Novel Full Chapter 295: The Ninth’s Cracked Cradle
Chapter 295: The Ninth’s Cracked Cradle
[A/N: The beginning is a poem… decipher what you will; the truth will reveal itself soon enough.] 😉
In the Ninth’s hollow cradle, where light bled dry, Earth hangs like a cracked pearl in endless night.
Souls by the billion drift, tethered to Lucy’s whisper— not bound by iron, but woven in threads of stolen will.
Their essence a pale fire, marching to unmake the cradle itself.
They swarm the skies, spill into the black between stars, hands tearing at the last strands of what remains.
Beyond Earth’s shattered rim… nothing. Only the silent husks of universes—broken or emptied.
Adam and Eve, blades forged in forgotten dawns.
Vexar harvesting light with a spear of night.
Enya reading truths in the souls of the enthralled.
Seraphim wings burning white against the tide of broken spirits.
A single flame warring against an ocean of dying embers. Every clash a scream swallowed by vacuum, every shield splintered beneath the weight of billions, every hope crushed beneath the tide of the enslaved.
Yet above the slaughter… the Eye of the Ninth did not flinch.
Closed for cycles, yet never asleep. Watching invaders feast on the invaded, watching the last defenders bleed for a dimension long broken.
The wheel groans its final turn.
And the Ninth—always last, always least, yet unyielding— lifts its lid at last.
Not to save.
Not to mourn.
Only to see.
What ends today… ends forever. What begins tomorrow… begins without witness.
And the Eye has waited long enough.
—–
For an entire week, not just Earth but the whole Lower Dimension had devolved into a battlefield of pure chaos.
The moment Lucy claimed billions of souls… all hell broke loose — quite literally.
Invaders turned on invaders.
Inhabitants tore into one another.
And all of them destroyed anything and everything in sight.
For the Guardians, the war became nearly impossible.
It was one thing to fight Lucy… It was another to fight the vast majority of the Lower Dimension at the same time.
And yes — although the Originat had already claimed the Multiverse, they hadn’t taken everyone with them.
They chose only those they favored along with those people families, their closest allies.
Then they left.
Well…. it was primarily Sonna, who had been so generous.
[A/N: The Narakava are fine.]
Everyone else was abandoned — left in universes ruined or erased entirely. The only survivors were those with titles, aspects, and other cheats.
All because Elysia had told them so through the Subnexus.
With all this unfolding, Earth was reduced to ruin once more. But this time, the world was on its last legs — trembling as if it could implode at any moment.
Lucy wasn’t just battling the Guardians.
Vexar and Enya had joined the fray as well, tracking the Records directly to her.
And even though the situation looked hopeless…
How could they walk away from the only chance at greater power?
They wouldn’t. They’d risk everything — especially since both had ways to cheat death.
—-
As the Lower Dimension became an all‑out warzone, one group remained perfectly still.
The platform suspended in the void between universes stayed bathed in soft golden light — warm marble beneath them. The low table remained cluttered with half‑eaten pastries and cups of wine and tea.
Before them hovered a massive projection window, a living painting of Earth in excruciating clarity.
Continents fracturing.
Skies bleeding crimson auroras.
Oceans boiling into mist.
Cities collapsing into glowing craters.
Billions of souls — all bearing titles, aspects, and cheats — now moved as a single crimson tide, mindless extensions of Lucy’s will, tearing at their world and at each other with equal savagery.
[A/N: No, Kaelthyr is not affected. He is in the abyss… which is technically outside of Lucy’s current influence.]
All the Originat were silent.
Nia leaned against Ash’s left shoulder, watching the carnage with half‑lidded eyes. Katherine mirrored her on his right—crimson silks draped loosely, one hand resting possessively on his thigh.
Aurora sat cross‑legged before him, long white‑blue hair pooling across the marble. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, knuckles pale.
Ash’s voice broke the quiet—low, warm, carrying the gentleness Aurora had always known.
“Rora… what do you feel?”
Aurora didn’t answer at once.
Her gaze stayed fixed on the projection—on a dragon ripping through its own kin, on a seraph’s six wings burning white against a tide of enthralled humans, on Adam and Eve carving desperate paths through the crimson flood.
When she finally spoke, her voice was small…. almost fragile.
“…It’s wrong.”
