Parallel Memory

Chapter 683: The impacts

The sky itself bled.

From horizon to horizon, the heavens twisted in agony. Cracks of light—veins of divine energy—ran through the clouds as though the world's own soul was fracturing. Thunder no longer rolled; it screamed. The continent of Edolas shuddered with each collision within the Devil King's palace, where three beings fought for dominion over reality itself.

Kaelion felt the tremor beneath his boots first, a pulse that wasn't mere quake but a heartbeat—enormous, unholy, and alive. His sword wavered in his grip as the golden barrier that shielded the vanguard flickered, then broke apart into streams of dissipating mana.

"Retreat!" Kaelion roared, his voice barely audible through the chaotic storm of crimson lightning tearing across the battlefield. "All units, fall back to the southern ridge!"

His command was met with silence for a breath, then desperate acknowledgment as soldiers scrambled to obey. Around him, the remnants of the once-proud allied army were little more than shadows—bloodied, exhausted, and outnumbered.

Above, the sky convulsed again.

A wave of pressure rolled outward from the Devil King's palace. The mountain ridges crumbled like paper; forests were vaporized in seconds. Even the divine ward that the Saintess had erected to hold back the abyssal fog splintered, her golden sigil collapsing into shards of burning light.

The Saintess fell to one knee, clutching her staff as radiant blood trickled from her lips. "It's… it's breaking the world itself," she whispered. Her eyes, once calm as still water, reflected the distorted heavens. "This is no longer a war. It's the end of the balance that binds creation."

Kaelion's armor cracked under the strain of his aura as he turned toward her. "Saintess, can you maintain the ward at all?"

She shook her head weakly, divine power trembling around her like flickering starlight. "No mortal, not even one blessed by the Church's rites, can restrain that kind of collision. That power inside… it's rewriting existence."

She looked eastward, toward the palace—toward the storm that raged in defiance of all reason. "Zero Elea… what have you done?"

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Inside the collapsing world's epicenter, time moved in uneven shudders.

The throne room of Aamon was gone—replaced by a maelstrom of divine fire and abyssal frost. Space itself bent and cracked like a broken mirror, shards of reality floating amidst chaos.

Aamon towered at the center, his form fluctuating between demon and god, his wings stretching through dimensions unseen. Each beat of his wings sent forth rings of annihilation that erased everything in their path.

Before him stood two figures—one cloaked in white frost, the other in a storm of living shadow.

Zero's breathing was ragged, frost bleeding from his wounds with every exhale. Beside him, the Emperor of Destruction—his twin in form but older in aura—stood unwavering, eyes gleaming with eternal calm. Together, they faced the Devil King as the fabric of the world bent around their clash.

"Do you see it now, little ones?" Aamon's voice thundered, echoing across the broken dimensions. "You've shattered the Seal of Heaven with your defiance. Every blow you strike tears apart the world your kind crawls upon."

His laughter rumbled like collapsing mountains. "You fight to save your world, yet your battle ensures its end. Beautiful, isn't it?"

Zero's jaw tightened. "If the world has to fall for you to die, then so be it."

He thrust his sword forward, frost bursting outward like a supernova. The blade's arc carved a streak through space, freezing fragments of the void itself. Aamon blocked the strike with his bare arm, the frozen shards exploding against his demonic hide.

The Emperor followed, his movements soundless, a blade of pure darkness forming in his grip. "Zero," he said quietly, "we strike together."

Zero nodded. Their energies intertwined—lightless dark and frigid frost—forming a spiral of chaos and harmony. Together, they lunged.

The collision was apocalyptic.

Heaven's vault split. The ground of Edolas cracked open from continent to continent, releasing geysers of raw mana into the sky. Oceans receded and surged again as if reality itself was breathing in pain.

Outside the palace, Kaelion and his remaining troops were thrown to their knees as shockwaves tore through the battlefield. The Saintess screamed as divine light burst from her, trying desperately to weave a stabilizing ward around the survivors.

"Hold the formation!" Kaelion bellowed, anchoring his sword into the shattered earth. His mana flared, creating a barrier to shield the wounded soldiers retreating behind him. "We can't stay here! MOVE!"

Seraphine, her crimson hair torn and her armor cracked, appeared beside him, flames swirling around her blade. "Even if we run, the blast will catch us!"

"Then we die standing," Kaelion growled.

But the Saintess's voice broke through, fierce and trembling. "No… not yet. I can— I can redirect it!"

She thrust her staff into the ground, summoning golden runes across the battlefield. They spread outward like wildfire, consuming the dead earth and rising into radiant sigils of protection. Her wings of light, cracked but enduring, unfurled one final time.

The shield held—barely.

The explosion from within the palace erupted outward like a second sun. Mountains melted. The sky shattered into rays of pure mana. Yet, amidst the chaos, the Saintess's barrier, fed by the combined will of the living, kept the survivors alive within its fragile shell.

Inside the storm, Zero's frost met the Emperor's darkness, intertwining around Aamon's crimson core. For a brief moment, their combined power seemed to push the Devil King back—his wings flickering, his laughter halting.

Then the balance broke.

Aamon roared, his full ascended form stabilizing. Black lightning erupted from his body, lashing out like divine judgment. The Emperor was thrown back, his shadow form fracturing; Zero was hurled into a wall of collapsing reality, blood freezing as it left his veins.

"Did you truly believe," Aamon said, stepping forward through the dust and light, "that destiny could be rewritten by mortals?"

Zero forced himself upright, eyes glowing faintly. "I don't believe in destiny," he rasped. "I fight it."

Aamon smirked. "Then fight this."

He raised his hand. Reality tore open behind him—a gate of pure void. From it spilled an ocean of demonic essence, devouring all light. The Devil King stepped into it, drawing the realm's energy into himself until even the Emperor staggered from the pressure.

Outside, Kaelion saw it—an enormous surge of darkness erupting from the palace, reaching the heavens. His breath hitched. "The Heaven's Seal… it's breaking!"

The Saintess's face went pale. "No—it's gone."

A wave of despair washed through the vanguard as the very sky above them split into a thousand fractal fissures. Streams of inverted light poured downward, painting the horizon with apocalypse.

And yet—amid that ruin, something else stirred.

A faint blue shimmer from within the darkness.

Kaelion looked up, eyes widening. "He's still fighting…"

The Saintess lifted her gaze too, tears mingling with blood on her cheeks. "Zero Elea… your light hasn't gone out."

From the shattered palace, two lights rose—a streak of frost and a shadow wrapped in defiant flame. Together they carved through the collapsing air, defying the will of a god, a devil, and fate itself.

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But the damage was already done.

The world's barriers—those unseen foundations of heaven and earth—were ruptured. Mana storms howled across the skies, rewriting the laws of nature. Creatures across Edolas screamed in instinctive terror as the balance between light and darkness broke apart.

Kaelion watched the horizon burn and whispered, almost reverently, "He's bought us time… but at what cost?"

The Saintess closed her eyes, her trembling hands clasped in silent prayer.

"The cost," she said softly, "is the world itself."

And above them, high beyond mortal sight, the Seal of Heaven—once the symbol of divine order—cracked and fell away into dust.