Kek sat on the ground; well, if you could call the seamless nothing beneath him "ground." Absolute void. No texture, no temperature, not even the faintest hum of present energy.
Just… absence.
Eyes closed, he waited. Not patiently. Not impatiently. Simply was waiting, a monument of will in the featureless non-space.
Waiting for the answer to the question that had clawed at the edges of his omniscience like a trapped beast.
The emergence of the Walker of the Lightless… that had been a flaw in the tapestry. A dent in the fabric he should have woven.
He knew all. Saw the birth and cries of universes, the death of gods, the unfathomable dance of cause and effect across infinite layers.
Yet, the Walker? It had formed from the void like a shadow cast by nothing.
Silent.
Unforeseen.
An impossibility scratching at the foundations of his certainty. It felt… wrong.
Profanely so.
That something as transient as a Spark could blind the eyes that witnessed the first breath of layers 3 and 4.
So, he sought the source. The only place holding whispers even he hadn't fully deciphered. He waited for the sovereign of the Library of Any-Ism, the vault where knowledge of what is, what was, what will be, and what never could, bled together like cosmic paint.
Waiting.
Even Lord Kek, the First Concept, the Foundation, sometimes had to bow his head to forces grater than his own sight. The silence was a physical pressure, heavy and cold.
The non-space before him ripped. Not tore. Ripped. A sound like a celestial animal gutted alive a high, squeal that vibrated in the depth of reality itself.
Then, a figure stepped through, untouched by the violent birth of the rupture. Beige robes, stark against the infinite grey, adorned with shifting black sigils that seemed to consume the light. Eyes. Stars compressed into sockets, blazing with a light that made the void seem irrelevant.
"Greetings, Kek," Dephan's voice was dry paper falling into water, ancient and devoid of a pitch. His hand lifted in a slow, dismissive arc, less a king's wave, more a librarian brushing dust from an irrelevant book.
He stepped fully into the non-space, the rupture sealing behind him with a sound like a universe exhaling its last hum. A smile touched his lips, thin and devoid of warmth, before he lowered himself opposite Kek, robes pooling soundlessly. No impact. Just presence.
"Well, Dephan," Kek began, his own voice flat, the usual unsettling cheer absent. His gaze, a maelstrom of colors and infinite, locked onto Dephan's stellar eyes.
"Since you are not merely all-knowing within the bounds, but Crowned yourself… I require illumination." A statement. Not a request.
Dephan tilted his head, a faint crackle echoing from his neck like moving continental plates. "Why? Aren't you the all-seeing regarding the last two strata? Layers three and four?" The confusion in his tone was a performance, fake and transparent. Kek felt a flicker of irritation, was this what E.K. endured? That constant, aching sense of being condescended to?
"Yes, Dephan," Kek's voice held an edge, cold. "I know. What I seek… its roots are not in my strata. It stems from Beyond." The word hung heavy, charged with the weight of primordial secrets.
"Beyond the Fourth? Or the Third?" Dephan pressed, his star-eyes unblinking.
"At least where your fellow Crowned reside, Dephan." Kek leaned forward infinitesimally. The non-space seemed to scream under the pressure of his focus.
Dephan raised a single, skeletal finger, pointing towards the conceptual 'above'. "Kek. You know the edict. Even for you… some doors remain closed." His voice dropped lower, resonating with the finality of mountain roots grinding deep. "Throne orders."
Kek exhaled, a sound like tectonic plates shifting. "Fine. That new Spark. The one I set the Knight upon."
Dephan gave a single, slow nod, the light in his eyes pulsing faintly.
"Its genesis… invisible to me. Its life-path… silent. Its origin… a void. Not even with E.K…"
Kek stopped mid-sentence, a realization colder than the non-space hitting him. His maelstrom eyes widened, fracturing the infinite darkness within for a microsecond. "No… Scratch that. Him too. His origin… shrouded. Why, Dephan? Why?"
The question wasn't asked; it was driven into the silence between them, demanding something.
