NOVEL NEXT chapter 448 - The Reset
Upon witnessing Taufik's transformation, Michael felt something he had not felt in countless ages: disbelief.
"…This," Uriel gasped, his flame flickering as though uncertain of itself. "What is that form?!"
"He has balanced Destruction and Creation in… in equilibrium," Raguel murmured, his scales trembling in his hands. "Such balance is impossible. Even I cannot achieve this"
"Michael,x Sariel's voice was uncharacteristically strained, her bow trembling as she lowered it, "What should we do now?"
"…T-This…" Michael's grip on Lux Invicta tightened. He had been confident when facing the Ultimate Paradox, not certain of victory, but certain he could at least bind him, seal him if not destroy him.
But this was different. This form was no longer chaos, nor corruption. It was a balance so absolute it defied comprehension... The New Beginning.
And as they stood frozen, a new weight pressed upon them all, so vast and undeniable that even the System, which now guided Taufik's body, faltered under it.
Every gaze turned upward.
In the skyless void of Hell, a pair of colossal eyes opened. Their pressure was suffocating, yet familiar, something Taufik had once felt, long ago. Not as heavy as before, but no less absolute.
All present knew instantly who it was.
"…Fate," the System whispered, the word almost a curse.
"Lord Fat-" Michael began, but a thunderous voice cut him off.
"Michael! Stop the Dafient at once! Do not let him leave this place! If he escapes, the Law of the Universe will collapse! You know what that means, if the Law is broken, the restraints will shatter, and all the Eternities will descend! Do not allow the line of destiny to deviate further!"
# A/N - Eternities here is the Concept itself, like Death and Life, the Fate included. While Angels and Demons are creatures above God and below Eternities, not all Angels and Demons, only some angels and Demons. While Beings like Lembuswana, an Aboriginal Being, are right between Angel/Demon and the Gods. Taufik in the Primal Void Form, The Ultimate Paradox, and the Strongest is The New Beginning, almost equal to the Eternities, even stronger than most Eternities, while in Eternities itself, The Fata and The Will are at the top, you already know, but above Eternity is the Creator.
Michael froze, the words of Fate hammering through him. His thoughts burned like fire.
'…So. This is what you've been waiting for, brother,' he thought, his mind turning to Lucifer. 'No wonder you swore not to interfere'
But when his eyes returned to the New Beginning, that balance of shadow and light standing before them, his certainty withered.
'But… how are we supposed to stop that?'
A laugh echoed across the battlefield.
The New Beginning tilted its head back, laughter sharp as a blade. "Ahaha~ Fate! Oh, Fate! Stop me? Why don't you come down yourself? You watch, you whisper, you bind, but you never act. And still you call yourself Fate?"
The colossal eyes narrowed, fury rippling across the void. "Do not get arrogant, Dafient. Everything has its appointed time, including you. You are nothing but an error in my Grand Design. Wait, and you will see"
The System spoke then, its voice dripping with scorn. "Ahaha~ Master was right. Your weakness is too obvious. You think you can replace the Creator? Even if you could, the Will would never allow it. You know this. Killing the Will does not make you whole, it makes you half. You are strong, yes… but incomplete"
The void trembled as Fate's eyes blazed with wrath.
"YOU-" The voice thundered, shaking even the pillars of Hell. "Michael! Why do you hesitate?! Stop him now!"
"Don't worry!" the System's voice rang out, calm yet unyielding. "Because I will disappear on my own, no, we all will. But you need not fear. I know you will not die. And if to end this I must break the Law of the Universe... "
The New Beginning lifted both hands. In each palm, two opposing forces churned, twin infinities that had no business existing side by side.
"…Then let it break"
Fate's eyes widened. The calm mask of inevitability cracked, and for the first time, urgency bled into His thunderous voice.
"Michael! What are you doing?! Stop him, NOW!"
But it was already too late.
For in Taufik's hands blazed the primal truth of existence itself. One hand held the abyssal torrent of Destruction. The other, the blinding flame of Creation. When they met, when they pressed against each other in his grasp, the void itself screamed.
Every Archangel trembled. Even Michael, who had carved countless wars into eternity, faltered. They all felt it. This was no miracle. No spell. No forbidden rite.
This was the First Dawn. The Beginning of All.
The force that had birthed stars and worlds. The same force researchers in the mortal realm had once whispered of in awe and fear, the Big Bang.
