Chapter 2934: Fortress of Time |
Sunny and Nephis forgot about the food, the wine, and the tea.
The eerie stillness, the silence, the dead emptiness of it all... was the doing of a human? Of a Supreme born from the River People?
"How?"
It was only recently that Nephis said that they did not understand the divine sorcery of Ariel, the Demon of Dread, and therefore could not know how the Great River had been brought to a halt.
And yet, Cronos seemed to have figured it out.
Ananke chuckled.
"That, I cannot answer. I knew Cronos better than most, but even I did not know what was going on in his head. At times, it seemed like no one did, not even Cronos himself. His brilliant mind was full of the past, the present, and the future. Things that had already happened to the rest of us were a mystery to him, at times, and things that were yet to happen were like a distant memory. His ideas were always outrageous, and things that everyone considered impossible were often nothing but a fascinating puzzle to him."
Her smile dimmed a little.
“It often felt like he was lost in his own mind, out there at the end... ah, but I am getting ahead of myself. First, Cronos had a problem, and he found a way to solve it. He took his shipmates and sailed past Verge, into the Estuary — and there, he did something to break the cycle of the Great River. He made it stop."
“And just like that, the River People weren't divided anymore. We were not chained to our cities anymore, and when the Defiled attacked, we had a choice of retreating from the battle — or launching an attack of our own. There was some hesitation, of course, but eventually, we all decided to abandon the waters where we had been born. Although... we, people of Weave, had hesitated the longest."
Ananke sighed.
"By then, I had long left the Time Slayer and returned home to take my place as the Priestess. Weave was constantly under attack, and every battle we won came at a terrible price. But still, we were reluctant to abandon the city our elders were exiled to and join the people who had driven them away. In the end, however, the war against the horrors of the future became too untenable, and we prepared to sail into the past... what used to be past, at least, before the River died."
Sunny shifted slightly.
"Nephis and I sailed past the ruins of Weave on our way here. We saw the signs of the battle... what destroyed it, in the end?"
Ananke looked into the distance, a somber expression appearing on her lovely face. She remained silent for a while, then took a deep breath.
"That, we do not know either. On the last day we spent in Weave before abandoning it forever, a swarm of the Corrupted, far more terrifying than any before it, descended upon us like a curse. The battle was desperate... I led our warriors to hold the enemy back while those who could not fight fled. We were planning to sever the anchors of the Houses of Youth and use them as ships to sail downstream, but people needed time to reach them."
Her expression turned distant as she recollected the desperate battle from the ancient past.
"We were successful, in the end. We stalled the enemy long enough for the Houses of Youth to sail. My warriors retreated, as well — or at least tried to. We were on the outskirts of the city, besieged from all sides and only a few minutes away from being eradicated, when it happened. The sky seemed to ripple, and a vast darkness escaped from the rifts torn in its azure expanse like a flood. Then, something dark and formless plummeted into the River, piercing the heart of the city — the island where the Temple of the Nightmare Spell stood."
She paled a little, then shook her head with a heavy sigh.
"The destruction caused by the impact was so devastating that most of the city was instantly shattered and drowned. It was heartbreaking, to see Weave drown right before my eyes... but, at the same time, the Corrupted had already overrun it by then. So, they suffered from the calamity the most — in fact, most of them were torn apart and killed by the shockwave. That was why my remaining warriors and I managed to escape, in the end."
Sunny frowned.
“Was it another abomination from upstream? What was its Rank? What was its Class?"
Ananke shook her head.
"I couldn't tell you. That thing had always existed in the Tomb of Ariel, arriving once in a few generations, moving across the sky like a comet made out of pure terror — although it began to appear more often after the Great River died. But no one was ever able to see what was hidden under the churning darkness that surrounded it. People called it the Dark Wanderer and believed it to be an omen of great destruction. Perhaps it was indeed a Corrupted being of immense power, or perhaps it was simply a manifestation of the River dying. A symptom of the walls of the realm Ariel had created slowly coming undone."
She shrugged.
“Perhaps it is moving across the sky above us right at this moment... only, with the suns gone, we cannot see it pass."
She looked away, as if reminiscing about the past.
"The Dark Wanderer appeared before the final siege of Verge, as well. And that siege ended in great and irrevocable devastation, indeed. So perhaps it really was an evil omen."
Ananke sighed and looked back at Sunny and Nephis.
“After King Cronos stopped the River, all the humans who remained alive in the Tomb of Ariel eventually came to dwell in a single city — in Fallen Grace. Fallen Grace was the last bastion of the River People, poised against Verge like a mortal enemy. Only, as I mentioned, its two rulers disagreed on what to do. Daeron wanted to lay siege to Verge, while Cronos wanted to create an impregnable fortress that the Defiled would never be able to breach. A fortress of time. A safe haven... an ark to weather the endless storm."
She let out a sigh.
“In the end, most of the River People chose to follow an Outsider instead of their own King. They chose to follow Daeron and the paragons of the Twilight Sea into battle... and they lost.”
Ananke's distant expression betrayed a hint of sorrow.
“Cronos was right, in the end. The First Seeker could not be destroyed. Instead, everything that touched it was destroyed — was Defiled. Countless people lost their lives, and countless more succumbed to the Corruption. The best of us perished during the first siege of Verge. The war continued for a long while after that, of course. The Serpent King besieged the cursed city several more times, but he simply could not kill the First Seeker. His glory, his cunning, his bravery... it all ended in despair."
She looked down.
"Too many of us died, and not enough were being born. We were only ever growing weaker and fewer, while the Defiled kept getting stronger and more numerous. In the span of a single generation, the River People came to the threshold of being destroyed. This was the dusk of our civilization... and finally, it all ended when the Serpent King himself was infected by a seed of Corruption during his last battle with the First Seeker."
Her eyes were wistful.
“He did not succumb to it immediately — but by then, his end was inevitable. That was when Daeron and Cronos finally joined hands again. And, together... they finally achieved their goal."
She exhaled slowly and then said in a mournful tone:
“They destroyed the First Seeker. They erased the Defilement from existence, and laid ruin to Verge."
Sunny was utterly stunned for a moment. He even forgot to breathe.
"What? How?"
Ananke smiled sadly.
“We starved them."
She looked at the delicious food arrayed on the table and sighed.
“Cronos had never been able to build his arc. But in the end, he did... he built it from the Serpent King’s bones. From his Soul Sea, as well. Daeron helped Cronos devise the sorcery and sacrificed himself to form its walls. While Cronos... Cronos sacrificed his remaining time. They built a miniature realm inside the realm of Ariel, one that could exist outside time for a while — and so, we hid inside of it and waited. The River People abandoned the Great River, leaving it to their enemy. To the Defiled... and without humans to devour, the Defiled starved."
Ananke chuckled.
"Nothing could touch the First Seeker without becoming Corrupted. So what could destroy the First Seeker?"
She sighed.
“The Corrupted... the Corrupted could. Left without anything to feed upon, they eventually turned to the greatest source of sustenance left on the Great River — to the vast, abominable sea of flesh that had created them. The Defiled devoured the First Seeker, and in the end, they devoured each other as well. All that was left of them were bones."
Ananke looked at Sunny and Nephis and smiled wistfully.
“That was how the Defilement was destroyed."
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