C5 From the void: Chapter 5

As conscious as ever, Abraxus thought fiendishly. The darkness remembered what he had seen in the reflection of the barrier: a limitless form, stretching out into the endless depths of the void. All of it was formed due to the darkness’s precious core, which had remained intact throughout the entire confrontation, despite Avar and Zaki’s attempt to destroy it.

“Hmm,” Abraxus thought slyly, “my core is the asset over which I have the most control. What would happen, then, if I were to mimic the nature of light, which is to diverge and spread? What if I detached a piece of my consciousness and extended it?”

Abraxus delved into its consciousness, determined to engulf these self-proclaimed shadows of light once and for all. Slowly, a small, dense fragment of the core detached from the center of the darkness’s structure. Abraxus hissed, summoning this fragment that emanated its very nature, and embedded it deeply amongst the particles of a black, mega extension. Abraxus split this extension to form two long tendrils of thickened black plasma, which began to twist and whirl rapidly. However, it was against Abraxus’s will, as if they had a mind of their own.

Abraxus would not tolerate that. It had created the new extensions to be under its total control. The darkness summoned a wave of shadow and hissed authoritatively, commanding the extensions to move in the directions it desired. Instantly, they obeyed, and Abraxus snarled gleefully, overcome with power until the sense of self it was experiencing had reached a dangerous peak.

“I have enforced my forms to follow me,” Abraxus declared ecstatically. “If I have achieved this then you should yield to me—For I am also a creator! And these are my followers!”

The two hardened pitch black followers snaked through the realm mimicking the size and movements of the light entities. They engulfed the realm with more speed than any of Abraxus’s prior extensions, and their hardened substances seemed to pierce the very cosmos as they approached Avar and Zaki. One of them seemed to take on a strange, inverted U-shape, as if it was mirroring Avar’s structure--while Avar had a shining, golden arc of light on one side of his form, the dark follower had an inverted curve of darkness, surrounded by the same, crystallized substance Abraxus had made it in. Surrounding its form was a vibrating pulse of energy that seemed to serve as a barrier of some sort, repelling Avar’s glowing light.

The other follower advanced towards Zaki, and this extension, too, seemed to vaguely mimic the design of the blueish-green entity. The extension had been made with two additional lengths of darkness that guarded its own consciousness; a perverse, warped shape of shadows with streaks of ink running throughout its form.

Avar released a beam of light that stopped the follower’s move, but this time it did not dematerialize. As Avar hurled mini golden beams on his left to thwart the constant incoming of Abraxus’s form, thinking how these new independent extensions were agile and seemed to mimic Avar’s abilities with an unnatural speed, bending the space around them effortlessly. Instead of vaporizing, the extension shoved the light beam back, protected by a barrier of dark energy and repelling the contradicting nature of light. Undaunted, Avar reinforced his huge, golden ray of energy with white waves that halted the extension’s movement, but it was still not deterred.

Zaki and Avar then conjured hundreds of light spheres, vigorously hurling them towards the followers from all sides. As the apocalyptic, red- green super nebula of light swept over the followers, their dark energy became infused with light, effortlessly reflecting the light orbs and scattering them throughout the realm.

Abraxus unleashed a surging wave of energy that brought a looming sense of unholy doom. As it roared triumphantly at its successful creation–nothing would suppress this feeling of pride that emerged upon such accomplishment.

Zaki’s blueish silvery core suddenly began flickering dimly, for he sensed Abraxus’s prideful shadow approaching the followers. Despite the astronomical distance between them, Avar could sense Zaki’s anxiousness.

He flashed a golden wave of solidified light particles from his outer core and roared, “You rejoice too early, Abraxus, and that shall be your downfall.”

Avar’s powerful aura repelled the looming shadows of darkness, now converging all around him. Flashes of golden and teal emerged as the light entity attempted to impede the followers, approaching in incoming waves.

A flash of golden, unearthly light burst around Avar’s form, and after it had faded, a lustrous, linear beam of seemingly indestructible aura had connected to Avar’s outer rim. Zaki, whose brightness had been revived by Avar’s steadfast aura, had been shrouded by a turquoise glow. It shimmered faintly around him as thousands of smaller, linear indestructible spikes of turquoise light materialized around his massive form.

The advancing followers, sensing the unfamiliar energy emitted from these lights, recoiled at first, but at Abraxus’s command, they charged, slithering towards Avar and Zaki threateningly. One extension targeted Avar, but as soon as it lashed out, Avar’s indestructible light beam slashed cleanly through it. It was these light particles, embedded within the pointed beam of indestructible light, that were strong enough to penetrate the dark plasma shield surround the dark followers and sever their solidified forms instantly, disintegrating it into a smoky vapor that spread from the point of the strike to the very tips of its expansive structure.

Upon sensing this, the other minion let out a shrill hiss before turning towards Zaki; as it approached, Zaki nonchalantly launched its spikes of light, raining down upon the perverted follower where they pierced through its coat of hardened plasma. The follower reared back, hissing loudly at the impact as the spikes ripped countless holes into its hardened coat. Like the other, it too, was vaporized, overpowered by the dominance and strength the light particles possessed.

