Utter magnificence.
Those were the words that ran through Cauron Thorn's mind as he watched the golden tornado tear through the Library of Nautilus.
Thousands of years of knowledge were lost every second of its rampage, the flames consuming anything it could touch.
Even as he traded blows with the man he had considered family over a betrayal worse than death, he could hardly refrain from examining the sight before him.
Its beauty was unmatched; the way the liquid gold fire melted through everything, regardless of form or purpose, was undeniably a sight to behold.
Slashing at Augustus's arm with a blade he had fortunately carried with him that day, Cauron severed the limb from his torso and sent it spiraling across the room and into the raging inferno.
He said nothing, hacking and thrusting at the newly blond-haired man who fought with all his might.
This is strange…
His mind was fuzzy, a smile creeping onto his lips.
Why am I smiling? Why am I enjoying watching the library burn?
Oddly enough, he felt happy over the harm that he was causing to the young man, something he took a strange liking to.
It was unnatural, almost magical; each passing second placed an even heavier strain on his consciousness as he tried to suppress the overlapping emotions that conflicted with his own.
Shock had already long-since warped his brain, his body moving on its own to defend itself from the opponent who showcased skill not short of a master swordsman.
To say that the King of Mysteries was fighting would be an exaggeration—he simply listened to the tide of the Divine Interference coursing through his form, eliciting physical reactions.
He was a passenger in his own body, forced to let the events unfold around him freely while his mind collapsed in on itself from the overdose of divinity.
Emotions that should have flowed naturally were bottled up and restrained, an explosion of Cauron's own will soon to follow.
However, in the present, all he could do was watch as his body ripped his former student to shreds, blood painting the floor a sickly black.
After a while, once the walls had crumbled into nothingness, they continued their fight among the ruins, the space vast and open.
Each time the Emblem of Nyx was activated, Cauron evaded the attack with ease, the endless terrain allowing the orange-haired man to slip away at just the right moment.
Yet, ironically, after Claud Twynam joined the fight, it became only more difficult for the Sea King.
Since the young man was not able to avoid his brother's ability nearly as well as their teacher, his appearance allowed the arsonist to restore his body by absorbing Claud's vitality.
The two twins fought for what seemed like hours to Cauron, his own interference limited by the deteriorating state of his body.
He could hardly move anymore, his vision fading and the gentle hum of the Ghostship seeping into his ears.
Finally, his body tilted, gravity working its way to force him down onto the ash-ridded soil.
From afar, the clashes of the two twins illuminated the heavens themselves as magics far greater than what normal humans could do were thrown around at speeds faster than sound.
Whether it be the weapons forged from the Emblem of Aether or the endless swarms of black goo from the Emblem of Nyx, the two spirits, reincarnated into humans, fought to the death.
The Sea King stood there all the same, his lifeforce seeping away as the Divine Interference gnawed at him.
Yet, as the moon fully rose into the heavens and the fight neared its climax, a voice echoed through Cauron's head.
"『Find me.』"
His mentor, a deity, spoke to him at that moment, making Cauron's eyes widen.
Turning towards the smoldering remains of the library, he gathered the strength to move, his entire body on the verge of collapse.
Leaving the two brothers to their battle, he climbed through the dying structure, staring at the destruction as he made his way further inside.
The sky bridge he had hung on as a child, burnt to ash.
The tables where he had studied every single day until he had turned 18 were erased from the world entirely.
Even the conference room where he met the King of Dreams, Leonardo Drynch, was drowned in the golden light.
As he walked, the sound of crackling books filled the space, and a drop of blood dripped down the side of his face.
Reaching the farthest depths of the library, where the stairs into the Vault of Nautilus and the restricted section lay, he descended carefully through the chambers filled with toxic gases.
He could hardly see in front of him, only drawn ahead by a feeling wedging its way deep in his chest, an urge, a power.
When the stone became wood, and the fires began to fade, he knew he had reached the off-limits zone.
Opening his ashy orange eyes and allowing a gasp of cool, sultry air into his lungs, he felt the very fabric of time around him shift.
In the center of the room, the God of Knowledge and Wisdom stood holding a book in his hands, the worn leather and faded text serving as clear signs of its ancient age.
His arms were bound with chains resembling the stars themselves, a sight whose meaning Cauron immediately understood.
This was no longer a fragment of the deity, but rather, his main body that had been freed from teh bottom of the sea.
Never throughout his endless lifetime had he seen the fully grown, non-teenage appearance of the man.
Thus, he came to a reluctant but certain conclusion as he gazed upon the deity for the first real time.
If his dark hair and eyes were dyed orange, he would look identical to the boy that he had raised.
Cauron could not speak; his internal organs torn to shreds, only allowing him to cling to life for as long as the Divine Interference held him together.
He watched as the deity turned his gaze towards him—the boy he had adopted all those decades ago—his expression falling soft, his features rounding out.
"『With this, the prophecy is complete.』"
There was a tinge of sadness behind his words, one that the orange-haired man could understand more than anyone else.
Noticing the King's resolute gaze, the deity followed up on his words with an explanation.
"『From the moment of my ascent to godhood during the earliest years of the universe, I had known that the knowledge I possessed would lead to the existence of another who would result in my death.』"
As he continued, his eyes never once left Cauron's.
"『I never would've expected my knowledge to be surpassed and for me to become incompetent compared to another. However, after the Architects emerged, my opinion began to sway.』"
The golden flames slowly began to flutter to life in the corners of the restricted section, the ancient books on the shelves erupting into flames.
"『I came to the Dimension of Waves to understand their technology and prevent my own knowledge from being surpassed…』"
He sighed hard, the world breathing along with him.
