Chapter 1502 "Brother"
Chapter 1502 "Brother"
Eren's perspective once again shifted, immersing him in a daydream-like reverie, where he experienced the fragmented memories of a fallen god.
This time, he found himself prone upon an endless, desolate plain, a world teetering on the brink of obliteration.
The parched ground beneath him appeared as though it hadn't tasted a drop of water in millennia. Above, the sky of this dying realm seemed on the verge of utter collapse, deprived of the sustaining influence of the Way of the Elements.
As a result, it was riddled with spatial rifts, as the relentless Winds of Void Assimilation rent the fabric of the world asunder.
The once-star-filled night sky lay shattered, fragmented into countless pieces resembling a broken mirror. Through these ruptures, giant spatial meteors hurtled towards the world, propelled by the fury of earth and fire. Their flame-draped forms left radiant trails across the heavens.
Oddly, this world's impending demise could appear as a hauntingly beautiful nocturnal spectacle to a few. There was a peculiar serenity to be found amid absolute destruction, for those whose perspective reached profound depths.
Throughout the land, massive spatial rifts had yawned open, leading to realms unknown. It was as if this dying world extended a lifeline to any living being within its domain who could endure the relentless Winds of Void Assimilation. Sadly, no survivors lingered in this forsaken realm, save for a dying god, stripped of all his divine essence and power. He too stood on the precipice of oblivion—a fate he had never anticipated.
How could an ancient, immortal god meet his end? It was through the theft of his immortality and his divine prowess. The demise of a god paralleled the extinction of cherished concepts.
The fading god wasn't perishing alone. The very ideals of compassion and kindness upon which he had built his immortal existence were unraveling alongside him.
Eren found himself in an unusual state, experiencing the final moments of a dying god without any injuries or ailments. This was not a death brought on by the ravages of time but rather a deliberate imposition of end upon him. End of a concept. End of the divinity.
Had it only been his mortal vessel failing him, the dying god could have effortlessly conjured countless new vessels from thin air or allowed his immortal soul to cycle through the multiverse's reincarnation, granting him endless opportunities to begin anew as a god.
However, it wasn't just his body that faced demise; both body and soul remained unscathed. This was a death of a deeper nature.
Having experienced death in his previous timeline, Eren discerned subtle distinctions between his own demise and the dying god's fate as he perceived it through foreign memories.
'Is it going to end like this? Can't I do something to avoid this?'
As the broken-mirror sky foretold an impending meteoric deluge, Eren… or rather the dying god questioned his own impending death. These meteors hurtled inexorably toward him, and he was powerless to halt their descent. In his previous state, such a threat would have been inconsequential, easily averted. Yet now, even rising from his frailty seemed an insurmountable task.
'Fucking move, damn it. I can't die like this!'
Eren struggled to move, only to realize that he was inhabiting someone else's memories, not his own reality.
Zoom. Pause. Reverse.
Just as Eren braced for the meteors' cataclysmic impact, the inconceivable occurred.
The meteors, poised to annihilate the world, reversed their course, retracing their paths as though rewound in time. The world's condition improved, rewinding to a verdant state, the sky healing into azure splendor, and the destructive Winds of Void Assimilation relenting. Spatial rifts, once rampant, sealed shut, and the broken world regained its integrity and stability.
***
All of this unfolded in an instant, leaving Eren's comprehension trailing far behind. The sheer magnitude of power required to reverse the world's demise and to end the life of an ancient god defied explanation.
Even the collective might of hundreds of Sages from Anfang, formidable as they were, would prove utterly impotent in the face of such monumental acts.
Eren mused internally, his thoughts tinged with a touch of cynicism. 'Sages? What a fucking laughable notion! Though I'm hardly a figure of consequence, I have to say that even S-Rankers would be insignificant specks on this stage,' he reflected.
He couldn't help but acknowledge that these powers existed on a plane far beyond his limited perspective. Here, within the living memory of a dying god, the authority of Sages was nonexistent, rendering them as powerless as the newly sprouted verdant grass beneath his form.
Though an unknown entity had reversed the world's fate, the dying god's destiny seemed sealed. The entity had granted him but a few more breaths, a temporary extension of his existence, before it would be erased from past, present, and future. The mending world was a byproduct of these fleeting moments being granted to him.
Someone had expended their powers extravagantly to prolong the dying god's existence, suggesting that he had not only enemies but also beings who cared for him.
Eren's tumultuous thoughts were silenced by a soft, sorrowful voice calling out.
"Brother!"
He turned his gaze skyward to behold the figure who had come to meet him in his final moments.
This enigmatic figure materialized from the ether, and her arrival seemed to halt time itself. It was as though she had traversed myriad worlds to reach this place, drawn by the fleeting presence of the dying god. Her very divinity bore scars from the journey, evidence of the lengths she had gone to in search of him.
As Eren witnessed these moments through the dying god's recollections, he beheld a breathtaking goddess, her countenance suffused with sorrow. However, no words could accurately capture her features or describe her attire, for his mortal perspective struggled to encapsulate her divine beauty.
Yet, A strange familiarity tugged at Eren's consciousness in her presence, as if he had encountered her not merely once, but as if she were a daily presence in his life. These emotions, however, were not those of the dying god but his own.