Events post #342: The Second War of Night, Part XXXIV: The Fundamental Light

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9/27/2022 at 0:00
Anonymous
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The Second War of Night, Part XXXIV: The Fundamental Light

Dawn rose in the east.

Flickering sparks, nascent and young, kindled at horizon's faraway fringes, lensing the edges of the skyline in the makings of a burgeoning, rosy glow.

Birthed anew by primordial will unfathomable, incipient pinpricks swathed the dark star in a cradle of fulgent fractals. From within and behind Angelbane's esoteric conjuration, golden aurorae strained against the sablenight, errant beams streaking away from the stellar phenomenon building in both pressure and intensity. Distant chimes began to sound, barely audible above the seething rampage of the shadowbound hordes. In flawless synchronicity, the star-like motes reshaped themselves as dozens upon dozens of lidless cobalt eyes regarding the conquered world with absolute contempt.

Exploding outwards in a devastating conflagration of unimaginably brilliant light, the Star of Divine Fire earned its name in a baptism of indignant wrath, wreaking celestial annihilation on the dark star befouling its heavenly kingdom. Irgech's creation dissolved, wrought in shadow, now unmade in scathing retribution. The liberated sun swelled to a captivating magnificence unmatched by any God or Dragon, distant chimes now an orchestra of baritone bells singing ancient hosannas of the eternal dawn. Fire and fury rained down and Sapience itself ignited, scouring away the shadowrot even as a bedazzling corona threatened to scorch the roof of the world. Only then did those eyes blink and a shapeless figure, an incomprehensible presence, an entity so utterly alien and quintessentially fundamental, erupted through the heavenly sphere like a meteor forged in spiteful vengeance.

Dejaani's mere presence set free the adventurers who were Shadowbound, tolling bells ringing in their minds to drive out the bewildering fog ailing them. Sensation returned to their bodies alongside near-unbearable heat, the corruption infecting their wills cauterised in a flash of spiritual condemnation made possible solely by Iosyne's interference, the Merciless Light sparing them the wrathful eradication She visited upon all the rest.

The bellsong ended. And Holy Light Incarnate waxed wroth.

Unable to bear the magnificent radiance of Dejaani, Shadow General Azgon burned to ash where he stood, incinerated by the Greater Light. Shadowspawn died in agonised droves as the flaming comet that was Dejaani streaked across the heavens, deluging the land in a tumbling cascade of aurulent embers. Ohlsana stilled in Her unending march toward the great bell, the enmity of countless ages bubbling to the surface. The essence of spirit eternal swelled in orbit around Dejaani's sun as She turned smouldering supernova, surging at Her forever-foe amidst a storm of merciless incandescence.

The transcendental might of Fundamental Light reigned over the Prime Plane as Immortal Light collided with Immortal Dark, twin Fundamentals coming together in the great and terrible clash for which They were designed. Existence shivered with the outpouring of spirit and shadow twining as a raging, foaming vortex of unfettered and unabashed destruction now set loose in primeval devastation. The Two rampaged through and across and within the Mhojave desert, momentum and worldrending power conspiring to carve open a miles-long wound as dunes melted away and boiled to glass, shadow swallowed the riven earth, and the Dakhota Hills collapsed to naught but lifeless sands, withered by the combined rage of Creation's prime constituents.

Empty night tormented Her foe with a maelstrom of devouring dark, the rekindled hope of the morning sun eclipsed by tempesting torrents of enveloping evergloam. Blight and pus seeped from the eldritch horror that was the Shadow's unholy Matron, soaking the Vashnar mountains in acidic poison. Hissing smoke climbed from the fissures plaguing the aged range, montane shoulders shrugging loose shards of blackened shale and rotted stone. Shadow loomed in a cyclonic spiral of bitter cold and rattling, noisome breaths, hatred forged in elder days driving Her forward with the force of an omnipotent hurricane. Ohlsana's shadow smothered the hallowed flames as She battered at Her timeless foe, Her double and Her opposite, enwrapping Dejaani in a chill and agonising embrace.

Immortal Dark orbited and suppressed Eternal Light, the rapacious hunger of eons turned to singular purpose and deadly aim. All colour faded from the world as She leeched away all that is warm and bright, all slivers of hope and joy and redemption, yearning to devour the very essence of She Who is the Holy Light. Cocooned in a shroud of encompassing gloom, Dejaani smouldered with torrid, unabating wrath, calescent heat banishing the oppressive cold in a singular moment of lightforged apotheosis. Creation heaved, the detonation of entwined refulgence and primordial flame searing away the darkling prison with blazing resplendence writ in Hope and Faith unvanquishable.

Vengeance followed in a conflagration of nemesian justice, blinding lustre and fluorescent pique turning back the tide of darkness. All was but combustible fuel for the First Flame burning without remorse, Her unmatched Light a pitiless glare of incarnadine indignation craving the utter ruination of Immortal Dark.

The clash of Ancients flayed the world, the gruesome scar branding the heart of the Vashnar Mountains giving way to an abyssal chasm rent in ash and smoke and fire and vulturine midnight.

Mighty tremors shook the earth as the air and wind convulsed in agony, the seas frothed to violent tsunamis and the western ocean boiled beneath the unending cataclysm, dry bed repelling the return of the sublimating waves.

Night fell by the effortless will of Mother Shadow, the fabric of reality unspooling as Her repulsive form solidifies from ephemeral phantom to congealing singularity, a dark star wrought of eldritch puissance and unyielding will.

