Chapter 440:Memories.

Chapter 440: 440:Memories.

It entered him and in the process, tearing his soul.

Atheline screamed.

Light wasn’t one of his elements, he had no foundation for it so when it forced itself into his body, he had to understand it through the pain and forced adaptation.

Light represented revelation, purity, illumination and exposure.

It flooded him in massive waves, almost blinding him.

Then Space came with as much of it’s negative side effects. It showed him distance, separation, connection and position. Atheline felt himself existing in a thousand places simultaneously.

"Stop."

The inheritance didn’t it continued to the next phase.

Nature came next.

It showed him growth, cycles, interdependence and the countless relationships between living systems.

Atheline fell to his knees.

"Stop!"

Death moved in with it’s coldness.

He froze.

Death was damaged and fragmented, something had been taken from it recently.

The Death Core.

Yet enough remained within the seal to answer. It represented ending, transition and the boundary between existence and absence.

Atheline screamed as it entered.

Then Life came with it’s warmth. It showed beginning, continuation, renewal and growth against entropy.

Opposites filled him.

Life and Death.

Fire and Ice.

Movement and Stillness.

Light and whatever waited behind Darkness.

His soul began coming apart while the Supreme Sovereign watched without moving a muscle.

Atheline glared at him.

"You knew."

"Yes."

"You knew this would happen."

"Yes."

He tried standing but his body didn’t obey.

"Then stop it."

"I cannot."

"Wonderful inheritance."

The Supreme Sovereign remained calm.

"No mortal identity can contain this many complete truths."

Atheline froze.

"What?"

The ancient memory looked toward him.

"A Sovereign becomes one with Authority."

Atheline understood the implication.

"A god..."

"Must stand above individual Authority." The Supreme Sovereign looked toward the gathering Laws. "To contain them, you must release what limits you."

Atheline stared.

"My body?"

"More."

"My soul?"

"Not entirely."

The Supreme Sovereign paused.

"Your identity."

Atheline became still.

Memories quietly began disappearing; his childhood, his family, earth, his office, Sera, the Dark Elven palace, his coronation, his first meeting with Lilith...

Atheline panicked.

"No."

"The ancient path to divinity requires transcendence."

"No."

"Attachment creates definition." The Supreme Sovereign’s voice seemed farther away. "Definition creates limitation."

He tried holding onto his memories but they slipped through his fingers.

"A god cannot be constrained by a single mortal identity."

Atheline saw Lilith smiling but the memory began fading.

He desperately grabbed it.

"No."

Her face blurred.

Atheline’s fear became rage.

"No!"

Outside, Lilith felt him disappearing, not dying, that would have been easier to understand.

His body remained alive but his core was becoming terrifying. Aether poured from him in quantities that made the sanctuary shake.

The Laws surrounding him became increasingly complete. Yet the connection she knew as Atheline was fading.

Lilith grabbed his face.

"Atheline."

No response.

His hair moved despite there being no wind. Light appeared beneath his skin.

Lyria backed away.

"What is he becoming?"

Lilith didn’t answer.

She could feel it, something vast was replacing him; power without personality and authority without identity.

The beginning of divinity.

Lilith’s expression became furious.

"No."

Darkness spread.

Lyria looked at her.

"What are you doing?"

She placed her forehead against Atheline’s.

"Something stupid."

Somewhere inside the inheritance, Darkness moved.

Atheline saw it.

Unlike the others, it didn’t approach.

It stopped, almost abruptly.

The Supreme Sovereign looked toward it.

"That Authority is claimed."

Atheline’s fading consciousness recognized it.

"Lilith."

Darkness belonged to her, not completely yet, but the complete Sovereign of Darkness core rested within her.

She had comprehended the Law more deeply than he had comprehended any of his own.

Darkness couldn’t simply enter Atheline since it already had an owner. But then it reached toward him anyway.

The Supreme Sovereign’s expression changed. For the first time, the ancient memory looked surprised.

"What?"

Darkness wrapped around Atheline holding onto him without entering.

Outside, Lilith screamed.

The Sovereign of Darkness core completely activated. Her body lifted from the ground and darkness swallowed the sanctuary.

The darkness was silence, depth, absence and concealment. The place where something could exist without being forced to become anything else.

Lilith found him.

He stood within an endless white space with pieces of him slowly disappearing.

Lilith walked toward him.

Atheline looked at her.

"Lilith?"

She immediately slapped him without answering.

