Lord of the realm

Chapter 222: Sacrificing for Jaenor

"The primordial force from which all other energies derive. It existed before aura, before origin energy as you know it, and before the Separation created distinctions between power types. It’s pure potential. Unformed possibility."

She wanted to restore Jaenor, and this time she wanted to give him something that no one would be able to take from him, something that no one would predict.

She knew she couldn’t stand against those ascendants and certainly not against the newly reborn Daemon god, so instead she would live through Jaenor by merging herself with him, letting him absorb her and giving him access to embrace chaos’ origin.

It was the best solution she had now and the only thing she could think of.

The storm was massive now, easily a mile across and still growing. Lightning that wasn’t quite lightning arced through it, and sounds that weren’t quite sounds echoed from its depths.

"If you can absorb it," Magdalyna continued, "if you can integrate Chaos Origin into what’s left of you, it will restore what was taken. Give you back your body, your power, your consciousness. You’ll return to what you were before Suyajna consumed you."

"And I will help you," she said as she caressed his cheek, her gaze softened.

She held him closer, protectively, as the storm continued approaching.

"It’s dangerous. Chaos Origin isn’t meant to be contained by mortal forms. Most ascendant beings who try to absorb it are torn apart, scattered across this infinite space, their essence dissolved into the primordial nothingness. But you’re not most beings. Your Arkwright bloodline, your achievement of unified power, and your sheer stubborn refusal to die, all of it gives you a chance."

The storm was perhaps a quarter-mile away now and getting closer. Its presence made the floating landmass beneath them shake and made reality itself seem to vibrate at frequencies that threatened to tear everything apart.

Magdalyna’s expression grew more desperate, and she glanced at something behind them.

Ba’narussa hovered in the void, her seven heads spread in a protective formation. But she looked diminished here, faded. The divine beast existed primarily in the mortal plane; bringing her to this void space had cost tremendous energy, and maintaining her presence here was draining what remained.

When she felt Jaenor being dragged away from the human realm, she just jumped in after them, following Jaenor’s consciousness or whatever was left of him.

Magdalyna’s face showed conflict.

Hesitation.

She looked at the approaching storm, at the barely alive essence in her arms, and at the divine beast who’d served Jaenor with absolute loyalty.

The storm was much stronger than she expected.

"There’s something else," she said, and her voice was rushed now, urgent.

"The divine beast, Ba’narussa. She holds part of your essence. Took it when you bonded, kept it safe within herself. If I..."

She hesitated, the words clearly difficult.

"If I add her essence to this process, if she becomes part of what you absorb along with the Chaos Origin, it might increase your chances. Provide stability. A familiar anchor to help you maintain identity while integrating something so fundamentally chaotic."

Ba’narussa’s seven heads turned toward Magdalyna simultaneously, and something passed between them. Understanding of what needs to be done. She looked at Jaenor for a few seconds.

Recognition of what was being proposed.

The divine beast would have to be sacrificed.

Consumed by him.

Added to the mixture of forces that would remake Jaenor.

"I don’t have time to find another way," Magdalyna said, and there was genuine pain in her voice. "The storm is almost here. You’re fading; I can feel your consciousness weakening with each moment. And I’m not strong enough alone to bridge you to the Chaos Origin safely. I need more. Need a medium, a conduit that can handle the transfer without being immediately destroyed."

She looked at Ba’narussa directly.

"I’m sorry. You’ve served him faithfully. Loved him in your own way. But this is the only chance he has. The only way to bring him back. And if we fail, if we do nothing, he dissolves completely. At least this way, part of you lives on within him. Your essence, your power, your loyalty, all of it becoming part of what he is."

Ba’narussa made a sound, a complex harmonization from all seven throats simultaneously. It wasn’t an agreement exactly, because divine beasts didn’t process decisions the way humans did. But it was acceptance. Understanding that this was necessary, that her master’s survival required her sacrifice.

She moved closer, and her divine energy began to manifest visibly as golden light that seemed to contain stars, suggesting vast power barely constrained by physical form.

"Thank you," Magdalyna whispered.

"Thank you for loving him enough to do this."

She positioned herself at the edge of the floating landmass, still holding Jaenor, with Ba’narussa beside her. The Chaos Origin storm was perhaps a hundred feet away now, and its presence was overwhelming: pressure that made thought difficult, sound that drowned out everything else, and light and darkness and colors that couldn’t coexist but somehow did anyway.

"Listen to me," Magdalyna said, speaking directly to the fragment of consciousness that was all that remained of Jaenor.

"This is going to hurt. Not just physical pain but soul-deep agony as you’re torn apart and remade. Every moment of it will feel like dying. Like being erased and rewritten simultaneously."

She held him tighter.

"But you’ve survived worse. You survived having a daemon goddess use you as a doorway. Survived being consumed by your own mother. Survived betrayal from the person you trusted most in the world. You can survive this too."

Jaenor could only stare at the two people who were trying to save him; he wanted to stop Ba’narussa, but her eyes told him that she was happy with it.

The pain of losing her throbbed in his mind, but he was helpless to move.

The storm was fifty feet away now. Reality was fracturing at its edges, cracks spreading through space itself, the stone masses were being pulled into the cracks.

"I’m going to position you at the center of it," Magdalyna continued, her voice nearly drowned out by the storm’s roar.

"And I’m going to create a force around you. A bridge between you and the Chaos Origin. Something that will let you absorb it safely rather than being destroyed by direct contact."

She looked down at him, and her expression showed something she’d probably never felt before—fear. Not for herself, but for him. Genuine terror that this wouldn’t work, that she’d come so far and tried so hard only to watch him die anyway.

"The bridge has to be made from something powerful enough to handle Chaos Origin without disintegrating. Something that can channel that force while maintaining structure. And I..."

She paused, then continued quietly. "I’m going to use myself. My body, my soul, my essence—all of it. I’ll position myself between you and the storm, and I’ll become the conduit. The Chaos Origin will flow through me into you, and in the process, I’ll be consumed just like you almost were."

Jaenor’s fragmented consciousness reacted to that with alarm, denial, and desperate refusal.

She shouldn’t. She was ancient and powerful, one of the few beings who’d genuinely cared about him without agenda or manipulation. She shouldn’t sacrifice herself for him.

Not for someone like him.

But he had no voice to protest. Nobody to resist. Just fading awareness and helpless horror at what she was proposing.

Not these two, the two people who had done nothing but protect him.

He could only stare at them, groan through his pain, his body immobile. It was too much, watching them die for him. He was shaking with pain and raw emotions.

"It’s the only way," Magdalyna said, reading his. She could feel his body trembling.

"It’s okay, Jaenor. Let me do this for you. I couldn’t protect you when you needed me; let me make up for it."

"I lived for years, but the time with you was what made me feel something real."

Her eyes turned moist as she held his face and kissed him on the forehead.

"I’m not strong enough anymore to fight the Sins. The Ascended drained too much during my imprisonment. But I’m strong enough for this. Strong enough to be the bridge that brings you back."

She looked up at the storm, now just twenty feet away. The landmass beneath them was cracking from the pressure, pieces breaking off and spinning away into the void.

"In all my existence," Magdalyna said softly, "across millennia of life and death and endless cycles, you were the only good thing that happened to me. The only being I met who was kind without expectation of reward. Who was brave without needing to prove it. Who was powerful without becoming cruel."

She smiled, and it was genuine and warm despite the circumstances.

"I loved you, truly. As you were. For who you were. And that love is worth this sacrifice. Worth everything."