Wamy was suddenly seized by a strange vision, an uncomfortable sensation running through him like a shiver along the spine of reality.
Wamy (urgent): Goddess Mü Thanatos, goddess Zara, I offer you my apologies… I must withdraw for a moment. It won't last long.
Mü Thanatos: Go, I also grant you permission.
Wamy bowed with reverence before disappearing into the ether.
Zara: Wamy is a devoted advisor… Is he often called away like this elsewhere?
Mü Thanatos (in a mysterious tone): Indeed, he often absents himself, but he always returns… You'd better worry about yourself.
Zara (resigned): My fate is sealed… And there is nothing good left to save.
Mü Thanatos: I wish I could change that…
Zara placed her hand on Mü Thanatos's forehead, filled with gentle sadness.
Zara: Don't worry. What happens to me… perhaps I deserve it, deep down.
In the world of the Void, the celestial war between the gods and the demon kings had erupted.
The clash between Thanato and Raiku shook the invisible foundations of this realm.
Thanato (smiling in the shadows): You defend yourself quite well.
Raiku: Is that all you have to say before disappearing?
Thanato: Hahahaha… Don't make me laugh.
The god extended a dark hand.
Thanato: Parricidii Principatus.
A black magic oozed from his palm. Raiku felt, too late, the curse coil around her essence.
Raiku: How could I have failed to anticipate this attack?
Thanato (calm): You couldn't sense it. It does not come from space… it comes from Death itself.
Raiku: I am a demon! I can perceive attacks even through the veil of the cosmos!
Thanato: And yet, you did not see it. Since our first encounter, you were already doomed. I am Death, Raiku. My power targets your existence before you even raise your eyes to me. All my attacks… have already reached you, long before I materialize them.
Raiku: Ugh… What?
Thanato: You were a struck target… from the beginning.
Raiku: Shut up!!
She leapt and struck Thanato with all her might. But her fist crashed into emptiness… without effect.
Thanato: The attack I materialized earlier neutralizes all offensive forms coming from you. You can no longer do anything against me. In my eyes, you are already dead.
Raiku stepped back, trembling. And suddenly, a chilling presence behind her.
Thanato (ruthless): Surrender.
Elsewhere, beyond the force field, another fight raged: Sata faced Apollo.
Sata relentlessly chained her assaults, but Apollo countered with an almost divine ease.
Sata: So you never strike? Or are you struggling to follow my moves? Haha!
In a flash, Apollo appeared behind her and brandished his spear.
The blade pierced Sata's body… who immediately petrified into a stone statue before disintegrating.
Apollo: This is not normal…
But already, Sata reappeared.
Sata: Hahaha! Give up! You will never hurt me, nor destroy me.
Apollo charged his spear again with destructive energy, pierced Sata a second time… same result. Petrification, then evaporation.
Apollo (wary): Hm…
And Sata returned, again.
Sata: You are stubborn. Even if I let myself be hit, you couldn't even scratch me.
Never had Apollo seen such resistance to the inevitable effect of his spear.
Suddenly, Sata kicked him in the stomach, sending him flying, before pelting him with blows.
Sata: Fatal mistake. Touching me in combat is to deliver yourself entirely to me.
She stepped back, then recited in a dark voice:
Sata: Maledictio Reptilium Damnat in Aeternum.
Apollo's body immediately petrified, becoming a statue.
Sata: This spell seals your essence with the curse of reptiles. You are frozen for eternity.
Apollo (in reversed voice): Inversely…
And suddenly, it was Sata who turned into a statue.
Apollo: Perfect. How could she escape an attack targeting her essence and entire being?
For thirty long seconds, Sata's statue remained frozen…
Apollo: So even you… do not escape. But how did my spear fail, when the principle is similar and even worse?
A voice sounded behind him:
???: GOOOO!!!
Apollo jumped back.
Apollo: She would be… immune to attacks on being and essence itself? But who is this demon?
Sata reappeared, proud, sovereign.
Sata: Let me enlighten you. I am Sata, demon king… one of the demons of the Divine Calamity. The gods knew me as Medusa, humans as Hinata.
Apollo's eyes widened.
An adversary of this scale… a threat from forgotten ages.
Apollo: Medusa… I remember. The demon of Sin. The one who caused the Fall of the Mother of Men by pushing her to bite the forbidden apple. But… Adam defeated you.
Sata: In my Apophis form, yes. One day, I hated God and wanted to devour existence with my reptilian body. Adam stopped me with his absurd power.
Apollo: That power that decides everything and nothing…
Sata: He could decide that my attacks would never reach their target… And none touched him, for the slightest would have been enough to kill him.
Apollo: He also decided that his attacks would defeat you. And he did. You know that we, gods, also possess this decision-making authority?
Sata: Hahaha, should I tremble?
Apollo: You underestimate me?
Sata: You will never touch me… in real time.
Apollo: You killed gods, sealed their sources in stone statues, and hid them in caves that even we, primordial gods, could not perceive!
