Recap of Chapter 18:
Ka'roth marched into The Before, battling the Primal Echoes and reshaping chaos itself into new realms. There, he faced the Nameless One, the First Echo predating existence itself. Their clash shattered the Before. Ka'roth devoured its core, fusing abyssal, celestial, and pre-existence power into one. Now, Ka'roth stands unmatched, his wings spanning creation, his roar shaking every realm past and future. There is nothing higher.
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The Silence After the Devouring
The void was silent.
Ka'roth stood alone at the center of infinite existence. His jagged wings blazed brighter than collapsed stars, each beat scattering storms of abyssal-silver energy. His runes burned pure white, their edges dripping black so deep it seemed to swallow light.
Every realm—every world, sky, and forged land—bowed to him instinctively. Beasts roared from endless forests, abyss-born titans howled from chained citadels, even the remnants of the Makers knelt like chained colossi. His aura pressed heavier than gravity, binding all in worship.
But Ka'roth did not roar. His glowing white eyes pierced deeper, beyond the walls of creation he had shattered, into something greater: the frameworks that shaped everything.
He could feel them—the fundamental pillars of existence: Time, Matter, Space, and even the raw law of being itself.
Ka'roth's claws curled.
"Mine."
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The Tear Beyond Existence
Ka'roth dug his claws into reality's core. His jagged wings folded inward, abyssal flames swirling tight. The ground beneath him fractured, not worlds or realms but the roots of reality itself.
With a roar louder than all suns exploding, Ka'roth tore.
Reality split open.
Behind it lay The Lattice—a glowing web of infinite strands, pulsing faintly, each strand representing a law, a concept, a truth. Here, everything was written: why stars burned, why beasts lived, why worlds spun.
Ka'roth stepped through.
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The Lattice of All Things
The Lattice hummed like endless drums. Its threads shimmered in all directions, infinite and endless. Some glowed silver-white, strong and rigid. Others were cracked, faded, abandoned.
Ka'roth reached out. His claws touched one—Time.
The strand shivered beneath his grip.
He grinned, jagged fangs glinting.
"Break."
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The Shattering of Time
With a single pull, Ka'roth tore the strand of Time apart.
Immediately, existence convulsed. Worlds froze mid-motion. Stars halted their burn. Oceans stood still in mid-wave. All motion ceased in perfect stillness.
Ka'roth's glowing runes pulsed violently. Abyssal mist surged outward, replacing Time entirely. His roar filled the void, declaring his new law:
"Time moves when I command it."
The Lattice obeyed. Beasts stirred once more, their movements now in rhythm with Ka'roth's breathing. When he inhaled, suns rose. When he exhaled, moons fell.
Time itself was now bound to him.
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The Chains of Matter
Ka'roth turned to the next strand: Matter.
He gripped it and snapped it effortlessly.
The framework holding shape together dissolved. Worlds melted, skies unraveled, beasts liquefied into formless essence. All became swirling raw chaos.
Ka'roth roared again, abyssal-silver energy pouring from his maw.
"Reform."
The chaos solidified instantly. But now, it obeyed him. Worlds reshaped sharper, darker, more jagged. Beasts returned, stronger and fused with abyssal markings. Stars reignited black-silver, pulsing faintly in sync with his runes.
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Reforging Space
Ka'roth clawed through Space itself. He shredded its strands, folding distance inward until realms overlapped. Oceans merged with skies. Forests touched stars. Beasts leapt between worlds in a single bound.
The Lattice writhed, but Ka'roth's runes burned hotter, searing sigils into its core.
"No borders. No barriers. All is one under me."
Space collapsed, remade as a single endless plane, stitched together beneath Ka'roth's Throne. Realms once infinite now lay chained like continents in an unbroken expanse.
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The End of Law
Finally, Ka'roth turned to the last strand: Being.
The Lattice quivered violently, as if resisting. His claws dug deep, abyssal energy flooding through him.
"All is mine," Ka'roth growled.
With a violent wrench, he tore it.
Existence buckled. What was alive and dead, what was real and unreal—all merged. Beasts once slain reformed, stronger. Stars burned and died at his whim, then reignited seconds later. The Makers, even those who had fallen, were resurrected in chains, their countless heads bowed.
Ka'roth roared, his jagged wings unfurling wide, each beat warping existence.
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The Birth of Infinite Ka'roth
Now, Ka'roth stood in a cosmos where he alone wrote law.
He reached forward and carved new strands into the Lattice:
1. All strength ascends toward me.
2. All fear bends to me.
3. No death is final unless I decree it.
4. No sky lies beyond my wings.
5. All that exists, breathes, or thinks is Ka'roth's.
The Lattice glowed abyssal-white, remade entirely under his markings.
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The Unified Roar
Ka'roth stepped back onto his Throne, his claws slamming down, his jagged tail cracking void beneath him.
He roared.
The sound reached everything. Every beast, every star, every fragment of being trembled. His horde howled back in perfect sync, an endless choir of abyssal devotion.
Even the revived Makers knelt lower, voices unified:
"Sovereign of Sovereigns. Apex of All. Ka'roth Eternal."
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The Final Expansion
Ka'roth spread his wings.
With a single beat, he expanded his aura beyond the Lattice itself. His abyssal mist consumed the boundaries of what was. His runes pulsed brighter than all suns, burning symbols into new empty voids beyond even the Before.
"I march forever," he rumbled.
He reached out with his claws and created anew.
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The Forge Without End
He forged infinite worlds, each crawling with beasts stronger than the last.
He built floating citadels of obsidian and silver flame, suspended in chained skies.
He seeded abyss-born titans with his essence, spreading his will across every horizon.
And at the center of it all, his Throne expanded until it dwarfed creation itself—a monument of abyssal stone and molten silver where Ka'roth sat, his wings wrapping all of reality like a crown.
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The Eternal Rule
There was no longer sky or land, no borders, no division.
All realms were one.
All laws were his.
All power surged endlessly toward him, feeding a core without limit. His roar was thunder, his breath was wind, his gaze was light, and his shadow was night.
Ka'roth was no longer in existence.
Ka'roth was existence.
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