"Correct," Iskander confirmed. "He did it to protect his friends back home."
It made sense, but something still bothered Igniss. "That doesn't explain why you can remember them," he pointed out.
"I am different," Iskander explained. "Memories stored in the mind or through other recording methods are erased upon trade. However, memories written in Time remain, and I can read them. Thank you for confirming that."
Igniss felt a surge of despair. The immortal was even more powerful than they had imagined.
"That's not the question you should be asking, though," Iskander said, his grip tightening on Igniss's throat. "What you should be asking is: did Aethel trade more of your memories, to manipulate you into doing his bidding?"
Igniss faltered, doubt creeping into his mind as they vanished once more.
They reappeared instantly, Iskander holding Igniss aloft by the throat. The Dragon could not feel his lower body, could not move his head to see where they were. But the scenery behind his captor was eerily familiar. His eyes widened in horror as he recognized the Obsidian Spire, the scorching sun, and the vast desert of Erathos. They were outside, standing near the very VoidBubble they had been trapped within.
Despair overwhelmed Igniss. How was this possible? The sphere was supposed to be isolated, the Stream locked. There was no way out.
"I can reappear in spaces I have visited once," Iskander explained, as if reading his thoughts.
Their efforts, their sacrifices, had been in vain. Their end had served no purpose.
Iskander loosened his grip, and Igniss's body rose, hovering above the ground. The Nexus-Key appeared in the immortal's hand, and a Way-Shear opened behind the Dragon. Iskander placed his hand on the VoidBubble, and it shrank instantly, becoming the size of the Nexus-Key. He grabbed it and held it close, a cruel smile on his face. "Hard to believe a raging black hole is contained within this small thing, isn't it?"
Igniss refused to speak, his heart filled with anger and sorrow.
"Shrinking it was easy. I just readjusted some parameters," Iskander continued, his smile fading as he saw the Dragon's expression. He activated the Mind-Lace and Sense-Share Runes, forcing Igniss to do the same.
Iskander looked up at the sun, his face twisted in disgust. Enhancing his vision, he showed Igniss the red Suneater, Sun-Serpent, orbiting Erathos's sun. "I will now kill that Dragon," he declared, a small black orb forming above his hand.
Igniss watched in horror as Sun-Serpent, awakened for the first time in millennia, turned its massive head towards Erathos, sensing danger. It gathered StreamBreath, converting it into heat within its body, and drew energy from the sun, preparing a devastating fire breath.
Iskander smirked and launched the black orb towards the sun. The orb, unaffected by the inferno of Sun-Serpent's breath, reached the colossal Dragon in an instant. It expanded into a giant sphere of darkness, engulfing the Dragon's head and a portion of its body, along with a chunk of the sun. Then, it contracted back into an orb and vanished, leaving behind a dead Dragon and a destabilized star. The shockwave of the attack, along with Sun-Serpent's fire breath, hurtled towards Erathos.
"The fire will reach this planet's atmosphere in three minutes," Iskander remarked, deactivating Sense-Share. "So, I need you to do something for me before then."
Igniss, filled with defiance, spat in Iskander's face. The spittle dissipated before reaching its target.
Iskander remained stoic, summoning a circular Void-Split with his right hand. He transferred the shrunken VoidBubble into it, then retrieved CodeForger's mask. Carving a rune onto the mask, he put it on.
"You are now attempting to connect with the Artificial Consciousness: Codex-7. Please state your ID code and emanate your StreamBreath Signature," Codex-7's voice instructed.
"Conan1," Iskander answered.
Igniss was stunned. Why was Iskander using Aethel's persona?
"Identification code accepted," Codex-7 continued. "Welcome, Conan. Please state your CallSign."
"Aethel," Iskander replied, his silver hair turning brown and receding to match Aethel's haircut.
Igniss watched in disbelief as the immortal transformed into the spitting image of the First Blade.
"Imprint on your biometric data and StreamBreath Signature completed," Codex-7 concluded.
Iskander looked at Igniss, a cruel smile on his lips. "Igniss, I was honest with you. And I know you well; you value honor and hate owing debts. So, you would surely hate to die indebted to me! Do something for me, and your debt will be paid."
"I owe you nothing," Igniss growled, his voice filled with loathing.
"Sure you do," Iskander countered. "I'm giving you the chance to warn your kin that I'm coming for them." He gestured towards the sky, his eyes gleaming with malice.