She swallowed, the music symbols in her eyes turning slowly.
“They’re hurting each other…. they’re hurting themselves…. they’re… destroying everything… all for nothing! And that Lucy woman… she’s making them do it!”
“Why does… it has to be like this?!”
Ash watched her—golden eyes soft, patient.
She turned toward him, eyes shimmering.
“Why such destruction? Why damnation? You could stop it. And if you allowed it… any of us could stop it before it even begins.”
She looked around—at Nia’s quiet flames, Vaeloria’s steady gaze, Seris’s faint grin, Sonna’s lullaby aura, every mother and uncle surrounding her.
“You’re all strong enough. Stronger than anything down there. So… what’s the point of letting suffering arise?”
Sonna’s lullaby faltered—her soft golden glow dimming as she leaned forward, hands clasped tight.
“Aurora, sweetheart…”
Her voice was gentle, aching.
“You shouldn’t have to see this.” Then she shot Ash a glare sharp enough to cut marble.
“None of this is necessary for her! Aurora is strong enough—more than strong enough—to never know the downsides of existence! All the ugliness…. the cruelty. Let us carry that for her… and for all our future children!”
Ash listened, head tilted slightly, a small knowing smile on his lips.
This was one of the first times one of his women had truly ’lashed’ out. Through their bond he felt Sonna’s anger—raw, protective, maternal.
And he understood it.
But it wouldn’t change anything. He wore the pants in the relationship, and right now he was giving his daughter a lesson.
He leaned forward and pressed a slow, tender kiss to Sonna’s forehead. She closed her eyes, a single tear slipping free.
Then he reached out and took Aurora’s hand in both of his.
“Come with me, Rora.”
He rose, still holding her hand.
The others stood without a word—Nia, Vaeloria, Seris, Yonna, Sonna, Mira, Lithia, Diana, Summer, Katherine, Celeste, Kael, Caelan, Thalion—falling in behind him in quiet formation.
Space folded around them, concealing them perfectly.
And they began to walk.
Not through rifts. Not through portals.
They simply… walked—stepping through the Lower Dimension’s void as though it were a garden’s path.
Unseen. Untouchable.
Like they were ghosts drifting through the heart of chaos.
Yet they saw everything.
—-
Lucy floated just beyond Earth’s atmosphere, red tattoos blazing as roses spiraled around her in a blood‑red hurricane.
Her clones had doubled—twenty‑eight perfect copies clashing with the Seraphim, each wielding 100% of her power.
Crimson threads cracked through the void like whips of living will.
WHIP!
“You damned rat! When did you have time to learn clones?!”
BOOOM!
BOOOM!
BOOOM!
Adam roared as trinitarian fire erupted from his fists—demon crimson, seraph gold, human blue fusing into apocalyptic lances that pierced three clones at once.
Their bodies burst into red mist… only to reform an instant later.
Eve moved like a dying star—her halo spinning faster, black veins of void threading through golden light. Each pulse sent shockwaves that shattered entire universes.
CRASHHHH!!!!
One clone was hurled backward—crashing through a star—before rising again, untouched.
Vexar and Enya fought not far away.
Vexar’s spear of night carved sweeping arcs, harvesting light itself, green veins blazing along his pale skin as he cut through enthralled legions.
Enya’s violet eyes glowed—threads of her own weaving defensive veils around him, amplifying his strikes as she read the battlefield’s truths in real time.
Lucy laughed—soft, melodic, terrifying.
“Fufufu~ Adam, I’m a rat? Oh, how rich.”
—–
And still, the Originat walked.
Ash’s grip on Aurora’s hand remained gentle. Steady.
He spoke in the same warm, low voice that had read her lullabies when she was small.
“Do you remember the stories I told you about Velora?”
Aurora nodded, eyes still fixed on the carnage below.
“I was king there once. One morning I walked through the capital gardens—much like this walk we’re taking now. It was peaceful… quiet… birds singing, children playing.”
He paused as they passed through the heart of the war, untouched by it.
“I had a thought that day.”
“Good and evil….. Would it be good to better the lives of everyone around me if I could? To heal every wound, end every hunger, bring perfect harmony?”
“But doing so would change everything they were used to. It would ruin what they had built—what they believed was harmony.”
“Or… would it be evil to do nothing, when I had the power to act?”