Eternal Shadow turned calamitous umbranova, trails of caliginous smog shedding untold horrors of the night as She careened towards Dejaani amidst a churning mire of unstable might. A clap like enraged thunder magnified thousandfold boomed out across the length and breadth of all Creation's wild, untamed dominion as Immortal Dark then collided with Immortal Light. The rending impact of Ohlsana's terminal velocity incited catastrophe and devastation, each clash of these timeless, cosmic horrors an act of enforced, brutalised creation born of destruction and ruin untold. Plaintive soughing arose from the Bloodwood as the ailing forest endured the conflict everlasting, tenebrous vortices constricting about the length of blighted bole and tainted trunk, decimating them to ash.

On and on They fought, as unceasing and unerring as in the annals of interminable eternity - dark and light, spirit and shadow, dawn and dusk, locked in a struggle forged in the genesiacal epochs of time by the palm of a bored and curious Creator. And, as the world oscillated twixt night and day in a frenzied reverie of opposing eclipses, the Gods too fought on, calling on all that remained of Their strength. Joined anew by Damariel and the Exarchs, the Pantheon rallied as the lesser Generals - Memory Eater and Shadow Titan - struggled against the presence of Dejaani yet rioting warlike against Ohlsana.

Sharpening as it came back into view, the webwork of expertly woven Artifice shrouding Spinesreach fell away, the Dragon of the North no longer sequestered by Umbrael's illusory veil. Almost large enough to swallow the city in its hungering maw, a rift to Czjetija shuddered and roiled at the Dragon's heart, its edges tinged in sickly hues of violet candescence. Displaced sparks of variegated light cast the skyward-crawling spires in prismatic illumination, the silhouette of a massive, incomparably immense warhead shedding turbid trails of ylem-infused mists. Meticulously manoeuvred by those loyal shadowbound brought under the sway of Severn, the engineered explosive device sank into the tremulous planegate. The last of the remnant ylem-light dissipated in crackling arcs and the rift snapped shut with a hiss heard all around the world.

Black light and brilliant shadow interlaced, the impossible phenomena of Fundamentals at war still ravaging the continent. Detritus and wreckage followed in Their wake of preternatural disaster, ebon cirrocumulus drawn along the unlit path of Their terrible advance.

In a sudden warping of reality touching the mind, body, and soul of all who dwelt without, the unstable singularities housed within the Spireans' incalculably audacious construct - some six times greater than the last - finally collapsed.

Denied the numerological elicitation required to contain its conflagrant wrath, the warhead detonated in an ylem-stoked blaze beyond sight yet keenly felt even behind the screaming fabric of the Spiral's liminal aegis. The vital craft of the Abyssal quaked in rejection of the ylemnic sublimation, its fulcrum holding fast while Czjetija suffered under the unleashed ire of kaleidoscopic suns innumerable. Seas of ylemfire surged throughout the Shadow Plane, waves aflame in technicolor irradiance crashing down indiscriminately on anything still remaining before their path.

After minutes of this devastating actuation, even the planar divide strained beyond its limits, and with a monumental crack and a haunting wail of traumatic disbelief from the horrific apparition of Immortal Shadow, something finally gave way. Unwinding in coruscating arcs of arcane energy, the leyfire tore open the membrane of Creation, anti-luminous gashes now warring against the scintillant stars for supremacy over the heavenscape. (The author would like to note that it appears these rents in the planar divide exhibit similar behaviour to the dark star of Irgech, albeit on a less cohesive scale)

The four remaining Generals faltered, stunned by the celestial conflagration assailing the very source of their existence. Firstborn and Angelbane quickly recovered, fleeing through the Primal Eye to assess the fallout while Ohlsana, momentarily stilled by the blast ransacking Her domain, boiled with renewed anger.

Lexadhra blinked and was Varo, the visage of Elder Death swathing Her in a freezing shroud. Wielding Memory as Death itself She seized upon Saglozol's paralysed form and wrenched out the being's soul, obliterating it with the borrowed power of the Azhoan grave.

Ivoln turned aside His kin and stepped forward to confront Diyomexas, the Shadow Titan still incapacitated by the ylemnic catastrophe. The Earthen Father clenched a fist, bringing forth a massive stalagmite from the depths below. "Woe be upon the accursed," He murmured before driving the lance of earth through the Titan's chest, sundering the eld core and bringing its existence to an end.

The Shadow Mother flowed northward as a tide of inscrutable sable, shredded strands of ebony evernight falling from Her in the throes of swift, unwavering retreat. Pouring Herself into what once was the Minotaur Village of Sterion, Ohlsana's unfathomable fury rended the Eye as She vanished into the depths of Czjetija.

Drawn as though by a magnet, the Guardian of the First Flame swelled to an incredibly stark radiance. No longer dulled by the Shadow's corrupting touch, Dejaani's light outshined the sun itself, simmering waves of luminescent phlogiston gushing free as She gave chase to Mother Dark. Exhausted from the stress of prolonged battle and not wanting to be caught in the path of the Fundamental's flaming retribution, the Gods took Their leave one by one.

Into Sterion spilled Her terrifying enormity and pitiless magnificence, Her panoply of eyes and wings and aberrance alight with wordless challenge and promise made. The world around Her shrieked in horror and folded in on itself as She vanished to the realm beyond, Czjetija's Primal Eye obliterated 'neath the smiting hand of the Holy Spirit, a fiery seam to bind the skein.

Flickering above, the umbral stars spewed dark shadow and bright spirit, hints of calamity permeating from wounded Czjetija. The Fundamentals, now gone from Prime, renewed their clash in the worlds beyond this one, Light and Darkness powerless but to fulfil Their purpose and struggle in eternal conflict evermore.

And in their wake, with the continent ravaged by dusk and dawn, with death and suffering incalcuable leaving grief-stricken families and friends behind, and with the curtain falling on a Goddess' final act, the Second War of Night at last drew to a close.

Penned by my hand on Quensday, the 13th of Arios, in the year 505 MA.