The golden light of the Brightest Light was finally dying down. Its once eternal fire was reduced to embers. Golden blood, shining with the light of endless stars, trickled like molten lava down the wounded body of the Ancient Goddess of Light. Each drop carried the history of endless eons.
The battle they had fought had lasted longer than the chains of time themselves. Did it even matter how long they had fought? Centuries, millennia, eons—none of it mattered now.
Another wing suddenly ripped from the Ancient Goddess of Light.
The sound roared like thunder, the vibrations rippling through the blood across the white page of nothingness. Only one wing remained now—tattered, stained with divine ichor, its feathers turning crimson.
She let out a sigh. A quiet one. Resigned.
She shut both of her eyes—not because she was in pain (she was a goddess, after all), but in remembrance. Then she suddenly opened them again and spoke in a soft tone—yet with a voice that made stars halt in sheer terror.
"You know… after so long… this is finally coming to an end."
Across from her, the Apocalypse Dragon lay broken upon the formless white canvas of nothingness.
His vast body was wounded, his once-bright scales dimming. A beast reduced to the brink of death. He tried to rise again and unleash a roar of defiance… but he failed. Even that was beyond what he could do anymore.
Instead, his voice came as a low growl.
"The stars..." he muttered, his eyes locked on the collapsing sky. "They're still beautiful... But they will never compare to what we once were. Back when we were one."
The Ancient Goddess of Light let out a choked laugh, golden blood dripping from her lips.
"Back when we were complete... The Almighty Yin and Yang."
A long silence passed between them.
They had not always been enemies. Once upon a time—so long ago—they were one: the Almighty Yin and Yang. Perfect harmony. Duality itself.
The day and night. Good and evil. Karma incarnate.
From their revolution spilled countless universes, each one a fragment of transcendental infinity—a cascade of twelfth-dimensional constructs in an endless chain of creation.
They fell silent again, watching the sea of nebulae in the distance—an ocean of galaxies boiling and colliding, its fragile barrier shattering under the energy of their battle.
"I think I have around five minutes before I die," said the Ancient Goddess of Light, her eyes distant, gazing into the cosmic sea.
She reached down, picked up a dark purple feather of the Apocalypse Dragon, and spoke: "You? Four."
The Apocalypse Dragon coughed, blood spilling from his mouth.
"How ironic. The omniscient and the omnipotent reduced to guessing the time of their own deaths."
The Ancient Goddess of Light smiled despite the pain coursing through her body.
"Ironic."
"Almost funny."
Silence fell once more.
The sea of nebulae swirled in every conceivable color—colors that did not exist, colors that should not exist—painting a magnificent, impossible sight.
Suddenly, the sea of nebulae cracked. Color bled out, flooding the void. Stars exploded into existence. The material world was being born.
The Ancient Goddess of Light whispered, "I wonder what would have happened… if we never split."
"We may never know. Because of Her sacrifice."
The Apocalypse Dragon spoke softly.
"Do you regret it?"
"No," said the Ancient Goddess of Light.
A flicker passed through the dragon's one remaining eye—an emotion too old to have a name.
"Nor I, you."
The dragon was silent again, his body shuddering under a weight older than exhaustion—a burden beyond mortality.
Then, high above the battlefield on the great canvas of Nothingness, a single star began to throb wildly.
The Ancient Goddess of Light looked up.
And then—the star bled.
Not with flame, but with light. Torrents of luminous essence poured downward like reverse rain.
And then it shattered.
But not into shadow.
Into seven distinct lights—red, silver, blue, green, violet, gold, and grey—spreading across the universe like loose threads of fate.
The Apocalypse Dragon stirred, his tone low.
"That star... I made it from his essence. My son."
The Ancient Goddess of Light blinked.
"He's still alive."
"I know," the dragon answered.
"But something's shifting. The universe itself weeps beforehand—as though it knows something I will not accept."
The seven lights vanished into the emptiness.
One red tear crawled down the dragon's cheek.
"Even stars die, Ancient Sun Goddess. Even stars."
She stared at him for an instant.
"That," she said quietly, "might be the most divine thing you've ever said."
Suddenly, the Ancient Goddess of Light whispered, "You were always more ones and zeros than prophecy…"
And then the sea of creation burst forward—devouring them both.