Chapter 180: Denial(6)

Aether rested below the gaze of a giant sun, staring right into its eyes, and it stared into his. This big guy had taken a while for him, Avrie, and Elpis to build, but it was slowly coming together.

And really, it was all thanks to Avrie; if it wasn’t for that girl, he and Elpis wouldn’t know what to do. I mean, they were just following her commands; she was doing all the brainwork, while they were just the muscles of the team.

They were feeding monsters to the sun. Which intresting enough, these monsters were weaker to his blade than normal monsters, it was like the blade was made to cut their skin and flesh.

It was so strange.

He looked back at the sun.

The sun itself was wrong in a way that made the air feel thinner around it.

It hung above them like a hole punched through the sky, perfectly round, perfectly still, and impossibly heavy to look at. It did not glow, not truly. Instead, it swallowed light, dragging brightness inward as if the world were leaning toward it without realizing. The black of it was not empty; it was layered, textured, alive. Like soot packed so tightly it became stone. Like a bruise on reality that never finished healing.

Its surface moved.

Not in the way fire moved, or clouds, or water, but in slow, deliberate shifts, as if something immense beneath its skin was turning in its sleep. Veins of darker black threaded across it, visible only when the angle was right, when the eye lingered too long. They pulsed faintly, rhythmically, in time with nothing Aether could hear, yet something he felt deep in his chest. A heartbeat without sound.

Every monster they fed it vanished the same way.

There was no explosion. No flash. No scream of heat or flame. The creature would be pulled upward, resisting for a moment, limbs scrabbling against air that offered no resistance, before the black surface rippled open just enough to accept it. The sun did not bite. It did not burn. It absorbed. The monster would stretch thin, like ink drawn into water, until it ceased to exist as anything separate at all.

And with each offering, the sun grew denser.

Not larger. Heavier.

Its color deepened, shifting from a dull, ashen black to something richer, almost glossy, like polished obsidian soaked in oil. Sometimes, when Aether blinked, he thought he saw faces pressed faintly beneath the surface, indistinct impressions, gone the moment he tried to focus. Whether that was real or just his mind filling the silence, he couldn’t tell.

Looking at it too long made his thoughts slow.

Time felt thicker beneath it, as if the air itself were reluctant to move. Shadows bent subtly toward the sun, stretching at angles that didn’t quite make sense. Even sound behaved differently; voices carried oddly, falling flat or echoing where there was nothing to echo from. The world under the sun felt less like a place and more like a waiting room.

And its eyes…

No, not eyes. That was wrong.

But there was a point near its center where the black was deeper still, a focal depth that pulled attention no matter how hard Aether tried to look away. Staring into it felt like being seen, measured, weighed. Not judged, never judged, but acknowledged. As if the sun knew exactly what he was, and found that knowledge sufficient.

It was not hostile.

That scared him more than if it were.

Because whatever this thing was becoming, it wasn’t a weapon. It wasn’t a tool. It was a presence. A promise carved out of consumption and silence. And as the black sun turned, ever so slightly, in the frozen sky, Aether couldn’t shake the feeling that it was remembering every monster it devoured, and quietly deciding what to do next.

But they needed it, they needed this monstrosity, that way they could slow down time, since in this world, time passed a lot faster. To the point where in some zones a child’s life would be around three days, from a baby to an old man. That was how time was sometimes, just in some zones, in the one they were in, it was twice as fast. But since they had the sun. It was going normally.

He had no idea how Avrie had figured out how to create something like this, but he had to give it to her; she knew her stuff, but at the same time, if she didn’t, he wouldn’t be working with her.

Aether got up, stretching his body.

“What was I supposed to do today, find another monster and sacrifice it? Well… no point in staying idle.”

With that, he left. Avrie and Elpis were on duty for resorces so they didn’t die of hunger or something, since in a world where things spoil twice as fast, it was hard to find fresh stuff.

Most monsters hid themselves outside the Rings, since the kingdoms they were inside were made out of three rings, and another zone outside. But there were some here too, inside the First Ring.

So he didn’t have to leave.

Aether walked around the place.

He knew he had a good eye, so if he didn’t see anything, he didn’t bother staying around and looking to be sure. After all, it wasnt like time was chasing him.

…

It actually was… it was actually chasing him. It was chasing everyone, really.

Aether sighed, but instantly stopped moving as he was a little shadow, but that shadow wasnt just a normal shadow, it was also a monster. It had a physical body.

He summoned the broken blade and used his ability to create a blade made out of a yellow light. The blade of Truth, that was how it was called.

Seeing the blade, the shadow quickly ran into the shadows. But Aether followed, not trying to let it go away.

But even with himself glowing in the shadows, alongside his blade, the shadow was fast, so it got away.

Aether sighed.

…

“What a… terrific blade you have.”

Aether tensed, as he looked inside the darkness to see who had said it. But even though he knew he was close, he just couldn’t see him.

But he could see the blade being dragged on the floor.

By his knowledge, it looked like a rapier, long, slender, and elegant, a blade made for formal battles. So to see it getting dragged on the ground…

Its blade ran straight and narrow; it seemed sharp enough to pierce all the monsters he had seen until now, but too fine to waste on some slashes.

What caught his eye most was that the steel wasn’t silver like he was used to seeing, but rather, it was black, a void-forged edge that swallowed light rather than reflecting it.

It wasn’t a blade that was made to look good for a noble party, but one to end it. It looked as if it knew that it would be drenched in the blood of his enemies and painted in dust and dirt.

The guard curled around the hilt like it wanted to cage its wilder, with many elegant arcs twisting in a tangled lattice that had the role of protecting the hand.

Yet… it wasn’t that elegant. Its refinement was broken. And… the blade was connected to its master by some chains that he couldn’t see where they went. But the chains were getting attached to the arches, almost like it was being shackled.

Its grip was wrapped in dark leather, ribbed and coarse, ending in a pure black and heavy pomme, which seemed by his guess to be shaped like a clenched knot. He didn’t know if it was intentional.

As the blade got closer, so did its wielder, and after a while of staying in the dark and waiting, he saw who it belonged to.

His eyes widened, and his skin went completely pale.

…

“This was a memory you should have never touched.”

The being ran a hand through its blonde hair. Aether stared into its eyes; one was like his, a blue like the ocean, but the other was pure black.

He also had the same hairpiece.

’But how was this possible…’

“Do you even know the weight of this book? It’s not a joke, you little brat. It’s a Godspawn book, not that you would know.”

The boy continued to get closer.

But what on earth was it saying? This was a Reader Beast book, so a little harder than usual, but this Godspawn? Did that rank actually exist?

The boy stopped in front of him.

…

“Um, hi?” Aether said, trying to be respectful. But the being only stared into his eyes.

…”I guess you aren’t a talk-”

Aether suddenly stopped, looking down, he saw that the boy had driven his blade right through his chest. His eyes trembled as he looked back at the boy; his gaze didn’t seem to hold mercy or sympathy. But why… what had he done wrong?

…

…

“I do wonder, what are you going to do next.

Denial.”

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