The Illusion Shatters: The False Victory
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The Battlefield of Delusion
The clash was hailed as legendary before it even began. Word had spread like wildfire — the gods were uniting. A force of a hundred Celestials and fifty Creators, each bearing legacies written in divine flame and cosmic hymns, gathered under one purpose: to bring down Hollow, the forgotten calamity of ages past.
They believed they had pierced through the void, broken ancient barriers, and reached the being who once terrorized the fabric of existence. From afar, they saw a shape — a figure — slouched amidst endless ruin. They struck. Powers collided. Realms trembled. Songs were written mid-battle.
In their minds, they had slain the monster. They saw Hollow's body torn apart, his essence fragmenting like stardust lost to the void. Cheers erupted across pantheons. The so-called "Final Battle" was heralded across temples, monuments raised in honor of the supposed victors.
But it was all a lie.
A fabrication conjured by Hollow himself. Not to protect, not to hide — but to observe.
The illusion was perfect. It preyed on their arrogance, fed by centuries of self-congratulation. And in their moment of false triumph, reality cracked.
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The Shattering Begins
It started subtly — a strange tension, as though time held its breath. Then came the sound. It wasn't thunder. It wasn't war. It was a snap — raw, clean, deafening — the sound of a lie collapsing into truth.
The illusion collapsed like glass under divine pressure. Reality reasserted itself violently. The battlefield was revealed not as a triumphant warzone, but a slaughterhouse.
Hollow stood in the center, drenched in divine blood. None of it his.
His weapon, still humming with residual power, hung lazily from his shoulder. The corpses of gods, twisted and broken beyond recognition, surrounded him like a grotesque halo. Their faces frozen in shock — not fear, but confusion. They had died thinking they had won.
The truth hit like a second death.
Floating beside Hollow was Thrust, unnoticed until now — an extension of Hollow's will. Not just a warrior, but an executioner. His armor shimmered with the essence of unlight, and within his helm burned twin flames of voidlight — not flames of chaos, but of perfect, absolute stillness.
His silence was more terrifying than any roar. He did not gloat. He merely watched, as if studying insects in a jar.
What the gods thought was victory was in truth a dream — an enforced illusion Hollow allowed them to see.
As punishment.
As mockery.
As warning.
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The Realm of Creators Reacts
Far above the battlefield, within the divine plane known as the Vault of Wills, the surviving Creators gathered. These were beings responsible for shaping laws of reality, physics, time, and life itself.
They watched the true events unfold.
What they had once declared a triumph was revealed as failure. Worse — it was humiliation.
Their greatest warriors, their finest children, had not even scratched Hollow. They had been butchered. And worse, they hadn't even known it.
Whispers of despair and awe swept the Vault like a plague.
> "He was never defeated…"
> "We believed our own stories…"
> "We're still beneath him."
Then came silence.
And from the throne of genesis, Valtoros, the eldest Creator, stood. His form crackled with reality-bending force, his presence shaping constellations even as he moved.
He raised his hand, and his voice — deep, cold, ageless — spoke across the dimensions:
> "We do not weep for the dead. They chose arrogance. They paid the price. Now... we purge the rot."
With those words, divine judgment was passed.
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The Decree: The Purge of Betrayal
A decree was issued, not by words alone, but embedded into the laws of existence:
> "All traitorous gods — all who fled, all who disobeyed, all who questioned — are to be erased. Their realms annihilated. Their names purged. Let no echo remain."
Reality itself trembled in response. Across planes and heavens, the guilty began to scream.
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The Wrath of Titans
The Titans awakened — beings predating even the Creators, sealed in timeless slumber for fear of what their wrath could bring.
Mournlock, the Titan of Wrath, rose first. His body was a walking fortress — obsidian plated with cracks of flowing magma. His eyes were twin furnaces of hatred. He descended upon the Sanctum of Lightborne, a city of once-loyal gods who had switched allegiance to preserve their own skins.
They prayed. They wept. They summoned divine fire.
None of it mattered.
Mournlock's anti-creation aura undid matter, energy, even belief itself. Every step erased history. Temples collapsed into fine sand. Entire bloodlines vanished without even a name remaining.
He did not speak. He only marched.
Then came Kaelum, the Titan of Silence — an unassuming being, barely a shadow, whose approach silenced entire worlds. No fanfare. No storm. Just absence.
He reached the Sanctum of Ixialith, where the goddess of mercy hid. Her followers created barriers of pure belief — will forged from generations of worship.
Kaelum looked upon them, and the belief simply… ceased.
Ixialith confronted him. Her beauty was divine, her radiance untouched by war.
> "You cannot erase hope," she whispered.
Kaelum lifted his hand.
She was undone in a blink. No scream. No light.
Her existence became a forgotten dream.
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The Cosmic Ones Strike
While Titans dismantled the material, the Cosmic Ones assaulted the spiritual and metaphysical.
Vraek, the Cosmic Enforcer, appeared above Sol'Zuun's realm. The god of rebellion had prepared an army, believing he could change fate.
Vraek said nothing. He merely extended a finger.
Time collapsed.
Soldiers aged into skeletons. Flames froze mid-air. Temples reverted to raw stone. Sol'Zuun tried to cry out, to declare his name one last time.
> "I… I am… I…"
But the words never finished.
He was unmade.
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Aftermath: Silence and Surrender
The purge was unrelenting. Realms fell. Choirs were silenced. Scriptures turned blank.
Some gods kneeled. Others cried for mercy.
None were spared.
The Titans and Cosmic Ones followed the decree with mechanical precision. The Vault of Wills stood in solemn silence, the Creators no longer debating, no longer dreaming.
Together, they raised their hands:
> "Let this be the final war among ourselves."
They would not allow another cycle of betrayal.
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Reverence for Hollow and Thrust
Not a single message was sent to Hollow. The Creators knew.
Hollow and Thrust were not allies. They were not enemies. They were constants — entities so far beyond comprehension that any attempt to measure them was folly.
Hollow did not fight for a cause. He did not care for victory.
He was simply absolute.
And for the first time, the Creators accepted this truth:
> "He is not a threat. He is an absolute."
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A New Genesis
The era of flawed gods was over.
The Creators vowed not to resurrect the fallen. They had proven their fallibility.
Instead, they would forge new beings — ones bound by soul and will, incapable of rebellion, of thought beyond their creator's command. Not divine children — but divine constructs.
But that tale belonged to another age.
For now, the world stood silent.
Ash-covered ruins dotted the cosmos.
A warning remained, etched in divine blood and eternal void:
> Never again forget who stands beyond gods.
And atop the highest peak of forgotten realms, Hollow and Thrust stood — for a single moment more.
Then vanished into myth once again.
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*THE CHAPTER ENDS*