CHAPTER 180: The Return of True Balance Is Signaled by a Massive

CHAPTER 180: The Return of True Balance Is Signaled by a Massive

 As the army of the lost fell upon them, the mists swirled and twisted.

The light from Selene's heavenly sword pierced the darkness as she called it forth.  Kael loomed behind them, his eyes blazing with an unearthly heat, as Rowan transformed, Eclipse power coursing through his veins.

The battle was swift and intense, with spectral and physical attacks from ghoulish fighters.  The weight of past regrets and lost battles weighed on every hit.

They battled to survive to comprehend rather than to destroy.

Rowan understood deep down that this was not a real struggle.
 It was time to face up.

A test of spirit rather than power.

From the top of a little incline, the lady in the starry robes silently observed, her blinded eyes nevertheless seeing everything.

The air became heavier with growing energy all around them.  Unfathomable forces caused the rivers of silver to pulse more quickly as lightning crackled over the two moons.

Then the ground trembled with a low, deep rumbling.

Selene gasped as she dodged a transparent knight's assault.  "Rowan look!"

Rowan turned just as the horizon became darker.

Like a living tide, clouds drifted over the mountains, black as pitch and flecked with gold veins that burned.  Whispers from all the now-merged realms were carried by the howling winds.

The storm was on its way.

And it wasn't just any storm.

The Celestial and Eclipse worlds had been created centuries ago by the same storm of creation.

Kael tightened his jaw.  "Tell me that's not what it looks like."

Awe fighting with fear, Selene exhaled.  It's the storm of real equilibrium.  It will alter everything forever if it comes into contact with this soil.

At last, the lady in the starlight spoke, her voice rising above the wind's roar:

"You must endure."
 "You must let the storm remake you."
 "Or you will be lost like those before you."

The spectral fighters froze, dropping their weapons one by one.  Instead of running away, they knelt down and bowed their heads to the approaching storm.

There were plumes of silver mist when the ground shattered.  Rivers rushed into the gathering darkness, their waters brimming with light.  Every breath seemed like swallowing lightning as the air became thick and electrified.

Rowan felt his heart race.

A deep part of him reacted, aching for the storm.

With her silver hair flying over her face, Selene turned.  Rowan, we must go to it.  It isn't here to ruin us.  The Guardians are going to be remade.

It was as if Kael wanted to dispute.  Then he frowned as he gazed at the never-ending stream of soldiers on their knees.

"All right.  However, I will haunt you both if I am transformed into a tree or whatever.

The three of them sprinted together into the center of the storm.

The lady in the starlight stood still, her quiet blessing pouring like a prayer in their direction.

The terrain started to change under their feet as they ran.  The earth itself flowed like water, trees dissolved into liquid silver, and flowers changed to crystal.

They were lifted off their feet for frightful minutes by the screaming gusts, and then dropped once again.

Something tore within Rowan, not agony, but a layering of layers.  His doubts, his anxieties, his anger all of them were exposed and peeled away.

Selene let out a cry beside him, not of pain but of relief.

Kael clutched his chest and staggered.  "It's inside me.  "Everything is being rewritten."

The storm came.

The glaring light surrounded them.

There was neither an up nor a down.  Only the scream of planets clashing, the roar of rebirth, the melody of something sacred and old.

Rowan was weightless as he floated.  He saw images of Kael brandishing a sword made of pure darkness, Selene crowned in stars, and himself standing on a bridge of woven reality.

If they lived, he glimpsed the new world they would create.

If.

Because something else was waiting right in the middle of the storm.

Not deliverance.

But a decision.

Rowan fell hard, hanging in limitless light, on an obsidian platform.

Beside him, panting, bruised but alive, came Selene and Kael.

A person waited in front of them.

Rowan, but not as he recognized himself.

This figure wore armor composed of a combination of celestial and eclipse metals.  His countenance was serene yet completely emotionless, and his eyes were gold and silver.

"You seek balance," remarked Rowan in the mirror.  "But balance demands sacrifice."

When he held out his hand, two routes appeared:

One is a route that is flooded with light and promises tranquility, but it comes at such a great cost that it hurts to simply look at it.

The other was a velvet-dark route that offered power, but there was always a chance of corruption.

The mirrored Rowan addressed all three of them, saying, "You must choose."  "Everyone has the same route.  No going back."

Selene spoke steadily.  "Together."

Kael gave a gloomy grin.  "Wouldn’t have it any other way."

Rowan took a step forward and extended his hand.

However, the platform trembled strongly just before he reached either route.

Another person appeared from the hole in the light.

This one was unique.

older.  twisted.  engulfed in flaming shadows and smoke.

It was the real source of the renegade animals not only their remains, but their maker.

A being not annihilated but forgotten by the united worlds.

Unbalanced, the lost deity.

With a deep rumbling that shook Rowan's bones, it spoke without a mouth:

"You believed you had destroyed me.  Stupid people.  The wound that never goes away is me.

It sprang

and Kael, Rowan, and Selene had only a few seconds to respond.

The storm's lightning impacted the platform simultaneously with the dark god's blow, shattering reality into fragments.

Selene's hand slipped out of Rowan's hold.

Kael yelled something, but the storm drowned away his voice.

Then

Rowan went down.

fell through memory itself, through light, and into darkness.

He saw Selene for the final time as he fell

and watched as someone else grabbed her, her eyes wide with surprise.

Not Kael.
 One of their enemies, no.

But a half-familiar face, a person in dark chains.

Rowan believed that someone had long since passed away.

A traitor.
 Lucan, a brother.

Even before he touched the ground, Rowan's heart broke.

And the storm continued to roar somewhere above.