"Hh...Haaaaaah!" Kasian collapsed sideways into the table.

Akvum reached out for him, but Kasian's raised palm dissuaded him from interfering.

The blue-plated fusion between Tirolith and Albion watched on with a gentle, cool smile.

Then Kasian's eyes were shining, eight-pointed stars became his pupils. He adjusted the mask upon his face, slowly stood up, examining his hands.

"That simple, is it?" he asked through his panted breaths.

"How do you feel?" asked Akvum.

"I feel... I can hear Llestren'vatis. He's in my mind. He's part of me... I can see...!" His eyes widened. "The twice-ley! It's right here for me to...!"

Kasian carefully reached out a finger. At a single incidental prod, a stray blast of ice exploded across that half of the room, blew out all of the windows in a cacophonous explosion.

Akvum and Kasian both stumbled back in shock. Tirolith's fusion only made an impressed smile.

"I barely touched it...!" Kasian stared at his hands again. "This power is... This power is incredible!"

But Akvum's eyes showed more skepticism than belief. For what this would turn their future into, only God could imagine...

Cedric took a stern blow across his face, twenty more across his body in a fraction of a second, then two, three, six, twelve, too many slashes of Kogar's scythe to count.

That should have been it. The Moment was begun. Vekzul's meteor was mere seconds from impact.

Until it wasn't. Cedric grinned, stumbled backward. His wounds were already healing.

Kogar snarled.

"Sorry," Cedric laughed as the blood across his body supped back into his skin, "I've been saving most of my esera. Maybe you've got the Moment, maybe you've got Dreams..."

Kogar rushed in at the mention of that power.

Cedric threw his guard up. "But I've got all of this reality on my side!"

Their power exploded between them. Kogar's scythe melted away against Cedric's claws. Okella's tendrils kicked from the ground and launched Cedric into the air.

"I'm sick of this! Sick of all of this death! Kogar, Kasian, whoever the hell you are...! DIE!"

Golden sunlight exploded from Cedric as he hovered in place. Violet auras spilled out alongside the gold, shot down like bolts chasing Kogar backwards.

Though Kogar successfully avoided all of them, it was soon apparent that he wasn't the target; the ground began to bulge and swarm, corpses digging themselves up all over Calamon's razed streets.

"Feel this, Kogar... The consequence of your fucking guilt!"

The corpses clawed at him. Kogar swept his scythe horizontally through all of their forms, dropped them all into pieces, kicked out of the grappling swarm.

But they weren't stopped so easily. They began just as quickly to crawl back around him and engulf him, grappled his legs and pulled him toward the ground.

Kogar resisted their draw with hardly a struggle. Then he began, "Vekzul... Vekzul!"

The sky flared.

"Come down to me! Make your power mine!"

Kogar raised his fingers to the sky.

Cedric felt his hairs stand on end for only a single second before a blast of red lightning struck the man, exploded the corpses all across the street. When the smoke and debris cleared, that lightning was still coursing around Kogar's body. A red eight-pointed star bled into the center of his two-tone armor.

The boyish king landed on a rooftop nearby. He controlled his breathing, felt his thousand-beat heartrate accelerate.

Kogar turned upon him. In a flash, he was within reach.

Their fists slammed together. Cedric's claws dug deep through Kogar's hand and into his forearm, letting Cedric swipe downward and cleave his arm into pieces. He swung his left for Kogar's head—

But Kogar was faster with his own left, knocked Cedric across the face so hard that he was flung from the roof toward the ground.

Then Kogar dropped upon him, let spikes emerge from his boots as they slammed into Cedric's chest, slammed him into the ground, impaled him to the cobblestones below.

Kogar stomped his boot into Cedric's head, pierced the blade through the boy's skull. He twisted, gnashed his teeth, growled and hissed and screamed.

Cedric's hand was still tensed, reaching for Kogar for a long moment. It twitched once, then fell limp. Okella's tendrils retracted into his skin. His scales began to melt to the cobbles.

"Finally..." Kogar groaned, "It's done. It should have been like that from the first."

He staggered away. Somehow, his body felt heavy. His mind buzzed, he couldn't resist reaching up and clawing at his scalp as though something was burrowing just beneath the skin.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Kogar... I am Kosos, moon and star... I am eternal, born forever through my dream. Life beyond living, death beyond dying..."

He struck himself across the face.

"Sleep not. You've won this. Sleep not. The last threat to our eternal empire, Rykaedi too, all have fallen before me. Do not rest upon your laurels. Do not. To sleep now invites a new threat. To rest now invites weakness... Do not... resist me..."

His eyes fell lazily, his head craned forward. Then he jolted back awake. He looked down to his unarmored palms, his arms covered comfortably in a cloth shirt.

"Is that it? Is it over now?" Young Talek looked up to the corpse across the way, the still-bleeding body of Cedric Castelbre. "Did I kill him?"

He swallowed his guilt. "How long did this last...? Awake finally, but how much time has passed?"

Then he looked to the carnage across the town. The burning crimson sky.

"Did I do this? I spawned a war just to protect myself...? Was I at so much risk? Or was I the evil which sought destruction...?"

A sole teardrop struck the floor from his eye. He fell to his knees.

He heard her voice: "Kogar, Kogar, my darling, for what did you design it? Why did you design Everlasting?"

His body shook and quaked.

That I could make this moment with you become an eternity.

