"My Lord, we are finishing the ritual," an alien being, humanoid in appearance with it's skin's pigment green with black straightened horns protruding from the side of its skull, red eyes with green iris wearing a black robe, told a more intimidating member of its species. This being was huge, the robes somehow complementing it's huge physique.
"Excellent," its voice was booming, revabrating all over the cave. It's green eyes turned to the center of the cave where a huge magical circle had been drawn with blue blood, his people's blood.
"It's all up hill from now on," he said, a sadistic grin slowly etched its way to his thin black lips.
His name was G'Rhy, the third son of the planet's monarch. His people are the technical type, having their best scientist been branded as a level seven intellect, they had grown far in the inter-galactic politics. Because of this, they had grown to having cluster colonies all over and with them came fortune.
His eldest brothers were the first on line to the throne with him being so withdrawn he wasn't even an option. That was partly his mother's fault, she had brought him away from the palace because she thought she was protecting him from the royal politics. This backfired in that his two elder brothers killed themselves in their struggle and since he was not connected to his people, the succession passed over him to his younger siblings.
That made his blood boil, what should be his had been taken away with no option of gaining it back and in his anger, he killed his mother. This turned out to be a mistake because he was branded a kin slayer and therefore shunned by everyone, even his friends. G'Rhy became bitter at everyone and everything that took away his destiny and vowed to get his vengeance. So, he joined an occult who promised him the throne.
For years, be did their biding, growing in ranks. He realized he was quite good at leadership positions, so good that he led a coup against the higher ups of the cult, becoming the highest ranking. And it was there that he came across a text sealed by so many curses, protections spells and dark runes that the room it was in seemed to have its reality being distorted.
Curiosity got the better of him so he spent more years, resources and lives trying to break all the protect the text had. In fact, more than seventy percent of his followers had died in his pursuit but with their death, his power grew more and more till he had enough juice to sacrifice a god. With the god's death, the protection finally broke, but it was not with no consequence. The planet it was in simply ceased to exist and he was lucky he could teleport in time.
So, he gained the text and then even more pain, deciphering it. This actually was even more painstaking than breaking the protection that he actually had to go to Metatron, the new god of knowledge who gave him the price of one star to decipher it. So, he had to go on another campaign to store a star in a bottle, a campaign that tested his will more than anything. He only managed to finally do it because he managed to raid a Brainiac stronghold and stole some of his tech.
So, with a star in a bottle, he paid Metatron who immediately deciphered it. That was the day he realized even a being like Metatron could be paralyzed with fear. He saw how his face turned paler with each word he deciphered till even the Morbius chair seemed to lose its power, settling down on the ground and powered down. Metatron honoured his deal but not without giving him a warning, a grim one.
The text was about a being whose entire existence was the entropy of all concepts. A being loved by Death but he would never die, whose power eclipse universes. The Son of Death of the Endless. And beneath it all was a way to summon Death, bound her. This will make him appear and he will do the bidding of whoever did it.
So, this news gave him a rush of happiness he never thought he would get. He would already fantasize it all, his long lost appetite of the crown finally awakening. He planned with this son of Death being his slave, he could undo years of dark magic, take him back to the day his mother took him away from the palace and re write history!
So, he started planning, gathering resources, which was mostly virgin beings and some rare magical ingredients. The former was easy but the latter proved to be a bitch and a half. Most of the ingredients could only be found in other dimensions which made him expend his manpower even more in his pursuit. His revatilized cult was almost at the brink of destruction when he finally found the last ingredient.
So, with everything prepared, he started the ritual.
---
"Let's begin," he shouted. His occult priest started chanting, louder and louder as time went on. G'Rhy didn't know it but reality itself held it breath at that moment.
The cave shuddered.
Not from tectonic unrest. Not from any physical tremor.But from conceptual strain. Reality, itself, protested.
The magical circle ignited in violet flame, not of fire, but of unbeing. The blue blood boiled, not from heat, but from rejection—it was being rewritten. Symbols twisted and reshaped mid-glow, forming dialects that no tongue had spoken since before time cohered.
G'Rhy grinned, drunk on triumph.
"Come, son of Death," he intoned, arms raised, "Come, last will of entropy. Come, my undoing and my rebirth. I bind you by your mother's essence!"
The cave split!
Not broke. Not exploded. Just... split. Like a film torn in a projector.
And then he stepped through.
It was as if reality simply forgot he was there and then remembered. There was no show of might, no ripple of power, no cry of magic. It was as if he had always been there, waiting to be called upon.
A young figure. Lean, calm, elegant. Cloaked in black, stitched with flowing silver runes that wept starlight. His eyes were blind, covered with a smooth obsidian band, yet G'Rhy could feel their gaze. Not on his body, but on his meaning.
He was calm. Still. A river too deep for ripples.
Caelen. Son of Death. The Beyonder made blood.
One of G'Rhy's priests choked and disintegrated—without a sound, without a scream. Simply unmade.
Caelen tilted his head as if confused, like one might at an insect walking into fire.
Caelen spoke softly, "You called me."
G'Rhy swallowed hard, his fear risen as he stared at this impossible being.
"Yes… yes, I am your master now. By the rite of binding—by the name of your mother—I command you. Undo time. Bring me—"
Caelen raised a finger.
The world stopped speaking.
No wind. No echoes. No magic. G'Rhy's voice died mid-command. The runes in the cave darkened. The priests collapsed, comatose or gone. The fire turned to frozen light.
Caelen stepped forward. Somehow, that step took him to stand in front of the text that had instruction of summoning him. His pale fingers gripped the text and his face showed an emotion for the first time, disgust. Scoffed, a sound that shook reality to its core and the text disappeared. G'Rhy suddenly didn't remember the text ever existing.
Caelen turned to him, the emotion erased, "You used her name as a shackle."
As soon as he said that, G'Rhy suddenly found him in front of him. He himself was huge, towering over the boy that it appeared to be that a giant was standing in front of a boy. However, against all odds, the boy did the impossible, he placed a hand on G'Rhy's chest without even rising his heels. It was as if space between them had been shortened without being shortened!
Caelen continued, his voice softly, "You do not understand what she is. She is not a name. She is not a mother. She is the end of stories. And I am the silence that follows."
The obsidian band over his eyes cracked slightly.
Suddenly G'Rhy's thoughts flooded out of him—his birth, his rage, his murders, his plans, his selfish cries for love and vengeance. All exposed. All unraveling. He wanted to wail but his very existence was shaking his fear. His soul wanted to flee, leaving his body behind for it could feel what even his magic could not, an ending of his very creation!
Caelen continued, his voice still soft, polite, "You wanted to rewrite history. But you are not a writer."
He whispered now, barely audible, but it pierced G'Rhy's very soul."You are a footnote."
And G'Rhy screamed—for the first and final time—as Caelen erased him not from life, not from death—but from memory itself.
---
The Cave Fell Silent Again
And then Caelen knelt beside the circle. He touched the blue blood, now inert. He could feel the millions of lives lost in order for the magic to work. Millions of lives that would not enjoy more of life just to satisfy the fruitless endeavour of a being whose wishes would never be. He sighed, releasing them from their anguish, showing them to their after life.
He did not mourn. He did not judge.
He merely whispered, "Mother… they tried again."
Death, far away, smiled softly in the dark.