Lazarak was gone.
It was as if the world had fallen silent for a mont. Damon could still see the smile on Lazarak’s face as he faded, his body turning into small black particles that dissolved into the aether.
[You have gained: Book of Shadows]
System chis continued to ring, but Damon remained frozen in a daze.
Lyn and Sithara guided the wyvern-like shadow drone down to him and dismounted, rushing to where Lazarak had stood only monts ago.
But he was gone.
Sithara’s face slowly reddened before she collapsed to her knees, sobbing openly. Lyn’s hands trembled as he stood beside her, his jaw clenched as he struggled to hide the tears slipping down his face.
Damon slowly raised his arms and opened them.
When the children saw the gesture, they ran to him and clung to his chest, crying without restraint.
He gently stroked their heads.
He could feel his body slowly turning white. Not just him, but everyone who had co into this world with him.
The nightmare was over.
It was ti to wake.
Damon took a deep breath.
"Hey... you two... listen to ..."
They slowly lifted their heads to look at him.
"I’m sorry we couldn’t create Lysithara together," he said, beginning with an apology.
"You might not even know I existed after this. After all, this was only a fleeting dream... even so..."
He bit his lip, forcing the pain in his chest back down.
"You two can do it. I have faith. Not in any gods... but in the both of you."
Their eyes remained fixed on Damon, who was slowly fading away.
"Don’t go... Damon... don’t leave..." Sithara cried softly.
Damon shook his head.
"I’m not leaving. I’m right here."
He reached out and touched their hearts, the sa way Lazarak had touched his before he died.
"One of the greatest people I ever knew told to create sothing beautiful. So I want to ask you two to do the sa... for ."
"Create sothing beautiful."
Sithara’s hands trembled.
"The era of gods has co to an end. This is the epoch of man. Show sothing beautiful. Who knows, maybe one day in the future I’ll see it and be awed by beauty that can withstand the testant of ti."
Lyn nodded.
"I promise."
Sithara wiped her tears.
"I promise."
Damon smiled and nodded.
He held the elixir in his hand. This too was a reward from the quest. The primary reason he had co here.
And yet he was leaving more changed, more scarred, and perhaps even more hopeful than before.
His body turned into sparks.
This was not a real world. It was only a dream, a nightmare.
The clues had always been there, even in its na.
The Unknown God loved riddles.
And this one was simple.
The nightmare was called The Nightmare of Lazarak.
Victory was an endless nightmare, and defeat was the mont of wake.
That was the answer.
As long as Lazarak remained victorious, as long as he continued winning, he would never wake. He would continue dreaming, and as long as he dread, no one else could wake.
But defeat was the mont of wake.
If Lazarak died, he would awaken, and the dream would cease to exist.
Damon realized this when Seraph Null’s death did not end everything.
This was never about objectives.
Lazarak simply had to die.
Everything from the beginning had been guiding events toward that conclusion.
This nightmare was a copy of real history from the Zero Epoch.
In reality, Lazarak had broken out on his own and returned to the real world. When he did, Lazarak won. He created the Tomb of Lesser Gods and brought forth the Unknown God.
He was the catalyst to everything.
He was the main character of the Zero Epoch.
From him, the next era began.
Lyn and Sithara created Lysithara soti after the fall of the gods, which led to the events of the First Epoch, when Mugu and the Ascendant brought forth the Outsiders.
Which led to everything else.
Damon wondered if the future affected the past as much as the past affected the future.
...
In a dark prison forgotten by all, massive chains bound a sealed mass of darkness.
It opened its eyes.
"Hmm. I just had the strangest dream. You won’t believe what I dreamt about."
Lazarak glanced toward the altar where soone should have been.
But no one was there.
It was just a dream.
The darkness shifted and murmured.
He did not rember what the dream had been about, only that in his dream he believed he had a friend.
The mass of darkness compressed and reshaped itself until it beca a dark-haired toddler.
He smiled.
"No point waiting. Aetherus, I’m coming."
He pulled against the chains until they snapped. He glanced at the cocoon resting in the corner and took it with him as he broke out of Eidolon, the imaginary prison.
This ti, he did it alone.
There was no one by his side.
Eventually, after many trials, nothing could break him. He carried his fears on his back, and whenever he felt close to shattering, he would think fondly of a dream he could not rember.
And he would persevere.
His heart full.
When he finally escaped, he encountered two eccentric children who felt strangely familiar, as if he had known them for a long ti.
They followed Lazarak as he challenged Seraph Null, breaking out of his world and reaching Aetherus.
Years passed.
Lazarak succeeded in his goal, but he perished. Where he died, a swirling abyss ford, and with it ca the influence of a new god.
The era of gods ended with a god no one rembered.
All gods were sealed within a tomb, bound by three keys.
Each key was dedicated to soone Lazarak cared about.
The first key was for a friend he had never t and whose na he did not know.
The second key was for Lyn.
The third key was for Sithara.
That marked the end of the era.
With his final battle, the order of the world was changed.
A new city rose, a place of learning where everyone was welco.
Lysithara.
In Lysithara, a young girl with golden hair had just won a match against several boys. She laughed as they wore sour expressions, forced to accept her dominance.
She laughed freely as a boy her age ran toward her, pale-faced.
"Valarie, there you are. I’ve been looking all over for you."
He grabbed her hand, his expression serious.
"Ah!" she squealed. "Vathren, stop pulling . I didn’t beat them up."
He bit his lip.
"We have to go. The elder is about to pass. She wants to see us."
Valarie paled and followed him.
The elder Sithara was a wise woman, founder of Lysithara. She had lived for thousands of years and taught countless people. A renowned sage.
She smiled at the two children and spoke of her life, her joys.
"My ti has co. I have seen many centuries and reached the limits of seventh-class advancent..."
She held their hands.
"I do not know what tomorrow holds, but can you make an old woman a promise?"
They nodded.
Her smile softened as her face withered.
"Create sothing beautiful."
Those were the final words of Sithara Nova.
She did not rember where those words had co from. Only that soone important to her had once made her promise the sa.
Years later, in a dark abyss beneath Lysithara, Valarie would smile at her stubborn apprentice Damon and asked him to create sothing beautiful.
In the end, that was the answer.
"We are all prisoners of ti," the Unknown God muttered.
"Dancing in the hands of our choice of our fate."
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