Chapter 6: "The Will of Destruction, the Breaking of Infinity"
The wind howled between the shattered bones of the world.
Jian could no longer hear his heartbeat. The world moved like oil through a sieve—distorted, slowed, churning with tremors. His clothes were soaked in blood, some his, most not. Behind him, Shi Ruan leaned against a boulder, half his body covered in mirror shards. Lan Kuang's thunder-infused frame twitched erratically. Only Frostveil stood tall—unmoving, statuesque, and terrifying.
Before them stood a single god who had not fallen during the battle in the Vestibule.
Ish'Zhunel, the Architect of Continuums.
He was not one of the Watchers. He was beyond them.
His form was not measurable. His face was an abstract concept of blueprints and equations woven into flesh. Infinity curled around his limbs, and multiversal symbols of destiny shimmered with each motion of his fingers. His Dao—Continuum—was incomprehensible. He folded entire timelines like origami.
"You severed five branches of eternity," Ish'Zhunel said, his voice soft, almost curious. "So let me teach you consequence."
He raised one hand.
And reality unraveled.
Jian dropped to one knee. His body, mind, and Sword Dao were being split across infinite versions of himself. He saw futures that never happened, deaths that were not yet his, lives unlived.
"Jian!" Frostveil shouted, her voice the last tether of meaning in a collapsing world.
The moment she spoke, Ish'Zhunel turned to her.
"Ah," he said, "the one carrying the Spirit King's Core. The child of defiance. The one who wields what must never awaken."
Frostveil's eyes dimmed to black.
Her voice changed.
"You speak of Destruction."
The god paused.
"That is not your domain. It was never meant for mortals. It annihilates."
Frostveil stepped forward, each motion fracturing the air around her. Her aura grew dense—so dense it bent the concept of space.
"It destroys soul. Memory. Time. Defense. Immortality."
Jian gasped from the ground. "No—Frost…"
But she was no longer just Frostveil.
The Spirit King's Core fused with her very soul. She was becoming the legacy of her father—a power long buried, feared even among the divine.
The Destruction Dao awakened.
---
She raised her hand.
The air peeled away like pages from a book. Her fingers pulsed with quantum screams. Every molecule around her screamed as it was torn apart—not just physically, but conceptually. Not disintegrated. Unwritten.
"Ish'Zhunel," she said softly, walking forward, "let me show you what it means to destroy everything you are."
The god moved instantly—stretching space, duplicating himself into a thousand positions at once, folding infinite timelines into shields. But every shield fell before her aura. His calculations failed. Logic fractured.
"Destruction cannot be blocked. It is the end."
She lifted her other hand—and both came together.
The result was an explosion without sound or light.
A sphere of absolute void, about the size of a seed, blinked into existence—and erased the next 60 seconds of universal time.
Jian watched the stars vanish. Galaxies went dark. The planets above and below flickered out.
He screamed, but it made no sound.
Ish'Zhunel was caught in the center. His body—a thing of spacetime—imploded in recursive loops of annihilation. He didn't die. He was removed from ever having been born.
---
The world returned, slowly, with a whimper. Jian stood, barely able to breathe. The sky above had changed. It was no longer blue, nor black. It was something else. Something broken.
Frostveil stood in the center of a crater that wasn't there moments ago. Her hair now glowed silver. The mark of destruction etched across her back like a cosmic brand.
"Are you still… you?" Jian asked, voice cracking.
She looked at him.
"No."
And yet… she smiled. A human smile. Sad. Tired. But real.
"I carry it now… so no one else has to."
Behind them, Shi Ruan cried softly. Lan Kuang simply fell to the ground, unconscious.
Frostveil looked toward the east. "They're coming. Every god that saw this… every divine realm… we've broken balance. This wasn't victory."
Jian nodded. "It was the beginning."
A pulse echoed across the ruined world—heard not by ears, but by soul.
In distant divine towers, alarms of ancient origin rang. In dead star systems, old gods stirred from hibernation. In the forbidden archives of Heaven Prime, the name "Frostveil" appeared beside the word:
> Cataclysm.
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To be continued…