I lost myself in the rhythm of the work, only to be startled when I heard Jonan yell.

“Dammit!” he swore.

I looked up from the dying patient I was injecting with mycophage. Dr. Derric stood in front of a door in a nearby hallway. By the looks of things, the door led into a patient’s room.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Jonan turned to me, and to Suisei, who was nearby. “Do either of you have clearance? Please, open the door. There’s someone in here!”

As I walked toward the door, I heard the pleas of an indistinct voice:

“Please…” they said, “help me…”

It was like someone talking through a nightmare.

“Step back,” I said.

A chill ran through me as I scanned my chip on the sensor of the console mounted on the wall beside the door. The chill moved out of me, solidifying into Andalon. She stood at my side, tightly gripping my arm.

“No, no no, no no no no no! Mr. Genneth… don’t go in there. Don’t let anyone go in there! You can’t, Mr. Genneth! You can’t!” Her whole body shivered.

I slowed down my perception of time.

Andalon… what’s going on?, I thought-asked.

“It’s there,” she said, staring at the door like it was the end of the world. “It’s in there.”

What is in there?

“I don’t think we got rid of all of the darkness. There’s more! You gots to be careful! Be super careful.”

I snapped time back into motion.

Suddenly, the stardust leaking through Kléothag’s wings changed directions, flowing inward. Thinking this was Xuyux’s last-ditch effort to best him, Kléothag spread his wings and drifted backward, away from whatever trap the Lord of Symmetries had sprung.

As he moved out of the way, we saw what had become of the star. It was now a particolored core of churning light. The wave fronts of stardust streaming off it reversed course, flowing toward the core, as is being sucked in.

Then came the stain. It began with just a drop, a splotch of black on the surface of the core. It spread quickly, wrapping around the core, tainting it.

Corrupting it.

And then it erupted.

Skylights of darkness blasted out from the ruined star. Kléothag flicked his tail, darting upward. He spun around with a beat of his wings, dodging the expanding blast. But the darkness kept coming. It poured out in a never-ending stream, billowing and billowing, blotting out all light. Fire and plasma sparked across its wavefront, glowing in all the colors.

Leave this place, fiend! Kléothag yelled. His voice was pure thought; it echoed in all our minds. You will find no devotion here!

But the darkness simply grew and grew.

Kléothag called his urubi with a wave of his claws. The serpents darted toward the expanding darkness. More of urubi flowed off Kléothag’s mane, their fiery wings flitting like blades. They sped toward the core, slicing their wings through the dark tide. But the instant the urubi touched the darkness, they spasmed, as if struck, drifting away, paralyzed.

No…

The urubi crumpled as the contagion consumed them. In seconds, they were motionless—silhouettes of perfect black, outlined by the distant stars, swathed in flickering auras.

I could have fled, Kléothag said, but I was too proud.

Wall of darkness streamed past him.

One by one, the urubi’s silhouettes collapsed upon themselves, then detonated, sending out more streams of darkness.

The lord of Estravor does not shirk a challenge! Kléothag roared.

He recalled the few urubi who had yet to impact the darkness, returning them to His mane.

Starlight whisked off Kléothag’s wings as he soared, weaving left and right as he dodged the spreading streams. A silent light crackled over his chest as he opened his jaws and breathed out more holy fire. But instead of blasting them at the darkness, Kléothag whipped his head left and right and flicked his wings and tail, swathing himself in his ivory flames.

Begone!

A word I did not know sprang up in my brain: comet.

Kléothag dove, rocketing at the spreading dark, trailing holy fire. He raked his claws through the vacuum, tearing through the growing walls of dark, opening rainbow-edge gashes that bled shadows onto the void. The churning froze where Kléothag struck it, utterly motionless.

Slash after slash—spin, flick, soar—Kléothag cleared a path, pushing back at the dark, forming a narrow hall whose far end opened onto the corrupted stellar core, where fresh dark spewed out in an endless torrent.

I readied the final blow.

Kléothag’s aura flared. His fur turned to flame: red mane on blinding white.

