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

Lazarak had vanished.

The entire world appeared to quiet down for an instant. Damon still caught the grin lingering on Lazarak's expression as he dissolved, his form crumbling into tiny dark specks that scattered into the ether.

[You have gained: Book of Shadows]

Notifications from the system kept chiming on, yet Damon stayed rooted in shock.

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

Yet he was nowhere to be seen.

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 fighting 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 concluded.

Awakening was at hand.

Damon drew in a steady breath.

"Hey... you two... listen to me..."

They gradually raised their faces toward him.

"I’m sorry we couldn’t create Lysithara together," he began, offering an apology first.

"You might not even know I existed after this. After all, this was only a fleeting dream... even so..."

He pressed his lips together, pushing back the ache in his heart.

"You two can do it. I have faith. Not in any gods... but in the both of you."

Their gazes stayed locked on Damon, whose presence was gradually dissolving.

"Don’t go... Damon... don’t leave..." Sithara whimpered quietly.

Damon shook his head.

"I’m not leaving. I’m right here."

He extended his hand and placed it over their hearts, mirroring how Lazarak had touched his own before passing.

"One of the greatest people I ever knew told me to create something beautiful. So I want to ask you two to do the same... for me."

"Create something beautiful."

Sithara's fingers quivered.

"The era of gods has come to an end. This is the epoch of man. Show me something beautiful. Who knows, maybe one day in the future I’ll see it and be awed by beauty that can withstand the testament of time."

Lyn gave a nod.

"I promise."

Sithara brushed away her tears.

"I promise."

Damon grinned and inclined his head.

He clutched the elixir in his grasp. This was another prize from the mission. The main goal that had drawn him here.

Nevertheless, he departed far more transformed, more marked by trials, and maybe even more filled with hope than when he arrived.

His figure broke into glowing embers.

This realm wasn't truly real. It was merely a vision, a terrifying illusion.

The hints were present from the start, even in what it was named.

The Unknown God favored puzzles.

And this puzzle was straightforward.

The nightmare bore the title The Nightmare of Lazarak.

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

That revealed the truth.

As long as Lazarak kept prevailing, as long as his victories persisted, he would never rouse. He would keep envisioning, and while he envisioned, no one else could stir.

But loss triggered the awakening.

Should Lazarak perish, he would come to, and the vision would vanish.

Damon grasped this when Seraph Null's demise failed to conclude it all.

This had nothing to do with missions.

Lazarak merely needed to perish.

All events from the outset had steered toward that outcome.

This nightmare replicated actual history from the Zero Epoch.

In truth, Lazarak had escaped by himself and reentered the genuine world. Upon doing so, Lazarak triumphed. He forged the Tomb of Lesser Gods and unleashed the Unknown God.

He sparked it all.

He served as the central figure of the Zero Epoch.

From him sprang the following age.

Lyn and Sithara founded Lysithara after the gods' downfall, sparking the occurrences of the First Epoch, when Mugu and the Ascendant summoned the Outsiders.

Which sparked all that followed.

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

...

In a shadowy cell long abandoned by everyone, enormous chains restrained a sealed blob of shadow.

It stirred and opened its eyes.

"Hmm. I just had the strangest dream. You won’t believe what I dreamt about."

Lazarak looked over at the altar where a figure ought to have waited.

But the spot stood empty.

It had been merely a vision.

The shadow writhed and whispered.

He recalled nothing of the vision's content, only a sense that within it, he thought he possessed a companion.

The shadowy mass tightened and reformed into a small child with dark locks.

He beamed.

"No point waiting. Aetherus, I’m coming."

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

On this occasion, he acted solo.

No ally stood with him.

In time, after countless ordeals, nothing could shatter him. He bore his terrors like a burden, and whenever breaking seemed near, he recalled warmly a vision whose details escaped him.

And he pressed onward.

His spirit brimming.

Upon his eventual breakout, he met two quirky youngsters who seemed oddly known, like old acquaintances.

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

Decades elapsed.

Lazarak achieved his aim, yet he fell. At his death site, a vortex of void emerged, ushering in a fresh deity's sway.

The gods' age closed with a deity forgotten by all.

Every god got confined in a tomb, secured by three locks.

Each lock honored someone dear to Lazarak.

The first lock was for a companion he never encountered and whose identity remained unknown.

The second lock was for Lyn.

The third lock was for Sithara.

That signaled the age's close.

Through his last clash, the world's structure shifted.

A fresh settlement emerged, a hub of knowledge open to all.

Lysithara.

In Lysithara, a girl with bright golden tresses had just triumphed over a group of lads in a bout. She chuckled while they scowled, compelled to yield to her superiority.

She laughed with abandon as a youth her age hurried up, his face drained of color.

"Valarie, there you are. I’ve been looking all over for you."

He seized her hand, his look grave.

"Ah!" she yelped. "Vathren, stop pulling me. I didn’t beat them up."

He pressed his lips together.

"We have to go. The elder is about to pass. She wants to see us."

Valarie went pale and trailed after him.

Elder Sithara was a sage of great wisdom, the creator of Lysithara. She had endured for millennia and mentored innumerable souls. A celebrated wise one.

She beamed at the pair of youngsters and shared tales of her existence, her delights.

"My time has come. I have seen many centuries and reached the limits of seventh-class advancement..."

She clasped their hands.

"I do not know what tomorrow holds, but can you make an old woman a promise?"

They inclined their heads.

Her grin grew tender as her features aged rapidly.

"Create something beautiful."

Those were Sithara Nova's last words.

She couldn't recall the origin of those words. Only that a vital figure from her past had once drawn the same vow from her.

Decades onward, in a shadowy void under Lysithara, Valarie would grin at her resolute student Damon and urge him to create something beautiful.

In the end, that held the truth.

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

"Dancing in the hands of our choice of our fate."