Chapter 81: The Broken Cycle
The air still shimmered from Philip's transformation.
Mana curled around him in reverence.
Space itself seemed thinner, eager, as if waiting for his command.
He raised a hand, and reality twitched.
With nothing more than will, he carved it open.
A rift split the air, smooth as silk torn from the veil of reality. He stepped through.
Amazon rainforest.
Lush. Damp. Teeming with life.
He opened another.
Atlantic Ocean.
Waves roared beneath his feet as he hovered above water. He smiled, amused by his new reach.
Then he decided to return home.
He cut space again.
But something caught him mid-step.
A violent ripple turbulence in the fabric of the void.
He spun, thrown sideways through the cosmic threads, and crashed out of the rift like a stone skipping through eternity.
He fell.
And landed.
Hard.
Jagged black stone bit into his back.
The sky above was crimson, veined with golden lightning that screamed as it flashed.
The air stank of iron and rot.
Golden blood flowed in waterfalls from cliffs that didn't end, cascading into rivers that hissed as they burned the land.
Philip groaned and stood. The earth trembled beneath him not from tectonics, but from suffering.
An agony etched into the bones of the world.
Below his feet, a circle of ancient runes pulsed red, cracked, and furious.
Then came the sound.
Not a cry.
Not a roar.
A scream. Voiceless. Endless.
He turned.
There at the center of the ruin was a slab of obsidian.
Crucified atop it, a figure impaled by six spears of starlight.
Golden ichor spilled from the wounds.
Eyes wide.
Mouth locked open in agony.
Then, with a pulse, the spears vanished.
The wounds sealed.
And a new set of spears slammed down from the sky, impaling him again.
Philip stumbled back, heart lurching.
The cycle repeated.
Every thirty seconds.
Relentless.
Unforgiving.
Cruel.
Then, the being's eyes snapped to him.
No longer hollow.
Burning with life.
"You…" it rasped.
The voice was ash and blades, like rust scraped across bone.
"You're… him."
Philip's stomach dropped.
No. He realized whatever he had done, just by being here… it was unraveling something.
"You're not him," the being continued, eyes narrowing. "But you smell like him."
Philip gathered mana in his palms.
"Who are you?"
The skies peeled apart.
Blood rain poured in waves.
The stone beneath Philip's feet hissed as it melted and reformed.
The figure laughed a low, jagged sound.
"I am T'zaruun," the being growled. "Slaughterborn of the Prime World Or'Kael. God of Blades. Madness. Death."
The air around him shimmered with heat. Golden blood dripped from his fingertips, sizzling the obsidian.
"I killed twelve planetary pantheons. I turned oceans to ash. I bathed in the souls of sun-born kings."
"And this…" he yanked against the chains that bound him, "is my hell."
He spread his arms.
Chains screamed.
Runes flared.
"The Emperor," he spat, "trapped me here. A cage of divine code. A cycle of death. I die. I resurrect. I die again. Every day. Every hour. For thousands of years."
Philip stepped back.
"I didn't mean to "
"BUT YOU DID," T'zaruun thundered.
The world shook.
Philip's Thread of Rule pulsed, and the runes below them shifted. The prison recognized the Emperor's mark in Philip the aura of command, the platinum gem and instead of restraining him, it empowered him.
A storm of divine energy surged into Philip's body.
His mana core bloomed.
His muscles thickened.
His bones shimmered with platinum veins.
Demigod.
The power settled into him like armor forged of law.
T'zaruun felt it.
Chains shattered.
Not all of them just enough.
Enough to let him move. Enough to let him kill.
"You shouldn't have come."
He moved.
Faster than sound.
A blade of raw divinity formed in his palm a cleaver shaped like a crescent moon, etched in the names of fallen gods.
Philip barely reacted in time.
He twisted space vanishing and reappearing ten meters away.
The cleaver missed him by inches, carving a canyon into the stone with its mere presence.
Philip raised his hand.
Firestorm.
A sphere of white-hot flame roared toward T'zaruun.
But it fizzled before reaching him. The god's aura smothered it like a candle in a storm.
T'zaruun laughed.
"Your tricks are mortal."
Philip snarled.
Electricity surged through his veins.
The lightning wasn't blue.
It was black, veined with gold charged by the Rule.
He disappeared.
And reappeared behind the god.
CRACK.
His fist collided with T'zaruun's jaw.
The god reeled.
Blood molten, golden, thick as sap sprayed into the air.
Philip didn't stop.
He vanished and reappeared again.
And again.
Each strike came from a different angle.
Face. Gut. Spine. Throat.
Bones broke. Flesh split.
T'zaruun stumbled stunned, bleeding.
Then
A scream erupted from his chest.
Not from pain.
From joy.
He clapped his hands, and the sound broke reality.
Philip was thrown back, crashing into the cliff.
The god stepped forward, cleaver dragging behind him. It carved the ground like wet sand.
"GOOD," T'zaruun howled. "MAKE ME FEEL SOMETHING."
He hurled the cleaver.
It whistled through the air like a comet.
Philip twisted sideways too late.
The blade caught his arm.
Blood sprayed.
Flesh tore to the bone.
He screamed, staggered, and teleported away appearing above the battlefield.
He summoned mana into his legs shot downward like a missile.
He landed on T'zaruun's back with the force of a meteor.
The god staggered his spine cracked but didn't fall.
They fought in close quarters now.
Fist met blade.
Bone met magic.
Each strike detonated with the sound of thunder.
Philip's lightning danced across his skin.
T'zaruun's cleaver grew in hunger with every drop of blood spilled.
They tore through the landscape.
Mountains crumbled.
Blood rivers boiled.
Philip caught a blade in the stomach screamed.
He responded by gripping T'zaruun's skull and blasting raw mana into his mind.
The god shrieked, stumbled then bit Philip's arm with serrated teeth.
More blood.
More madness.
Their fight spilled across the world.
Each step broke terrain.
Each clash rewrote laws.
Finally
Philip teleported behind T'zaruun and summoned a dimensional spike.
A weapon of law and logic.
He drove it into the god's chest.
T'zaruun froze.
Eyes wide.
Then collapsed, screaming as golden blood poured from his mouth.
Philip dropped to his knees, gasping.
His body burned.
His soul ached.
But the Thread of Rule inside him pulsed calm, steady.
And the prison reacted.
Chains reformed.
Runes reignited.
T'zaruun was dragged back to the slab screaming, cursing, laughing.
"You're like him," the god whispered, eyes rolling back.
Philip stood barely and stared down at him.
"I'm nothing like him."
But even he didn't know if that was true.