Elsewhere in deep space there was a war between two civilizations.
The mid-level civilization had been locked in a desperate war with a far more technologically advanced society. Despite the disparity, the lesser civilization fought with unmatched bravery. Whole star systems became graveyards under the relentless clash of fleets and armies.
Just as the tide of battle seemed to turn in favor of the advanced civilization, the impossible happened.
A cosmic anomaly tore open the sky. One of the Twelve Faces of VOX appeared above them—a form so massive it could not be measured, its presence blotting out the heavens. In an instant, the advanced civilization was obliterated completely, every soldier, every machine, erased from existence.
The survivors of the lesser civilization looked on, paralyzed by shock and terror, as the impossible unfolded. VOX did not stop there. The planet itself was enveloped in a malevolent energy, a corruptive aura that twisted flesh and soul. Those touched by it began to transform into dark, monstrous forms, vessels of VOX's malice.
Yet, even amidst this apocalypse, some of the planet's inhabitants managed to flee. They escaped into space, barely avoiding the full horror, carrying with them the memory of a power no living creature should witness.
The survivors drifted through the void, clinging to shattered escape pods and battered ships. Every glance back at their homeworld struck fear into their hearts. The planet, once alive with cities and civilizations, now burned under a shadow that was not entirely physical. A dark, pulsing energy had taken root, reshaping landscapes, oceans, and skies with cruel precision.
Some of the escaped witnessed friends and family succumbing to the corruption. Those touched by VOX's aura twisted into grotesque, monstrous forms, their souls stripped away. Yet these transformations were not random—they seemed guided by a sinister intelligence, turning the planet into a breeding ground for servants of VOX.
The survivors quickly realized that mere flight would not be enough. The malevolent force extended beyond the planet, a tether of dark energy reaching into space, seeking any who had escaped. Panic and despair filled the hearts of the fleeing, but amidst the chaos, seeds of resilience began to stir.
They were no longer ordinary mortals—they had glimpsed the raw scale of cosmic power, a force that could erase civilizations in a heartbeat. Each survivor carried with them not just fear, but a grim determination: to endure, to survive, and perhaps to one day understand the true extent of the horror they had witnessed.
Above them, the face of VOX lingered, invisible yet omnipresent, a reminder that even flight could not grant safety. Reality itself bent and twisted where its will touched, and even the vastness of space could not hide them from the gaze of one of the twelve faces of the ultimate terror.
Far beyond the shattered planet, across the voids of countless dimensions, entities of unimaginable power felt the disturbance. The Twelve Faces of VOX had not only annihilated a civilization—they had fractured reality itself, sending ripples through the very fabric of space and time.
Some beings, seated upon thrones of stars and black holes, stirred with unease. Asura, the First Entity, observed the waves of destruction with a calm that belied the magnitude of the event. Even he could feel the distortion tugging at the strands of the multiverse, bending dimensions and threatening the balance of countless worlds.
Elsewhere, Nyther and Nyxos sensed the chaotic energy, their shadows stretching unnaturally across their own realms. Nyther's darkness recoiled as if whispering a warning: the power that had erupted was not merely force—it was the essence of annihilation itself.
Leviathos, ruler of the oceans of a distant universe, felt the tides of reality itself twist unnaturally, waves of potential destruction cascading across realms. And even Ouroboros, whose purpose was to contain cosmic threats, paused in calculation. The anomaly surpassed any entity he had ever contained; the threads of reality themselves were fraying at the edges.
For a moment, the multiverse seemed to hold its breath. The Twelve Faces of VOX had declared their presence, and even the most powerful entities, long removed from mortal concerns, recognized that the balance of existence had been irreversibly challenged.
Some wondered silently if any force—no matter how mighty—could confront the wrath of such an entity. And for the first time in eons, the true scale of VOX's terror became undeniable: a power that could reshape worlds, annihilate civilizations, and challenge even the cosmic hierarchy itself.
The survivors, battered and haunted by the horrors of VOX's wrath, thought themselves finally safe among the stars. Yet safety was an illusion. The followers of VOX—once their friends, their families—emerged from the shadows, twisted by the dark energy, driven by a singular, malevolent will.
They hunted relentlessly, tearing through the void with unnatural speed, leaving no corner of space untouched. The survivors' hearts sank as they realized that escape alone could not save them. Death seemed inevitable.
