Echoes of War: Epilogue (Patreon)

Far away in the depths of the Void, in a system where a young yellow star was bright and hot, an injured Vos’Rekan slowed down. Not too far away, the rubble of asteroid belts circled the star, full of stone and metals as old as the Void itself.

Enormous chunks of stone were missing from the massive beast’s back and sides, and its head was a slanted and mangled thing with only one eye visible. It stopped at the edge of the star, where the flames leapt out from the corona and bathed its rocky hide.

The star was unable to heat the Vos’Rekan’s body. Instead, the surface of its form began to glow with a dark layer of energy in response to the star’s force as it passively devoured the flames. Time passed as the Vos’Rekan hovered there, turning slowly from side to side as it bathed its wounds in the stellar energy.

Eventually, it turned with its one good eye to look at the asteroid belt in the distance. Its mouth opened, hanging at a slanted angle without half of its jaw. A dark vortex appeared in the depths. Stones ripped free of the asteroid belt and began to fly toward it, creating a rocky river near the sun. One by one, they disappeared into the Vos’Rekan’s maw.

Eventually, after it had consumed enough mass to replace what it lost, the Vos’Rekan ignored the few remaining asteroids and turned its attention back to the star. Its mouth opened again, this time facing the yellow brilliance in front of it.

The dark vortex spiraled open again. The young star shook as a current of fire from its depths ripped free and flew into the beast’s mouth. It disappeared into the depths of its jaws, swallowed by the vortex.

It didn’t stop there. More streams of fire were pulled free from the star and flowed into the Vos’Rekan’s jaws. The devouring began to pick up speed until there was a river of stellar flame that roared as it flooded into the beast’s mouth.

Along the Vos’Rekan’s back a new layer of stone began to appear, slowly rising up from within its body to line the missing edges. It glowed with a dark heat as void fire ran across it, merging it with the rest until there was no separation between them. Layer by layer, the beast’s body began to recover, growing outward like a stone expanding from within.

It wasn’t clear how long it would take, but the beast was recovering.

At the same time, the star in front of it began to gradually grow dimmer as flames poured out of it. Its core energy was vast, but it was diminishing as it was used to heal the Vos’Rekan. As the process continued, the Vos’Rekan’s devouring vortex grew larger, stretching outward as it pulled on the energy of the star and increased the draw.

As it ate, its single yellow eye looked back toward where it had been injured, glowing with a dark will and a desire for vengeance. Its chest rumbled as it drew in the strength of the star.

Time stretched out, marked only by the decay of the yellow light as the river of fire continued to disappear into the beast’s mouth. Eventually, the last wisp of the star disappeared into the Vos’Rekan’s jaws, leaving behind only a dull crystalline core at the center of the star.

It was the last remnant of the star’s energy, compressed under the force of the beast’s devouring.

The Vos’Rekan’s mouth closed around the core, and then there was nothing. The only things left behind were a few drifting motes of energy at the center of a system that had once glowed with brilliant life and the promise of a new star.

The beast’s body burned with a torrent of dark fire that ran in massive tidal waves across its back, fusing new stone together as it continued to add more layers. It wasn’t recovered yet, but with what it had just eaten, it was only a matter of time until it regenerated.

Its yellow eye was still fixed on the distance as the vortex disappeared and it drew in a more normal breath of energy from the Void and its chest swelled. Then a bone-shattering roar ripped free from its jaws as it howled its anger into the darkness of the Void.

*****

Far away at Silverguard, the last few stones of the Vos’Rekan’s body were being fused into a massive island that floated in the Void. It was a dozen miles across and several miles thick. Here and there, Silver Nagas and avatars were visible, slowly merging the remaining cracks together into a solid foundation.

The entire island was a fortress. Its foundations were miles thick and its walls were dense. Storerooms and protected areas were carefully arranged inside, where they were safe from the elemental winds of the Void and from everything but the strongest of attacks. To break through those walls quickly would take someone at the peak of the Fifth Evolution or even the Sixth.

On the surface, the outline of a great fortification was already taking shape. Walls with sharp battlements and defensive towers flowed upward, all of them merged with the ground and made from the same single piece of stone.

The walls weren’t complete yet, but crackling runes already glowed with power on them, forming the basis of what would be an enormous offensive and defensive enchantment. The towers also glowed with runes, their peaks shining as they gathered energy from the Void and channeled it into the design. As that force spread outward, new runes were being born.

At the center of that fortress, on a natural mountain peak that overlooked everything else from the highest point at the center, a towering golden titan sat. His eyes were closed and his body was covered in dark scars everywhere, leaving only stripes of his natural skin to shine against the Void, but a layer of silver light covered him.

Energy from the stars poured down on him in a steady column like a pillar of celestial light, and all around him, astral energy flowed outward, forming new runes as he sent them into the heart of the island. At the same time, here and there across his body, flakes of dark scar tissue disintegrated under the force of the starlight, revealing new patches of golden skin.

Sam was managing the enchantment from here, adding layer after layer of runes as the fortress came together, so that by the time it was complete, the runes on it would interlock to create a foundation that was even stronger than the stone it was built from.

Here in the Void, his strength was at its peak, and he was drawing on the full force of the stars and the elemental winds to imbue his work. By the time this fortress was complete, it would be stronger than anything he’d ever built before, strong enough to wage a war against Fifth Evolution opponents and win.

Not too far away from him, a blue sapphire gem shone from the top of a tower. All around it, a special enchantment was gathering energy from the Void and channeling it upward into the gem. The energy from the elemental winds was endless, but it would take time for enough of it to imbue the guardian’s lifegem and resurrect him.

As he continued to work, suddenly a wave of threat flared across his spine, making his eyes snap open. His expression was hard as he stared out into the depths of the Void in the direction that the Vos’Rekan had fled.

He could feel distant threads of energy resonating with him. It was his essence that the Vos’Rekan had stolen. After it devoured it, a thin connection appeared between them, one that would only be broken by its death or his.

Now, that connection gave him the vague sense that the beast was still out there and awake. It wasn’t enough to track it, but he could feel that it was roaring in rage and hunger. His eyes burned with silver flames as he ignored the distance between them and looked after it.

He didn’t know what it was up to, but he knew one thing. It wouldn’t rest easy after the injuries it had suffered. One day soon, it would be back. More importantly, it owed him a debt for the lives it had taken. His words were a promise on the chaos winds as he spoke.

“Aster Fall rises.”