Chapter 1: The Eclipse of Eternity
In a distant realm—a land where divine beings and primordial forces intertwined—a man once revered as a god now found himself ensnared by treachery. Damon, the Mad God, gasped for breath as the pantheon closed in: deities he had once ruled, devils he had scorned, and even those he had called kin. His silver hair clung to blood-smeared cheeks, and his eyes, wild yet lucid, flickered with the chaotic dance of sanity and madness.
Is this truly how it ends? Thoughts clawed at him, raw and jagged. Betrayed by those who once knelt at my throne?
He laughed—a hollow sound that echoed through the desolate battlefield. "Ha! So this is where the Mad God meets his end?" His voice cracked, not from fear, but from bitter irony. Adrenaline surged through his veins as he scanned the horizon, desperation staining his pride. Where are you, brother? The question throbbed within him, an open wound. "Will I truly perish without seeing my only family…?"
With a fierce bite, Damon drew blood from his own gums, golden ichor pooling on his tongue. He unleashed a roar, activating "Crazed Steps," his body erupting into a blur of frantic motion. Each stride became erratic, untethered—madness itself given form. If death were to claim him, it would be beneath the blood-red leaves of the willow tree he had planted with his brother centuries ago—a sacred place where his bones might still be found, where someone might remember him as more than a monster.
The wind screamed in his ears as he fled, the terrain dissolving into vibrant streaks of color. Behind him, laughter and taunts pursued like feral hounds.
"Your struggle is futile, Damon!" Luther, God of Eternal Flames, hurled an inferno that seared the air. The blast struck Damon's back, propelling him forward. He skidded across the scorched earth, flesh sizzling, yet surged upright, teeth bared in a defiant grin. Almost there.
Leaping skyward, he glimpsed the battlefield—a writhing sea of gods and titans—before a sob froze him midair.
"… I'm sorry."
Nora, Goddess of the Ocean, hovered before him, tears streaking her face. Her trident, a weapon he had forged for her ascension, gleamed with borrowed divinity. Before he could utter a word, she plunged it deep into his chest.
The impact stole his breath. Damon crashed to the ground, the trident's shaft protruding grotesquely from him. He tore it free, golden blood spraying as he coughed. "Hah… Even you, little tide?" His voice trembled, the sting of betrayal sharpening his madness. "Come then! Let the world witness how gods slaughter their own!"
"Crazed Steps" flared again. He vanished, reappearing at the edge of a sacred grove—a paradise untouched by war. The willow tree towered ahead, its ivory trunk spiraling into crimson leaves that dripped like weeping wounds. The air hummed with ancient power, the grass shimmering with rare elixirs, rivers of liquid gold threading through the soil.
His enemies halted, awestruck and wary. "Impossible…," Luther hissed. "This place—it's alive."
Damon staggered toward the tree, pressing his maimed wrist against its bark. Flesh began to regenerate, bones knitting with a sickening crunch. "Welcome," he rasped, spreading his arms wide, "to my requiem."
The first wave attacked—lesser gods, hungry for glory. Their feet touched the hallowed ground, and the earth screamed. Roots speared through chests, petals sharpened into deadly blades, reducing them to bone and ash.
Silence enveloped the battlefield. Then, the Old Gods descended:
- Luther, flames writhing like serpents around his fists.
- Nora, her trident trembling in her grip.
- The Time Weaver, his form flickering through epochs.
- The Cosmic Matriarch, her body a collapsing star.
- The Prophetess of Fate, her featureless face etched with glowing runes.
The Time Weaver stepped forward, threads of chronal energy spiraling from his fingertips. "Your reign ends now, Damon."
Reality fractured before him. Damon's essence splintered into echoes—a child planting a sapling, a king bathing in the blood of rebellion, a lunatic cackling as worlds crumbled.
"You believe time is your weapon?" Damon spat, foaming blood staining his chin. "I am time." He seized a thread of the Weaver's own past—a memory of the Weaver himself crowning Damon millennia ago. "Strike me," he hissed, yanking the thread taut, "You are nothing ."
The Weaver faltered.as Damon instantly moved with frightening speed as he shattered his jaw.
The Cosmic Matriarch descended next, her voice a supernova's roar. "You corrupt all you touch!, can't you see" As she released a black hole from her chest, as she ejected it hurtling toward him.
Damon spun, madness etched in his brain , slapping it aside. His hand disintegrated, sucked into the void, yet he laughed, regenerating the limb mid-swing. "Corrupt? No—I create!" With a clawed hand, he carved a sigil in the air. The black hole convulsed, birthing a newborn star.
