The Celestial Way

Second Interlude

SECOND INTERLUDE

Three months ago, Terra Para, Ascendancy System

I stepped out of what one day would be called null space, and my feet touched the brilliant, azure surface of the Terra Para Shard.

The headquarters of the Order of the Radiant Knights.

Home.

I breathed deeply, the evanescence of my body again present, and cast my gaze around. The Shard was as grand as the one on Utopia Draconis, a crystal mountain towering over the grey, lifeless expanses of Terra Para. During the centuries of the Order's stewardship over this unique landmark many edifices and structures had been erected. Houses, workshops, barracks, gardens, training grounds, cosmodromes, plazas, factories, monuments, libraries and museums, all those and more constituted the largest community and safe haven the Radiant Knights had since the Dragon Independence War. It was the heart and soul of an organization which had endured and assisted in galaxy-wide conflicts spanning centuries of history.

It was the home of the most enlightened individuals in the Sector.

Individuals, who I was sure would come this time around and see reason, instead of casting out revolutionary, nay, visionary ideas merely out of fear.

I was wrong.

My sudden arrival startled my former comrades. Though I had been cast out by the very people I returned now to, they gave me a warm welcome, in light of the circumstances. They asked for Her, of course. I said nothing, biting down the hellish screams struggling to burst out from my burning soul. Instead, I drew the power of my grandest vision, and heralded before them the new, final, Great Age I was going to bring upon Creation. I told them Salvation was upon us All, and we were soon to become One. Forever.

Oh, how foolish they were.

The merest of pauses was their only response. After that instant, they fell upon me in absolute earnest, in complete unison. They were the wisest individuals of the galaxy; and they were also the deadliest, and most powerful, save for the greatest of dragons. And though it burdened their hearts, they carried out any hard decisions to the end.

Yet I was prepared for such mindless, reality-bound rejection. Saddened, yet prepared. I summoned the entirety of my existence, the very definition of my being, and cast it into the mirror of the Universe to magnify its light a thousandfold. I flared with the greatest, purest radiance of the stars themselves, a Beacon for all the souls in the world, an Avatar of the Great Cosmos itself. With merely a gesture, I controlled everything: I foiled their attacks, averted their powers, prevented their retreat, and broke their resistance. My Will was Law, and with that gesture I bade them become Enlightened, see the One Truth. They were not ready for Ascension; each one burst into a brilliant spark of pure Essence, their individuality severed, yet their Spirit Enduring.

My own soul was swiftly evaporating into the ephemeral song of Entropy, due to the terminality of my own actions. To keep the flame alight inside me, I took the warmth of others, forever merging them into my Pattern. Despite this angelic fuel, Time still cast a shadow behind my back. Yet I kept my movements smooth, and my mind clear, as the moment of Salvation was at hand.

I defeated my former comrades most immediate to me, and turned toward the Shard itself. Near its summit, I drew my Starblade, and did what I had done to its twin on Utopia Draconis: I tore open a Rift in space-time itself, collapsing the boundaries between Here and There. Yet now I went one step further, and reached out Beyond Everything. Darkness rose, followed by Light, crashing down, teetering on the Edge of Collapse. The Spiral of Time distorted, twisting, leaping, lashing, and Reality itself began to topple. I held my Starblade high, its Radiance a blazing Purity with which I would light the Way.