Chapter 23: If Akivili is Gone, Who Will Save Adlivun?
'Sigh. I am really not cut out to be the Aeon of Destruction. Honestly, I'd make a much better Aeon of Elation.'Rekka floated in the endless void of space, radiating an oppressive, galaxy-shattering aura of pure golden ruin. He gloomily ignored the distant, fanatical screaming of a certain flaming goat-head who kept chanting'Lord Benefactor' across the cosmos.
This wasn't him breaking character. Even the real Nanook couldn't be bothered to spare a single glance for Duke Ifrit.
Unfortunately, Ifrit seemed to have suffered a massive misunderstanding. Rekka had merely been stretching his cosmic neck and accidentally let his gaze sweep past the Ever-Flame Mansion. He hadn't been looking at the Duke personally. Yet, that flaming sycophant likely took it as a monumental victory, proof that their dark god had finally acknowledged them.
In reality, an Aeon's gaze meant absolutely nothing. Sometimes a god just happened to look left. But to the Annihilation Gang, a passing glance was better than the crushing indifference they usually received. Before today, Nanook had treated the entire Gang like cosmic dust.
To be perfectly precise, Rekka's accidental stare had landed squarely on the Ever-Flame Mansion. Within the chaotic hierarchy of the Annihilation Gang, the Jepella Brotherhood and the Ever-Flame Mansion were bitter, bloodthirsty rivals. Now, Ifrit's faction had the ultimate bragging rights. They had been perceived by Destruction itself.
Across the lightyears, Rekka could practically hear the fanatical roaring. "Praise the Benefactor! Praise Destruction!"
'No, I need to blow something up right now. If I don't break something, my skin is going to crawl right off my cosmic body...'
The sheer, unadulterated urge to annihilate clawed at his insides, a side effect of his current Path. He raised a hand toward a nearby dead sector. A massive Swarm nesting ground festered there, teeming with grotesque, chittering insects that hungered to devour the entire universe.
With a casual flick of his wrist, golden energy surged.
Rumble!
The entire sector of space collapsed in on itself. Rekka watched with deep satisfaction as billions of bugs turned to fine ash within the blinding, golden radiance of Destruction. The agonizing pressure in his chest, that feeling like his very core was about to explode, finally subsided.
"Phew..." He let out a long, satisfied breath, watching the stardust settle. 'Much better. I have to admit, this demolition work is incredibly invigorating.'Still, since he was stuck playing the role of the Aeon of Destruction for the next twenty-four hours, he figured he ought to act the part properly. Vaporizing a bug nest was a decent warm-up, but it was essentially manual labor. As a highly educated, cultured, and morally flexible transmigrator, Rekka firmly believed that relying solely on brute force was a bit too barbaric. The efficiency was simply too low.'Eh.'A spark of inspiration suddenly flashed in his mind.'How about taking a little vacation to Amphoreus?'Amphoreus should still be stuck in its endless iteration phase right about now. According to the original timeline, Nanook should have already cast his gaze upon the Emperor's Scepter, and that Lord Ravager, Iron Tomb, should currently be busy accumulating aggro across the cosmos.'Hatred plus one,' Rekka mused, chuckling to himself.
Then again, he really didn't want to end up eating Phainon's braised noodles. He wasn't an actual IPC Agent clocking in for a shift, so the universe had better not deliver him the wrong takeout order.
Meanwhile, back on the Astral Express, the atmosphere was suffocatingly heavy.
"Rekka is gone, and only this child is left in his place..."
Welt Yang adjusted his glasses, his brow furrowed deep with concern. He stared down at the strange youth sitting on the parlor car's sofa. The boy had striking golden eyes and was dressed in tattered, scorched rags. For some inexplicable reason, a deep, gnawing sense of foreboding settled in the pit of Welt's stomach.
"I believe this might actually be Rekka, just transformed again," Welt offered, his tone analytical but uncertain.
If this were a text chat, someone would have undoubtedly replied with a 'Hot Take' reaction image. Mr. Yang's deductions were usually brilliant, but his track record with Rekka's daily chaotic shifts was notoriously spotty.
"Think about it," Welt continued. "Considering Rekka turned into a giant, chittering insect just the day before yesterday, transforming into a human with a completely different physical appearance today is not entirely impossible from a probabilistic and biological perspective."
"So..." March 7th cautiously leaned over the coffee table, closing the distance between herself and the silent boy. She offered a tentative, awkward little wave. "Hey! Rekka? Is that you in there? If it is, blink twice? Or... maybe buzz a bit?"
Dan Heng crossed his arms, leaning against the wall with his usual stoic expression. "He isn't a bug today, March. Why would he buzz?"
March rubbed the back of her neck, offering a sheepish grin. "Right. Good point..."
Welt stepped forward, his boots clicking softly against the floorboards, stopping just a few meters away from the boy.
The youth did not flinch. His golden eyes darted between the people surrounding him.
'No blades. No fire. No bugs.'The boy's mind raced, analyzing the strange environment.'Who are these people?'Then, his sharp gaze locked onto the distinctive golden tickets pinned to their clothing. The symbol of the Express. Recognition flashed in his eyes.'Right. They are the Trailblaze.'The tension in his small, battered shoulders relaxed just a fraction.'Since they walk the Path of Trailblaze, they can be trusted.'
The boy finally opened his mouth, his voice raspy and dry. "Akivili. Where is He?"
Welt froze, completely caught off guard by the question. "Akivili?"
The youth's piercing golden eyes remained locked onto the older man, unblinking and intense.
"Akivili?" March 7th blinked in surprise, her gaze darting from the strange boy to Himeko, who stood quietly by the window. "Why are you looking for Akivili? Besides... Akivili has already..."