Now, that impossible origin swirled in the hands of the Defiant.
The System's voice softened, almost tender, yet final. "…Everyone here… let us meet again, if the time is right. But for now… this is goodbye"
The two forces pulsed, light and shadow devouring one another, building toward the inevitable. The universe itself seemed to hold its breath.
The hands came together.
And the world ended.
No sound. No light. No shadow. For a single instant, nothing existed, because everything had been compressed into the clash of absolutes.
Then it burst.
The collision of Creation and Destruction did not explode, it unfolded. A sphere of raw genesis tore through the battlefield, a newborn cosmos unraveling itself inside Hell.
Mountains dissolved into dust, only to be reborn as rivers of molten light. The air itself cracked apart into shimmering fragments of possibility, and then reformed into storms of stars that burned for a heartbeat before vanishing again.
The ground of Hell Core ceased to exist. In its place swam galaxies half-formed, spinning too fast, colliding, tearing themselves apart as quickly as they were born. Every breath was a scream of physics unraveling, every blink a glimpse into creation's blueprint.
The Archangels faltered. Their wings flickered, their weapons dimmed. Michael's sword, Lux Invicta, which had never bent before any foe, trembled in his grip as though it feared to exist in this storm.
Uriel's flames sputtered, burning in reverse. Raguel's Balance cracked, scales unable to weigh what was both everything and nothing. Sariel's arrow dissolved into dust before it could even fall.
Even Fate's eyes, those eternal, unshaken eyes, narrowed with something dangerously close to fear.
"Impossible… He's forcing the Beginning again…"
In the heart of it all, Taufik, or what was once Taufik stood. Wings of light and shadow spiraled into infinity at his back. His body was no longer flesh, no longer soul, but the pivot point of existence, the stillness within the storm.
The System's voice echoed one last time, resonating across realms, across laws, across everything.
"…Goodbye"
The clash reached its apex.
And with it, Hell was rewritten.
When the storm of Creation and Destruction folded into silence, nothing remained of what had once been. The rivers of gold, the Hollow Citadel, the burning angel, all gone.
The Four Archangels and their Legion vanished without a trace, their hymns cut short as if they had never been sung. Even the Seven Deadly Sins were erased from that moment, their thrones shattered, their names scattered into dust.
Above it all, Fate closed his eyes. His eternal gaze dimmed, and even he could not see where the lines had gone.
Taufik, too, was nowhere to be found. Not Paradox, not the System, not the Defiant. Nothing remained of him but the echo of the collision.
Yet this was not destruction. It was reset.
Not only Hell, but the Law of the Universe itself was rewritten. Reality rolled backward, unwinding to that primordial threshold, the singular instant when the Creator had first descended and set the laws of existence.
But this time, the Creator was absent.
The universes, countless, layered, infinite, remained untouched, continuing as they were. But the foundation beneath them had shifted. The root of law was reset without a hand to govern it.
This meant only one thing.
The Archangels would be reborn. The Sins would be reborn. But unlike before, they would rise without the restrictions that bound them, no chains of law, no restraints of balance.
Freedom.
This was the ultimate goal of Lucifer. To him, there was no point in absolute strength if it came with chains. Power without freedom was only another prison. Now, at last, that prison had been broken.
And yet…
The true perpetrator of all that had unfolded, the hand that dared to entwine Creation and Destruction, the one who set the first stone of the chain in motion, remains veiled in mystery.
Taufik.
Where he has gone, none can say.
Whether erased from existence, hidden beyond the veil of laws, or waiting for the appointed time in silence, no power can pierce the truth. Not the Angels who sing in Heaven, not the Demons who writhe in the Abyss, not even Fate himself, who governs the strands of destiny, could glimpse his shadow.
And so, the world turns.
On Earth, years slipped quietly by. Cities rose and crumbled, wars raged and ended, and generations lived and perished. Amid all this, his children grew, bereft of the presence of their father, the one the world would come to know not as man, but as myth.
The Dafient.
A name spoken in whispers, a name that one day would shake the heavens and make demons gnash their teeth.
Taufik D'Archy Hidayat.
The one whose absence is not silence, but an echo, an omen that one day, he shall return.
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# A/N - This is the end of Volume 9 - Hell, the next volume will be a timeskip that will focus on Taufik's children, especially focusing on Askara.