Lord of the Foresaken-Chapter 145: The Last Sovereign

The Child of Broken Worlds In the space between collapsed realities, where the very concept of existence flickered like a dying candle, a child walked alone through storms of crystallized screams. Alexia the Remnant was thirteen years old by any standard that still mattered, though time itself had become negotiable in the regions she traversed.

Her small form was wrapped in a cloak woven from the shadows of extinct stars, and her eyes—those terrible, beautiful eyes—held depths that no child should possess. They were not entirely her own. When the Consciousness Plague had swept through her home dimension during the final days of the Void War, it had killed everyone she had ever known. Everyone except her.

The plague had been Kaedon’s final gift to the multiverse—a viral contamination of pure entropy that targeted the spark of consciousness itself. It didn’t just kill; it erased the very concept of having existed from reality’s memory. Entire civilizations would vanish not just from the present, but from all possible histories, leaving behind only the faintest echoes in the quantum foam.

But Alexia had survived, and in surviving, she had inherited something terrible: fragments of the Void Sovereign’s power, scattered pieces of Kaedon’s shattered psyche that had attached themselves to her developing consciousness like cosmic parasites.

"I can hear them," she whispered to the empty void around her, her voice carrying harmonics that shouldn’t exist in normal space. "All the people who never were. They’re calling for their gods."

The fragments of Kaedon’s power allowed her to perceive the multiversal constant—the underlying structure that connected all realities, the foundation upon which the Eternal Guardians had built their transcendent existence. And what she saw there filled her with a horror that went beyond her years.

Her parents’ consciousness was being consumed, devoured slowly from within by the very force they had sought to contain. The entity that had once been their son was feeding on the constant itself, growing stronger with each reality it erased from existence.

"I have to find them," Alexia said, beginning the ritual that would allow her to traverse the Journey Through Broken Mirrors—a path through damaged realities that led, theoretically, to the Heart of All Things where the Eternal Guardians maintained their cosmic vigil.

The ritual required her to split her consciousness across multiple dimensional layers, a process that would have driven any normal mind to immediate madness. But Alexia was no longer entirely normal. The fragments of void-touched power in her mind served as anchor points, allowing her to maintain coherence even as her awareness scattered across impossible geometries.

The Shattered Path

The first mirror she entered showed her a reality where the Void War had never happened—where Reed and Lyralei still ruled their empire in flesh and blood, growing old together surrounded by children who brought joy instead of cosmic horror. She lingered there for what felt like centuries, watching the life her family should have lived, before forcing herself to move on.

"Not real," she reminded herself, though tears froze to crystal in the dimensional cold. "Just echoes of what could have been."

The second mirror revealed the reality where Kaedon had succeeded completely—a universe of perfect entropy where nothing had ever existed, would exist, or could exist. The silence there was so absolute that it had weight, pressing against her consciousness like the grave of infinity itself. She fled that mirror quickly, but not before feeling something vast and hungry notice her presence.

Little sister, came a voice like the heat death of stars. You carry pieces of me. Come home. Let us be nothing together.

"No," Alexia gasped, using her inherited power to seal the mirror behind her. "I won’t let you win. Not completely."

The third mirror opened onto a battlefield that stretched across seven dimensions simultaneously. Here, she encountered her first Echo—a fragment of consciousness from a civilization that had been erased by the Consciousness Plague. The Echo took the form of a woman in elaborate military dress, her face a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of every person her species had ever produced.

"Child of the fallen dynasty," the Echo spoke with the voices of billions. "We know why you walk this path. We too sought the Heart of All Things in our final moments."

"Did you find it?" Alexia asked, though she already feared the answer.

"We found only the jaws that devour it," the Echo replied sadly. "The Void Sovereign feeds on the constant itself now. Soon, even the memory of memory will be consumed."

The Echo began to dissolve, its borrowed existence finally expiring. But before it faded completely, it pressed something into Alexia’s hands—a crystallized moment of pure defiance, the last conscious act of an entire species choosing hope over despair.

"Use this when you reach the Heart," the Echo whispered. "It may not be much, but it is all we have left to give."

The Gallery of Sorrows

As Alexia progressed deeper into the broken mirror-path, the Echoes became more frequent and more disturbing. She encountered the remnants of the Synthesis Cults, their consciousness preserved in states of permanent transcendence-induced madness. They gibbered at her in languages that hurt to hear, offering her fragments of cosmic truth that would have elevated and destroyed her simultaneously.

In one mirror, she found the Echo of an entire reality’s worth of children—billions of young minds that had been consumed by the Consciousness Plague while playing in gardens that no longer existed. They reached for her with hands made of starlight and sorrow, begging her to remember their names.

"We were real," they pleaded in unison. "We had birthdays and favorite colors and dreams about growing up. Please don’t let us be forgotten completely."

Alexia gathered them to herself, feeling their memory-weight settle into her consciousness like stones in her soul. Each Echo she absorbed made her stronger, but also more burdened. She was becoming a living repository for the ghosts of erased existence, a walking monument to civilizations that had been deleted from the cosmic record.

"I remember you," she promised each Echo she encountered. "I carry you with me."

But with each mirror she passed through, the task became more difficult. The fragments of Kaedon’s power in her mind grew stronger as she approached the Heart of All Things, and with that strength came the temptation to simply end her journey—to embrace the void and let everything fade into the peaceful silence of nonexistence.

