Blood. Ichor. Time.
The world was bleeding.
Blood and ichor. These things could be replaced. Men and gods. They come and go.
But time. Time is priceless.
Without time there would be no gods to rule. No men to follow. No blood or ichor to be spilt.
When a man bleeds, his family cries.
When a god bleeds, its worshippers cry.
When time bleeds…
The world was bleeding. Yesterday became tomorrow became today. All days were one and yet none at all. Time was on its knees, begging for a few more moments. Just another second. Just a little time.
Pasts spun into futures and the present faded. The threads of fate twisted and whirled into terrifying knots. The sun and moon collided in frantic flashes of light and darkness. Clouds tore through the sky at subsonic speeds while lightning bolts remained dead still, a lingering unwanted audience. All watched as the world was bleeding.
A tumultuous clamour of flesh, bone, stone, and steel. This battle had taken place a thousand thousand times over, in a thousand thousand places, since the dawn of time until the end of time. Time could never win. It was its enemy’s greatest resource.
Time could not run. It could not hide. It could only wait. Wait to bleed for the last time.
There was a revolting stench. A miasma so foul it stained the air where it hanged. The malodour of an undying corpse.
Nashe, Lord of Undeath. A wretched titan of rotting flesh and flayed bone, towering over Time with its repugnant, undead legions.
This timeless war had been fought for aeons incalculable, but this battle was different. Nashe had never made it this far. Had never stood this close to Time.
Nashe had entered the Slumberscape before, but the undead legions had never made it past the Dozing Gardens, guarded by the goddess Noctus. They had never made it through the room a thousand years wide, to confront the Sphinx guarding the Chrono-Chamber. They had never faced the Fate Spinners, Time’s personal guardians.
And now Time lay wounded below Nashe. Defenceless. Impotent.
Nashe’s timeless quest would finally be coming to an end. The Lord of Undeath had once ruled over all the kingdoms, had slain all gods who opposed it, had swept away any foe with ease. Any foe except Time.
The Lord of Undeath sought only one thing in all its conquests. To bleed. To end its time.
Nashe’s state of undeath brought great power. Power that came at a cost.
Nashe was never to spill blood. Blood brought vitality. Nashe had been drained of it a long time ago.
The Lord of Undeath was exhausted. It had been fighting this war for so long. It just wanted it to end. Its tired bones lurched forward in sickly anticipation. It laboriously raised its colossal, black blade, forcing it down with an antediluvian contempt, shattering Time into a thousand thousand pieces.
At once, the world gyrated and warped, everything moving forwards, backwards, inwards upon itself. Existence took on a frightening tempo, performing its discordant swan song and final, jagged dance of death. The sky fell and the ground flew, the once motionless lightning bolts now striking all at once with a synchronous, agonised bellow of thunder. Great streaks of fire filled the sky as the sun pummelled itself into the moon, rupturing furiously, setting the clouds ablaze. The world cracked and the stars fell through, bursting forth with tremendous cosmic energy, exploding all light into a maelstrom of kaleidoscopic, catastrophic wonder. This was Time’s final vociferation, a desperate primordial writhing, a final attempt to cling on to any fraction of life.
The world was bleeding.
Blood and ichor dried.
Fate and future dissipated.
Present became past.
The world had bled.
A flurry of mass and memory rended the past obsolete.
The world was dead.
Nashe could rest.