Her laugh boomed within his skull, bounced off the walls of the city. "Surely not. Surely you did not create such a monster for such a foolish endeavor... My dear Talek," Cassandra said, "You've yet to comprehend the weight of this error."

But there was no waking up from that harm. There was no sleeping through it. The choices which bound him were unseverable. Fate was sealed. In fact...

He prodded the twice-ley. His eyes widened.

The Hierarchy... is still fractured?

Faunia marched upon that place alone. She'd always imagined Evra as an insurmountable task, but one which they would face together, hand in hand. Their bond should be unwavering.

The place 'neath Calamon, through the twisting halls and armies of angels, was deeper than she had ever considered the would could go. And in those final, mabled tunnels, where the golden bulbs were inlaid upon the walls, where she struck down the full suits of golden armors and those last remaining Cassisians which haunted her... there was a grand doorway which was her final resistance.

Faunia rubbed her hand along the door's sleek surface, took a long breath as she paced herself before the finality of what they'd been reaching for.

Is this truly it? Does it all end here?

And the giant double door opened at her push.

If she'd learned anything through their hellish survival, it was that Heaven was just another fairy tale. Evra's grace, Evra's protectors, Evra's divinity... illusory. Unreal.

The whole room shook and rumbled as she entered, perhaps with the death throes of Calamon, perhaps with however Cedric's own climactic battle was proceeding.

And in the center of the cylindrical amphitheater, there she was: Evra.

In that center pit of the floor was her quarry, that gargantuan silver dragon, pulsating with chromatic energy. Seven feathers floated around her, their energy channeling into her.

She reached up high enough to press into the domed ceiling, her platinum wings were obstructing the glassy chandelier which hung massive over everything there. Golden scaffolding climbed each of the walls, held that ceiling right where it ought to stay.

Faunia could feel her. It was so potent that she couldn't help but squirm in her armor. Her influence over all reality, over all chaos, over all order, it was impossible to resist. Impossible to ignore. The most potent thing to ever exist inside their reality. A real, living god.

And the choice that came with the discovery: kill her? Release her? Seal her deeper, that order would never be attainable again?

Incredible to think that without Dyosius, none of that is possible.

Faunia felt that familiar energy in her mind. Dyosius. What was left of it. It matched Evra's energy, replicated it, imitated it. It was nowhere near the potency, but it was the same. Like a crude artist's imitation of a masterwork.

If you die, Azafel wins. Chaos wins. Our plane would succumb under the weight of Sylvet ideation and disorder...

If you're released, your order will balance out the wrath which Azafel has razed this plane with. Calamon would find a new balance, a new way, and lead the world. People would find continuity, sanity, love, protection. Their desires all would be fulfilled. No more strife. No more suffering. No more struggling.

No more death.

Faunia paused.

Is that what I want? Is that what Cedric wants?

"I'm not going to kill you," Faunia answered.

Or is that what Evra wants?

The dragon didn't answer. Her slumber was deep with all of those shackles.

Ka-chkk!

As though answering the thought, one of the seven feathers began to fall. The energy trailing from it dissipated into nothing. It made a very slow descent, struck the sloped platform which surrounded her, then rumbled and shook the chamber as it shattered into raw twice-ley. Faunia became nauseous as the wave of esera passed through her. She shut her eyes, tried to persist.

Evra stirred, just barely enough to be witnessed.

"Azafel cannot be allowed free reign. This, I understand. That's what creates those Sylvet, and those who imitate their ideals."

Another feather went. The world shook again. Faunia's shut eyes tensed tighter.

"Azafel would bring death upon all. Raw chaos ends in nothing but our own destruction..."

Then Faunia froze. She cleared her throat, shook her head with a sad smirk. "Sorry. I'm being too introspective. The king has given me the order. It's wrong of me to delay."

And the rest of the feathers shook the world as they fell.

"Forever have I lived to serve." Faunia bowed deep into a kneel. "And now, my servitude follows you, as well."

Evra stirred. Her giant head began to move.

Faunia let the passing wave of peace wash over her, cleanse her mind from the chaos that had been infecting for so long. Suddenly, so much more was clear. The fog that had surrounded her mind began to subside. Elation swelled within her, a sense of extreme grandeur.

Bweeeeee...

She turned at that familiar charging sound, the feeling of her hairs standing on end.

BWAP!

Then the angel's laser hit her. She collapsed immediately flat to the stones, clutched her bleeding side. Not just bleeding—her whole side was destroyed.

"T-Tir..." she stammered once. Then she felt the warmth suck out of her breath, her hands became frigid...

X

Alarmingly, Llestren'vatis offered to attempt a fusion with me. I was skeptical. But that experiment is what began the Age of Etherians. He found an entry and made it happen. Then I could hear his internal voice as though it were my own, could manipulate his powers with his help. He showed me what he called the Etherian Ley, how to navigate it. Then I could cast his powers like they were my own. And then I knew that the Etherian Experiment had to begin in full.

Akvum was first to have his own Etherian, once Llestren'vatis had left the plane. Then some of his subordinates. We learned to augment the Hunters’ eyes to a yellowish hue, a doctoring which allowed them to see the Etherian Ley when it moved, and to identify Etherian wielders. We called them Etherian Knights at first. Then they began to procreate—Etherian Knights giving love and offspring to a non-Etherian bride would create more Etherians. And soon, everyone in Calamon had their own Etherian...