"『Little had I known, it had already far exceeded me.』"
The chains wrapping his arms began to crack, miniature beams of light breaking through the cosmic surface.
Cauron watched with a knowing stare, fully aware of the direction the conversation was taking and the inevitable conclusion that was soon to follow.
"『The Gates of Heaven sealed me here, separating me from my own Dimension and eliminating my omniscience. After that, when the race of Architects fell, I was alone on this desolate island, with only the pages on these shelves to keep me company.』"
As he glanced around the room, his eyes lingered on blackened leather covers and the aged wood that cracked and bent under the spreading heat.
"『I could visit only two other beings, residing in faraway depths, and would need to expend the totality of my mana for that, the price too great for repeated use. Therefore, I remained isolated for years, without even so much as a will to live. There was no escape from this world, nor was there an end in sight.』"
He paused, pursing his lips.
"『That was until you came.』"
A stalactite fell from the rocky ceiling, impaling the god's form, only for his figure to reform a moment later with a flash of light.
The chains broke even further, the cracks spreading towards his own pale flesh as if he were a porcelain doll.
"『From the moment I held you within my arms, I knew that my years of solitude had come to their end; however, my own end was certain to follow. As you grew, I watched your knowledge begin to surpass even my own, my lack of omniscience draining my mana slowly until I was but a withered husk of what I once was.』"
Flames consumed everything; only a small ring of airless void, centered around Cauron, was able to stay undamaged.
"『A message was passed to me during Convergence after I found you. The Goddess of Life and Fertility requested you to be her priest, but I refused. If you were to work for her, then there would be no doubt that the prophecy would be set in stone.』"
As the jagged lines criss-crossing his skin finally reached his face, the god closed his eyes, and his presence began to dissolve into the fire itself.
"『I could not shake off the fact that if the prophecy were to come true and I were to reach my end, then there would truly be a world where you would be alone like I was. When I would inevitably lose my power and fade away, you would be the lone immortal above the seas, forced to live through the deaths of others without a warm shoulder to lean on.』"
His head slumped down as if resigning to the forces that could not be resisted in the first place.
"『But if you were to grow old, have a family, and pass on as the mortals do, then I wouldn't be leaving you alone like all those before me had done.』"
In the distance, the sound of a space itself folding in upon itself and ringing like a gong echoed throughout all of reality.
There was not a single being alive or dead who missed that sound, the final call of the God of Knowledge and Wisdom.
From the highest reaches of Heaven, the gods looked down upon their dying kin, his last moments a cold reminder of what the Dimensional War had done to their worlds.
The Goddess of Life was nowhere to be seen, whether it be in her own world or in the palace of deities.
And as the form of Mr. L began to erupt into liquid knowledge, he smiled, opening his eyes once more to gaze down upon the little kid he had raised.
"『When I become knowledge incarnate, there will not be a single human alive who will remember me or my accomplishments. Any words I have spoken will fade from memory, and any deeds I have accomplished will be forgotten by all. For you, there will be new memories that fill your mind, false ones of a regular librarian holding you at the doors of Nautilus. I will become a part of the living Knowledge Barrier that governs this world, and usher in the final age of fate.』"
He paused, his black eyes now reflecting the stars themself.
"『Goodbye, Cauron, I hope one day, far into the future, that you'll remember me as someone who cared deeply for this world and its people. And beyond all that, I wish you a life of prosperity and joy, regardless of what immortality might leave you to be.』"
With those words, a light brighter than the sun itself erupted from the depths of Nautilus, covering the rest of the Dimension of Waves in a film of darkness.
In one moment, the flames of the library were extinguished, the body of Cauron Thorn had recovered, and the fight between Claud and Augustus was brought to an end.
The God of Knowledge and Wisdom was gone, and his existence was erased from the minds of all humans.
Later, rescuers found the collapsed Sea King with tears in his eyes, asleep and back on the surface, his memory hazy, unsure of the events he had experienced before fainting.
Augustus Twynam had escaped the explosion caused by the death of the god; his strange actions left a mystery until his inevitable capture one year later.
He was executed in the Holy Capital in front of an audience of twenty thousand, his last words recorded as follows:
"There can be no progress without sacrifice and no gain without loss. I, myself, have done no wrong, and if they turn a blind eye to this injustice, then there is no hope for a future in which that day can be—"
Before he could finish, Cauron Thorn ended his existence with a single bullet to the back of the head; a swift end for a man bearing the title of the worst criminal the world has known.
After that, the Twynam family was exiled from the Land of Deities and removed from the Hunters' Association regardless of their involvement with the incident.
Six years after his brother's death, Claud committed suicide, his will recounting how, after the birth of his son William, he had tried but simply couldn't deal with the failure to stop his brother's sin.
The King of Mysteries never again addressed a member of the family he had once been part of— the betrayal of those closest to him hurt him more deeply than any physical wound.
Yet, on the other side of the world, in a place unreachable to all and so dark and horrific that none could survive, there was one person who found the whole situation amusing enough to laugh at the top of his lungs.
An elderly man cackled with endless, insane joy, the echoes of his voice resulting in the deaths of all terrors, Apex or not, that dared approach.
"Then it is finally time, it seems!"
The creature in the darkness stirred at the man's words.
"Knowledge is dead, and the path to the future that we've envisioned for centuries is open once more. Once he has found his blessing, then it will be the return."
He paused as he stared ahead of him, at a glass bottle bound by chains thicker than his own, tied tightly into the Abyssal Altar.
Within that bottle, a tiny ship with turquoise sails floated lifelessly, a miniature crab frozen in place on its surface.
"The return of the King of the Sea."