But as the debris cleared the main core of the followers which had remained intact, began to tremble and reassemble into new followers from Abraxus’s unending dimension. Abraxus fed more of the dark consciousness into its followers, escalating their durability and rendering them stronger than before. The second wave of these deranged entities met Avar’s light beam head-on; Avar struck it again, more forcefully than he had last time, and the blow left a concave mark in the left side of the followers’ form. It hissed vengefully as it lashed out once again, determined to smother Avar in its own black smoke. Avar effortlessly doged and counterattacked, this time slicing his indestructible light beam twice more with such blinding speed throughout the minion’s structure that it split in half and so did leagues of Abraxsus dimension behind the follower. Avar could now sense that this wave had been stronger than the last.

Zaki, who was slowly positioning himself closer to Avar, was showering the other follower with indestructible light beams. As He approached Avar, a third wave of followers emerged. Zaki sent a thunderous shower of spikes towards them but this time the dark minions ignored them, merely hissing with irritation at the beams. Zaki watched as the holes slowly filled with the constant darkness supplied by Abraxus.

“Their strength is surely growing,” Zaki said to Avar uneasily. Still, the light entities held firm as they moved ahead to strike the followers, all the while shielding themselves from the constant bombardment of dark shadowy spirals from every direction.

Avar was fully aware of the darkness’s strategy. “Abraxus has been mimicking our nature from the very beginning, Zaki. The darkness learns from our presence–if we are relentless, Abraxus will attempt to be even more so. We must make haste to overcome the darkness’s followers and pierce its inner core.”

Avar was unflinching in the face of these obstacles, teleporting throughout the realm and slashing at them with all his might, coordinating with Zaki’s unlimited supply of torpedoes of light that slowed down these minions until, with a series of at least five blows, the minions were once again reduced to shadowy dust.

Avar and Zaki, acting as a dual light dimension, had forced themselves through the center and right flank and halfway into Abraxsus’s dimension. As the followers kept coming, they seemed to be expanding, their warped, pitch-black shapes overshadowing the light; in fact, their forms were so impossibly durable now, that the light entities were being forced to halt their advance.

Zaki emitted countless light spikes and summoned another surge of small, rapidly rotating spheres of blue-green energy, and spread them with infinite speed towards these undying, dark creations. Avar teleported as soon as Zaki’s light made contact and reinforced Zaki’s impact with his own that perished the wave of the followers again. Avar now hovering in place to analyze instead of heading further into the abyss.

Mohai, the smallest crimson light entity, was watching intently from the outskirts of the tumultuous confrontation. The entity had been stationed as Yuham’s guardian, and was ever-watchful of the ongoing clash. The Guardian Avar was unyielding in front of this dark entity, and countered all Abraxus’s evolved forms. Mohai’s aura, however, was focused on analyzing and locating Abraxus’s conciousness. In a flash, he raced towards his fellow light entities, pushing through the residual aftermaths of these astronomical collisions, to join them.

“Dear Mōhai,” Zaki asked, upon sensing him, “why are you here?”

Mohai’s red, silver core shifted and let out wisps of crimson waves as it replied, “The darkness is very cunning, for its intelligence is evolving more than we expected with every passing moment; this worries me. I think its consciousness has been shielded with an impenetrable darkness ever since you tried to destroy it. I can’t seem to locate it. I should be like both of you, undaunting and courageous. But I don’t know why I feel worried for you and Yuham.”

“Mohai, you are the light of all that is good and pure,” Avar stated. “The evil we face is in direct conflict with your aura, even more so than ours. Your worrying is just a warning to end this as fast as possible. I appreciate your presence here, but for now go back to Yuham. Save your energy for us all!”

Mōhai vanished in another flash of light, and Avar and Zaki turned back as the followers started detaching crystallized bars of solidified shadow, ribbed with jagged edges, from their hardened forms. The minions were mimicking the indestructible light structures that Avar and Zaki were using; they brandished them towards the light entities with relatively matched speeds, leaving inky, black trails in their wake.

Avar and Zaki, who were now on the defensive, still resolutely parried the strikes as they were forced to slowly fall back towards Yuham and Mohai. As the rods of shadow slammed against the light, sparks equal to sizes of mini suns began to disperse all over, flashes of luster and obsidian alternating between every strike, forming flaring nebulas of glittering matter that burst throughout the realm.

Zaki’s light began to flicker, slightly at first, but then more rapidly as the followers showed no sign of abating. Their slashes became more aggressive and deadly, resisting Zaki’s attacks. The minions expelled more gusts of shadow from their forms, plunging the battlefield into murky blackness and preventing the entities from advancing any further into their master's realm.

As Zaki fought a few leagues away from Avar, he countered an incoming strike from the dark entity. Emboldened by his thoughts for Yuham and the Infinite light, he advanced, resolute against the darkness. Avar rushed towards Zaki determinedly, lashing out at Zaki’s opponent, and with a massive strike of pure, golden-red magnificence, broke the hardened dark structure along with the follower in half. The two orbs of light, isolated amongst darkness, shone with great brilliance, but the pitch-black layers of these menacing, new conscious followers kept thickening.