Atheline stumbled.

"What was that for?"

"Good." She grabbed his clothing. "You’re still annoying."

He stared in complete shock.

"What are you doing here?"

"Getting you."

"You can’t be here."

"I noticed."

The white space shook as the authorities surrounding them moved around.

Lilith looked around.

"What did you do?"

"I didn’t do anything."

"That’s usually when the worst things happen to you."

Atheline almost laughed, then another memory disappeared.

His expression changed.

"Lilith."

"I know."

"I can’t hold them."

"Then let them go."

"I can’t." He looked around. "If I don’t take them, Fire will."

Lilith understood, her face hardening with each passing second.

Atheline looked at her.

"The inheritance says I have to abandon my identity."

"No."

Atheline blinked.

"Lilith..."

"No."

"Apparently that’s how ascension works."

"Then ascend differently."

Atheline Just stared at her, speechless.

"The ancient Sovereigns couldn’t," he said, in an almost dazelike state.

"I don’t care."

"The Supreme Sovereign..."

"Is dead."

Atheline winced.

"Harsh."

"He failed."

The Supreme Sovereign stood in the distance.

Lilith looked directly at the memory.

"He still saved the world."

"For a while, look where we are now."

The Supreme Sovereign didn’t react.

Lilith turned back toward Atheline.

"You aren’t him."

Atheline remembered the earlier message.

Whatever you become belongs to you.

Lilith grabbed his hand.

"You spent months learning that." Darkness wrapped around them. "So stop trying to die according to someone else’s rules."

He stared at her.

"I don’t know another way."

"I do."

Lilith pulled his hand against her chest and her Darkness core appeared.

Atheline’s eyes widened.

It was complete and beautiful but terrifying. The inherited core of the ancient Sovereign of Darkness had changed since Lilith absorbed it. It wasn’t merely inheritance anymore, her comprehension had altered it and made it hers.

"Lilith."

"If your soul needs an anchor..."

She looked at him.

"...use mine."

He froze.

"No," he said while shaking his head.

"That wasn’t a request."

"You don’t know what that will do."

"Neither do you."

"It could kill you."

"Then don’t let it."

"Excellent plan you have there darling," he sarcastically said.

"I learned from you," she shot back.

Atheline almost smiled, then he shook his head.

"No."

Lilith’s expression changed.

"Atheline."

"I won’t become a god by sacrificing you."

"Who said anything about sacrifice?" She stepped closer. "You aren’t taking my Authority."

Darkness spread.

"I’m connecting it to you."

Atheline slowly understood.

The other Authorities were entering him, trying to become part of him but darkness did something different. It surrounded his soul, as a boundary and definition.

This is Atheline.

Everything inside could change, and everything inside could grow but the boundary remained.

Lilith.

His marriage.

His family.

His memories.

His choices.

The mortal attachments ancient ascension demanded he abandon became the very things defining the shape of his divinity.

Atheline stared at her.

"That’s insane."

Lilith smiled.

"You married me."

"Fair."

The Darkness core connected with him. Pain struck both of them almost immediately.

Lilith screamed.

Atheline caught her.

The white world shattered as memories exploded around them; their wedding, their arguments, their first kiss, the fox sleeping between them, Lilith stealing blankets, Atheline deliberately irritating her during council meetings, training, blood, fear, the Dragonic Island, the sea voyages, the coronation and every ordinary moment.

It was not great destiny or ancient prophecy but just... Them.

Atheline held onto those memories as the Authorities attacked again.

Wind demanded movement.

Ice demanded stillness.

Fire demanded transformation.

Earth demanded permanence.

Life demanded continuation.

Death demanded ending.

Light demanded revelation.

Space demanded separation.

Water demanded adaptation.

Lightning demanded release.

Contradictions.

He finally understood that he didn’t need one Law capable of dominating the others but needed something capable of allowing contradiction without losing identity.

His soul had always done that.

Earth and this world.

Two lives.

Two deaths.

High Elf and outsider.

Wind and Earth.

Fire and Ice.

Movement and Stillness.

He’d spent his entire existence becoming something that shouldn’t fit into one definition, yet he remained himself.

Atheline laughed.

Lilith stared at him her eyes widening.

"Have you finally lost your mind?"

"No." He looked at the Authorities. "I’ve been trying to find the wrong answer."

He’d searched for a central Law, one concept ruling six, but that would repeat the normal Sovereign path.

One Authority defining everything else.