The implementation of the spine caused bones to extend and wrap over the rotten flesh of the colossus, granting it a snow-white exoskeleton as a skull shaped as one of a cow’s own formed over its head.
“I am…” The altered guardian spoke, spreading its arms as its spine extended down its back into a serpentine tail, “…”The One Consigned To Oblivion.”
All at once, the scenery morphed; the tiles of the gloomy walls popped out like piled bricks, overridden by countless spines vertebrae that interlocked and formed new walls.
“Does this bastard ever stop changing…?” Beowulf muttered.
[...Two Hours Later…]
Death.
It filled the chamber as the bodies of those who treaded into the domain of the deity laid lifeless on the cold, unforgiving floor. Residuals of magecraft filled the bone-forged territory with smoke, hanging over the fallen.
An unnerving silence filled the chamber that was once bursting with the hopes of those who fought. Some were left slain with bodies twisted beyond recognition, with their limbs twisted as if they were dolls played with by the hands of a child.
“...Hff…Hff…Dammit…”
Down to a knee, Beowulf remained breathing, though not in spectacular shape himself as the right side of his face looked as though a bear’s claw had mauled it, with his eye entirely missing.
“This is true permanence. Allow death to embrace you into the boundless forevermore of nothingness.”
Creeping through the domain like a foul wind were the words of its ruling deity, who stood tall with its tar-like body, enveloped in its shell of bones. The colossal aspect of death waved its limbs around as if guiding an orchestral performance, filling the deathly chamber with a hum as spirals of darkness swirled into existence.
A glimpse into what laid beyond the beautiful journey of life: a cold, unfeeling void persisted within those gateways of shadows. Around the gestures of the bone-clad entity did these fragments of oblivion open, calling forth an unbridled force.
“Relinquish life,” the deity of death commanded, waving his head side-to-side.
At the point of its abyssal finger towards the sole man that still stood against it, the gates of oblivion unleashed quakes of annihilation.
Beowulf mustered flames around his body, though they flickered like embers beneath a downpour.
“The gods up there must hate us if these are the trials they’ve left for us. Is it possible? I wonder if we’re even meant to reach the summit of Yggdrasil. I think we all know deep down it’s damn near impossible…yet we continue marching onward against the inevitable,” Beowulf spoke to himself under his breath.
“I didn’t take you for the type to give up so easily.”
Arriving beside the wounded man, the words came from a man with white hair that waved in the hollow winds. In his right hand, he held his broken goggles as blood dripped from the side of his head, yet still holding a smile imbued with hope even as his body was covered in wounds.
“Jason?” Beowulf called his name, as if the sight of him still living and breathing was hard to believe, “Who said anything about giving up? I came here knowing death was likely.”
Though he was half the size of Beowulf himself, Jason seemed taller than anybody else in that moment, standing against the unstoppable force of death that closed in on them.
“Everyone that challenges Yggdrasil is prepared to die, but we don’t fight to die, Beowulf. Even if you’re the last one standing, until every bone in your body is broken, there’s not a zero percent chance of victory. If there’s not a zero percent chance of victory, then it might as well be one-hundred,” Jason explained with a smile, using his thumb to wipe the blood away near his mouth as his gaze didn’t shy away from the nearing limbs of death.
As the abyssal pillars crashed down, particles of lifelessness scattered in the stagnant air. Though as it settled, the forgotten deity found that the corpses of the two were not present.
Across the dreadful domain, Jason released his hold of the man’s wrist, “You’re welcome. Take a breather. I’ll handle things from here.”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Uegh…” Beowulf fell to a knee, catching his breath as blood seeped from his wounds, “No!...If you fight alone, you’ll die.”
Jason glanced back at the injured guild leader with a calm smile, “If something like this could kill me so easily, I would’ve died a century ago.”
A bestial howl ripped through the temple of oblivion, echoing off of the walls of bones as the deity’s sights seemed set on the snowy-haired man.
In his hand, the torn band of the goggles waved as the threads of ripped fabric began to reconnect. Even the smudge of blood staining the clear lens faded away before it was restored to pristine condition.
As he slid the specs over his face with the band sifting over his white hair, a single word left his lips, “Chronos.”