I held nothing back.

Spinning round over the core, he spread his silver wings and unleashed his fury. The coat of white fire around the lord of Estravor’s body merged with the stream of energy he blasted out of his mouth. The strike was brilliant and wide, sending sheets of diaphanous color slicing through the void.

The beam struck the darkness’ core.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

I was a fool.

The Hallowed Beast’s magic did not pierce the shadow. It did not burn away the dark.

No.

The darkness blossomed. It consumed the holy fire, and grew and grew.

It grew so quickly.

It fed on my power.

The darkness sprang on him before he could react. Amoeboid night poured down his wings and slithered over his limbs. It engulfed him, burning him, tearing into his flesh, bleeding his divine Light into the void.

The darkness drank up the spilt power. It burst out, expanding in every direction, all-consuming, ripping holes in the void. Kléothag glimpsed other worlds in the tears, floating there like marbles in the sea, only for the darkness to reach through the rifts and drown them in its depths.

Star systems came apart, lost upon the void. And Kléothag fell with them.

I was cast adrift.

He tumbled through a tunnel-shaped un-space, long and streaming. The tunnel raved around him, kaleidoscopic and ever-unfurling.

But even here, I was not safe.

Tears split through the un-space, louder than thunder. Darkness bled out from unseen dimensions and pounced onto the Hallowed Beast, piercing his flank.

A mortal wound.

The darkness drained him quickly. Kléothag’s fire-body flashed, and then flickered out. Light flowed across his fur, sucked up by the darkness, drawn to where it impaled him.

It wanted my power. And it took it.

He roared in anguish.

I forsook my might.

Kléothag let his power bleed away.

It was the only way I could survive.

Light ripped off him in waves, like the clouds off the exploding star. Kléothag shrunk to a measly size, barely half as large as the red planet. For a second, a layer of starlight outlined his previous form. The darkness lashed out at it, slurping it up as the weakened Beast fell away.

“What are you waiting for?” Jonan asked.

Pushing me aside, Dr. Derric reached for the door handle. But I side-stepped him and took a stand in front of him, with my back against the door.

“I… I don’t think you should go in there.” I tried to sound resolute and convincing.

I don’t think I succeeded. I didn’t even believe the words, myself.

“Wh—What’s gotten into you, Doc?” Jonan asked.

I clenched my fists.

Andalon, what do you expect me to do here?!

“Use your powers!” she said. “Stop him. Stop everyone! Please! Please!! You need to believe me!”

“Help… please… Angel…”

The voice behind the door was dry and breathless, like a whisper at the back of my skull.

Jonan had a fiery look in his eyes. His angry stare dug into me.

If I wanted to stop this, I was going to have to get physical.

Then the door opened on its own, as if blown open by wind. Though my wyrmsight was inactive—and had been, since we’d entered this beasteaten place—I could sense the presence of a pataphysical weave in my mind’s eye, like a phantom hand reaching out to push.

The corridor of space and time swirled around Kléothag as he fell. He was like a kitten, battered by a storm. Colors quaked around him, opening holes in the tunnel’s wall. He drifted this way and that, until the tunnel rudely spat him out and vanished, disappearing in a spurt of upended wave-functions.

And then everything turned quiet and still.

Kléothag drifted, weak, hardly able to move, and utterly alone. Opening his heavy eyes, he forced himself to look around. He saw starry space, but he couldn’t recognize the configuration.

I was a castaway, he said, adrift upon the True Sea.

Kléothag’s wings lolled at his sides. They were torn, their silvery feathers ripped away, save for a few ragged clumps here and there. He was covered in lacerations and burns. Ulcerating wounds ate into his flanks, around which his flesh had begun to liquify.

He trailed droplets of bloody light as he drifted. Several of his urubi orbited around him. Their red opal bodies were fractured and dull. Their wings of fire sputtered, unable to maintain themselves.

Kléothag mewled in pain.

I should have fled. But instead, I lost everything.

He felt faint.

