"You spent one hundred and sixty years inside Regnum Musicae all alone in a realm that was never truly yours, on an island that was not built for peace and you still had to pretend that solitude was some ordinary inconvenience. At least you spent ten years with that Alpha II girl, even if it was only after all that time had already hollowed out the edges of you."
Vastarael scoffed lightly.
"I was not alone. I admit it was lonely because of my beloveds but I wasn't alone."
Iridescent's eyes narrowed with amusement.
"Oh?"
"I had someone to talk to. That usually helps."
The Last Iridescent laughed softly,
"You really are not shaken. Normally when someone spends that long alive, the effects of immortality start eating at them. They become detached."
Vastarael folded his arms and looked out toward the water rather than at him.
"I got used to immortality a long time ago."
Iridescent tilted his head.
"That sounds tragic."
"It is not."
"It usually is."
Vastarael glanced at him.
"What do you want?"
Iridescent looked almost pleased that Vastarael had skipped all the nonsense and moved straight to the real issue.
"You really are bad at letting people talk. Fine. I will be direct. The Krepsunas are the first race of Spheraphase."
That made Vastarael more irritated. Iridescent continued before he could interrupt.
"The World Tree exists in two forms, the Negativity Verdarite and the Positivity Verdarite. The Positivity side is the one your world remembers best, the side where the Spheraphasians live. The Negativity side is where the Krepsunas were born. We do not grow the same way the elves do. We are not born through flesh and birth in the way your races are. We emerge from pods grown by the Negativity Verdarite itself. That makes us the opposite of the elves in a way the world prefers not to talk about."
Vastarael looked at him with clear irritation now.
"Get to the point."
"You really are impatient. Very well. I will continue."
"..."
"The Phantasms are envoys of the Negativity Verdarite. They were never random monsters or accidental tyrants. They were chosen. The first letters of their names formed the word Krepsunas for a reason, because they were meant to stand as the shape of our race's future. Nine of them were given that title to lead us. Erna was the 'E' in that name and she was the third strongest among them. The one you knew as Asenane may have seemed like a woman with a temper and a knife hidden in her smile, but back then she was something much worse. She killed them all."
That sentence landed harder than the rest.
"She killed the Phantasms and escaped the system that made her. Her husband hunted her down, of course. He eventually killed her too, but she was not foolish enough to die like an ordinary woman. As a Phantasm of Creation, she preserved her soul in a Primordial Artifact. I know that already, yes. I know far more than most people think."
Vastarael's voice came out colder now.
"And your point is?"
Iridescent turned back at him with a grin that was beginning to look more like a threat than amusement.
"My point is that I am going to take over the world. I'm going to turn everyone into Krepsunas."
He said it with complete conviction.
"Once that happens, there will be no more scattered factions, no more useless little wars and no more Dynasties and Pantheons pretending they are the only thing holding civilization together. Everyone will be under one banner. The world will finally be unified into something that can endure itself without constantly tearing itself apart."
Vastarael listened without interrupting, though the look in his eyes made it obvious he had already decided how much of that plan he was willing to tolerate. Iridescent seemed fully aware of that and simply kept speaking as though he enjoyed hearing himself outline an apocalypse.
"The world is already fractured by its own laws. Spheraphase pretends it can balance order and chaos forever, but that balance only serves the people who already sit comfortably inside it. The weak suffer. The strong stagnate. The races keep fighting because no one ever has the courage to unite them under something harsh enough to hold. Krepsunas are that something."
He spread his hands slightly, as though the logic should be obvious.
"We do not need their approval. We do not need their fear. We need to put an end of all this nonsense where every little nation thinks it deserves to exist just because it has a pretty history. Your beloveds rule people who will suffer when the old order collapses, yes, but that is what change costs. The price of peace is usually uglier than peace itself."
Vastarael's expression had gone very still. Iridescent noticed and smiled.
"As much as I admire your restraint, you are not going to stop this."
Vastarael replied immediately.
"I cannot allow it."
The black-suited man gave a small shrug.
"And yet you also cannot stop it. You're a Seventh Enlightenment Divine and I'm an Overlord Rank Krepsuna. Do you understand what that means? A mere wave from me will turn your body to dust. Your flesh will vanish. Your bones will scatter. Your body is not strong enough to resist me."
"And my soul?"
Iridescent laughed softly.
"Your soul is Aeterium. That is exactly why you are useful. You would live long enough to understand exactly how powerless you are if I chose to remain patient so I'll tell you this. Stay out of the way of the Krepsunas."
Vastarael looked at him. Iridescent kept going.
"Out of all the Dynasties, yours will suffer the least. You are not the central obstacle or the primary target. Your people are not the first thing we need to break. So I'm giving you a rare mercy. Step aside, watch and let the stronger world decide what it becomes."
Vastarael gave a tired sigh that sounded more annoyed than afraid.
"I'm not really interested in acting like some hero."
"Good."
"But I'm also not going to let you do that."
The wind on the beach shifted. If Iridescent noticed the change, he did not show it.
"If you do this, the people my beloveds rule over will suffer. I'm not going to stand back because some well-dressed lunatic told me this would be cleaner if I did. I'm not going to leave them to defend themselves alone while you turn entire worlds into creatures they never asked to become. And you cannot kill me, because if you could have done that, you would have done it a long time ago."
That made Iridescent laugh again, but this time the laughter sounded almost delighted.
"There it is. That is exactly why I came here. I wanted to see the shape of your refusal. I wanted to know how far your boundaries stretched before they became useful to me."
Vastarael glanced at him.
"Useful to you?"
The Last Iridescent's smile widened into something almost fond.
"I like having a nemesis. You are perfect for the role."
Vastarael did not move. Iridescent did not move either.
Then the black-suited leader of the Overlord Ravagers lifted one hand and struck Vastarael with a blast of black energy so dense and concentrated that the air itself recoiled around it. It was so fast that not even Vastarael could track it with his senses.
Vastarael barely had time to brace before the impact hit him full force and sent him kneeling into the sand, coughing blood into the surf. The force of it was not explosive in the ordinary sense. Iridescent watched him kneel with calm interest.
"You have the full concentration of the K-Virus. Your body will not withstand it for long. Maybe a year or less. The erosion will spread and eventually your body will fail completely, leaving your soul behind to watch the damage."
Vastarael wiped blood from his mouth and rose again. Iridescent had just crossed from conversation into a direct declaration of war.
"A year?"
Iridescent shrugged.
"You have one year to change your mind."
Vastarael scoffed while the ocean wind tugged at his cloak.
"Letting me live is the greatest mistake anyone ever made."
The black-suited man's smile did not waver.
"Confident, as always.".
"You think I'll not survive?"
"I know you will probably try."
"And if I do?"
"Then I will already have contingencies. You're not the only intelligent tactician in this world, Vastarael. I used to command the Krepsuna forces before I took leadership of the Overlord Ravagers. I know how to plan. You're not the first threat I have ever had to measure and you will not be the last."
He turned his head at the dark sea.
"You have one year to decide whether you want to remain in the path of history or become one of the people history forgets to protect."
The Last Iridescent only smiled in response to his silence.
"I do hope you survive long enough to regret this properly."
"You are going to regret choosing me."
The man in the black suit laughed. Then, just as casually as he had appeared, he began to fade back into the dark edge of the beach, leaving Vastarael alone.