Chapter 559: The Tale Of God’s Era

"You have to understand, before that moment, even though Fate had become conscious, even though it had awareness and will of its own..."

The Hooded One’s voice dropped lower.

"It never possessed the power to directly intervene in events. The Godkings would never have allowed something like that to exist."

A pause, heavy with implications.

"A conscious Law with the ability to shape outcomes? Unthinkable."

The Hooded One’s hands clenched.

"But the universe was dying. Half its fundamental structure had been torn away, countless worlds reduced to debris, the very fabric of reality unraveling."

A breath, heavy with old pain.

"So it made a choice that changed everything."

The doubled voice became quieter but somehow carried more weight.

"Time and Space worked together, combining their newly granted power to achieve something that should have been impossible."

Thump thump thump

Damian listened, his heart still hammering.

’Don’t tell me they–’

"They brought back the timeline."

The words hung in the frozen air.

"They reversed the entire universe to the exact moment that being had first appeared in the Beast World out of nowhere, before he’d gained any of the immense power he’d accumulated."

The Hooded One’s presence shifted, becoming heavier.

"And Fate showed every Demigod and above what awaited us if we failed again. Showed us the split universe, the erased Gods, the dying worlds, everything..."

A pause that stretched into eternity.

"The vision was absolute and undeniable, branded into our very souls so we could never forget or dismiss what we’d witnessed."

The doubled voice gained edges despite remaining quiet.

"And without wasting a single moment, without debate or hesitation, all of us started rushing toward the Beast World."

Damian’s jaw clenched, his mind processing implications that kept spiraling outward.

"To end that being before he could consume his first God, before he could begin his path to becoming the Calamity we’d just witnessed."

The Hooded One began pacing again, movements sharp and agitated.

"A massive war erupted across the entire universe. Every race, every faction, every being capable of fighting converged on the Beast World simultaneously."

The voice became harder.

"The center of it all was that single realm, where one being stood against literally everyone and everything that existed."

The pacing stopped abruptly.

"You might think..."

The Hooded One turned to look at Damian directly.

"That this time, with that being having no opportunity to consume Gods and accumulate their power, with us attacking while he was still at his weakest..."

A pause loaded with bitter irony.

"We should have won easily, shouldn’t we?"

Silence spread between them.

"All of us thought the same thing at that moment. Every God, every Demigod, every warrior who’d seen the vision of our first defeat."

The doubled voice dropped to barely above a whisper.

"But oh, how wrong we were."

Thump thump thump thump

Damian’s breathing came faster despite his attempts to control it.

"All the Godkings were still massacred, every single one of them torn apart despite fighting with everything they possessed."

The Hooded One’s hands trembled at their sides.

"Most of the Gods fell alongside them, their combined might insufficient to overcome what that being represented."

A pause, heavy with old horror.

"And the power that the universe itself had granted to Time and Space, the strength it had sacrificed its own essence to provide..."

The voice became almost inaudible.

"Was consumed by that being during the battle."

Silence crashed down like a physical weight.

"He devoured the universal gifts meant to save us, absorbed them completely and added them to its own strength."

Thump thump thump thump

Damian stood perfectly still, but his heart was racing out of control.

The Hooded One’s presence became oppressive again, crushing down with terrible certainty.

"In the end, Fate used the power it had gained from the universe’s sacrifice."

The doubled voice carried weight that made reality bend.

"It put numerous curses directly on that being, permanent marks that even his Law of Devour couldn’t remove or consume."

The Hooded One’s hands spread, counting on fingers.

"First, he could never use the Law of Devour again. The path that had made him the Calamity was sealed completely."

A pause.

"Second, he could never go back in time to the moment he first emerged. The timeline was locked, preventing him from undoing the curses by returning to before they existed."

Another pause.

"Third, he could never learn any principles of the universe. Every Law, every cultivation technique, every path to power beyond what he already possessed was forever closed to him."

The Hooded One continued, his voice dropped to barely above a whisper.

"And the universe itself used the last remaining power it possessed to create the limitations we live under today."

The tone became almost reverent despite the horror underneath.

"The status screens that track our growth, the stat limits that cap our potential, the ranked system that categorizes power into neat boxes..."

A pause, weighted with meaning.

"All of it designed to prevent anyone from ever reaching that being’s level again."

The Hooded One’s head tilted back, looking at the dreamscape sky.

"And it created one special limitation, a curse woven into the fabric of reality itself."

Damian’s breath caught, already knowing what was coming.

"Every time someone uses the Law of Time, they lose their understanding of the principles they’ve learned."

Silence spread across the rooftop, heavy with implications.

Damian’s mind flashed to his own situation, pieces clicking together with cold clarity.

’So that’s why...’

The thought formed sharp and certain.

’That’s why using Time Reversal makes me forget the principles I’ve learned.’

His breathing became shallower.

’It’s not just a side effect of the skill. It’s the universe’s punishment, built specifically so that the power that being absorbed would run out eventually.’

The Hooded One’s hands lowered back to their sides.

"By the time everything ended, by the time the curses had been placed and the universe finished reshaping itself..."

The doubled voice became quiet, carrying something approaching despair.

"I, alongside some of the other survivors, realized a brutal truth that we’d been too focused on the battle to see."

A pause that stretched into eternity.

"The one who won that war wasn’t that being."

Another pause, heavier.

"And it wasn’t us either, despite our sacrifices and determination."

The Hooded One’s presence shifted, becoming colder.

"It was Fate."

The word landed with finality.

"Fate, who had been granted power by the dying universe. Fate, who had used that power to curse the being who’d proven unstoppable. Fate, who had shaped the outcome according to its own design."

The doubled voice dropped to barely above a whisper.

"Fate, who had proven itself absolute."

Silence crashed down around them, suffocating and complete.

Damian stood there, his mind racing through everything he’d just learned, pieces of cosmic history clicking into place.

Thump thump thump thump

His heart continued its relentless hammering, refusing to slow.

Then his voice emerged, quiet but carrying clearly across the rooftop.

"That being..."

He paused, his throat tight.

"Who was it?"

The question hung in the frozen air between them.

The Hooded One remained silent for a long moment, that shrouded form perfectly still.

Then the figure’s voice emerged finally, quiet but carrying ancient terror.

"Who else could it have been?"

The question sat between them for three heartbeats.

Then the doubled voice continued, each word landing with terrible finality.

"Despite the sacrifices of the entire universe, despite every God and Godking who gave their lives to stop him..."

The shrouded form seemed to grow larger, filling the entire dreamscape.

"Despite Fate itself cursing him with everything it possessed, despite the universe restructuring reality itself to contain him..."

The voice dropped to barely above a whisper.

"The being who singlehandedly ended the God’s Era. The being who consumed the power of Time and Space themselves..."

CRACK

Lightning blazed across the black sky, illuminating everything in stark white light.

"The being who stood alone against existence itself and emerged wounded but unbroken, limited but alive, cursed but unconquered..."

Thunder rolled across the dreamscape, the sound building and building.

"Was none other than the one who calls himself..."

Silence fell absolute and crushing, the universe itself seeming to lean forward.

"The Beggar."

The name echoed across the dreamscape, carrying weight that transcended time and space.

And somewhere beyond the boundaries of dream and waking, beyond the limits of what mortals could perceive, the universe itself remembered what it had tried so hard to forget.

The Axe that had split existence in half.

The Being that had made Godkings scream.

The Calamity that had forced reality to restructure itself just to survive.

All of it wrapped in the disguise of a broken old man reading stories to starving children in forgotten alleys.