With great effort, he turned himself around, to face what lay ahead.

He saw an infant sun, many millions of miles away. Dust, rock, and gas accreted on the ecliptic plane, tracing out the cradle of a cosmic nursery. Planetesimals ambled through the autumnal debris, slowly accruing mass.

What had happened to me? he asked. Had the Mwill escaped? Had the Godspawn found more power? Was this darkness a new threat? Or was it an old one, awakened from some forgotten slumber?

I did not know.

Even now, I do not know.

Whatever it was, it had made a whelp out of me. I hadn’t stood a chance.

With what little strength he had left, Kléothag steered himself toward the condensing nebula. Light sputtered in his wings, pushing him forward. The burst was short-lived. The effort opened new wounds, spilling more god-blood onto the void.

An enemy was at our gates, Kléothag said, and I was the watchman, but I had failed to send out a warning.

If only I’d sent out a message when I’d still had the strength. But now…?

Now I was all but powerless.

He tried again, and again, adjusting his heading as best as he could. The urubi followed him, caught in his meager gravity.

The great being shivered.

Death does not frighten me half as much as that darkness, Kléothag said. No, what I fear is silence. I could do nothing to help my world, nor any other. The Alliance has no clue of the horror that lies in wait.

No matter what, I had to survive. The arc of history is long. If I could not warn them now, then… perhaps in another age. Another aeon.

As long as I lived, there was still a chance, assuming there was anything left.

I had no choice. I sealed myself in slumber.

With the last of his power, Kléothag condensed himself. His being dissolved, melting into heat and light that blebbed in the void, like oil in water. His awareness faded as his flesh reified into carbon and iron, nickel and silica.

And so I would sleep, to await the coming of one who could spread my warning across the heavens.

Blood and muscle became magma and mantle. Gravity’s hands pressed the cosmic dragon’s body into a new planetesimal, caught in orbit around the infant star. Several of the urubi were sealed within the thickening world-core, returning to their master. Others, still in orbit, curled around one another, forming a smaller body—a newborn Moon.

Our Moon.

Our world.

Kléothag’s words rumbled through my mind. It is a miracle that Kosuke found me, and I, him. Time’s flow is not constant between the worlds. Streams begin and end as willed by their nature. Chance encounters such as these are… difficult to predict. Even the Kyu-Neen would struggle.

But now, that is all in the past. My sleep has ended, and I lack the power to return to slumber. I teach Kosuke wait I know, while holding out hope that these words might be heard and a rescuer sent to find me.

However… I have no delusions. I know this is a desperate play. I have little hope of rescue, and in all likelihood… I am already dead. Life requires many ages to blossom. By the time you hear this message, I will have faded, my power spent.

Kléothag’s voice trembled.

Here was a being who could hold the Sun in the palm of his hand, quivering in fear, like a man facing death.

Kosuke, I tell you what I told your other self: I am dying. Even here, I can feel the long reach of the darkness’ hunger. It fed upon me as I slept, ravenous for whatever shred of light remains in my body. Even now, it gnaws, hungry for my final scraps.

Kléothag felt the darkness, and we felt it with him. It was there, slumbering beneath the fabric of creation, slowly but steadily percolating through the spaces between space.

Kosuke, the world beneath your feet is merely a shell. It guards a superposition of my corpse, preventing the dark from feasting on its kill.

Please, do not let it take my body. I do not want it to grow any more powerful than it already has. I… I did not mean to endanger you, my child, but… you are not safe. You must leave this place. This universe is doomed. This earthen shell will not last forever, and when it breaks, the darkness will feast.

Doomed?, I thought, shivering at the Hallowed Beast’s words.

I beg you, Kosuke, Kléothag said, flee, and take the people with you! Take all of them, my final children. You must go, you must send out the warning. Shout it from every corner of the Exarium. Let the others know: something wicked this way comes!

Light crept in from the edges of the starry void. The image faded to white, leaving only Kléothag’s panicked words.

You must run. It is your only chance!

Run!

Run!!

Then the message ended.