"Fear, architects of barren clemency, whose justice—carved from marble of false tears—feeds the hunger of the very gods you denounce.
For when the mirror of your deeds shatters, the tide of my wrath, silent and ancient, shall drown your foundations of salt…
And in your mouths, only the taste of the truth you refused to name shall remain.
…Echoes of Ashes."
—Eohedon—
Eohedon, rising within the infinity of the abyss, halted his advance as if the cosmic fabric itself had yielded to his presence. His gaze, beyond all human perception, pierced the layers of time and space, beholding the hubris of Aidgland and the shattered gears of its fate. Like the eye of an omniscient deity, observing the dance of stars and the fall of kingdoms, his soul absorbed the doom of those who dare defy the divine.
In that moment, his voice thundered, celestial and resonant, echoing through the abyssal vastness of creation—a decree from the very mouth of Genesis:
"I have been warned in the farthest corners of the void, illuminated by blasphemers who crown themselves gods in their arrogance, judged by the decadent souls of the flawed, the sycophants, and the false—seen as a wandering fool lost in the fog of the incomprehensible. In Aidgland, the pinnacle of aberration, the corruption of eternity, the dregs of creation, stand before me."
Eohedon, as aware of his divinity as of his overwhelming immensity, culminated his decree in an act so purely divine that time itself bowed. The universe, in its magnificence and chaos, ceased its march. In the ecstasy of his ascent, Eohedon witnessed the most sublime of falls: the final redemption born of the abyss. He rose not as a mortal defying gravity, but as one defying the very laws that govern the heavens—as if stripping existence of its beginning and end.
Then, an absolute, unfathomable silence seized the cosmos: no Rylen, no Aidgland, no observer, whisper, or sigh. Only primordial chaos stood as a mute witness. Even the one who, from his lofty sacred throne, deemed himself eternal judge, lifted his gaze—stripped of arrogance—to behold Eohedon. At the zenith of all things, Eohedon proclaimed his mandate with the authority of gods:
"They claim to accept, yet know not themselves. They speak of love, yet nourish their hearts with hate. They pose as heralds of peace, yet bring war. They call themselves faithful, yet are hypocrites, erecting clay idols in their temples. They judge but do not act, criticize but do not strive. They believe my judgment shall condemn them, yet my boundless calm shall break them. I am the challenger of the impossible, the one who spits upon destiny's majesty and grinds it to dust beneath my feet. I am, was, and shall be the end of the beginning… alpha and omega, the start of the end… end of the start, omega and alpha, the beginning of the end… I AM. Those who kneel before hollow, vain arguments surrender to ruin. Those who accept this judgment sin, and those who sin shall fail, for their souls will dissolve like mist in dawn's light.
Pray, for my benevolence has reached its limit. Now, in this eternal instant, I shall unleash—within this decree—the aleph where existence and denial kiss with steel teeth. Despair…
Only in that despair, in the darkest abyss of nothingness, shall you find peace, for only there is infinite calm attained."
Upon beholding Aidgland's hubris, Eohedon saw not a city, but the reflection of his own shadow: that ancient moment when he, like them, believed his divinity absolute. That is why his wrath was silent… for in destroying them, he judged himself.
Thus, Eohedon raised his arms to the heavens, palms open to the primordial abyss, as if his essence might grasp the very fibers of creation. The sun, sovereign of the stars, seemed to plummet from the firmament—a god dethroned. Its light flickered as if the last remnants of creation crumbled before Eohedon's majesty.
In the moment before judgment, Eohedon hesitated. Not out of mercy, but because, in the deepest fissure of his divine being, a voice whispered: What if you, too, are a cog in a greater god's machine?
Though some tried to flee, their bodies disintegrated midair. Though Rylen pleaded with desperate tears, her cries were silenced by the vastness of judgment. Even the impassive observer, from his unreachable height, could not escape the vision of catastrophe. Nothing could avert the inevitable.
The entire world, suspended in fragility, felt profound despair. Aidgland, at its core, felt its soul consumed by desolation. Every corner of its existence, every structure and breath, surrendered to the magnitude of its fate. It despaired to the brink of nonexistence, dissolving into cosmic dust—the primordial essence of stars that had birthed it in sands of space and time.
Within the aleph, one sphere opened, and for an instant, Eohedon saw Rylenah: her light identical to Rylen, the pontiff now begging. Were you my punishment or my forgiveness? he wondered—too late.
Aidgland, now existing only in its incomprehensible nonexistence, remained forever what it could have been and was not.
And in the end, only Eohedon lingered in that desolate corner of the world—or perhaps the world lingered within him. Gazing skyward, he declared:
"And you, who read these words in the false safety of your world—do you not hear the crumbling of foundations? Do you not see this passage is a mirror, and that Eohedon already watches from its lines, the salt corroding your reality?"