She trailed off, unsure how to break the news to a child.
"Fallen," Dan Heng stated, his voice calm and quiet, finishing the sentence for her.
The youth's pupils constricted violently. In a single heartbeat, the guarded, calculating light in those golden eyes shattered completely. It was instantly replaced by a hollow, suffocating look of absolute despair.
"Fallen...?" he whispered, the word trembling on his lips. He shook his head, his breathing growing erratic. "Impossible."
The boy suddenly shot up from the sofa. The suppressed, quiet aura he had maintained until now erupted outward like a shockwave. Even though his physical frame was slight and his clothes were nothing more than tattered rags, an incredibly intimidating pressure began to bleed from his skin, heavy enough to make the air in the parlor car feel thick and hard to breathe.
"Akivili... is the Trailblaze." He glared at the crew, his eyes burning with a desperate intensity, searching their faces for any hint of a cruel joke or a lie. "The Trailblaze... never stops. It moves forward. Always. How could He possibly fall?"
"Even Aeons can fall, child. It is not without precedent in this universe," Welt said softly, his voice carrying the weight of a man who had seen too much history. "Akivili is indeed no longer with us. But this train is still here. The tracks are still being laid, and the will of the Trailblaze remains alive in all of us."
"The will..." The youth slowly lowered his head, staring blankly at his own scarred, trembling palms.
"If Akivili is gone..." he murmured, his voice cracking under the weight of a shattered reality. "Then who will save Adlivun?"
"Adlivun..." Welt repeated the name, his expression instantly hardening into solemn realization.
He knew that name. Anyone well-versed in the cosmic history of the universe knew that name. Adlivun was the homeworld of Nanook, the Aeon of Destruction. It was the very world that Nanook had personally set ablaze upon ascending to godhood. The planet had already been left utterly devastated by the mechanical horrors of the Emperor's War, only to suffer the cruel misfortune of being situated directly in the marching path of the Swarm. Before Akivili's arrival in that sector, Adlivun had been locked in a desperate, sun-blotting war of attrition against the endless, chittering progeny of the Swarm King.
The youth turned his head, staring fixedly out the large window of the Express. The brilliant, peaceful sea of stars reflected in his golden irises, but it was obvious he wasn't seeing the cosmos. He was seeing scorched earth, burning skies, and endless waves of monsters.
"You're lying to me. I know you are," he muttered, his voice tight. "Akivili told me Himself. He said that the Trailblaze never stops."
'So He won't stop. He won't cease. He won't abandon us...'
A heavy silence fell over the parlor car. Looking at the raw, unadulterated grief etched into the boy's scarred face, everyone came to the exact same conclusion.
This wasn't Rekka. No matter how chaotic their friend's daily transformations were, he couldn't fake this kind of deep, historical trauma.
"Child, what is your name?" Himeko asked, stepping forward with a gentle, maternal grace.
The youth didn't answer. His gaze remained stubbornly locked onto the cold, distant stars drifting past the glass.
Welt and Himeko exchanged a loaded, complicated glance.
"Regarding Adlivun..." Welt began, carefully weighing every single syllable before letting it leave his mouth. "The war there... it has already ended."
The youth's thin shoulders trembled slightly. He slowly turned his head away from the window, looking back at Welt.
"Ended...?" A fragile, desperate sliver of hope crept into his voice. "Did everyone survive?"
Welt fell completely silent.
In all his years, across multiple universes, this was rapidly shaping up to be one of the hardest conversations of his life. He was looking at a child covered in brutal scars, a boy whose eyes held nothing but a desperate love for his home and a pure, unshakeable faith in Akivili. How was Welt supposed to look this child in the eye and tell him that the so-called end of the war wasn't a victory? How could he explain that Adlivun wasn't saved, but rather annihilated by its own son?
"Child, please, sit down first," Himeko urged, her voice wrapping around the boy like a warm blanket. She offered him a soft, reassuring smile. "Are you hungry? You look exhausted. Would you like us to make you something to eat before we talk?"
"I'm not hungry!" The youth shook his head violently, taking a step back as if burned. His hands balled into tight fists at his sides. "Tell me! What happened to Adlivun! Did Akivili... did He make it back in time? Did He save us?!"
Dan Heng remained silent, but his brow furrowed so deeply it looked painful. His sharp eyes locked onto the strange, glowing golden wounds etched across the youth's face and arms. A deeply ominous suspicion began to claw its way up the archivist's throat. Those wounds... they looked exactly like the cosmic scars borne by the Aeon of Destruction.
"Speak!" the youth roared, his voice cracking and hoarse from the sheer force of his emotion. "Why aren't you speaking?! If the war is over, if we won, why won't any of you just say it?!"
The parlor car was swallowed by a suffocating silence. Finally, unable to bear the boy's agony any longer, Himeko spoke.
"The Swarm on Adlivun... was indeed completely wiped out."
The youth's breathing hitched. His chest heaved violently as he processed the words. The monsters were gone. The Swarm was dead.
"And everyone else?" he asked, his voice dropping to a fragile whisper. He looked up at Himeko, a blinding, desperate hope flooding his golden eyes. "My people... everyone must have survived then, right?"
No one answered him.
Not Welt, not Himeko, not Dan Heng, and not even the usually talkative March 7th. None of them possessed the cruelty required to answer that question.
The bright, desperate hope on the youth's face slowly began to solidify, freezing into a mask of pure dread. Deep within those golden eyes, something fundamental was collapsing. The silence was an answer all on its own.
"Why aren't you speaking?" he choked out, his voice trembling.
He took a heavy, unsteady step forward.
"Say something!"
Another step. The golden wounds on his skin seemed to flare with a faint, tragic light.
"What happened to everyone?! Tell me!"
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