Chapter 4483: Civilizational War! IV

The sensation of returning to existence was not a gentle awakening.

It was a violent, tectonic realignment of reality itself.

Deep within the shattered canyons of the Injunction Sanctuary, where the air tasted of ozone and preserved trauma, a mountain of ice and obsidian shuddered.

It reformed.

Magma began flowing through veins of diamond-hard ice.

Lightning arced between pillars of stone that served as ribs for something incomprehensibly vast.

A heart of an Early Creature, composed of swirling, perpetual storm...began to beat once more.

THUMP.

THUMP.

THUMP.

Aethon, The Primeval Storm-Forge, opened eyes that burned with light of binary star system!

He was an Elder Early Creature of the Civilization of Elementals. The Civilization of Elements!

A being whose very anatomy was living map of catastrophic weather events.

His distinction was The Weaver of Calamities...a title earned in era before time had learned to march in straight line.

He breathed in.

Inhaling stale air of the Sanctuary.

And felt rush of something foreign yet intoxicating flooding into him.

Power.

It was surging into his existence- a sudden, artificial spike in his existential parameters!

His Complexity, which had stagnated for eons in the ice of THE Living Law’s imposed stasis, began climbing vertically.

300 Sextillion.

450 Sextillion.

600 Sextillion!

It was not merely him.

Around his massive form, the frozen statues of his brethren, tens of thousands of Early Creatures and Living Elementals, were systematically cracking their shells!

Their auras flared with terrifying sudden vibrancy!

The army was awakening.

But before Aethon could properly revel in this unexpected resurgence...

A voice slipped into his mind with surgical precision.

It was smooth. Calm.

And carried weight of verdict already passed without appeal.

"Aethon. You recall the cold? You recall the silence of enforced stasis?"

Aethon remained utterly still.

His mind was fortress of elemental will forged across eons.

"I recall THE Living Law," he thought back, his internal voice grinding like tectonic plates colliding. "I recall the freeze they imposed upon us. I recall the pursuit we never completed."

"The freeze has lasted eons," the voice continued with detached clinical precision. "While you slept in imposed stasis, the race was run. THE Loom has been forged. It is finished. It is closed."

BOOM!

The words landed with crushing weight.

"Your brethren, the prudent ones, are safe within its walls. You... and those frozen alongside you... were the stragglers. The cut branches who did not come back in time."

The statement was cold douse of water on the fire of his awakening.

Left behind.

The nightmare of every Early Creature facing the approaching Fallout.

"There is little we can accomplish for you now," the voice said, dangling thread of false hope with expertise of practiced fisherman. "However, certain measures are being tested. Experimental protocols to determine if late entry might prove... viable under exceptional circumstances."

A pause filled with deliberate manipulation.

"Prove your worth here, Aethon. Aid the Legion of Emotives in their systematic objective to eliminate the Living Laws you were originally pursuing. Retrieve the Shattered Fragment of the Heart of Law. And systematically eliminate the Outsiders...remnants of the foreign Hunger approaching from the rear."

Another calculated pause.

"Accomplish these objectives successfully, and perhaps... salvation may yet be extended to you and your forces."

The voice faded like mist.

Leaving only howling winds of the canyons.

Aethon stood there, titan of fire and ice, and slow, wry smile touched his lips.

Lips that cracked like dry earth under drought.

The expression was filled with profound, ancient sadness mixing with bitter recognition.

He knew.

He was intellectual. A scholar of elemental arts.

He understood the architecture of THE Loom as he had discussed it with a friend in the Civilization of Pradox.

He also comprehended the fundamental nature of beings who built it.

Once those doors closed, they did not reopen for stragglers.

They did not reopen for failures or second chances.

"Lies," he rumbled softly, the single word vibrating through stone beneath his massive form. "Why bother with such transparent deception? Do they genuinely believe hope makes us kill faster than despair would?"

He looked at his hands, massive gauntlets of living rock that could crush mountains.

He knew the absolute truth with certainty that transcended hope.

There was no salvation waiting.

There was no entry being prepared.

He, and every soldier awakening behind him, would be consumed by The Fallout.

They were dead entities walking.

Ghosts given brief, violent reprieve before inevitable oblivion.

But...

His gaze hardened with resolve.

The binary stars of his eyes flared with renewed intensity!

He was Aethon!

He was of the Civilization of Elements!

Even if the destination was guaranteed oblivion...

The path he walked mattered.

His Way of Existence, the Way of Elements, demanded that he burn until fuel was completely gone!

It demanded that he rage against dying of the light, even if eternal night was inevitable conclusion!

It was all he held.

It was the only dignity remaining to him.

He turned slowly.

His massive form cast shadow over the awakening army.

