In the Shadow of Broken Gods

A cold silence gripped the ruins of Yrlith. Time itself seemed to waver, as if uncertain whether to move forward or collapse into nothingness. The air hummed with a low, inaudible vibration, the kind of sound that exists not in the ears but in the bones, reverberating through every fiber of existence.

Eryn Noctis stood at the edge of a cliff, gazing down at the abyss below—a void where once there had been an entire village, now erased from memory and space by his own hands. The emptiness reflected the hollow feeling gnawing inside him. It was an endless cycle—he destroyed, he wandered, and he felt nothing.

"Does it feel good?" Kaelen's voice was soft, smooth, and taunting as he appeared from behind, his silver hair shimmering under the fractured sky. "Erasing, bending the world to your will. You don’t even flinch anymore."

Eryn's expression remained cold, distant. His eyes, two pools of dark melancholy, met Kaelen’s sharp gaze. "It’s not about feeling," he replied quietly, his voice flat. "It's about escaping."

"Escaping what?" Kaelen’s smile twisted, but there was no humor in it. His pale hand gestured toward the void. "This? The void you created? Or yourself?"

Eryn did not answer. He had long since stopped trying to justify his actions—to himself or anyone else. Everything seemed meaningless when you held the power to erase meaning.

But today, something was different. The air... shifted.

Suddenly, a tremor surged through the ground beneath them, as if the very bones of the world had started to crack. Eryn felt it, not just as a vibration, but deep within his chest, a pulse that did not belong to him. It was as though the world itself was gasping for breath.

Kaelen's eyes flashed with something darker—anticipation. "Do you feel it, Eryn? He's waking."

Thalios.

The name echoed in Eryn's mind like a forbidden memory, a shadow cast over his thoughts. The first anomaly. The one who had been imprisoned long before the world even had a name. For centuries, Thalios had been kept in stasis, locked away in a place beyond reality. But now, his prison was crumbling. His stirrings had been growing louder, more frequent. His power radiated out, distorting time and space, causing the fractures in reality that now plagued Yrlith.

Kaelen stepped closer to the cliff’s edge, eyes gleaming with unnatural light. "If Thalios escapes, this world... it won’t survive. None of it will."

Eryn felt a rare flicker of emotion—anger. "And you want this?" He turned to face Kaelen fully now, fists clenched, the air around him trembling in response to his mood. "You think unleashing him will fix anything?"

Kaelen tilted his head, smile deepening into something almost pitying. "What makes you think there's anything left to fix?"

Before Eryn could respond, the ground split beneath them. A deep, resonant crack echoed through the air as fissures tore through the earth. From the darkness below, a low, guttural growl reverberated, a sound so ancient and vast it seemed to shake the very fabric of existence.

Eryn staggered back as the cliff crumbled, rocks falling into the abyss. And from that chasm, Thalios stirred. Not a physical form, not yet—just the overwhelming presence of something wrong, something that did not belong in this world. Reality around the fissure twisted, the sky above warping into strange hues, stars flickering in and out of existence.

"You need to choose, Eryn." Kaelen's voice was calm, almost serene, as the world began to break apart around them. "Stop fighting what you are. Join me... or everything will fall into oblivion."

Eryn glared at him. "I’m not like you."

Kaelen’s smile faltered for just a moment, a flash of frustration breaking through his usually composed mask. "No, you’re not. You’re still clinging to this pathetic idea that you can escape. But this world doesn’t need you to be human, Eryn. It needs you to be more."

Suddenly, the ground erupted in a violent quake. The voice of Thalios, a deep, formless sound, rumbled up from the depths.

"Eryn... come... to... me..."

The voice was like an ancient song, pulling at his very essence. Eryn felt his power react involuntarily, a surge of energy rising within him, threatening to spill out. His vision blurred as the air rippled, distorting the landscape into a surreal haze.

"Eryn!" Eilea's voice cut through the chaos. She appeared on the ridge, out of breath, her face pale but determined. "Don't listen to him! You don't have to do this!"

Her presence grounded him, just for a moment. He turned toward her, his gaze softening slightly. "Eilea... you shouldn’t be here."

"I don’t care!" she shouted, standing firm against the winds that now howled around them. "You’re not like them. You feel things—don’t let them take that from you."

Kaelen sighed, his voice laced with impatience. "This is tiresome. She’s only holding you back, Eryn. Let her go."

But before Kaelen could move, Eryn stepped forward, his power surging. The air around him crackled as reality itself buckled under his will. Kaelen narrowed his eyes, sensing the shift.

"You think you can stop me?" Kaelen sneered, his form flickering like a mirage, his own powers flexing in response.

Their eyes locked, and in that moment, the world seemed to freeze.

And then... it shattered.

The two forces collided, reality warping and bending around them. Kaelen's form twisted in and out of space, his movements fluid yet erratic as he lashed out, trying to pull Eryn into his own distorted time loop. But Eryn pushed back with a force that cracked the air like thunder, tearing through the temporal field Kaelen had created.

Their battle was not one of swords or spells, but of wills, bending the very laws of existence to their command. The ground beneath them folded in on itself, the sky twisting into fractals of broken time. Each strike, each thought sent shockwaves through the fabric of reality, threatening to unravel everything.

"You're losing control!" Kaelen laughed, his voice echoing unnaturally as his body flickered. "This world can't handle us both!"

But Eryn wasn’t listening. His power surged, fueled by something deeper than the void—an emotion he had long forgotten. He was no longer just bending reality; he was reshaping it, forcing it into something coherent, something that could endure.

With a final, earth-shaking roar, Eryn thrust his hand forward, and the rift beneath them began to close. The voice of Thalios, once so loud and commanding, faded into a distant hum as the fissure sealed, trapping the ancient anomaly once more in its timeless prison.

Kaelen staggered back, his smile faltering as he watched the abyss close. "You... would rather trap us all in this broken world?"

Eryn’s eyes were cold, resolute. "I’d rather give it a chance."

In the silence that followed, the world began to settle, the fractures in reality slowly knitting themselves back together. But Eryn knew this was only temporary. Thalios was still there, waiting, and Kaelen... Kaelen would never stop pushing him toward that abyss.

As the winds died down, Eryn turned to Eilea, who stood quietly by his side, her eyes full of hope and fear. He gave her a small, tired smile. "Let’s go."

The world, for now, remained whole. But in the shadow of broken gods, the battle for existence was far from over.

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