My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger Chapter 889 - 890: A Paradox With Beginning

Lazarak had vanished.

The world seemed to hush in that brief instant. Damon still glimpsed the grin lingering on Lazarak's expression as he dissolved, his form crumbling into tiny dark motes that scattered into the ether.

[You have gained: Book of Shadows]

Notifications from the system kept sounding, yet Damon stayed rooted in stunned silence.

Lyn and Sithara steered the wyvern-shaped shadow construct toward him and leaped off, hurrying to the spot where Lazarak had been just seconds before.

Yet he was no longer there.

Sithara's cheeks flushed gradually before she dropped to her knees, weeping without holding back. Lyn's fingers shook as he remained at her side, his teeth gritted while he fought to conceal the tears trailing down his cheeks.

Damon gradually lifted his arms and spread them wide.

Spotting the motion, the kids dashed into his embrace and pressed against his torso, sobbing freely.

He softly caressed their hair.

He sensed his form beginning to pale. Not only his, but also the bodies of all those who had entered this realm alongside him.

The ordeal had finally concluded.

Awakening was at hand.

Damon drew in a steady breath.

"Hey... you two... hear me out..."

They gradually raised their gazes toward him.

"I’m sorry we couldn’t build Lysithara as one," he began, offering an apology first.

"You might not recall my existence once this ends. After all, it was merely a brief vision... still..."

He pressed his lips together, swallowing the ache in his heart.

"You two are capable. I believe in you. Not in deities... but in each of you."

Their stares stayed locked on Damon, whose figure was gradually vanishing.

"Don’t depart... Damon... don’t abandon us..." Sithara whimpered gently.

Damon shook his head.

"I’m not departing. I’m here with you."

He extended his hand and pressed against their chests, just as Lazarak had done to him prior to his end.

"One of the most remarkable individuals I knew urged me to forge something wondrous. So I’m requesting the same from you both... on my behalf."

"Forge something wondrous."

Sithara's fingers quivered.

"The age of divinities has drawn to a close. This is humanity's time. Reveal something wondrous to me. Perhaps someday ahead, I’ll witness it and marvel at a splendor enduring through ages."

Lyn dipped his head.

"I promise."

Sithara brushed away her tears.

"I promise."

Damon grinned and inclined his head.

He clutched the elixir within his grasp. This was another prize from the mission. The key motive for his arrival here.

Nevertheless, he departed transformed, more marked by trials, and maybe even more optimistic than prior.

His form dissolved into flickers.

This realm held no true substance. It was simply a vision, a terror.

Signs of its nature had been evident from the start, even in its title.

The Unknown God favored enigmas.

And this puzzle proved straightforward.

The terror bore the name The Nightmare of Lazarak.

Triumph meant perpetual torment, while loss brought the instant of awakening.

That revealed the solution.

So long as Lazarak kept prevailing, so long as victories persisted, awakening eluded him. The dream would endure, and while it lasted, no others could rouse.

But loss triggered awakening.

Should Lazarak perish, he would stir, and the vision would unravel.

Damon grasped this upon Seraph Null’s demise failing to conclude all.

This held no relation to missions.

Lazarak merely needed to fall.

From the outset, every occurrence steered toward that outcome.

This terror mirrored authentic history from the Zero Epoch.

In truth, Lazarak had escaped solo and reentered reality. Upon doing so, Lazarak triumphed. He erected the Tomb of Lesser Gods and summoned the Unknown God.

He sparked it all.

He served as the central figure of the Zero Epoch.

Through him, the subsequent age dawned.

Lyn and Sithara founded Lysithara following the gods' downfall, sparking the First Epoch's occurrences, where Mugu and the Ascendant unleashed the Outsiders.

Which sparked the rest.

Damon pondered whether the future shaped the past as profoundly as the past molded the future.

…

Within a shadowed cell long abandoned by memory, enormous shackles restrained a coiled void of shadow.

It stirred its eyes open.

"Hmm. I just experienced the oddest vision. You won’t believe the tale of my dream."

Lazarak turned his gaze to the shrine where a presence ought to linger.

But emptiness greeted him.

It had been merely a vision.

The void rippled and whispered.

He recalled nothing of the dream's content, save a conviction within it of possessing a companion.

The void tightened and reformed into a raven-haired young child.

He beamed.

"No reason to linger. Aetherus, I approach."

He strained against the bindings until they shattered. He eyed the pod nestled in the shadows and seized it as he burst from Eidolon, the fabricated confinement.

This occasion, he acted solitary.

No ally stood beside him.

In time, amid countless ordeals, resilience defined him. He bore his dreads upon his shoulders, and when fracture loomed near, thoughts of an elusive dream warmed him.

And endurance followed.

His spirit brimmed.

Upon his ultimate liberation, he met two quirky youths who stirred an uncanny recognition, like long-known acquaintances.

They trailed Lazarak as he confronted Seraph Null, shattering his confines and attaining Aetherus.

Decades unfolded.

Lazarak achieved his aim, yet met his demise. At his fall's site, a vortex of void emerged, ushering a fresh divinity's sway.

The divine age closed with a deity lost to recollection.

All divinities found enclosure in a sepulcher, secured by trio of seals.

Each seal honored one Lazarak cherished.

The initial seal belonged to an unseen ally whose identity escaped him.

The second seal went to Lyn.

The third seal to Sithara.

That signified the age's closure.

Through his last clash, the cosmos' structure shifted.

A fresh haven ascended, a sanctuary of wisdom open to all.

Lysithara.

In Lysithara, a golden-tressed girl had just triumphed over a group of lads in combat. She chuckled while they bore grimaces, compelled to yield to her superiority.

She laughed with abandon as a peer-aged boy hurried to her, face ashen.

"Valarie, there you are. I’ve been searching everywhere for you."

He seized her wrist, his look grave.

"Ah!" she yelped. "Vathren, ease up. I didn’t thrash them."

He compressed his lips.

"We must hurry. The elder nears her end. She wishes to meet us."

Valarie blanched and trailed after him.

The elder Sithara stood as a sage of profound insight, Lysithara's originator. She had endured millennia and mentored uncounted souls. A famed visionary.

She regarded the pair with a smile and recounted her existence, her delights.

"My era concludes. I’ve witnessed vast ages and touched the bounds of seventh-class progression..."

She clasped their palms.

"I cannot foresee what dawn brings, but will you grant an aged soul a vow?"

They inclined their heads.

Her grin gentled as her visage aged.

"Create something beautiful."

Those stood as Sithara Nova's parting words.

She held no memory of their source. Only that a vital figure from her past had once elicited the identical pledge.

Decades onward, in a shadowed chasm under Lysithara, Valarie would grin at her resolute student Damon and bid him to create something beautiful.

In the close, that formed the resolution.

"We are all captives of time," the Unknown God whispered.

"Dancing in the grasp of our chosen destinies."