Lowly Ascent

Somehow, Fate lost its prized person. How such a thing could occur, no one knows. An event such as this was beyond anyone's expectations.

For such a thing to occur, it was reasonable for Fate to go against the expectations put upon it, going against Casualty which didn't dare fully force limits on Fate's actions.

Fate was, after all, the Order of the World. It would take backlash from ruining its own rules, but such a wound would be worth it to acquire the one who escaped its iron grasp.

The Fruit touched Nihil's chest and felt his existence change. The cores inside him, his mindscape, it all came crashing down into the center point of the black energy that found itself in the deepest reaches of his soul.

'What's happening?! Why is everything fusing with my Origin?!'

There was no precedent for this, Nihil could not fathom what he had done for himself. He wouldn't get the chance to, Fate was upon him.

In the silence of time and space, Fate controlled both laws, taking them from their owners for a short time. It moved to deal with the pesky interferer who brought its prized human to betray it.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" Doom felt something come upon him, but he could not stop it.

Outside the planet, in the colorless world, there was a vacant spot. It was unknown when or how the titanic maws and the owner of such pristine teeth disappeared. The being's entire existence was erased.

This was the power of Fate, the power to control all, even the Concepts who ruled beside it long had to get pushed around by their colleague. Fate was no mere thing but something truly grand, possibly the one to take over the Greater Will.

Such a being had plans for Nihil, but now it was too late. One thing Fate could not do was reattach its strings, a binding force of its principles made that so.

'Where's Doom? What's happening?!' Already surrounded by an oppressing force, Nihil had no way to escape.

Stories liked to falsify truths, how could every hero win, how could every villain lose? There was no unpredictability to them because they all ended the same. The story of Nihil was no different, or that's what I thought at first, but no, it was even beyond my eyes.

Nihil was taken, taken from space, taken from time.

The last single area of space Fate had left untouched, the space holding its prize, gone. Seeing its prey elude its claws, the grand being forwent all status, its rage was unquenched.

The Landfill paid the price.

...

"Where am I?!"

Nihil found himself in darkness, much like the place he used to ambush the gods.

"Is this what my victims felt like when they got pulled into my mindscape?" He joked with himself.

Looking around him, Nihil found something in the dark, a man in tatters, sitting on the ground. They were not only tattered in clothes but also their flesh. In the man's half-destroyed chest laid a bleeding heart beating like a silent cry. 

This was against the flow of the story, the current development was beyond expectations. So soon...

"We meet at last, child. I wanted to see you before sending you away from Fate's sight. I'm curious, curious about the child who had forsaken my blood." The being chuckled, its heavy voice weighing down on the space around them.

"You made a mess you know, I had to save my inheritor, the one who remained faithful, but they may not live long. Fate is rampaging, the one who trapped me and my wives, my people, not even they can go against it."

From the being's first few words, Nihil understood who they were, but the repercussions of such a truth shocked him, his body shook and trembled.

He silently stood, shaking as the words left his mouth. "How are you—"

"Alive?" The man cut Nihil off, "I'm not alive, long dead. But time and space were torn by Fate, allowing the me in the past when I was first imprisoned to help you. Of course, my three wives helped too, but the exchange made their sleep eternal." The man's voice was solemn. "They were going to die anyway, like me. Unfortunately, I wished to die speaking to them like we did in the gardens." His eyes became resolute, "For you I did this, to save you and my inheritor. So, answer me, why did you forsake me? Why did you forsake your Ancestor?"

Nihil's lips quivered, "You really are Manus...." He dropped to his knees. Although he was no longer human in every sense of the word, some connections could not be broken no matter how hard one tried.

It was Manus, the All-Father of Man, the Perfect Vessel. Using his lifeforce and the lifeforce of his lovers, Lunaria, Arrosa, and Lilith, he pulled Nihil to his prison before he died, and before Fate could snatch him.

Yet, the grand being was no longer grand, they had lost their crown, their status. Manus was no more than a prisoner. There was no regal aura, no pressure that could crumble worlds. Still, he was the origin of Man, the origin of Cain. 

What was left was no more than a broken man and although he was in such a state, he gave off a different kind of pressure, one just as dangerous. 

Manus urged Nihil, "What I did will not hold forever, it's a mere trick. I still have to send you away to another place and hide the traces, Fate will find you here soon." He was calm, his eyes holding hope within.