Then, from the absolute void itself, a presence emerged—silent, impossible, and commanding. A figure formed from nothing, radiating an authority older than any civilization, colder than the void between stars.
"I am Ouroboros,"
the being declared, his voice resonating across the minds of the fleeing and the corrupted alike, though his form defied comprehension. With a single motion, he contained the followers of VOX, encasing them in an invisible prison of cosmic force.
Time seemed to bend around him. The corrupted, who had once been friends and family, frozen in their monstrous forms, trembled as the impossible force held them in check.
For the first time, the survivors felt hope, though tinged with awe and fear. They did not understand who—or what—Ouroboros truly was. Was he an ally, a god, or something beyond even the rules of existence?
One thing was certain: the hunt had ended—for now. The survivors owed their lives to this enigmatic sentinel of the cosmos, whose appearance had turned imminent death into a fragile reprieve.
The survivors were taken somewhere no star chart could describe.
There was no sense of distance, no passage of time they could measure. One moment they were fleeing through the void, the next they stood within a space that felt… contained. Not sealed. Not closed. Simply held.
Ouroboros did not explain.
He stood apart from them, motionless, his presence exerting a pressure that bent perception rather than space. Some of the survivors tried to speak—questions, pleas, anger—but their voices faltered before reaching him.
Only once did he turn.
"What you escaped from," he said, "was not an attack."
Silence followed.
"It was an expression."
That single word shattered any illusion of comfort.
The Cost of Survival
Among the survivors, changes began to surface.
Not immediately.
Not violently.
Small things.
A woman noticed her shadow lag behind her movements.
A child dreamed of a sky that watched back.
A soldier swore he could still hear the voices of those they had lost—calling, not screaming.
Ouroboros observed but did not intervene.
When one of them finally asked why, his answer was quiet:
"Containment prevents spread. It does not undo contact."
The Prison That Should Not Fail
Far away from where the survivors rested, the contained followers of VOX remained suspended—frozen within layers of folded reality.
They did not move.
They did not struggle.
And yet—
A fracture appeared.
Not a break.
Not an escape.
A conceptual thinning, as if the prison itself hesitated.
Ouroboros felt it instantly.
For the first time since his arrival, he adjusted his stance.
"This should not happen," he said—not in fear, but in calculation.
He reinforced the containment.
The fracture closed.
But the implication remained.
The Watcher in the Periphery
Elsewhere, in a realm where darkness behaved like a thinking ocean, something watched.
Even some strong survivers feel fear for the first time like nyther
Nyther did not approach.
Did not interfere.
The shadows around him bent toward the distant disturbance, recoiling and stretching in equal measure.
"VOX has stirred," he murmured, not as an observation—but as a warning.
He did not move closer.
Even entities such as himself understood one truth:
Conflict with VOX was not war.
It was erasure.
What Ouroboros Did Not Say
The survivors never heard this, but the truth lingered in the silence Ouroboros maintained:
If VOX chose to act fully—
not through a face,
not through followers,
but through intent—
Containment would become irrelevant.
Resistance would become meaningless.
And even Ouroboros would not stand as a challenger—
only as a witness.
Closing Line of the Chapter
One of the survivors finally asked the question no one else dared to voice:
"Will it come for us again?"
Ouroboros did not answer immediately.
When he did, his words were measured.
"VOX does not hunt," he said.
"It notices."
At the same time-
VOX paused.
For the first time, one of the Twelve Faces turned—not toward a world, nor a star—but toward nothing.
"Strange…"
"… There seems to be a disturbing ghost watching me."
One of the survivors was not feeling well, and his name was Remnant
He did not believe he had been chosen.
That was the lie the weak clung to.
Chosen implied favor.
Chosen implied intention.
What happened to his world was neither.
It was revelation.
They called it corruption.
They called it collapse.
They called it the end.
But endings were only terrifying to those who believed in permanence.
He remembered the moment clearly—not pain, not fear—but clarity.
The instant when the universe stopped pretending to be stable.
Civilizations, laws, morality—
all of it shattered under a single truth:
Existence does not protect what refuses to change.
He did not worship VOX.
Worship was submission.
VOX was not a god—it was a filter.
A force that stripped illusion from reality and left only what could endure.
Those who fled believed survival meant escape.