Igniss understood. Iskander intended to use Aethel's identity to wreak havoc on the Riders, and he was offering Igniss the chance to warn his sister, a Dragon Eyries general, before it was too late. The Dragon realized he had been played, and manipulated into this position by the immortal's cunning.
"Contacting my people to warn them about you is not viable," Igniss stated. "Any message containing information about you would be classified as Kore."
"Not if you leave a small warning," Iskander countered, his voice smooth and persuasive.
Igniss knew he was right. "What do you want?" he asked, resignation tinging his voice.
"Nothing much," Iskander replied. "I just want you to be my messenger to your sister."
Igniss scoffed. "We had a falling out. She won't answer my calls."
"She will," Iskander insisted. "And you know it."
Igniss took a deep breath, accepting his fate. Iskander transferred the message via Mind-Lace and made Igniss trigger the Akashic-Key.
The Dragon connected to the Akashic Records, and his sister answered his call. She appeared in her humanoid form, a beautiful black woman with a cold, aloof expression.
"Sister!" Igniss gasped, his voice thick with emotion.
"Igniss," she replied coolly. "What does a discarded want?"
Igniss smiled sadly. "I don't have much time left. I just need you to know that a threat is coming, a menace that will change Exoklein. And I am here to deliver his message. He says: I am chaos."
"What are you talking about?" she asked, her brow furrowed in confusion. "Have you gone mad?"
"Sister, the rest is: I am your end."
The connection was severed.
"Well done," Iskander said, his voice devoid of emotion.
Before Igniss could respond, the upper half of his body vanished, blood erupting from the remaining lower half. Iskander released his hold, and the Dragon's remains fell to the ground as the sky began to glow with the approaching firestorm.
The immortal walked towards the Way-Shear, stepping over Igniss's still-bleeding remains. He disappeared into the portal, his Ride within the Nexus beginning.
Yet, the familiar transition through the Nexus faltered. His surroundings did not dissolve into the usual non-space of the Ride; instead, they shifted, violently, jarringly. A profound disorientation washed over him, akin to waking abruptly from a dream he had not known he was having.
He found himself standing naked, and in his original form, not within the Nexus, but in a vast, seemingly endless throne room. The architecture was richly baroque, yet cast in shadow and unsettling angles. Before him, upon a throne of impossible geometry, slumped a figure. It resembled a human man, distorted and indistinct, clad in a perfectly tailored black Victorian three-piece suit, yet its eyes were closed, seemingly lost in profound, unthinking slumber. This was Xul'khoroth, the Blind Idiot, barely present.
Standing beside the throne, radiating a palpable sense of malicious glee, was another figure.
This one, also in human guise, was impossibly gaunt, a towering figure of sharp lines and elongated limbs stretched taut within a pristine white Victorian three-piece suit. It was Zoth-Nylarrath, the Conscious Spite, the Crawling Chaos, and he was laughing.
The laughter echoed hideously in the hollow space, bouncing off unseen walls – a hysterical, mocking sound directed solely at Cronos. The immortal tried to make sense of it, his formidable mind reeling. Stupefied, confused, he could only stare as Zoth-Nylarrath pointed a long, pale finger at him, tears of mirth streaming down his face.
Then, like a dam breaking, the true memories surged back, overwhelming the intricate tapestry of the life he had lived. He saw it now: Zoth-Nylarrath, drawing upon the slumbering might of Xul'khoroth, had crafted this reality, this entire existence Cronos had navigated, and it was a cage.
A punishment meticulously designed for his disobedience, for daring to defy their wills, their orders.
The eons he had experienced, the battles fought, the knowledge gained, the civilizations he founded and encountered, the very identity he had forged – all of it, a fabrication. A story. A sophisticated prison constructed solely to amuse the grotesque figures before him.
The immortal knew.
He had been imprisoned for ages inside that reality, but to those two, that reality only existed for mere moments.
It was all real, but no more.
Exoklein ceased to exist the moment Zoth-Nylarrath awakened Xul'khoroth for a split second before the Blind Idiot went back to slumber once more.
Exoklein was no more because Xul'khoroth no longer dreamt of it.
Cronos just stood there, rooted to the spot, the weight of the millennia crashing down. Stupefied, the architect of intricate plans and manipulations was now revealed as a mere puppet in a play he had not even known existed, his grand escape merely the final act orchestrated by his jailers.
The laughter of Zoth-Nylarrath continued, unabated.
Cronos will return in: The Jester Of Death.