Chapter 578: Reading - s (2) - The World Building Empress
As the pages of the Codex turned, Ash casually read about the demise of the oldest reality in existence.
The black-and-gold book displayed golden text that flowed smoothly, as if being written in real time.
Floating in the air before them, it offered Elysia a perfect view; her golden eyes scanned the pages with quiet interest while the two Watchers perched on his shoulders watched intently, their own eyes wide with curiosity.
Ash’s eyes moved across the lines, his expression the same as usual.
—
In the oldest Reality — Reality One— the grand chamber was filled with tense anticipation.
Hundreds of the most powerful Ancestors and ancient entities had gathered, their auras clashing and flickering in the dim, sacred light.
The air was thick with the scent of incense and ancient power; the walls etched with runes that had witnessed the birth of countless cycles.
They had been preparing for months—six, to be exact.
With defensive formations humming with power capable of holding against threats up to the 20th Dimensional Level, layered conceptual barriers stacked one over another, and elite guardians standing ready.
Before, they had called for the Lord of Gifts, received her strange but powerful spear — a replica of Gungnir — and now they waited for the Ineffable to arrive.
The leader of the Ancestors, a tall figure with white-veined skin, stood at the center, his voice steady as he addressed the room.
“They’re coming,” he said. “We’ve all figured out that the Reality Devourer and the Ineffable Pantheon are working together.”
It wasn’t hard to piece together, as tales of the Ineffable had been carried far and wide by dying Realities.
And they knew Nia—or more accurately, the Devourer of Realities—was the wife of the Ineffable Leader.
“But we have no reason to fear. By the grace of the Lord of Gifts, we have the spear, we have the barriers, and we will stand.”
The chamber echoed with murmurs of agreement, a fragile hope lingering in the air. Yet, they had no idea just how wrong they were.
None among them stood beyond Omnipotence, which meant there was only so much they could glimpse of the Greater Narrative.
If they could see anything at all, crossing that path would never be a simple walk in the park. And just as their hope began to take shape… the sky split open.
CRACKKKKK!!!!
Not with the expected arrival of an Ineffable force, but it was close enough.
A colossal serpent — Ouroborus — tore through the fabric of reality, her body a swirling storm of devouring darkness and iridescent scales that were hard to fully perceive.
The scales shimmered with colors that hurt to look at directly — shifting between deep void-black, blood-crimson, and faint, ghostly white— as if they existed in multiple states at once.
Her eyes burned with primal hunger, twin abysses of endless appetite that seemed to pull at the soul itself.
Her maw gaped wide enough to swallow universes whole, with rows of jagged, reality-tearing fangs gleaming in the fractured light.
The ancestors stared in frozen horror as she entered their world through the massive crack she had torn in the sky.
Her body seemed to go on forever; even with her head and the first few kilometers of her body stretched across the sky completely, more than half of her still lingered on the far side of the rift — emerging, expanding, an unfathomable length beyond imagination.
One of the Ancestors, the same tall figure with white-veined skin, stumbled back, his voice cracking with terror.
“Just… what kind of beast is this?!”
The leader, clutching the replica of Gungnir, held the spear with shaking hands, his face drained of color as he muttered,
“This can’t be real… no being should be this immense. Did… did we make a mistake?”
But Ouroborus didn’t give them a moment to respond.
ROARRRRRRR!!!!!
It was a single, cataclysmic roar — a sound that was not merely heard, but felt in the bones of existence itself.
The noise tore through the air like a physical force, ripping the fabric of Reality one apart in an instant.
CRACKKKK!!!!!!
BOOOOOOM!!!!!!
The sky, already fractured, finally gave way like shattered glass, sending massive shards of reality itself cascading down as mountains crumbled, oceans boiled into steam, and whole continents folded in on themselves.
Entire domains dissolved before those within could even cry out.
Ancient barriers and intricate formations fell apart as effortlessly as sandcastles before a roaring tide.
The very principles that bound existence together—concepts like stability, time, and space—splintered and unraveled under the crushing weight of a single, all-consuming sound.
Everything happened in a flash… from the moment they last spoke, no one had a chance to move or say another word.
In a single heartbeat, all of reality was ripped apart.
Then, as the fragments of the oldest Reality fell into nothingness — floating pieces of land, shattered domains, and dissolving souls drifting into the void — Ouroborus opened her maw and inhaled.
The pull was absolute.
Everything—the shattered fragments, fading essences, and final cries of a Reality that had endured since the birth of new realties—was pulled into her endless maw in a roaring vortex of hunger.
The void itself seemed to contract as she devoured it all, leaving only empty darkness in her wake.
HUMMMMMMM!!!!!
And in those last moments, Ouroborus changed.
Her colossal serpentine body coiled and condensed, shrinking rapidly until she took on the form of a beautiful woman.
Her skin was a shimmering bronze with faint iridescent scales that still caught the light in unnatural ways.
[A/N: Well, if she wasn’t in the void… you know] 🙂
Her long hair flowed in red and black, and her eyes burned with the same primal hunger, now tempered with a sharp, intelligent gleam.
She floated in the empty void where Reality one had once been, a satisfied smile curving her lips.
She murmured softly to herself, her voice smooth and affectionate.
“Master is such a fool… thinking he can get rid of me so easily.”
—–
Ash’s reddish-purple eyes lingered on the page, a faint, intrigued smile playing at his lips as he took in the details.
“Hmm, she knows?” he murmured.
When creating Ouroborus, the beast was never actually meant for him—it had been intended as a gift for his future protagonist, Nullen.
Something he would attain eventually, though from her words it was clear she already knew.
Elysia chuckled softly from his lap, her golden eyes glinting with amusement.
“Well, it was only a matter of time before she figured it out.” She shrugged, knowing that once a woman found him attractive, there was no getting rid of her.
“You might as well go back to the drawing board for little Nullen.”
As they spoke so casually, Vigil, the white Watcher perched on Ash’s right shoulder, hooted in shock, his feathers ruffling.
“Is… is this real? These events actually happened? The oldest Reality… gone like that?”
Aethea, the darker owl on his left, remained quieter, but her golden eyes were wide with disbelief.
Ash simply shrugged, his smile never fading as he flipped the page.
“Oh Vigil, quit the act,” he said casually. “You should know this is how things operate.”
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