I Was Erased by My Best Friend So Why Am I Still Here?
Chapter 0: The Betrayal?
I Was Erased by My Best Friend So Why Am I Still Here?
What the World Chooses to Forget
"Power does not corrupt. It reveals."
Attributed to the Last Philosopher of Virex
The world believed in balance.
That belief was a lie but it was a useful one.
Aurelion once believed in it too.
He stood at the center of the High Firmament, where the sky folded into itself like glass under pressure and the laws of existence were written in light. Beneath him stretched the world of Eryndor continents floating on unseen currents, oceans glowing faintly with arcane residue, cities shaped by centuries of divine intervention. This was a world sustained by gods, guided by absolutes, and governed by those deemed worthy enough to stand above consequence.
Aurelion was one of them.
No he had been the one.
"Do you feel it?" Caelum asked beside him.
Aurelion smiled faintly and turned. "The convergence? Of course I feel it."
Caelum always stood with perfect posture back straight, hands folded behind him, pale mantle fluttering despite the absence of wind. His eyes mirrored the heavens themselves calm, distant, endlessly calculating. Where Aurelion radiated warmth and presence, Caelum carried stillness. Authority.
Together, they were called the Twin Pillars.
Aurelion, the Bearer of Origin power that expanded, adapted, and created.
Caelum, the Arbiter of Finality the authority to decide what should remain.
Best friends. Brothers in everything but blood.
They had risen together. Trained together. Bled together.
And now, they stood at the threshold of omnipotence.
"The balance is breaking," Caelum continued. "Reality is bending too easily around you."
Aurelion's smile faded.
"You've said that before."
"And each time," Caelum replied softly, "you grow stronger."
Below them, the Convergence Sigil burned bright era colossal array etched into the Firmament itself. Once activated, it would elevate one being beyond all others. Not a god. Not a king.
Something.
"This power was never meant for one will alone," Caelum said.
Aurelion looked at him really looked this time. There was something unfamiliar in Caelum's gaze. Not fear. Not hatred.
Resolve.
"Since when?" Aurelion asked. "We planned this together."
"Yes," Caelum agreed. "And I've spent every moment since wondering if that was our first mistake."
Silence stretched.
Aurelion exhaled. "You're tired."
"I'm awake."
That should have been the warning.
The Betrayal
The sigil activated.
Light surged upward, devouring the sky.
Aurelion felt power rush into him limitless, expanding, rewriting his understanding of existence with every heartbeat. Reality responded to his thoughts before he finished forming them.
He laughed once, breathless. "Caelum… we did it."
Caelum raised his hand.
The world froze.
Not time permission.
Aurelion's laughter died.
"Caelum?" he said slowly.
"I'm sorry," Caelum replied.
The words carried weight. Finality.
"I saw every future," Caelum continued, his voice steady. "In every one where you remained… the world collapsed beneath you. Not from malice. From inevitability."
Aurelion tried to move.
He couldn't.
"You were becoming too much," Caelum said. "Not a god. Not a ruler. A singularity."
Understanding struck like a blade.
"You're afraid of me."
"I'm afraid of what no one could stop," Caelum corrected.
The sigil twisted. Light inverted.
Aurelion screamed as Omnipotence turned against him.
Not destruction.
Erasure.
His name unraveled first.
Then his history.
Then the concept of Aurelion itself.
Memories bled out of the world. Statues cracked. Records rewrote. People who had loved him paused mid thought, confusion flickering then nothing.
Aurelion felt himself thinning.
"Caelum!" he roared, rage and disbelief tearing through him. "We were"
"Best friends," Caelum finished.
His eyes didn't waver.
"And that is why I must be the one to do this."
With a final gesture, Caelum completed the command.
"Let there be no remainder."
The universe obeyed.
What Survived
Nothingness was not empty.
It was hungry.
Aurelion existed without existing awareness stripped of form, will without anchor. He felt no time. No body. Only a single thought that refused to disappear.
I was erased.
Reality had rejected him.
And yet something remained.
"To be forgotten by the world is not the same as ceasing to be."
Aurelion realized the truth in horror and awe
Omnipotence had erased him from everything
except the place beyond definition.
The void did not reject him.
It accepted him.
Power returned not as command, but as adaptation. Not omnipotence, but evolution.
Where reality denied him, he learned to exist without permission.
He began to change.
Rebirth
The world of Eryndor shuddered.
A child was born in a nameless wasteland where magic failed and gods never looked.
Black light bled from the sky.
The infant did not cry.
Its eyes opened white, luminous, aware.
Aurelion breathed for the first time since his erasure.
He felt weaker.
Smaller.
And yet
Beneath that fragility lay something far more dangerous than before.
Not absolute power.
But irreversible growth.
"That which survives annihilation is no longer bound by fear."
Aurelion closed his eyes.
Somewhere far above, Caelum sat upon a throne built from stolen silence, believing himself victorious. Believing the world safe.
Aurelion smiled.
"Finality," he whispered. "We'll see about that."
To be continued...