"See is this not beatful" he realeased a playful smile as he instantly appeared before her face as he detoned it, The Cosmic Matriarch, Her flesh melted away, revealing skeletal constellations beneath.
As her screams echoed, the Prophetess materialized behind Damon, her stonelike hands clamping down on his skull. Visions flooded his mind: his empire crumbling into chaos, gods feasting on his essence, madness consuming all.
Damon's breath hitched, but then he laughed—a sound both unhinged and euphoric. "You think fate frightens me?" He headbutted her, cracking the tablet fused to her face. "I am madness! I am nightmare!"
Enraged, the Old Gods converged. Luther's meteors scarred the sky. Nora's oceans transformed into liquid void. The Weaver twisted time itself, freezing Damon's blood. The Matriarch split into a thousand dying stars.
Damon spread his arms wide, skin cracking as power consumed him. "Now… this is a worthy end!" His body warped into a black hole, veins glowing pink as reality itself frayed. "Forsaken Sword: Final Form—Eternal Madness!"
The slash erupted—a supernova of flame and chaos. Gods burned. The earth vaporized. And Damon, laughing through tears, danced as the world dissolved around him.
---
The battlefield became a scar upon reality itself. The skies hung like torn gauze, bleeding violet light onto plains where the laws of physics whimpered and frayed. Rivers flowed backward, and trees grew thorns that wept. Here, gods had met their demise, their divine carcasses dissolving into a black mist, their final curses crackling in the air like live wires.
Damon, the God of Madness, had orchestrated this carnage. Even in death, his laughter echoed. His body—what remained of it—lay twisted at the epicenter, a smoldering husk with seven obsidian pillars spiraling from its ashes. Each pillar pulsed with a sickly iridescence, veins of crimson lightning snaking across their surfaces. They hummed a melody that made teeth ache and sanity tremble.
---
- Nora, War's Architect, her armor cracked and leaking ichor, gripped her spear tighter. She had led the charge against Damon, but victory tasted like ash. Why had it come to this? she wondered. Was there truly no other way?
- Luther, Stormbringer, knelt beside her, his hurricane eyes dimmed. His storms had drowned entire pantheons, yet the pillars' hum made his hands shake. Damon had been a tyrant, but he was also their kin. What had they become?
- The Time Weaver hovered, her form flickering between child and crone, threads of chronology snapping around her. She had unraveled epochs to trap Damon—now she stared at the pillars as if they were stopwatches ticking toward doom. What have they unleashed?
- The Matriarch of Cosmos, her body a constellation of dying stars, radiated cold fury. "He let us win," she hissed. Damon's final grin haunted her—too wide, too knowing. What had he seen that they did not?
- The Prophetess of Fate remained silent. Her silver eyes reflected the pillars… and beyond them, fractures splitting into infinite possible tomorrows. The future is blank. What have they done?
---
In an instant, They surged forth with a velocity that defied the limitations of mere godflesh. Five pillars found their champions:
- Nora seized the Pillar of Seven Emotions, and its weight shattered her psyche, plunging her into a tempest of anger and sorrow.
- Luther grasped the Pillar of Formless Entities, an abyss where origins morphed into myriad shapes.
- The Time Weaver ensnared the Pillar of Weapon Mastery, its surface unfurling battle arts that even he struggled to recall.
- The Matriarch captured the Pillar of Creation, a black sun that consumed its own light.
- The Prophetess clutched the Pillar of Lucidity, a canvas as blank as an empty page, yet it seared her hands with a fierce intensity.
As the two remaining pillars and Damon's divine essence faded from existence, the Pillar of Shattered Sanity crumbled into shadow. The Pillar of Carnage and Slaughter tore through the fabric of reality itself, escaping into the great unknown as the God fragment disintegrated.
--
"They are not relics; they are seeds," rasped the Time Weaver, his voice a low whisper. Damon's madness had always manifested as a fractal, replicating and adapting in ways that confounded comprehension. Now, his essence lay scattered, concealed within these fragments. The five that had been claimed? Contained, for the moment. But the two that remained elusive…
The Prophetess finally broke the silence. "They will await someone akin to their master." Her voice quivered with uncertainty. "I cannot see the future—the vision is blank."
Around them, the battlefield trembled beneath an unseen weight. Somewhere, a crimson leaf—the final remnant of a fallen nature god—twisted into a thorned flower, its petals weeping a substance too dark to be mere blood.
The echo of Damon's laughter reverberated through the air, a haunting reminder of his presence.