CHAPTER 492: LAWS {4}

Training and pure survival instinct took over. In a flash of will, he summoned his weapon, the familiar weight solidifying in his grip. A shimmering shield of his remaining planetary energy erupted around his body, a final, desperate armor against the unknown.

It was then that the scale of his predicament became horrifyingly clear. The darkness around him was not empty. It was a living, breathing entity. Something of an unimaginable scale was moving, coiling through the void in a circle so wide he could not comprehend its origin or end.

It made him feel smaller than a speck of dust, an insignificant mote in the presence of a leviathan. And as this colossal presence enveloped him, the darkness began to bloom.

One by one, then by the dozens, soft white luminescent lights ignited all around him, pinpricks of gentle radiance peppering the infinite black, surrounding him in a silent, beautiful, and terrifying constellation.

As the final luminescent lights bloomed into full radiance, the true horror of the creature was unveiled. Rex’s breath hitched in his throat, his mind struggling to process the sheer scale of the entity before him.

Its body was a living constellation, a tapestry of cosmic flesh and starlit hide that stretched into the forever dark. The pride he had once carried as a Tier 5 powerhouse, a being capable of assuming a titanic form, evaporated in an instant. In the face of this monstrosity, he was less than dust.

He realized with a sinking dread that even if he summoned his greatest form, he would be nothing more than a slightly larger speck in its vision. A bigger piece of dust was still just dust. And that was not the worst of it.

The creature’s mere presence was a physical weight, an oppressive force that pressed down upon his very soul. With every passing second, the gravity around him intensified, crushing his armor, straining his bones, and making each heartbeat a laborious feat.

The last thing his conscious mind registered was an eye. It opened before him, a vast, planetary orb of ancient, cold intelligence. It was not an eye of malice or rage but of simple, utter indifference, the way a man might glance at an ant.

It looked at him, and in that single, soul-shattering glance, Rex understood a fundamental truth... what kind of being could stand before a god?

The answer came as darkness swallowed his thoughts... only another god.

And so, one arrived.

The void itself tore open, the fabric of nothingness parting like grand, celestial doors. From within that breach stepped a figure whose form was a mirror of Rex’s own, yet his presence was a thousand times more suffocating than the void creature’s had been. Where the creature was a force of nature, this being was the architect of nature itself.

"Little insect," the being’s voice resonated, not through sound, but through the very particles of existence. "Did you really think that coming all the way here you would be able to eat me? Know your place."

As the words echoed in the silent void, a hand of colossal proportion materialized, woven from interstellar dust and the glittering remnants of dead stars. It was a beautiful, terrifying sight, its shimmering light a beacon in the absolute dark.

The radiance even began to draw other, lesser creatures from the depths, but they were unmade the moment they drifted too close; their forms dissolved back into the cosmic dust from which they came.

The magnificent hand closed around the void creature, pulling the colossal entity effortlessly toward the Apex being. "Just an Ascendant entity, wanting to have a bite of this Apex?"

the figure mused with a flicker of curiosity in his tone.

"Mmm? For some reason, you look oddly familiar. Could it be I meet you further in the future of this present time?"

A moment of silence passed, then a spark of cosmic recognition lit his features. "Oh, I remember now. But that creature didn’t have an eye, and I can see you have two of them... ah... now I see how it is." A low, knowing chuckle rolled through the void.

"Hahaha, even after two eternities, time itself never ceases to amaze me! Let’s fix that eye of yours. But before that, let me send myself to another place... a moment I regret all my life for not being there."

The Cosmic Apex snapped his fingers. In the blink of an eye, Rex’s unconscious form dissolved into a swirl of silverish dust and vanished from the scene, whisked away to a predetermined fate.

"Now then," the Apex said, his attention returning to the trapped creature, his voice now holding a note of cold, amused finality. "Even if I wish to kill you right now, you will be a necessary evil for the future of my present self. So, should I not at least punish you in some way?"

