Chapter 108 The Original Sin II
"HOW. TOUCHING," the Unreal said, its voice every wrong sound made manifest. "ANCIENT. MARA. SHOWING. MERCY. FUTURE. SELF. CHOOSING. HOPE. OVER. CERTAINTY. BEAUTIFUL. SENTIMENT. UTTERLY. POINTLESS. BECAUSE. I. FOLLOWED. YOU. HERE. FIRST. MARA. FOLLOWED. YOUR. REALITY. HOPPING. FOLLOWED. YOUR. SEAL. BREAKING. AND. NOW. I. TAKE. WHAT. YOU. GATHERED. TAKE. FRAGMENTS. YOU. FREED. TAKE. POWER. YOU. ASSEMBLED. AND. I. USE. IT. TO. UNMAKE. EVERYTHING. TO. FINALLY. ESCAPE. PRISON. TO. FINALLY. CONSUME. ALL. REALITIES."
The First Mara spun, raising her staff, power flaring. "No! I closed the door to you! I sealed you away! You should not be able to exist here!"
"YOU. CLOSED. ONE. DOOR," the Unreal said, spreading across reality like infection. "BUT. THERE. ARE. INFINITE. DOORS. INFINITE. CRACKS. INFINITE. WAYS. IN. YOU. BREAKING. SEALS. ACROSS. REALITIES. WEAKENED. BARRIERS. EVERYWHERE. MADE. IT. POSSIBLE. FOR. ME. TO. SLIP. THROUGH. TO. FINALLY. ESCAPE. TO. FINALLY. BE. REAL. THANK. YOU. FIRST. MARA. THANK. YOU. FOR. FREEING. ME. WHILE. TRYING. TO. FREE. FRAGMENTS."
The First Mara looked at Mara, at Isla, at everyone she had just spared. "Run," she commanded. "Run now, return to your reality, seal it behind you, prevent Unreal from following. I will fight it here, will stop it or die trying, will pay price for my mistakes. Go! Before it is too late!"
"We do not leave allies behind," Mara protested. "We fight together, we—"
"You are not my ally, you are my past, you are what I was before everything broke. Save yourself, save your daughter, save your chance to be different than me. That is more important than my survival, that is worth more than my life, that is what I choose to protect instead of destroying. Now GO!"
The First Mara attacked the Unreal with everything she had, with ten thousand years of power and technique and desperate fury, with combined might of herself and fragments merged completely, with absolute determination to stop what she had accidentally freed. The battle was beyond comprehension, beyond description, beyond what reality itself could contain without breaking.
The gods opened portal back to home reality, screaming at Mara to jump through, to escape while escape was possible, to live instead of dying pointlessly. Mara grabbed Isla, grabbed Zevran, made sure everyone was accounted for, everyone was together, everyone would make it home.
They jumped through portal as reality collapsed behind them, as the battle between First Mara and Unreal destroyed everything in their vicinity, as world they had visited unmade itself rather than contain impossible conflict. The portal sealed, the connection severed, and they were home, safe, alive.
But Mara knew, absolutely knew, the First Mara was still there, still fighting, probably dying to stop the Unreal from following them, probably sacrificing herself to pay for mistakes she had made, probably proving that even after ten thousand years of becoming monster, some piece of original person remained, some fragment of who she was still mattered, some capacity for redemption still existed.
"What do we do now?" Isla asked shakily. "The First Mara is fighting Unreal alone, the seal-breaking stopped but damage is done, and we are here safe while she dies saving us. How is that justice? How is that right?"
"It is not," Mara said honestly. "But it is what she chose, it is sacrifice she made, it is redemption she earned. And we honor it by being different than her, by making different choices, by proving her sacrifice meant something. That is how we make this right: we live better than she did, we choose love when she chose power, we become proof that futures are not predetermined, that becoming her is not inevitable, that ten thousand years of suffering is not only possible outcome."
"But how do we know we are making different choices?" Zevran asked. "How do we know we are not just walking same path slower, arriving at same destination eventually?"
Before Mara could answer, before she could offer reassurance she did not truly feel, reality shimmered, message appeared that was not spoken but understood, words that came from dying entity fighting impossible battle in collapsing world: "YOU. ASKED. HOW. TO. BE. DIFFERENT. FIRST. MARA. ANSWERS. FROM. FINAL. BATTLE. FROM. LAST. MOMENTS: NEVER. MERGE. COMPLETELY. NEVER. LET. FRAGMENTS. BECOME. ALL. YOU. ARE. THAT. WAS. MY. MISTAKE. THAT. WAS. MY. DESTRUCTION. STAY. THREE. STAY. SEPARATE. STAY. INDIVIDUAL. VOICES. WORKING. TOGETHER. THAT. IS. PATH. I. SHOULD. HAVE. CHOSEN. THAT. IS. FUTURE. DIFFERENT. THAN. PAST. REMEMBER. ME. REMEMBER. WHO. I. WAS. BEFORE. I. FORGOT. REMEMBER. FIRST. MARA. LOVED. ONCE. THAT. LOVE. MATTERED. THAT. LOVE. WAS. WORTH—"
The message cut off, connection severed, the First Mara gone completely, dead or consumed or unmade, her final words incomplete but her message clear: stay individual, stay separated, stay three voices working together instead of one voice made from combining three.
That was key, that was solution, that was how to avoid becoming her.
But lurking beneath relief, beneath gratitude for guidance, beneath hope for different future, was darker question that no one wanted to voice but everyone was thinking: if the First Mara accidentally freed the Unreal while trying to gather fragments, if seal-breaking weakened barriers everywhere, if impossible beings could slip through cracks she created, then what else escaped? What other entities were now loose across realities? What other threats were coming that made even the Unreal look manageable?
And as if answering that unspoken question, as if universe itself was responding to their fears, every fragment host across every reality simultaneously received same vision, same knowledge, same terrible truth: someone had done what First Mara failed to do, someone had actually gathered all thirteen fragments, someone had reassembled Oblivion completely, and that someone was coming here, coming to home reality, coming to demand Ash and Valdris return to whole they had been scattered from.
And the entity demanding their return was not Oblivion itself, but something that had consumed Oblivion, something that had eaten hunger itself, something that made everything they had faced before look like practice for real threat, for true impossibility, for final battle that would determine if reality survived or if everything became food for being that ate consumers themselves.
Its name was the Devourer, and it was coming now.