Chapter 36
Wind swirled around the desolate battlefield as Orion stood alone, watching the last flicker of silver fade where Nous had disappeared. His blade lowered, but the pressure around him did not. The world—this fragile realm already strained by his presence—continued to tremble beneath his steps.
He felt it more clearly than anything else:
His ascension was nearing.
Every breath, every thrum of space and time around his body, whispered the same truth.
But before he could take the next step, the skies stirred.
A faint, hollow echo drifted down from the upper atmosphere—a sound like the ringing of unseen bells. Orion looked up, and his eyes sharpened.
The clouds parted.
The winds twisted.
Reality itself twisted into spiraling vortexes.
Something was descending.
Not an Outer God.
Not a Pillar.
But a messenger—a herald from a higher place, yet bound by rules that even gods obeyed.
A slim figure dropped from the heavens, robes of deep umbral gold flowing behind them. They landed gently on the shattered stones, feet never truly touching the ground. Their hood shifted back, revealing a face carved from quiet elegance—neither human, nor divine, but suspended between existence and concept.
Orion recognized the aura immediately.
A being from the Chronarch Court—the keepers who observe ascension events across the branches of reality. They rarely descended. They rarely interfered.
Which meant this was not a warning.
It was a decree.
The messenger bowed with mechanical grace.
"Orion," they said, their voice a mixture of countless tones layered together. "Child of the Forbidden Lineage. Bearer of reversed eternity. You have been summoned."
Orion remained silent, expression cold.
The messenger lifted a hand, and time folded behind them, unveiling a small rift shaped like revolving gears of crystalized ages.
"The Court requests your audience. A final judgment… before your breakthrough."
Orion tilted his head slightly, wings shifting in a faint ripple.
"And if I refuse?"
The messenger blinked slowly, as if confused by the concept of refusal.
"…Everything collapses," they answered simply. "This realm. The surrounding realms. The Chronarch Web. Your very presence destabilizes the flow of time."
Orion's eyes glowed faintly—left eye swirling with galaxies of spatial collapse, right eye flowing with rivers of shifting histories.
"And if I accept?" he asked.
The messenger's expression did not change.
"You will face the memories you fear.
The truth you forgot.
The sins that were erased."
A pause.
"And the being who erased them."
Orion's grip on his blade loosened.
There was only one being capable of erasing his memories:
The Black Crowned Warden, the Over-Aspect of Fate who ruled above all timelines.
Orion did not like that name.
Not because he feared it—
but because his heart tightened in a way he rarely felt.
The messenger floated a step closer.
"This is the last peaceful path. If you ascend now without meeting the Court, your existence will cause the collapse of all nearby threads. The Outer Gods will intervene. The Pillars will act. And the Primordial Layer will respond."
Orion said nothing.
Instead, he looked to the sky—
a sky that had followed him through countless lives, countless dimensions, countless cycles.
He closed his eyes.
"I do not want peace," he whispered.
The messenger froze.
Orion slowly opened his eyes, and the world bent subtly around him.
"I want freedom."
He stepped forward.
With that single step, the stones beneath him cracked like thin ice. Space folded. The horizon shook. The sun flickered.
The messenger raised both hands instinctively, internal mechanisms whirring as they stabilized the collapsing surroundings.
"You cannot ascend here!" they warned sharply. "This is an unstable sector—your breakthrough will annihilate—"
Orion's wings spread wide, silencing the world.
Silver light.
Black flame.
Time unraveling.
Space condensing.
His aura rose like the awakening of a forgotten god.
The messenger staggered back, gears spinning wildly within their chest as they tried to counteract Orion's presence.
"Stop—! Orion, if you ascend now, the consequences—"
Orion lifted his head and spoke quietly:
"There were never consequences. Only chains."
The sky cracked—
not visually, but conceptually.
And from beyond the horizon, a colossal shadow rippled across the heavens.
The messenger froze, wide-eyed.
"…Impossible…"
Even Orion felt it.
An army of silhouettes rose beyond the edges of reality—thousands upon thousands of colossal beings with bodies made of distorted stars and spiraled voids.
Not Outer Gods.
Not Primordials.
But Watchers—ancient regulators that only appeared when a threat surpassed even Outer Gods.
The messenger trembled.
"This is not right… your presence should not summon them—this protocol—this is reserved for catastrophes beyond classification…"
Orion lifted his blade.
"No," he said softly.
"They are not here for destruction."
He looked calmly at the endless legions towering beyond the sky.
"They are here to witness."
The messenger stared at him in horror.
"Witness what…?"
A faint smile touched Orion's lips.
"My beginning."
The sky detonated in light.
And the world braced for the ascension that would shake all realms.