Kek stared the First Archivist down. Eons had passed since his sight had been so utterly blinded. The last time… The Lightless. The name echoed in his mind like a door slamming shut.
His gaze sharpened, piercing. "No… Can't be…"
"It is, Kek." Dephan's voice was a whisper that carried the weight of collapsing universes. "It has manifested once more. Eons later." He offered no comfort. Only confirmation.
"So… it is Crowned?" Kek asked, a sliver of something alien, fear?, overshadowing his usually fixed tone.
Dephan simply nodded.
The movement was absolute.
Then, without any visible motion, he stood.
One moment seated, the next upright, a towering figure of beige and shifting sigils against the nothingness.
"And as you know, Kek," Dephan continued, his voice echoing from everywhere and nowhere, "only another Crowned could hope to… inconvenience… such a force. And even then," he gestured vaguely around them, a sweep of his hand encompassing all existence, "since they are woven into the foundation… they are. They are the necessary. They never truly cease. Only… pause."
Kek absorbed it. The weight settled onto his conceptual shoulders. "I see." The words were flat stones dropped into a still pond. "Thank you, Dephan." Gratitude, rare and heavy.
Dephan offered the slightest bow, a fractional dip of his head that spoke of ancient respect between primordial forces. "The Knight," he murmured, the sound softer than thought, "has yet to be crowned. He remains bound… by humanity."
The word hung, laced with both weakness and strange power, before Dephan turned.
The non-space ripped open again with that gut-wrenching squeal, revealing swirling strata of impossible geometries behind.
He stepped through, the rupture snapping shut behind him, leaving Kek alone once more with the crushing silence and the terrible truth.
The Lightless.
Not an avatar.
The fundamental force.
A chill deeper than a void seeped into Kek's being. He'd sensed the Walker was more, hence sending E.K., the only weapon potentially sharp enough.
Angels knelt below the Crowned.
But this… this was the abyss itself given form. He lifted his right arm. The motion was slow, deliberate, bending reality around it.
He snapped his fingers.
The sound was less a snap, more the crack of ice shattering in a closed chamber. Reality flinched.
Agriel, Dehmian, and Ohan materialized before him, answering the summons etched into their very essence as Oratores Dei. The air crackled with displaced energy, smelling faintly of ozone and starlight.
Agriel: Stood perfectly straight, impeccable as ever, but a bead of sweat traced a path down his head despite the non-space's chill. He offered a precise, respectful nod downwards, his polished boots seeming to find grip on the impossible nothing. His knuckles were white where they gripped his ceremonial cloth.
Dehmian: Materialized like a statue carved from shadow, arms already crossed over his broad chest. His face was a mask of stern stone, unreadable, but his eyes, like chips of saphire, held a watchful gaze. He gave no nod, only the slightest shift in stance acknowledging his Lord.
Ohan: Appeared with a faint shimmer, his hand already raised in a half-wave, a gesture caught between casual acknowledgment and weary salute. His posture was looser than the others, but his eyes, sharp and ancient, missed nothing. He offered a fractional incline of his head.
All three were silent, attuned, waiting.
"Agriel," Kek's voice cut the silence, sharp and devoid of its usual unsettling joy. "Find The Knight. Inform him he must reclaim his old sword. And his crown. Time runs faster than he knows." The command needed no argument, the weight of Kek's will pressing behind each word.
"Dehmian. Ohan." Their gazes snapped to him. "Seek the Crowned. Tyr. Aal. Xere. All you can find. Convey my summons. The Hall. Our home world. Sufficient." No explanation needed. The gravity in his tone spoke of apocalypses forming.
Respectful nods answered him. Yet, on Agriel's face, beneath the polished composure, flickered a micro-expression of pure dread. Seeing E.K. again… the memory of that crushing presence, the tales of ancient, world-shattering deeds… Agriel suppressed a shiver, the scent of ozone suddenly sharp in his nostrils.