Nihil couldn't help but ask his questions now, he didn't seem to care for time. "Send me away? But the Landfill, what of—"

"Enough, the Landfill will soon be a desolate place, it will no longer be what it once was. The system will undoubtedly be damaged, and the one who trapped me will be heavily injured. I can only hope my inheritor can grow in such a place." Manus's eyes narrowed, "But for you, the one who ruined my plans, must be exiled. The paradise I envisioned for my descendants can never be made and you are the reason."

Anger rose in the dark soul as its Patriarch condemned him. His change was still forming, his being coming to its final act. "Who are you to blame me!? You are just a dead ghost of the past who wasn't strong enough for anything! You failed then, and you failed now, don't blame me for your stupidity!"

The Perfect Vessel frowned, its eyes covered in shadow, "I think I'll add a cage. I'll exile you to some faraway place and leave you there to rot. How can you understand my plans, my dreams for a legacy that would outlast even the Greater Will?! To think my blood spawned such a selfish thing! The only reason I will not kill you is because it is what Fate wants!"

Nihil cackled, his soul shaking intensely, "To think I thought you some great being, but I forgot, you're human! Not just that but you've long outlived your time, you're a fossil with a short fuse, as all the withered are! You are bound by the same stupid mind. You fail to see what I see!" He clutched his chest, gnashing his teeth and screaming endlessly. "You say I can't understand you but it's you who can't understand me! I'm selfish? You're the selfish one! You think yourself so high and mighty, but without your power, you are no better than me! I would even argue you're worse!"

Manus sighed once more. Muttering to himself "To think I am arguing with a child, to think he riled me..."

Nihil didn't hear a word, but what he did hear was the All-Father's last tired remark. The Ancestor was long exhausted by Nihil, his golden hair gaining more gray, his golden eyes dimming. 

"Go, lost child of mine. Begone with you and take your poisoned soul with you. May you reconcile in your infinite prison. You have cursed your family, your home, and yourself. I set upon you the title of Venerated Evil, for you were the first and last to destroy my hope, my dream. Do not take this title with pride, for it in itself is a curse."

The Ancestor's eyes beamed with disgust as he sneered, "You are a curse upon order itself! I banish thee!"

Just like that, Nihil found himself gone again.

When he came to he was floating through space silently. He made not a sound as seals and strange magics found themselves on his soul, they bound him and created a prison around him, a small dark coffin for his eternal punishment.

In a way, he was honored, he made Manus use up his life to make him regret his own.

'I will not reconcile, I will not bend! I am right, I will not renounce what I am!'

In Nihil's soul, while his coffin flew to his new home, the Heavenly Dao reacted. All his cores reacted, his very being reacted.

And like that, he transformed into something new, his outer being left in the coffin while deeper inside, inside the center mass of his soul, a whole new world formed. Nihil wished to see the full formation of this new world, he did, yet, sleep came over him.

In his last moments, he felt himself able to open a passage into this world of his and he quickly found Leon, among a few others talking in concern for the new environment.

"Leon!"

"L-Lord?!" The old man was astonished by what was happening, if his master was not the one who called him, he might not have looked away.

Nihil didn't have time to explain. "I don't know what's going on but I need to sleep. Oversee everything and make sure this place is under control." He then remembered something and found a small image of a girl, he tampered with it and the soul seemed to heal in some way.

Nihil handed the small soul to Leon, "Take good care of her!"

With that, the banished child of Manus could no longer keep his eyes open, he felt himself drifting from this new world taking on shape, a physical plane that existed within the nonphysical.

Nihil would not be able to watch what would become of it, he could not direct its growth. It was his, but his punishment had arrived. All he could do was give life, everything he had done up until that moment creating a foundation for life beyond his understanding. This was the mystery and gift of the Heavenly Dao.

Silence fell upon the Demon's thoughts and he finally entered the nightmares Manus planned for him.

Although it was not the end of Nihil or his story, its resolution would be filled out by others. Funnily enough, he had not yet reached his climax, his power still growing in his sleep.

Still, it was not the time to continue, nor was it for Kain, for his story too was to be finished by the hands of another.

Now, I look at the time, I see that it is up. My Lord calls me. I stayed for only a moment but saw so much.

I close my book and begin my journey, heading to the edge of existence, to the wall beyond. I find him looking outward towards the sea of what could be. I meet my one and only God, the creator who made everything, the one who set in place Order and Chaos.

In that moment I feel glee, for I am his eye, his sight into a world he cannot see, for his eyes are glued on what could be and not what is.

The END