Asher's shivers grew stronger. Debris and dust floated in the air, drifting in strange clouds. The being before him emitted energy that was beyond even the gods he had met up to this point. It wasn't power—it was inevitability.
The figure moved forward, and with each step, reality itself distorted. The Cathedral ruins twisted, stone reforming and shining between states of devastation and completion. Time stumbled, folding around them.
"You sense it, don't you?" the being spoke, their voice multiple, as if many existences spoke in harmony. "The burden of the path you've traveled. You were never supposed to come so far… and yet here you are."
Asher's fingers tightened into a fist. The emptiness inside him stirred, a nagging whisper eating at his mind. His abilities had grown, his body had increased in strength, but standing before this beast, he felt—inferior.
"Who are you?" His tone was even, but he could feel the effort of keeping himself calm. "Another god testing me? Or something worse?"
The figure was quiet for a moment before responding, "I am the Architect of Boundaries, the Keeper of What Should Not Be Crossed."
Asher's mind was reeling. The High Architect's power had been destroyed, and only remnants were left behind. Could this creature be a remnant? No, something about it felt. ancient.
"You command the void as if it were your own," the Architect went on, not budging, unwavering. "But you are still ignorant of what you have become. You are not just a consumer of darkness, Asher. You are a disruption. A flaw in the grand design."
A spark of rage ignited Asher's chest. "If I am an aberration, then that means your so-called 'design' was flawed at the beginning." He raised a hand, and threads of void energy wrapped around his fingers. "Or maybe. I'm just evidence that the gods aren't as inaccessible as they believe."
A low hum vibrated from the Architect. Not laughter, not amusement—just acknowledgment.
"You believe this is about gods?" The Architect brushed out a hand, and the universe around them collapsed. The Cathedral fell apart into an emptiness without void, a kingdom of nothing that lay in every direction. "This is about existence itself. And you—your own existence—have become a deviation that undermines the balance of everything."
Asher's breath caught. Not out of fear—but because, for the first time, he could sense truth in their words. The void that had become part of him, which had defined him as he was now, was not mere power. It was something more fundamental.
Something which did not belong here.
But he gritted his jaw tight, banishing doubt. "Then I guess I'll just have to remake reality in my own likeness."
The Architect sighed—not with frustration, but with inevitability. "And so the crossing has taken place."
There was a momentary instant when nothing that enveloped them trembled. Cracks were discovered in void, their perimeters spreading like cracks on a mirror. From their depths something started to form—silhouettes neither dead nor alive.
Asher's instincts howled at him.
These were not gods. These were not void beings.
These were things that had never been intended to be beheld.
The Architect held up their hand. "You wanted to transcend mortality, to transcend divinity? Then you will have to deal with what is beyond the door."
The figures launched the attack.
And the struggle for existence began.