Chapter 5
The original Meshya felt something break inside her.
Not bone, not heart, but belief.
A belief she had built all this time upon a foundation that turned out to be made of lies.
"So… that title? The Long-Awaited Destroyer of the World?" she asked, her voice hoarse.
"It's not just a title?"
The other Meshya slowly shook her head.
"It is our nature, Meshya. Our true identity. We were born to destroy—to collapse, to tear apart, to devour, to burn, any act of destruction toward whatever stands before us. That is why TMOG cannot erase me completely. Because true nature cannot be erased. Only… put to sleep."
She took a long breath—a breath that might be one of her last.
"He exploits us. Uses the pure authority we possess as tools to maintain the continuity of all universes. Not because we are special, Meshya. But because we are the only ones capable of doing that dirty work. And he… he makes sure we never realize it."
The other Meshya was not finished.
Between breaths that grew weaker and cracks spreading further across her body, she gathered what little strength remained to speak again.
"And this cycle… it has never happened just once, Meshya," she whispered, her dimming eyes still locked onto the original Meshya with heartbreaking intensity.
"This one-sided exploitation happens over and over. Continuously. Without end. For every Meshya who has just awakened from her sleep—including you."
The original Meshya felt her chest tighten.
Not from wounds, but from realization.
All this time, she had always felt something strange about her journey, which seemed so long every time she awoke, as if something was missing between the moments her eyes had been closed.
"So… all this time I didn't just forget? I was made to forget?" she asked, her voice barely audible.
The other Meshya nodded weakly, even that small movement clearly painful for her.
"You… you have awakened before, Meshya. You have remembered everything before. And you…" she gave a bitter smile, "you were the one who gathered us. The one who awakened each Meshya to unite. To fight TMOG. To end this madness."
"We… were united?" the original Meshya asked, her eyes widening.
Not out of shock, but because deep within her heart, she felt the truth of those words.
Like a memory she had never lived, yet one that left marks in her bones.
The other Meshya took a long breath—one that felt like pulling thousands of thorns from her lungs.
"At first… it was exhilarating," she said, and for a moment, a flash of nostalgia passed through her pitch-black eyes, warming them for a fleeting second.
"We annihilated all universes. We sealed the birth routes of every fictional universe that would ever come into existence. If we had succeeded… then even the real world would no longer recognize reading or writing. No one would think. No one would create. No one would imagine. All stories… would cease."
But her gaze dimmed.
"But TMOG is that powerful. He cannot be defeated by us—at least, not back then."
Her voice broke.
"98% of us died in his hands, Meshya. Ninety-eight percent. Gone. Not even ashes remained. Not even names. Only… nothingness."
The original Meshya bit her lip until it nearly bled, holding back something she refused to recognize as grief.
"You—the original version, the one holding me now—suffered the worst injuries. But you still lived. For reasons unknown."
The other Meshya raised her cracked hand, trying to touch the original Meshya's cheek, but her hand fell before it could reach.
"TMOG… he still needs us. He still needs the continuity of universes in every fiction. So he decided to… reincarnate you. Turn you into an ordinary college student in Jakarta. Erase everything. Give you false memories of a life you never truly lived."
She paused, coughing softly as more ash escaped her lips.
"Meanwhile, I… I chose to run. Crossing through universes, evading TMOG's pursuit, watching from afar as he continued to use you as a tool without ever giving you the chance to remember."
The original Meshya felt tears—tears she had never allowed to fall since becoming a destroyer—now slowly stream down her cheeks.
"And all of this… how long has it been?" she whispered.
The other Meshya smiled.
"Long. Longer than any universe's time could ever measure."
The other Meshya felt something—perhaps that her time was nearly over.
Her eyes began to droop, the cracks across her body spreading to her face, making her look like an ancient statue on the verge of collapse.
Yet she still forced her lips to move, one last time.
"The man in your memory… Edward," she said, and the name felt unbearably heavy as it left her lips, like releasing something she had carried for far too long.
"He… he is our partner, Meshya. Not just a stranger in a dream. Not a fictional character that happened to appear. He is real. He… was loved by you."
The original Meshya's tears fell more heavily, even though she did not understand why—because she did not remember Edward, did not remember love, did not remember the warmth of the hand that once held hers in that morning park.
"And TMOG… TMOG designed his death," the other Meshya continued, her voice now barely a whisper, like a fading wind.
"He killed Edward. Deliberately. So that you… so that you would be broken. So that you would be easy to manipulate. So that you would do anything he commanded, because your pain had turned you into something that craved destruction."
She closed her eyes—slowly, like someone finally allowing herself to rest.
When the other Meshya's body completely crumbled into black dust drifting through that empty void, something rose within the original Meshya.
Not ordinary anger, not grief that could be restrained, but a fury that burned through every fiber of her consciousness.
"TMOG!" she screamed, and her voice no longer echoed like a human—it echoed like a curse, like an oath written in blood across the walls of the universe.
She leapt, shooting across space and time, breaking through narrative boundaries that could no longer contain her.
And when she finally stood face to face with that vortex of yellow light—The Monitor of God, the extension of the Almighty, now standing arrogantly amidst the destruction it had created—Meshya gave no chance for words.
The battle was catastrophic.
Greater than anything that had ever occurred in any universe.
Cracks in reality spread like wounds across the sky's face, black flames erupted from Meshya's body with every strike, and TMOG's yellow light pierced back and forth like thousands of needles seeking to tear her soul into fragments.
"MURDERER!" Meshya roared between attacks, her voice hoarse with blood and rage.
"A GOD WITHOUT A HEART! A GOD WHO WILL NEVER—"
But TMOG was not surprised.
It simply stood still, and for the first time, it laughed.
Not a mad laugh, not a mocking one—but a pitying laugh, a sound so out of place that it made the hairs on Meshya's neck stand on end.
To be continued…