Zepxaris sat upon the jagged obsidian throne, his eyes half-lidded with apathy. The aftermath of Thrust's return lingered in the void—the torn fabrics of forgotten realms still smoldering in the wake of his minion's violent exodus. Yet, Zepxaris' expression remained unreadable. The gods' panic, the shattered domains, and the meaningless trembling of existence barely stirred him.
He exhaled softly and closed his eyes, leaning into the chasm of memories that slumbered deep within his being. The dust of ancient wars clung to the edges of his mind. Threads of a time when he was still ascending—when the concept of "impossible" still held meaning.
And in that slumber, the echoes of a battle long forgotten began to stir.
---
The skies of the Abyssal Expanse were not meant to hold light. Endless storms of seething black flames clashed against crimson clouds, tearing through reality with shrieks of madness. The space itself wept as existence unraveled. In this forsaken region, two beings stood at the center of a maelstrom that defied the cosmos.
One was Zepxaris—the nameless conqueror, unknown to gods and sovereigns alike. The other was Hollow—the void-forged manifestation of destruction itself. A primordial force. An existence that should not be.
Their first meeting was not one of words or alliances. It was a collision of pure will—a war so cataclysmic that even the oblivion around them recoiled.
Zepxaris stood with his arms crossed, draped in a tattered cloak, his eyes empty yet fathomless. Hollow, with his towering frame of swirling darkness and jagged, spectral armor, loomed like a walking abyss. His very presence devoured the surrounding light. His eyes—if they could be called that—burned with inverted fire, twin voids of all-consuming blackness.
They said nothing.
There was no need for declarations.
With a step forward, Hollow unleashed his malice.
---
The ground beneath them screamed as it split apart. Space itself fractured into splintering reflections of broken reality. The first blow was not a physical strike—it was the severing of existence. The realms themselves evaporated around Hollow's presence. Everything became nothing.
Zepxaris watched the annihilation unblinking.
And then he smiled.
The first clash was silent. The only sound was the cosmos splintering like glass. Hollow lunged forward, his spear—a weapon formed from pure negation—cleaved through the fabric of space. The spear did not tear through physical matter but through the essence of being itself. Stars withered in its wake, their light stripped from existence as though they had never been.
Zepxaris parried with an upward swipe of his hand. His bare palm met the spear's edge with an indifferent flick. The concept of gravity ceased around them. Entire realms drifted upward like dust, untethered from the notion of weight. With a flick of his wrist, Zepxaris sent Hollow hurtling backward, the impact causing the very boundaries of creation to recoil.
Hollow did not stop.
He twisted mid-flight, and with a gesture of his hand, black tendrils of oblivion lashed out. They snaked through reality, weaving through timelines and shredding causality itself. Futures burned before they could occur. Pasts unraveled into oblivion. Entire chains of fate were reduced to ash.
Zepxaris narrowed his eyes slightly.
The tendrils lashed toward him, but his presence alone sundered them. The strands of darkness evaporated, reduced to mere traces of nonexistence. His gaze alone burned away the void.
And then he struck.
He clenched his hand into a fist, and the Abyssal Expanse rippled. The very concept of distance folded. He was upon Hollow in an instant. His palm met Hollow's chest with a dull, unimpressive tap.
And then half the multiverse detonated.
A shockwave so vast it tore across creation, shattering dimensional membranes and sending fragments of shattered worlds cascading into the emptiness beyond. Lower realms—long abandoned—were reduced to dust in the aftershock.
Hollow skidded backward, the black of his form flickering. But he did not falter. Instead, he smiled.
The spear of negation dissolved in his hand. He no longer needed it.
Hollow's limbs split apart into jagged, fractal-like spires. His entire form transformed into an incarnation of devastation, becoming a singularity with infinite gravities. He struck with all the force of collapsed galaxies.
Zepxaris braced.
The first blow bent the fundamental laws of physics. The concept of direction shattered—the world blurred into spiraling chaos. Matter and anti-matter reversed with each strike. With every blow, Hollow dragged existence into nothingness.
The second strike burned time itself. Centuries turned to dust. Worlds lost their histories, their cultures erased from the fabric of continuity. The echoes of entire civilizations were undone by the mere proximity of their clash.
But Zepxaris remained unmoved.
His form became an anchor. Unfathomable. Irreducible. Hollow's destruction no longer reached him. The void itself recoiled from his presence.
---
The war became timeless.
Months bled into each other. Lower realms collapsed into entropy, while higher realms splintered into unstable dimensions. The clash grew so violent that conceptual forces—divine principles, cosmic constants, and natural laws—fractured and scattered.
The gods turned away, unable to witness it.
Entire pantheons sealed themselves away, retreating into the marrow of existence itself. The rulers of uncountable realms were reduced to trembling observers.
And still, neither fell.
For six months, they fought without rest. Not a single wound marked Zepxaris' skin. Not a single scratch marred Hollow's form. Their battle transcended violence—it was a dance of devastation, flawless and eternal.
But Zepxaris was not one to be rivaled forever.
As the seventh month dawned, something shifted. The space around Zepxaris began to distort differently. His movements, once calculated and controlled, grew slower—but heavier.
He stopped attacking reality. Instead, he began attacking the concept of reality itself.
Hollow's spear cut through entire regions, yet Zepxaris ignored it. He let the weapon pierce through him, but his form no longer bled—it simply refused to acknowledge the concept of injury. His presence became unyielding, beyond existence itself.
The void recoiled.
For the first time, Hollow faltered. The infinite darkness that was his form quivered. The hunger of his spear diminished. Zepxaris' eyes glimmered faintly—less out of malice and more out of recognition.
He saw the potential. The boundless, fathomless strength behind Hollow's monstrous existence. And he smiled.
Then, Zepxaris walked forward.
He no longer fought—he simply advanced.
The expanse, once shrouded in Hollow's darkness, burned white. Realms that had ceased to exist were reborn in golden flame with every step Zepxaris took. Reality itself bent to his will, mending with each breath he exhaled. The infinite destruction was reversed—unmade by his mere presence.
Zepxaris stood before Hollow, unscathed, unyielding, and untouchable. And then he lowered his hand.
---
The silence was absolute.
No words were spoken, but the atmosphere shifted. Zepxaris, who had obliterated kings and gods with a glance, did not gloat. He did not mock. Instead, he extended his hand—a gesture of acknowledgment, not dominance.
"Walk beside me," he said with genuine humility, his voice a whisper that echoed across existence. "There is no higher peak. Only the journey to reach it. Let us walk it together."
Hollow, the being who had devoured entire planes without mercy, knelt. Not in defeat—but in respect. For the first time, he saw something beyond destruction.
Zepxaris smiled faintly, and in that moment, the Abyssal Expanse—a region of eternal annihilation—was rendered silent. The endless storms of fire and madness were no more. The two beings stood side by side, gazing into the infinite void.
And from that moment onward, Hollow was no longer alone.
He walked beside the one being whose strength could never be measured.
*THE CHAPTER ENDS*