From his position, an influx of divine aura emitted like a gale summoned from an unruly tempest. The space around his body seemed to bend, rippling as if a hand sifted through the waters of a pond.
In his eyes were pearly clocks, becoming his very irises that viewed the world. The same symbols faded into his body as hour hands dragged along the sundials that shone with celestial grace.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
“Alright, time to get started,” Jason announced to himself, watching through his eyes that viewed a world of gray.
The chamber fell still; the debris that fell from the ceiling as chunks of nebulous ivory, the deity beyond reasoning, and the wind that fell null against his skin. It was quiet; a lonely world known only to Jason.
That’s what he believed until that moment, in truth.
As he approached the deity of death, what should’ve been reduced to an unmoving statue in frozen time moved before his eyes. The colossal tail of bone whipped around, nearly catching the goggle-wearing Invictus as he jumped back.
Despite the proximity to death he encroached upon, there was an elated twist to the man’s lips as his boots landed upon the floor, sliding back.
‘I considered this to be a possibility, but I was really hoping it wouldn’t happen. There couldn’t be a worse matchup for myself. All of its attacks are the concept of death extracted into tangible form–even time stops moving for the dead,’ he thought.
Clasping his hands together, the man entrenched in the battle against death didn’t seem fearful even in the face of a disadvantageous opponent.
“Time is the archive of life—the library that holds the experiences of every living being, from joy to grief and happiness to despair,” Jason explained, spreading his hands as a sphere of seraphic fragments dazzled in between his palms.
Though he spoke, it was certain that his words were nothing more than vibrations against the ears of the maddened deity.
It sprinted towards him, dragging its scythes across the ground as sparks danced in the trail behind its thoughtless race.
“Death will claim you!—“ The bone-clad tyrant of death howled as it neared the man.
Amidst the world of frozen time, Jason remained unflinching as the deity approached him, moving his hands as he guided the fragments of vibrant, pure light around himself.
“If time is an archive, then I’m its librarian—those moments are mine to call upon, as if retrieving a book from its shelf,” Jason claimed, holding his hand forward.
Beside the man whose clockwork eyes shined beneath his goggles, the shards of light were threaded together, intertwined by memories drawn from depths of the universe itself.
From the memories written into the cells of reality, the triumphs and achievements of powerful warriors were withdrawn, embedded into the ethereal aspects summoned by the Invictus of Chronos himself.
[“Akashic Record Recall”]
Into humanoid shapes, the crystallizations of time took on familiar forms: like phantoms of the past, the forms of Beowulf and Sirius appeared beside him.
“As long as I’m here, you’re never fighting just one person. What once existed, always will; heroes, villains, humanity–it’s always here, right with me. Now, show me what you’ve got!” Jason commanded with an excited grin as he snapped his fingers.
At his call, the specters of the Invictus’ launched forth, intercepting the wild rush of the deity. The phantoms of pale light stood before the sanity-deprived entity, as the spectral form of the Invictus of Hyperion commanded a beam of burning energy to shoot forth.
“...Defiance of mortality. What is this?...” The depraved deity spoke hoarsely, warping its malleable body out of the range of the heat.
It moved like a ball of liquid flesh, with its armor of bones shattering and following it; as the entity moved itself around swiftly, its shape morphed back into its desired form, causing the skeleton to rebuild itself around its body.
“...Rejector of the end. I shall sever your ties to life–” The deity presiding over death loomed over the man of clockwork eyes, rearing its killing scythe back.
Jason’s smile remained sturdy, “Didja forget about someone?”
“Hrm?--”
Before the towering embodiment of death could move, a flash of bright-white electricity pierced through the stagnant air. The phantom of Sirius connected the shot of lightning against the deity, knocking it off its balance.
Even after it was stricken by the mighty fulmination, the howling god moved in an unorthodox fashion–leaping wall from wall, bouncing rapidly, its limbs extended in every direction, whipping around violently.
“Tenacious mortals. Why won’t you welcome the end?” The deity asked.
Jason responded with a smile, “Sorry, but we have to win. Humanity needs to reach the top of Yggdrasil, no matter what. If we want a world free of monsters like you, that’s what it’ll take.”