Chapter 49 – The Devouring Fracture
Still in the Hidden World…
The gray landscape had lost its shape. The battle between Elarion and Maxcen was no longer about shattering the ground—they were now destroying the laws of the world itself.
Each time Elarion drew light from the cracks in his body, gravity collapsed around him; stones floated, water spiraled toward the sky, and sound fractured into directionless echoes.
Each time Maxcen struck with his black mist, light vanished, colors faded, and the air itself turned into ash that burned the lungs.
They were trading wounds that were more than physical—each strike tore through history, erasing or rewriting moments that had once existed.
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Impact on the Human World…
The skies in several cities suddenly paled, then blackened, without rain ever falling.
People felt their chests tighten, as if their breaths were being squeezed out of them. Birds dropped from the sky, dogs howled without reason. Rivers shimmered faintly, as though reflecting a light not born of the sun.
Street sorcerers and wandering seers panicked—they saw flashes in the heavens they could not explain.
To them, this was no natural phenomenon: it was the opening of a passage to another world.
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Impact on the Hellseer Council…
The Council Chamber became a field of chaotic resonance. Saelmir clutched his head—his vision now filled with screams and nameless faces that vanished before they could be remembered.
Kavdrin discovered his astral scales fractured—something had severed the bond between sin and judgment, leaving thousands of souls "suspended" without verdict.
Miredan, the Bearer of Ends, felt an alien pull: untimely deaths began to gather, waiting for a new door to open.
Dorvas gazed at his chains, now simultaneously aflame and frozen—an impossibility, unless two primordial forces were colliding and bending the laws of reality itself.
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Enver…
Enver stood on the astral rooftop, gazing at the widening fracture in the sky. His sight split once more: on one side, the astral world with its towering structures; on the other, the gray realm where Elarion and Maxcen clashed.
Each strike in the hidden world made his heart pound, as though his body tried to follow the rhythm of their war. His tongue was bitter—bitter like rusted iron and ash.
"You feel it too, don't you?"
The voice came from behind—Ysera, the Echo of Mercy. Her face was pale, her eyes locked on the same fracture.
"Whatever they are doing behind that veil… our world is being squeezed and twisted. If this continues, the boundary between life and death will collapse."
Enver gave no reply. But he knew: if that fracture broke open completely, he would no longer have the choice to remain a mere observer.
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The Hidden World – The Battle Surges Again
Maxcen floated in the air, both hands summoning a vortex of mist that swelled like a black galaxy.
Elarion watched, then shattered the remaining cracks across his body, letting his light leak uncontrollably.
The two forces collided. There was no explosion—only silence, so dense that the outer worlds began to halt. Birds in the human world froze mid-flight, clocks ceased their ticking, even fire stopped its burning.
Then… the first ripple spread across every dimension.
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Astral dust rolled through the air like ash-born fog of hell. The once-dim sky began to crack, bleeding crimson light that pulsed like a gaping wound.
The clash of Elarion and Maxcen did not only strike the ground—it struck the very pulse of life itself.
Each time Elarion's blade clashed against Maxcen's black scythe, the world quivered.
Spirits hiding behind the veil screamed, the earth spewed foul black ichor, and alien whispers crept into the ears of the unknowing—voices that commanded, persuaded, or simply laughed at their fear.
In a distant city, the townsfolk's clocks began spinning backward. Infants cried without sound, and water in clay jars turned into thin blood.
In the forests, ancient trees tore themselves from the soil, crawling away like beasts in flight. Rivers reversed their flow, carrying corpses of fish with eyes frozen wide.
Maxcen smiled amid the chaos.
"I don't need to touch this world to destroy it," his voice rang, layered in two clashing tones.
Elarion gripped his sword tighter. "Then I need not forgive you to end you, Maxcen."
The next impact birthed a shockwave that shattered the dimensional shield—the thin barrier that had long separated the human world from the astral.
From the fracture, formless creatures seeped forth, moving like hungry shadows. They bore no faces, only hollow voids that devoured light itself.
Enver, watching from afar, felt every pulse of destruction.
To him, this was not merely a battle between two divine beings—it was a cacophony that consumed the world, replacing the heartbeat of time with the heartbeat of ruin.
"If this fracture spreads," he whispered,
"there will be no boundary left between life and death."
Yet Elarion and Maxcen did not stop. They were bound in a dance of death with no respite, like two stars locked in gravity, destined to annihilate each other.
Every strike of Elarion cut through Maxcen's illusions, yet every blow of Maxcen crushed the memories that kept Elarion standing.
Then, at the peak of the fracture, light and darkness collided once more—
and the world shut its eyes, only to open them in a form no longer the same.
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