The void was still.
Silent, but not empty.
Thrust walked through it—a lone figure moving across the liminal boundary between realms. His steps
were soundless, yet they carried a weight that left faint ripples in the fabric of existence.
Behind him, the broken realm he had left behind was in ruin. The remnants of the massacre—shattered
citadels, fallen gods, and rivers of divine blood—were now nothing but debris drifting through empty
space.
He did not look back.
The crimson sphere, still hovering at his side, pulsed faintly. Within its core, fragments of divine
essence swirled—remnants of the countless astral gods he had slaughtered. Their power was now
nothing more than fuel.
But Thrust was not concerned with the massacre. It was already behind him.
He walked.
---
The Path Through the Realms
As he moved, he crossed into the abandoned lower universes—minor dominions, once teeming with
life, now nothing more than forgotten remnants. Realms so insignificant that even the gods had ceased
watching over them.
Clusters of shattered planets drifted aimlessly, their surfaces barren and lifeless. Dim, fractured stars
clung to existence, their light faint and flickering. Once, these realms were brimming with life—distant
civilizations, untouched by divine conflict. Now, they were nothing but cosmic scrap, left to rot in
obscurity.
But they were still rich in raw celestial resources—core planets brimming with astral matter, ley lines
pulsing with unstable divine energy.
And as Thrust passed through, these worlds began to unravel.
He did not strike them. He did not even glance at them.
His mere proximity was enough.
The unstable realms cracked—their divine cores overloaded and ruptured under the faintest trace of his
power. One by one, they detonated into clouds of fractured essence. Entire lower universes, once
brimming with resources, were reduced to cosmic dust in his wake.
Some of the cores—small, primitive attempts by minor gods to forge their own dominions—shattered
into brief novas, scattering their creator's essence into the void.
The fabric of reality flickered. The debris of broken realms spiraled into empty singularities, leaving
nothing but voided space behind. Even the faint echoes of astral remnants were erased by the weight
of his passing.
And still, Thrust did not slow.
---
The Echo of His Passage
Beyond the fractured realms, the higher dominions stirred.
In the ethereal Sanctuary of Al'dreth, a minor god of knowledge sat upon his floating throne, gazing into
the starlit pools of prophecy. For ten thousand years, he had read the flow of fate without interruption.
But now, his hand faltered.
The water in the prophecy pool stained black, the threads of fate dissolving into meaningless static. The
god's eyes narrowed, confusion giving way to unease.
In a distant domain of war, a celestial lord was delivering a sermon to his legion. The flame-lit halls,
filled with divine soldiers, suddenly dimmed. The sacred torches, which had burned for millennia,
flickered and then extinguished, leaving nothing but cold darkness.
The warlord's voice fell silent. His warriors shifted uneasily, sensing a presence they could not see—but
they felt it.
The divine lords of Abyssal dominions felt it too.
In the lowest pits of broken reality, where unspeakable horrors roamed, the voidlords stirred. Their
malformed creations—serpentine horrors and fleshless beasts—let out hollow screeches, recoiling as if
sensing an unseen predator.
For a fleeting moment, the gods and warlords of both light and darkness felt the faintest tremor. A ripple
that was not meant for them—just the mere trace of something far greater passing by.
Even the Hollowed Sovereigns—ancient beings thought long lost—sensed the presence. The ruins of
their thrones flickered briefly, faint golden embers reigniting for the first time in eons. Forgotten
monarchs glanced toward the abyss, their empty sockets holding fleeting recognition before vanishing
once more.
In distant celestial courts, ethereal wardens abandoned their posts. Their spectral forms trembled,
unable to withstand the nameless force pressing upon them. The stars above their dominions dimmed
one by one, snuffed out by the lingering pressure of Thrust's wake.
And still, none of them dared to move.
---
The Rift Between Realms
Thrust continued walking, unbothered by the distorted space around him.
As he moved, the realms themselves grew increasingly unstable. The boundaries between dominions
thinned, collapsing into faint shimmers of cosmic fabric. The planes shifted irregularly—flickering
between states of existence.
To mortals, the realms would have appeared fractured, as if reality itself were glitching. Faint streaks of
divine flame and slivers of abyssal darkness flickered and vanished, unable to retain form in the
presence of Thrust's passage.
The further he walked, the heavier the void became.
Gravity twisted in on itself, pulling fragments of broken dimensions into spiraling singularities. The
celestial fabric became brittle, struggling to hold its shape.
Reality itself recoiled.
Entire dimensional folds collapsed, unable to sustain their form. Warped stars fractured into disjointed
spirals, scattering cosmic debris into the hollow.
And yet, he kept walking.
There was no haste in his stride. No urgency. No concern.
Only purpose.
The Realm of the Hollowed Sovereigns
As he neared the last remnants of the lower universes, he passed through a graveyard of forgotten
kings—the Hollowed Sovereigns.
They were not beings. They were memories.
Ruined thrones floated in the abyss, once claimed by ancient monarchs who had long since faded into
myth. Their dominions had been devoured by the flow of time, their names lost to oblivion.
But now… they stirred.
In the remnants of their thrones, faint shades of sovereignty flickered. Hollow specters of kings and
lords without form or voice. Forgotten monarchs reduced to nothingness.
For the first time in countless millennia, they turned.
Their eyes—nothing more than dull, empty hollows—shifted faintly toward Thrust as he passed.
There was no fear. No reverence.
Only recognition.
For even in their spectral, broken state, they knew a being far greater than themselves had walked by.
Some tried to bow—remnants of long-forgotten rituals—but their forms dissolved before they could
kneel.
And then… they were gone.
---
The Arrival Before Zepxaris
Finally, the realms gave way to the threshold of oblivion.
Before him stretched a void without end. There was no space here. No time. No stars.
Only Zepxaris.
His presence did not radiate. He did not burn with divine light, nor cast shadows with his existence.
He simply was.
Absolute. Unfathomable. Beyond comprehension.
Thrust approached the formless presence, his steps steady, unfaltering.
And then… it happened.
Zepxaris smirked.
A faint, almost imperceptible curve at the corner of his lips. A smirk of amusement—devoid of affection,
praise, or expectation.
And then, in the presence of his lord, Thrust knelt.
Not out of submission. Not out of reverence. But out of purpose fulfilled.
The void itself seemed to breathe once more—only faintly—before falling still again.
And as it did, Zepxaris' smirk remained.
---
■ End of Chapter 4