He sighed internally, a sound swallowed by the void. No choice. Without a word, a ripple passed through the non-space, and all three were gone, leaving Kek alone with the silence and the chilling specter of the Lightless made manifest.
He sat within the absolute void, the revelations settling like stones in a still pond. The other Crowned… they must have known. Since the first dawn. The thought was a cold fire in his mind.
-
Agriel emerged from the warp-flash into the decaying grey expanse of Desolace. The transition left a metallic taste on his tongue and a faint ringing in his ears. Before him stood The Knight.
E.K. was unnervingly still, a statue carved from pain and lost, staring intently at… nothing.
Just empty, bruised air.
Agriel's meticulously maintained composure fractured instantly. Cold sweat spawned across his brow, wetting his palms despite the dry, sterile chill of Desolace. Instinct screamed, a primal beat against his ribs.
He wouldn't… not now… Logically, he knew E.K. wouldn't harm him. But logic withered before the visceral memory of cosmic battlefields, the scent of voided stars, the weight of the Eternal Knight's gaze.
It did not help that dear old E.K. holds the title of "Man amongst Gods", or any of the others.
It was less fear, more the profound discomfort of standing too close to a dormant supernova.
The Knight's head turned.
Slowly.
Hooded darkness pivoting towards him.
And then Agriel's breath hitched, choked off in his throat.
The hood was down.
DOWN.
E.K.'s face, usually hidden behind an abyss deeper than space, was exposed. Shock slammed into Agriel like a physical blow.
His mouth fell open, jaw unhinged.
Eyes widened, reflecting the stark, unforgiving light of Desolace off E.K.'s features, sharp, weary, etched with lines carved by eons of silent pain, yet undeniably… human.
Strikingly so.
Handsome, even, beneath the dust of dead realms.
Agriel froze, utterly focused.
Then, without a whisper of motion, the darkness flowed back up.
The hood was simply there, plunging E.K.'s face back into impenetrable shadow.
The unsettling vulnerability vanished, replaced by the familiar, terrifying enigma.
Agriel's nervousness surged back, hotter than before, but a sliver of stunned disbelief lingered.
He swallowed, the sound loud in the sudden silence. "A handsome man you are, Knight," he blurted, the words escaping before his internal self could catch them, a desperate attempt to bridge the ravine of awkward terror with forced humor.
E.K. chuckled.
A low, rasping sound like stone grinding on stone.
"If you had been human Agriel," the Knight's voice dry, laced with dark amusement, "I'd call you gay."
The air between them crackled.
Not with electricity, but with a deeper wrongness.
A sound like fractured glass under immense pressure, or the universe holding its breath.
Was it a warning? A ripple from the Thrones? A pre of calamity? Agriel couldn't tell.
E.K. seemed to dismiss it, a faint tilt of his hooded head the only acknowledgment. "Kek sent me, E.K.," Agriel pressed on, forcing his voice into a illusion of calm, though it felt thin and brittle. He needed to deliver the message and leave.
E.K. heard the words, but they seemed to slide off him. His focus… drifted. Like smoke pulled by an unfelt wind. His posture remained rigid, yet Agriel sensed a profound internal distance. The Knight's mind was wandering, tugged towards something unseen, something… else.
The silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable. "HELLO, E.K.?" Agriel's voice rose, sharp with renewed anxiety. He took a hesitant step closer.
Then another.
E.K. remained unresponsive, a statue gazing into the void. Panic, sharp and sudden, pricked at Agriel. He needed a reaction.
Anything.
He coiled, drew back his fist, not to truly harm, but to startle, and lunged forward with a grunt, aiming a hard, calculated punch at the shadowed face beneath the hood.
E.K. moved.
A blur of darkness sidestepping with impossible, effortless grace.
Agriel's fist whistled through empty air where the Knight's head had been a microsecond before. Momentum carried Agriel stumbling past.
He whirled, heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
"Almost, Agriel," E.K.'s voice was calm, almost conversational, yet layered with dry mockery. "Sorry. Distracted. What did you say?" The nonchalance was terrifying.
