Chapter 1663: Story 1663: The Blood of Worlds
The scream of the world tore through every layer of existence. Mountains convulsed, oceans rose in walls of steam, and the skies above the surface split with veins of molten light.
In the Cradle beneath, Zara knelt amid the chaos, her hands still pressed to the searing floor. Her wings flared, bleeding silver and violet fire, forcing back the tidal surge of red energy erupting from the First Pulse.
Damien stumbled beside her, shielding his face from the burning storm. “Zara—stop! You’ll burn yourself out!”
She looked up at him, eyes glowing with twin heartbeats—her own, and the world’s. “If I stop now, everything dies. It’s trying to overwrite reality—turn it back into its first dream.”
The newborn pulse flickered erratically. The Cradle’s equilibrium has collapsed. The First Pulse is feeding on the memories of extinction—its power is recursive, infinite.
The chains around the colossal heart shattered completely. From the rifts poured rivers of molten blood that carried within them the fossils of time itself. Skulls of dinosaurs melted into ash, undead bones dissolved into glowing dust, and spectral shapes—lost civilizations—rose and dissolved in the current.
This is the cost of your awakening, the First Pulse thundered. The world does not need life—it needs stillness.
Zara’s voice echoed like two souls speaking as one. “You want stillness because you fear change.”
I am change. I am the beginning of all change.
Damien’s aura burst into full flame, red light slashing through the storm. “Then let’s end the beginning.”
He charged, his blade reforming in a surge of pure will—an echo of the Sixth’s flame that flickered within Zara. As he struck, the blade pierced one of the heart’s glowing arteries. The Cradle howled. Rivers of blood turned gold, then violet, spiraling upward in reverse—time itself buckling.
Zara rose, her voice trembling but resolute. “You said all dreams return to their source. Then let me redirect the dream.”
She closed her eyes, spreading her wings wide. The light that poured from her body no longer fought the red—it embraced it. Silver and crimson intertwined, forming a single luminous current.
The First Pulse roared in disbelief. You would merge with me?
Her answer came softly, yet filled the Cradle. “Not merge. Balance.”
The light engulfed everything. For a heartbeat, Damien saw through her eyes—the rise of dinosaurs, their fall, the birth of the undead, the firestorms that reshaped continents. Every ending was a heartbeat. Every beginning, an exhale.
Then came silence.
The molten landscape cooled to obsidian. The chained heart no longer pulsed with fury—it beat softly, quietly, in rhythm with Zara’s own.
Damien staggered forward. “Zara?”
She turned toward him, her glow faint, her eyes now twin flames of violet and gold. “The First Pulse sleeps again. But it left something behind.”
He frowned. “What?”
Her gaze shifted downward. Beneath the cooling glass, another flicker moved—small, fragile, and red as dawn.
“A seed,” she whispered. “The world just began dreaming of life again.”
And as the last heat faded from the Cradle, far above, the boiling oceans calmed—reflecting a newborn light that had never shone before.