Sata (smiling): That was… fun.
Apollo: You lived with the human king Giffereld, posing as his wife for thirty years… And on your wedding day, you drained all the men on the planet of their seed… Leaving them dried up, turned into cannibals thirsty for female blood. Why?
Sata (laughing): Apollo, my dear… May I call you that? You are so royal. I would like to do the same to you…
Apollo: Under the name Érashia, you joined two other calamitous demons: the one with fifty heads and his monstrous cousin. Together, you sowed disobedience among the gods… before betraying them by casting them into eternal oblivion.
Sata: They no longer interested me. They had to be eliminated, right, my dear Apollo?
Apollo: You caused so many disasters that even the gods ignore some… You don't only destroy gods. You are a threat to existence itself. That is why… I must erase you, here and now. "Sata" is just a mask.
She stared at him for a long moment, then smiled.
Sata: Oh… Apollo has unmasked me. And now, he wants to dance?
The world of the Void began to tremble.
Apollo's aura became incandescent.
Apollo: You will disappear.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, the fight between Raiku and Thanato seemed to be nearing its end.
Raiku: I refuse to admit my defeat…
Thanato: And yet, it is decided. You know it deep inside.
Raiku: No… NO!! NO!!! Essence suicide!
Thanato: Fool.
Raiku's body exploded, releasing deadly particles from her source.
But she immediately reformed, looking more confident.
Thanato: Come closer…
But nothing happened.
Thanato (intrigued): What…?
Raiku: Too bad for you. When I suicide by the source, I return immune to previous attacks. And better yet… I can control them now.
Thanato: Nothing exceptional… like many others…
Raiku: Indeed… but this goes far beyond. My overexistence takes into account all that you are, all that you do, all that you can do. In other words, I am immune to you. To all that you represent.
A heavy silence settled. Thanato frowned, his gaze suddenly more serious.
Thanato: I see…
He now perceived the full extent of the problem. Raiku was no longer simply an obstacle; she had become an insurmountable abyss.
Without further warning, Raiku pounced on him. The two adversaries engaged in brutal close combat, a violent dance of punches and strikes, but the outcome was clear: Raiku dominated decisively. Every blow she landed resonated like a sentence. Thanato, though powerful, struggled to keep up.
Trying to regain the advantage, Thanato jumped back, materialized a ranged attack and launched it. But it extinguished on Raiku like a wave on an eternal rock.
Raiku (impassive): I warned you. You can no longer do anything against me. My overexistence places me beyond you. Sata taught me everything. And I transcended her teachings. Even your Transcendence skill… it is useless now.
Thanato (sighing, almost amused): For a god… you are well prepared. It seems you planned this confrontation for years.
Raiku: That's about right, yes.
A gleam of pride shone in her eyes. But Thanato slightly averted his gaze.
Thanato: That's unfortunate. I have no time to waste right now. I am searching for a missing child. You wouldn't happen to know where he is, by chance?
Raiku (snickering): Even if I knew… I would never tell you anything, you fools!
Thanato (sighing again): I suspected as much…
He approached Raiku, his gaze growing harder, denser. Every word fell like a sealed truth.
Thanato: Listen to me well. I am not one to kill demons on principle. I always offer a way out. You could still leave this place. Go away, and let me find the child.
Raiku (laughing loudly): Never!
A silence older than the world then seemed to rise.
And in this silence, far above their exchange, in a elsewhere forgotten even by the gods themselves…
At the edge of the world of Creations, where concepts solidify into matter and laws become silence, rises the Library of Existence.
Neither built nor born, it simply is. Since always, and beyond always. Its vaults touch infinity; its corridors wind in forbidden directions. There, words resonate without voice. Books breathe without pages.
Every conscious entity has a book there. The volume narrates the entirety: from the first spark to the ultimate sigh. Possibilities rest alongside realities, bifurcations are suspended inks. History is consultable… sometimes even modifiable. If a Will high enough dares to cross its thresholds.
But there is one exception. A dissonance in the great cosmic memory.
The Chōshinkū.
When one becomes Chōshinkū, one does not die. One does not disappear. One becomes nonexistent. Removed from language, torn from ontology. The corresponding book does not burn, does not erase: it dissolves. The Library itself retains neither relic, nor trace, nor memory. What was narrative becomes un-written. What was presence becomes pure absence, not as a void, but as a law of annihilation. The page ceases to be a page.
Thus the Library contains everything except them.
The Chōshinkū cannot be read. Their history has no pages. Their name is nothing but a cosmic taboo. And even the gods turn away from them, for silence beyond silence admits no spectators.
And perhaps… in the depths of the battle about to be played, in the very folds of reality, a whisper belonging to that silence was already watching.
Thanato (graver than ever): You leave me no choice…
He extended his hand.
Thanato: Predator Space.
A shiver shook the air. The world itself seemed to contract, as if it sensed the arena was about to tip into a hungrier elsewhere.