Behind him, the canyon floor was alive with birthing pains of legion being reborn.

Tens of thousands of entities were systematically rising from imposed stasis!

Half were Early Creatures like him, titanic and primal, each one natural disaster given conscious form.

The other half were Living Elementals...beings of pure conceptual energy who blazed with power that visibly warped surrounding air!

Their auras ranged from terrifying 50 Sextillion to monstrous 450 Sextillion!

They looked toward him with expectation.

Their eyes, burning coals, freezing voids, crackling sparks of lightning, fixed upon their leader.

Waiting for direction in an existence they no longer recognized.

Aethon straightened his spine.

The sound was like grinding glaciers echoing through valley.

He looked at them with stern pride of a father sending children to war they could not win.

He would give them what they needed.

He would give them the lie they deserved to die believing.

"Brothers! Sisters of the Storm!"

HUUM!

His voice was an eruption, a command that shook accumulated dust from their newly awakened forms!

"We have slept in the cold prison of Law for eons! But we are not broken! We are not diminished!"

He pointed massive hand toward distance where silver light of Living Laws shimmered faintly.

"THE Loom awaits us!" he roared, the lie tasting like ash in his mouth but delivered with absolute conviction. "The gates are watching our performance! We have been given a final test! One last chance to reclaim our rightful place!"

The army stirred.

Hope igniting in their eyes like fresh kindling catching flame.

"They think us forgotten! They think us weak from our imprisonment!" Aethon bellowed, his aura flaring dramatically to 800 Sextillion...a beacon of calamitous power! "But we are the Storm! We are the Quake! We are the Fire that cleanses all impurity!"

He gestured sharply to the left with commanding motion.

"First Vanguard! Tear down the Living Laws who imprisoned us! Shatter their remaining stasis! Bring me the Heart Fragment they protect! Make them pay for the eons they systematically stole from us!"

"ROAAAR!"

Half the army surged forward immediately!

Tidal waves of elemental fury turning toward the Living Laws with accumulated vengeance!

Aethon turned to the right.

Looking toward massive gateway where new, strange force was entering the Sanctuary.

An army of obsidian-gold and crimson entities pouring through like flood.

"Second Vanguard! With me!" he commanded with voice that shook existence. "Outsiders approach! Scavengers who seek to pick our bones while we’re weakened! Show them the Way of Elements! Show them that even in death, we burn with unmatched intensity!"

BOOM!

Myriad expressions of terrifying elemental weavings erupted around him!

The air transformed into kaleidoscope of systematic destruction!

Raining magma from conjured volcanoes of Principles!

Freezing winds that could crystallize existence itself!

Gravity wells of crushed earth creating localized spatial distortions that could collapse Primordial Folds!

Lightning storms that tore through dimensional boundaries!

It was display of raw power that could have systematically annihilated hundreds of entire Transcendent Folds and more.

Aethon looked at his closest aides with a measured assessment.

A Living Elemental of Void-Wind whose form barely maintained coherent shape.

An Early Creature of Crystal-Fire whose body refracted light into weapon.

"With me," he said softly, contrast to his previous roaring making words somehow more weighty.

He turned his gaze toward oncoming force with analytical focus.

He saw them clearly despite distance.

The millions advancing with coordinated precision.

And at their center...

He saw the leader.

He recognized that particular pressure emanating from central figure.

He had witnessed a similar authority on Gilgamesh and other legendary entities.

An armored figure radiating tyrannical blue-gold light.

A being whose Complexity and Purity felt... dense. Heavy with accumulated weight.

But numerically?

Weak.

Comparatively insignificant by raw measurement.

Aethon locked eyes with this being across the Gigaparsecs separating them.

Distance meant nothing to entities of their respective stature.

Perception transcended physical proximity.

He saw The Tyrant clearly.

And for fleeting moment, Aethon, The Primeval Storm-Forge, did not scowl with hostility.

He did not roar with challenge.

He simply shook his head with small, almost imperceptible gesture.

Pity.

You, too,... Aethon thought, his mind touching vast cold reality of their shared situation. You build your walls. You forge your armor. You march your armies with confidence.

You think you are constructing viable future.

But we are all just entities awaiting collapse under the light of The Fallout. You, me, them... we are all just dust waiting for wind to scatter us.

And yet...

Aethon’s fist clenched with deliberate motion.

The sound was like mountain breaking apart from internal pressure.

...many of you will perish by my hand long before The Fallout arrives to claim us all.

"Come!" Aethon roared, abandoning pity for purity of combat! "Let us discover who burns brightest before the inevitable dark consumes everything!"

HUUM!

The Elementals charged forward with devastating coordination!

The cracked folds shaking beneath countless feet!

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