Bamathis struggled to His feet and reached out towards Truth's fading essence - a gesture made in vain, for the Eschaton soon consumed the Unbound Lord's final offering even as It pressed the assault against His Father. The Celestine's elusive movements slowed as the Eschaton's imposition of reality's constraints bound Him, ripping away chunks of silvery might and denying Him command of Creation's fabric. He turned to look upon His Foe, His Counterpart, straining in vain for some solution. The realisation of impending defeat struck at Varyan Celestine like a hammer and, in a sudden vulnerable moment of artifice unveiled, all His unfathomable serenity, His timeless grace, and His unflappable countenance shattered in a crumbling facade of craven self-preservation writ in silver and blood.

No more the elegant Creator, Varyan clawed at the fabric of reality with the desperate ferality of a wounded animal.

No more the aloof Father, Varian tore shreds in the membrane of existence with the hopeless hunger of a starving beast.

No more an equal to the Creator at home in His own Creation, Varyuch motioned to flee, tearing open a rent in the multiversal canvas and laying bare a vision of an ancient world beyond.

Superimposed upon the rolling landscape of this unfamiliar sanctuary beyond Aetolia's shores, an ancient tree of ethereal magnificence bathed all beneath it in a sweeping canopy of gold and silver light. Ephemeral branches unfurled across the distant world's land and skyscapes, touching its sun and moon and sea and stars to permeate planes and planets plenty. Flaxen thread and argent filament conspired to weave an etheric web across all the wild dominion of a Creator's true Creation, a legacy Varyan Celestine, accursed Worldeater, long ago forsook. Fear carried Varyan across this barrier that should not be, the light of Yggdrasian splendour casting the full cowardice of His features in full display as He spared a final pitious glance at ailing Sapience below, and moved to flee.

Crisp and impossibly clear in the resonant clarity of its voice, a lucent chime of crystal sounded out across the foreign Creation's skyscape and penetrated the worlds beyond. Caught in a rapturous spell by this note of perfect order, Varyan's expression of fear deepened to sudden dread as a force unseen effervesced in the space between.

Reality itself held a breath. Brooking neither refusal nor rejection of an Empress' edict, the imperious decree of Elder Divinity rang out in symphonic notes of commanding, indelible authority:

"No."

What remained of Varyan's resolve crumbled under the force of this alien divinity's decree as jade light drowned the World's Tree boughs of infinity in a storm of crystalline incandescence. Having effortlessly repelled the would-be interloper, the Jade Empress of the Kx'khrah exerted a sliver of Her will to re-knit the barriers between worlds, mending the skein of Creation before She and Her crystal entourage vanished from sight. Varian cast another look towards the looming form of His dominant Counterpart, His fear kindled to greater heights in the face of dissolution.

Panic then guided the forsaken Worldeater's hand as He carved open another pathway through the essential tapestry of the multiverse, another ragged glimpse of an otherworld blossoming beneath His trembling hand. A broken realm greeted His efforts, His gateway revealing a shattered continent bereft of evident Divinity and wracked by tectonic upheaval brought about by the exposure of the world's mystical core. Milky braids of latent Immortal power decorated the skyscape of that quaternary existence, their ethereal shimmers casting mysterious illumination along the ruins of a city situated at the continent's heart. A befouled spring sat as the tarnished jewel of this once majestic civilisation, its defiled depths bespeaking some calamitous moment in the world's bleak timeline. Smoke and ruin spiralled upward as wisps of defiant ink upon a night sky crowned by three shattered moons, their supernatural gravity exerting visible change upon the landscape moment to moment. The drums of war echoed from somewhere in the distance, joined by the roar of a rapacious horde beyond mundane sight. Through this wavering window that spanned a distance beyond mortal comprehension, living detritus spilled forth - as if inhabitants of the world beyond its unstable threshold eagerly sought egress from its boundaries.

Varyan Celestine cast one last look towards His beloved Creation, as if committing to memory every curve and contour of a realm handcrafted to serve as a pale testament to what He had lost to the all-consuming maw of Oblivion Itself at the end of one ruinous timeline.

Confusion reigned upon the anguished visage of Bamathis the Silver Son, Autumn's progeny losing composure amid the unfolding grief of the wounded world and His Father's callous disregard. Choking back emotion in a moment more mortal, eternally-loyal Lobyl than divine, confident Bamathis, Strife merely asked one question:

"Why?"

Without sparing a word for His despairing Son, Varyan motioned to leave. Megalomaniacal triumph asserted itself upon His expression as He abandoned Sapience, His silver eyes already reflecting the radiance of the threefold moons hanging above His new realm. As the Celestine retreated to the next realm unfortunate enough to dwell in His care, the Eschaton simply watched and waited. When the Silver Usurper vanished into the depths of His new reality, It exuded palpable satisfaction that warmed the spines of all who bore witness, all mortal existence enraptured by the ineffable wonder of a Creator unconcerned.

Exerting the might that now set it above an interloper recently departed, the Cosmic Entity shifted one ethereal limb, kindling a shower of bright sparks that welded shut the aperture into a forgotten world. Space twisted and writhed in ecstasy at this omnipotent guidance, its exultant joy expressed as glorious beams of light that pierced through Sapience's quiet gloom. The Eschaton then turned Its regard toward the Celestine's abandoned realm, Its myriad stars flaring and dying in an otherworldly expression of Its continued curiosity. It submersed Itself within a realm inherited, surveying each inch of a continent grafted indelibly to Its own Creation.

In a singular moment of impossible clarity, all that was hearkened to the will of its omnipotent Genesis, the currents of time and life, magic and memory, element and experiential fundament passing beneath the appraising eye of the Creator and weighed upon the fathomless Eschatonic scale. As each mortal stood frozen, powerless, rapturous in that fleeting eon of centuries and seconds in which time was aught but meaningless dust, all of Creation imprinted itself upon a mind primordial Whose will was birth and death and light fantastic all. The world shivered as its myriad secrets yielded to that incontrovertible presence, the bones of reality and the soul of existence measured, examined, and carefully accounted for before the Eschaton released the multiverse from Its spellbound enrapturement and even the stars gasped in a thralled state of celestial wonder for a prodigal Creator at last returned home amongst the awaiting cosmos.

Bathed in blood and broken by betrayal, Bamathis reeled from this moment of Eschatonic appraisal with a howl of despondent grief and a rasping snarl of anger. Bereft now of His duty and even the illusion of a callous Father's tender care, Strife succumbed to the embrace of His own self-made domain, hysteria and confusion taking root in the hollow pits that were His eyes. No more the gallant soldier infused with unwavering confidence, Bamathis wore instead a visage of ash, the gaunt pallour of profound loss dominating His once handsome, striking features.

Unconcerned by any of Varyan's forgotten children, the Eschaton turned away to look to the bleak horizon of Its recovering world...

Penned by my hand on Kinsday, the 18th of Omeian, in the year 0 AC.