, were simply mortals giving their very lives to hold back the tide of oblivion.

He looked around at his father’s creations and wondered what awful pact had been made to give them the power to sicken even a being as close to the Primordials as he had once been.

“Azael! What have you done?” he shouted with a bitter laugh.

There was no answer. Of course, there wasn’t—what had he been expecting? His body warred with the infection of the barb. Well-being came and went as its corrosive poison overcame each trick his reforged body employed. He scrambled for the barb again as he fought, his blade burning through the air to obliterate yet more of the creatures, but he could not take enough time to pull the barb free. It was so firmly embedded, too delicate for his fingers to easily pluck out.

A surge of bile rose in his throat. His limbs shook. He was slowing. The enemy gathered closer, like pack hunters closing in on a great beast. His next blow was weak enough to be turned aside. The creatures were diamond rank and above, after all. Arms clad in every shifting protection of chaos and gauntlets forged of nightmares grappled with his forearm. With a bellow of anger, Ajax wrenched himself free and stood for a moment unmolested before they surged forward again, hacking and stabbing with more focus on his barrier and mantle, dragging him down.

“The great warrior ends his days,” he thought, “not upon a field of grass in one final, glorious battle, but dragged down and butchered in the mud.” They wrestled with him, their filthy forms dragging grooves into his armor. They tried to get at the joints in his arms, groin, legs, and neck, crawling on him like vermin. He threw them off, once, twice, but the third time was an exhausted heave. His body burned with the disease of chaos, and his strength left him.

“I am Ajax!!” he shouted, the passion of his words driving them back. “I am Ajax! Loyal son of the blade in all its aspects, and I have fought well.” He closed his eyes, awaiting the killing stroke.

It didn’t come. Instead, a series of loud explosions tore through the air, throwing his body upward before slamming him forcefully into the ground. His injury ached as he groaned. Silence followed as Ajax cracked open his eyes, dust and grime filling the air. Then, the loud roar of a machine filled the space. He spotted the gold and purple colors of the Titan’s forces.

“What are you doing?” a voice asked in exasperation. Ajax glanced sideways, seeing Killian and Duval staring at him. He coughed.

“My time has come, my friends,” he croaked.

“No, it hasn’t,” Killian said with a sigh.

“I see the bright lights,” Ajax continued.

“Those are just the glow of cannon fire, you idiot.”

Ajax raised one hand up. “Take care of my child,” he said dramatically.

Duval rolled his eyes and kicked him in the ribs. Ajax yelped, sitting up.

“There, see? Not dying. But we will be soon if you don’t get up and prepare for what’s coming,” Killian said.

Ajax struggled to his feet, wincing as he touched the barb, finding his fingers able to grip it. He tore it out forcefully, the infuriating object vanishing into black smoke.

“What’s coming?” he asked, glancing around, aware that he could neither see nor sense Altair and the rest of the powers.

Duval pointed at the once-golden and purple mountain, now tainted with hues of black chaos. It had infected the mountain. Ajax gritted his teeth in rage.

“We’ve failed,” he muttered, unbelieving the words coming out of his mouth.

“Contrary, this was his plan, according to the orders coming from the palace itself,” Duval replied.

Ajax glanced at him. That made no sense. The mountains were their defense points and sources of power, or what was left of it. Why would Moyo allow them to become tainted? Something else was afoot.

“Ajax,” Moyo’s voice crashed into his head as he staggered. “Inform the rest, the Reaper comes! Defend the palace itself!” the Titan said with no small amount of worry.

Ajax was already moving. His tired limbs, siphoned of aether and left with nothing but superhuman strength, began running as the vessel behind him powered to life, rising into the air.

“Don’t be stupid!” Killian said harshly, grabbing him as Ajax felt himself being lifted off the ground and into the confines of the vessel.

“Moyo—”

“We heard it too,” Killian said as Ajax paused, seeing the look of grim resolve on Duval’s face.

“He’s coming here after all,” Duval muttered. The meaning was clear enough for the rest of them: Moyo had either lost, or the Reaper was in full retreat. Either option meant the full force of chaos would soon descend on Ibere.

Overhead, the once-bright skies began to darken as the air grew frigid. Below, dozens of ships that had once ferried the forces of the Archailect to the battlefronts began a hasty retreat, carrying their forces within their bellies, heading back to the palace.

They had lost the galaxies, lost the last citadel, and now, their final bastion was about to fall. Ajax gripped his blade tighter, staring into the ashy skies at the glowing palace ahead. One way or another, it would all end there.