Remnant understood something deeper:
Survival is adaptation, not distance.
He looked upon the creatures they had become—twisted, monstrous, unrecognizable—and felt no shame.
Flesh was a language.
Form was a suggestion.
They had been rewritten, not destroyed.
And unlike the survivors, they had not begged for containment.
They had not hidden behind a jailer pretending to be a savior.
They stayed.
They changed.
They endured.
Ouroboros disgusted him—not with hatred, but disappointment.
A warden obsessed with balance.
A keeper terrified of outcomes.
Containment was cowardice disguised as order.
It preserved weakness and called it mercy.
And the survivors?
They were not enemies.
They were unfinished.
Fragments clinging to the memory of what they were, rather than the reality of what existence demanded.
Remnant did not want their deaths.
He wanted their acceptance.
To show them the truth they had fled from:
The universe is not cruel.
It is honest.
Remnant felt the resonance align.
Not hunger.
Not rage.
Recognition.
You will return,
he thought—not as a threat, but a certainty.
Because you are already changing.
After a while, they found a habitable planet, and some survivors landed on it and settled there
The planet wasn't fully inhabited, but it was stable.
And for the survivors, stability was enough.
A pale blue sky.
A quiet star.
No spatial anomalies.
A place designed for forgetting.
another survivor-
His name was Eryon—
a name that no longer meant anything beyond the fact that he was still breathing.
At first, his dreams were filled with war.
Later, they began to change.
He dreamed of cities that were not built of stone,
of silhouettes without faces standing in silent alignment,
and of a feeling that unsettled him more than fear ever had—
incompleteness.
As if something essential had been left behind.
At first, he dismissed it.
Then came the whispers—not voices, but recurring thoughts:
You didn't survive completely.
He would wake drenched in sweat, a hand pressed against his chest,
with the disturbing sense that his body was lagging behind his soul.
One night, at the far edge of the settlement,
the pressure dropped suddenly,
as if space itself bent for a brief moment.
The entity appeared without sound.
It wasn't a monster.
And it wasn't human.
It was something in between.
Calm. Still.
"Don't be afraid," it said softly.
"I'm like you."
Eryon stepped back.
"You're one of his."
The being tilted its head, almost gently.
"No.
I'm one of those who stayed."
Eryon tried to scream, but no sound came out.
Not because he was restrained—
but because something inside him didn't want to.
The being took a step closer, its presence bending the air ever so slightly.
"You ran from the collapse," it continued,
"and that was enough to save your life."
"But not enough to save you."
Eryon's hands trembled.
"What do you want from me?"
The answer came without hesitation.
"Nothing."
"I just want you to remember what you left unfinished."
A ripple passed through Eryon's body.
Not pain.
Not pleasure.
Recognition.
For a brief, terrifying moment,
the universe around him felt… honest.
And somewhere far beyond the settlement,
something unseen noticed.
Eryon stood at the edge of the barren plateau,
the windless void pressing against his senses.
He could feel it—the presence—watching, patient, ancient.
Then it spoke.
Not with words that could be heard,
but with a resonance that entered his mind, bending perception itself.
"This world…"
The thought was cold, almost indifferent.
"It was once alive.
It had a name: Earth."
Eryon's mind recoiled.
"Earth?"
"You mean earth like stories?"
"Its seas teemed with life.
Its skies carried storms and whispers alike.
Its lands bore forests, rivers, and mountains.
The inhabitants… they were blind.
They destroyed the balance, poisoned the waters,
burned the air, cracked the crust…
And fled before the consequence of their own folly.
Eryon swallowed hard, the emptiness around him suddenly heavier.
"And now?" he asked.
"Now… it is barren.
A ghost of what was.
Life no longer belongs here.
Only echoes remain.
Only the resonance of what once was."
The air thickened.
Time itself seemed to pause, bending in silence.
The windless void carried no warmth, no hope—only the quiet verdict of a dead world.
"They fled…
leaving nothing but a planet that remembers."
Eryon could not look away.
He felt the weight of a million lost lives,
a world that had been vibrant, and now waited only for oblivion.
"Remember this" the presence whispered one last time.
"Balance is not granted.
It must be kept.
Or the world itself will judge."
And then it was gone.
Not vanished, but folded back into the void,
leaving Eryon standing alone,
trembling at the magnitude of what had been—and what could be.