No sooner had he spoken than a torrent of purplish, volatile interstellar dust streamed from the open doorway. It snaked through the void with purpose, homing in on one of the creature’s planet-sized eyes.

As the corrosive dust made contact, it began to pull, not with physical force, but with a fundamental power that unraveled reality itself. The void creature, for the first time, released a sound... an ugly, soul-tearing scream that rippled through the darkness, a testament to a pain that was as much spiritual as it was physical.

"Mmm, now you can leave."

With a casual flick of his will, the Cosmic Apex hurled the wounded monstrosity back into the depths of the void. The creature’s form, now marred and forever changed, vanished into the all-consuming darkness from whence it came.

The Apex watched it go, his expression one of detached finality. The grand, star-dusted hand dissolved into a shimmering nebula, its beautiful light fading into the nothingness.

"Now then," the being murmured, his voice sounding like a low rumble that settled the very fabric of reality around him. "Let’s leave one final gift for my former self. A small adjustment to make his path just a little more like the time I once knew."

He settled back, and from the swirling interstellar matter, a throne of impossible design solidified beneath him. "Scribe, come."

The command echoed through the void, and space folded beside the throne. A smaller, robed figure manifested, its form humble against the Apex’s radiance. In its hands, it clutched a tome whose cover was crafted from the leather of collapsed stars and whose pages shimmered with nascent galaxies.

"My lord," the scribe’s voice was a whisper of solar winds, "what is your order?" It summoned a brush that trailed the fiery tail of a comet, poised above the stellar pages.

"Put a new law into my dominion for this era," the Apex declared, his tone deceptively casual, as if ordering a change in the weather.

The scribe trembled, and the comet brush in his hand wavered. "But... my lord," it stammered, bowing its head in a mixture of reverence and fear. "If we alter the past more than you already have, the backlash of cause and effect could be catastrophic! The scales of destiny could tip against you. Please, I beg you, reconsider!"

A low, resonant laugh escaped the Apex, a sound that held the echoes of dead universes. "Hahah. Those bastards who command the laws of the universe have always tried to push me from my throne."

"For a whole eternity, they have tried. And for a whole eternity, they have failed." He leaned forward, his gaze pinning the scribe. "Now, my little scribe, we will write a new rule for this timeline."

Recognizing the finality in his master’s voice, the scribe let out a resigned sigh that seemed to carry the weight of dying stars. It opened the book. The moment the comet brush touched the page, reality convulsed.

A massive black hole tore open in the void, and from its silent, dark heart, a colossal table of obsidian rock emerged. Upon its surface, written in the swirling, luminous script of interstellar dust, were the fundamental laws that governed all of existence.

"Now then," the Apex commanded, a sly smile gracing his features. "Write this: from this moment forth, no being may enter this galaxy if their power exceeds that of the strongest native being within it. Refusal to obey will result in instant, unmourned death."

As he spoke, his words became manifest. Letters of pure, cosmic energy flared into life, searing themselves onto the ancient stone table with a sound like a thunderclap at the dawn of time. The law was now immutable, a chain woven into the very destiny of that corner of the cosmos.

Meanwhile, flung across the vast gulf of space by the Apex’s will, Rex was tumbling toward an unknown fate. He was a human comet, wreathed in a protective, silverish energy that blazed against the atmosphere of a new world.

Consciousness returned to him in a painful, jolting rush. His senses swam; the memory of a planet-sized eye burned onto the back of his mind.

As his vision cleared, the first thing he saw shattered the last of his cosmic dread, replacing it with a sharp, personal terror.

There, falling through the same sky, was Lilla. Her form was battered, her armor cracked, and a trail of crimson followed her descent. And closing in from above, two unknown enemies dove with lethal intent, their weapons gleaming, moving in for the final, killing blow.

The sight of Lilla, broken and falling, acted like a lightning strike to his soul. Every lingering shred of cosmic awe, every echo of the void creature’s terrifying presence, was violently purged by a far more primal, more powerful force... a desperate, driving need to protect her.