The death flower had bloomed.
Its black petals pulsed with a crimson light, shedding droplets of shadow instead of dew, as if the very essence of mortality bled from its core. The air around it twisted with whispers thousands of lost voices tangled in grief, memory, and finality. It bloomed only once every thousand years, deep beneath the palace of Paradise of Eternity, in the realm where death itself ruled without question.
And tonight, the realm stirred once more.
The Embodiment of Death sat motionless on his obsidian throne a jagged, towering seat formed from the broken bones of fallen stars and crowned with arcs of blue flame that flickered in unnatural rhythm. His form was humanoid, cloaked in pure void, darker than darkness. No skin, no face just the shape of man and the sense of absence. His body was made of the same emptiness that lies between galaxies, and in his chest, the Death Orb pulsed with eternal hunger: the source of his dominion over life's end.
The throne room was vast, endless. Cold wind howled through the gothic pillars, though there were no windows. The ceiling was an infinite abyss. No light reached this place only the glow of the Death Orb, casting long, twitching shadows.
Then
Footsteps.
Deliberate. Echoing. A slow rhythm of defiance breaking the silence of eternity.
From the mist, a figure emerged tall, cloaked in black, armored in shadow-metal that reflected nothing. His face was hidden behind a black iron mask, sculpted like the face of a forgotten god. A faint blue aura burned along the edges of his silhouette, warping the ground beneath his boots.
The Void Bringer had returned.
The Embodiment of Death watched, unshaken, his voice deep and ancient, like glaciers grinding against the bones of time.
"I expected Regulus, the starborn prince. He always grovels when the flower calls me. Always pleading for immortality. You're late."
But the figure did not kneel. His voice cut through the gloom. cold, hard, final.
"I came not for a wish."
"I came to chain you down."
"And to claim your throne... and the Death Orb."
For the first time in eons, silence reigned in the throne hall. Then laughter—echoing, sharp, monstrous. The Embodiment of Death rose, a storm of black mist swirling at his feet.
"You?"
"A mortal?"
"I am death incarnate. The first and final end. I watched empires fade before fire was born. I unmade gods in their mother's womb. I cannot be chained. I cannot be touched."
But the masked figure took another step forward.
And spoke again.
"Yet there was one."
"A mortal who slaughtered all the Embodiments of Force."
"Who shattered the 26 universes and silenced the Astral Choir."
"That mortal stands before you now."
At those words, the realm shivered.
The wind stopped.
The flames above the throne died.
And for the first time in memory, the Embodiment of Death stumbled back. His void form flickered, breaking at the edges, as if reality itself refused to hold him steady.
"No…" he whispered.
"He vanished… He died… 250 years ago…"
Then he looked up.
A shadow loomed behind the cloaked figure titanic, winged, crowned in shifting halos of collapsing galaxies. It wasn't a shape it was the absence of all shapes. The shadow of a being that defied existence, too large for any realm to contain.
The death realm darkened even further as if existence itself recoiled from what was about to unfold.
The Embodiment of Death stood, a monument of shadow and power, his void-body flaring like a dying star. The light of the Death Orb at his chest pulsed erratically, no longer calm, now laced with panic, with ancient memory clawing its way back.
"Lucian Starlight," he growled. His voice was no longer calm it cracked with fury, thick with hatred, echoing across the dead dimension like thunder through a hollow world.
"The legendary emperor… who shattered twenty-six universes… who sealed the dragon pantheon into blades of silence… who slew the Embodiments of Force like beasts in a storm."
His fists clenched, and the air around him fractured.
"But you… You are not Lucian. Just a mortal wearing his shadow. You're not of the Starlight Dynasty. You don't carry their blood."
"Yet still... you carry something… that terrifies even me."
A long silence followed. Even the winds had died now.
The Void Bringer Master Void stood unchanged. Still. Silent. The only sound was the gentle, impossible hum of the void itself coiling around him.
Then Embodiment of Death snarled.
"No matter. I will erase you. I will burn down your memory. And all mortals who dare follow the path of Lucian... will be torn apart!"
The throne room cracked.
Massive black veins split the floor as the full power of Death's Avatar was unleashed.
The temperature dropped below existence not cold, but absence, as if warmth had never been born in this place. From the core of the Embodiment's being, every elemental force exploded outward:
Flames that burned without light.
Lightning that moved like water.
Ice that turned sound itself into shards.
Earth that twisted gravity sideways.
Winds that carried the voices of extinct gods.
And above it all, the Death Aura itself a corona of anti-life that devoured anything real. Reality bent and shattered at his feet. Statues of fallen kings that lined the walls crumbled into dust. The very laws of physics screamed as he rose into the air.
"Now... DIE."
But Master Void only raised his hand.
In his palm a cube. Spinning, glowing faintly with impossible energy. Blacker than shadow, edged with silver cracks that pulsed in rhythm to a forgotten war drum.
The moment the Embodiment saw it he stumbled back, horror carved into his faceless expression.
"No… Not that cube… That's Lucian's Void Cube."
The Void Cube hovered silently above Master Void's palm, absorbing light, devouring space. Its presence bent the throne room like a black hole of legend.
Master Void looked up.
His voice dropped, deeper than silence.
"Dark Wings... arise."
The air imploded.
And then the transformation.
Twin void-wings erupted from his back enormous, featherless, woven from screaming galaxies and dying suns. His cloak split and reformed into living armor, forged from the will of collapsed dimensions, obsidian trimmed in cursed sigils, glowing with inverted light. Horned, jagged pauldrons locked over his shoulders, and a rune-bound helm snapped into place, fusing with his mask.
His presence exploded outward. Even the walls of the realm cracked under the weight of his awakened form.
The Void Bringer was no longer a mortal.
He was the echo of the End.
And yet Death did not retreat.
The Embodiment roared and surged forward, summoning all his might. He became a storm of elements, a mass of flickering destruction. Fire twisted into spears, lightning forged into swords, torrents of earth and ice and wind spiraled around him. His arms outstretched and the sky of the death realm split open, revealing a void above a celestial eye watching them both.
"You will kneel. You will be torn apart atom by atom, and the Death Orb will drink your soul."
But Master Void simply raised his head.
"You can't win," he said, the Void Cube pulsing brighter in his hand.
"Just submit. And I will do what you cannot grant you life."
That word.
Life.
It was a curse to Death. A dagger.
The Embodiment screamed a scream that ripped open the bones of the realm itself.
"ENOUGH!!!"
He launched forward, a god in fury, every element erupting in his wake.
The clash began.
The moment of contact cracked the fabric of the death realm. Light died. Sound vanished. For an instant there was only impact.
And then reality shattered like glass.
To be continue....