Agriel straightened his robes, a flush creeping up his neck beneath his collar.
He chuckled, the sound high and strained, devoid of humor.
He scratched the back of his head, a nervous tic.
"Uhm… Kek. Sent me. To tell you…" He pointed a slightly trembling finger from himself to E.K. "That… you need to go. To find your old sword. On… Moon." He stumbled over the last word, the absurdity of the location hitting him amidst the tension.
E.K.'s hooded gaze shifted, the weight of it settling fully on Agriel.
Even unseen, the intensity was felt.
Agriel felt dissected.
Judged.
The silence stretched, full with the dust of Desolace and Agriel's escalating panic.
Had he misspoken? Was E.K. deciphering some hidden meaning? Agriel fought the urge to fidget, the scent of his own nervous sweat sharp in his nostrils.
"Saga?" E.K.'s voice cut the silence, flat and disbelieving. "I don't want Saga. Cast it aside moments past." He spoke truth. The blade had become an artifact, more symbol than tool.
A cosmic deterrent, its true power a threat too vast for casual use, its weight a burden he'd willingly shed.
He snapped back to the present, sensing Agriel's unease radiating like heat. "I don't need it, Agriel. I practically only drew it once in my near ten-thousand year old life."
Agriel blinked, sweat beading anew.
"Yes, but… you are a knight. Are you not?" He stated it like an immutable law of physics.
"Yes?" E.K.'s tone implied the answer was self-evident, and Agriel's logic absurd.
"So… knights wield swords." Agriel pressed, clinging to protocol like a liferaft.
"No…" E.K.'s sigh was a weary exhalation, the sound of infinite patience thinning. "Why shackle myself to steel when a fist suffices? Or a thought?"
Agriel couldn't help the slightly hysterical edge that crept into his voice. "`Steel? Saga is not 'Steel', it is... nevermind, as if you actually do that. Just… punch cosmic threats?"
E.K. was silent for a beat. The air seemed to grow heavier. "Okay. Okay, Agriel." Resignation creeped into his tone, cold and final. "Only because Kek wills it. He obviously has his weird reasons."
A snap of his fingers, sharp and dismissive.
"On Moon–" He paused, the sentence unfinished. "Never mind. I know its resting place. And its keeper. Always have." His voice dropped, layered with the echoes of countless witnessed histories. "For all stories I have seen."
Agriel stared, utterly lost.
The Knight's words were fragments of a lore too deep for him.
He grasped for solid ground. Clapped his hands once, a sharp, awkward sound in the vastness, and pointed emphatically at E.K.
"Okay! So… good luck, dear E.K." Relief flooded him. Message delivered. Escape was crucial. Without waiting for a reply, without another breath, Agriel warped away. The displacement left a faint ozone scent and a whirl of grey ash settling where he'd stood.
E.K. stood alone again in the desolate silence.
He turned slowly, a full circle.
Once. Twice. Three times. Four. Five. Six. Seven.
A precise, useless act, boots scuffing softly on the dead earth. Trying to align scattered thoughts, to shake off the lingering wrongness of the crackling air and Agriel's fear.
"Moon," he murmured to the uncaring void. The word tasted of cold and older memories.
"Long time…" A flicker of something, reluctance? Weariness?, passed through his stillness.
"Maybe he still draws breath… Well, better find a spot to rest at."
He squared his shoulders, the movement subtle but final.
"Duty calls. Best not keep dear Lord Kek waiting. His messages… carry weight."
The last word held a dry, familiar irony.
He cast one last look towards the monolithic Tower, its ancient stones radiating silent power against the bruised sky. A slow, deliberate nod. Respect. Acknowledgement. Or simply farewell. To Tyr, or was it?
Then, without a sound, without a ripple in the fabric of Desolace, he was gone. Only a faint swirl of grey dust, swirling in the place he'd occupied, marked his leave to find a place where he could connect to the spirits, to make way towards the distant, enigmatic Moon.