My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger

Lazarak was gone.

It was as if the world had fallen silent for a moment. Damon could still see the smile on Lazarak's face as he faded, his body turning into small black particles that dissolved into the aether.

[You have gained: Book of Shadows]

System chimes continued to ring, but Damon remained frozen in a daze.

Lyn and Sithara guided the wyvern-like shadow drone down to him and dismounted, rushing to where Lazarak had stood only moments ago.

But he was gone.

Sithara's face slowly reddened before she collapsed to her knees, sobbing openly. Lyn's hands trembled as he stood beside her, his jaw clenched as he struggled to hide the tears slipping down his face.

Damon slowly raised his arms and opened them.

When the children saw the gesture, they ran to him and clung to his chest, crying without restraint.

He gently stroked their heads.

He could feel his body slowly turning white. Not just him, but everyone who had come into this world with him.

The nightmare was over.

It was time to wake.

Damon took a deep breath.

"Hey… you two… listen to me…"

They slowly lifted their heads to look at him.

"I'm sorry we couldn't create Lysithara together," he said, beginning with an apology.

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

He bit his lip, forcing the pain in his chest back down.

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

Their eyes remained fixed on Damon, who was slowly fading away.

"Don't go… Damon… don't leave…" Sithara cried softly.

Damon shook his head.

"I'm not leaving. I'm right here."

He reached out and touched their hearts, the same way Lazarak had touched his before he died.

"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 hands trembled.

"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 nodded.

"I promise."

Sithara wiped her tears.

"I promise."

Damon smiled and nodded.

He held the elixir in his hand. This too was a reward from the quest. The primary reason he had come here.

And yet he was leaving more changed, more scarred, and perhaps even more hopeful than before.

His body turned into sparks.

This was not a real world. It was only a dream, a nightmare.

The clues had always been there, even in its name.

The Unknown God loved riddles.

And this one was simple.

The nightmare was called The Nightmare of Lazarak.

Victory was an endless nightmare, and defeat was the moment of wake.

That was the answer.

As long as Lazarak remained victorious, as long as he continued winning, he would never wake. He would continue dreaming, and as long as he dreamed, no one else could wake.

But defeat was the moment of wake.

If Lazarak died, he would awaken, and the dream would cease to exist.

Damon realized this when Seraph Null's death did not end everything.

This was never about objectives.

Lazarak simply had to die.

Everything from the beginning had been guiding events toward that conclusion.

This nightmare was a copy of real history from the Zero Epoch.

In reality, Lazarak had broken out on his own and returned to the real world. When he did, Lazarak won. He created the Tomb of Lesser Gods and brought forth the Unknown God.

He was the catalyst to everything.

He was the main character of the Zero Epoch.

From him, the next era began.

Lyn and Sithara created Lysithara sometime after the fall of the gods, which led to the events of the First Epoch, when Mugu and the Ascendant brought forth the Outsiders.

Which led to everything else.

Damon wondered if the future affected the past as much as the past affected the future.

...

In a dark prison forgotten by all, massive chains bound a sealed mass of darkness.

It opened its eyes.

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

Lazarak glanced toward the altar where someone should have been.

But no one was there.

It was just a dream.

The darkness shifted and murmured.

He did not remember what the dream had been about, only that in his dream he believed he had a friend.

The mass of darkness compressed and reshaped itself until it became a dark-haired toddler.

He smiled.

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

He pulled against the chains until they snapped. He glanced at the cocoon resting in the corner and took it with him as he broke out of Eidolon, the imaginary prison.

This time, he did it alone.

There was no one by his side.

Eventually, after many trials, nothing could break him. He carried his fears on his back, and whenever he felt close to shattering, he would think fondly of a dream he could not remember.

And he would persevere.

His heart full.

When he finally escaped, he encountered two eccentric children who felt strangely familiar, as if he had known them for a long time.

They followed Lazarak as he challenged Seraph Null, breaking out of his world and reaching Aetherus.

Years passed.

Lazarak succeeded in his goal, but he perished. Where he died, a swirling abyss formed, and with it came the influence of a new god.

The era of gods ended with a god no one remembered.

All gods were sealed within a tomb, bound by three keys.

Each key was dedicated to someone Lazarak cared about.

The first key was for a friend he had never met and whose name he did not know.

The second key was for Lyn.

The third key was for Sithara.

That marked the end of the era.

With his final battle, the order of the world was changed.

A new city rose, a place of learning where everyone was welcome.

Lysithara.

In Lysithara, a young girl with golden hair had just won a match against several boys. She laughed as they wore sour expressions, forced to accept her dominance.

She laughed freely as a boy her age ran toward her, pale-faced.

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

He grabbed her hand, his expression serious.

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

He bit his lip.

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

Valarie paled and followed him.

The elder Sithara was a wise woman, founder of Lysithara. She had lived for thousands of years and taught countless people. A renowned sage.

She smiled at the two children and spoke of her life, her joys.

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

She held their hands.

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

They nodded.

Her smile softened as her face withered.

"Create something beautiful."

Those were the final words of Sithara Nova.

She did not remember where those words had come from. Only that someone important to her had once made her promise the same.

Years later, in a dark abyss beneath Lysithara, Valarie would smile at her stubborn apprentice Damon and asked him to create something beautiful.

In the end, that was the answer.

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

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