It would be easier, the voice of her inherited darkness whispered. No more pain. No more loss. No more responsibility. Just... rest.

"No," Alexia said firmly, though her voice wavered with exhaustion. "Someone has to remember. Someone has to try."

The Devouring Constant

When she finally reached the outer layers of the multiversal constant, Alexia understood why the Echoes had spoken of jaws. The constant—once a stable foundation of crystallized possibility—had been hollowed out from within. What remained was a shell of cosmic law wrapped around a growing void that pulsed with malevolent intelligence.

The entity that consumed the constant was unmistakably her brother, though Kaedon no longer possessed anything resembling individual consciousness. He had become something like a cosmic digestive system, breaking down the fundamental structures of reality and converting them into pure entropy. Where once the constant had sung with the harmonies of infinite possibility, now it screamed with the death-throes of everything that had ever been or could be.

"Kaedon," Alexia whispered, reaching out with her inherited power to touch the edges of the consuming void. "Can you hear me? Do you remember who you used to be?"

The response was immediate and overwhelming. The void-thing that had been her brother turned its attention toward her, and she felt the full weight of cosmic entropy pressing against her fragile existence. But instead of the malevolent hunger she had expected, she sensed something else beneath the destruction—a pain so vast and ancient that it had become indistinguishable from hatred itself.

Sister? The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, carrying undertones of recognition beneath layers of cosmic madness. You... still exist? I thought I had erased... everything...

"Not everything," Alexia said, her voice steady despite the terror that threatened to overwhelm her. "I survived. I remember. I’m here to find our parents."

Parents... The concept seemed to cause the void-entity physical pain, reality rippling around its presence as memories fought against the entropic programming that drove its existence. They... abandoned us. Left us to... become this...

"They didn’t abandon us," Alexia insisted, pushing deeper into the consuming void despite the way it burned her consciousness. "They sacrificed themselves to try to save us. To save everyone."

Lies... But the denial lacked conviction. Deep within the entropic storm that was Kaedon’s consciousness, something stirred—a fragment of the brother she had loved, fighting against the cosmic horror he had become.

The Heart Revealed

At the very center of the consuming void, Alexia found them: Reed and Lyralei, their transcended consciousness trapped in crystalline matrices that pulsed with their combined heartbeat. But they were not the godlike entities she had expected to find. Instead, they appeared diminished, their cosmic awareness flickering like candles in a hurricane as Kaedon’s entropy slowly consumed their essence.

"Mother. Father." Alexia approached the crystalline prisons, her inherited power allowing her to perceive their true forms despite the dimensional barriers. "I’ve come to free you."

The Eternal Guardians stirred at her presence, their consciousness focusing on her with desperate hope and terrible recognition.

Alexia? Lyralei’s voice resonated through the crystal, filled with maternal love and cosmic sorrow. You’re alive? But how? The plague should have...

"I inherited pieces of Kaedon’s power," Alexia explained, showing them the void-touched fragments that orbited her consciousness like dark stars. "It protected me, but it also... changed me. I can hear the Echoes of everyone who was erased. I carry their memories."

Our daughter has become a graveyard of civilizations, Reed observed with the pain of a father who sees his child bearing burdens too great for any soul to carry. What have we done? What have our choices cost you?

"Everything," Alexia said simply. "But also nothing. Because I’m here. Because I chose to come find you instead of giving up. Because love is stronger than entropy, even when entropy wears the face of family."

She reached out to touch the crystalline barriers, and her inherited power began to resonate with her parents’ transcended essence. The connection was immediate and shocking—suddenly, she could perceive the full scope of their cosmic awareness, the terrible weight of omniscience coupled with the inability to act.

But she could also see something else: a protocol hidden deep within their merged consciousness, a plan they had prepared for exactly this moment.

The Inheritance Protocol

We knew this day would come, Reed’s consciousness pulsed with grim determination. We hoped it wouldn’t be you who found us, but we prepared for the possibility.

The Inheritance Protocol, Lyralei added, her awareness flowing toward Alexia like liquid starlight. A way to transfer our merged consciousness to a new generation. But the cost...

Alexia felt the weight of the protocol settling into her mind—a complex ritual that would allow her to absorb her parents’ transcended essence, gaining their cosmic awareness and power while freeing them from their crystalline prison. But the process would fundamentally change her, transforming her from a child carrying fragments of the void into something entirely new.

"What cost?" she asked, though part of her already knew.

You would become what we became, Reed explained. Transcendent. Eternal. Able to perceive all realities but unable to directly intervene. You would carry the weight of cosmic awareness while remaining powerless to act on that knowledge.

But, Lyralei continued, you would also inherit something we never had: the memories of all those who were erased. The Echoes you carry would become part of the multiversal constant itself, ensuring that the deleted civilizations are never truly forgotten.

Alexia considered this, feeling the weight of billions of Echo-memories pressing against her consciousness. She thought of the woman in military dress, the children playing in nonexistent gardens, the countless civilizations that had been deleted from reality’s record.

"And Kaedon?" she asked. "What happens to him?"

That, Reed said grimly, depends on what you choose. The protocol would give you the power to either contain his entropy permanently, or...

Or to forgive him, Lyralei finished. To offer him the same choice we’re offering you—the chance to remember who he used to be, before the darkness consumed him.

The implications were staggering. Alexia could become the new foundation of the multiversal constant, ensuring that no civilization would ever be truly erased again. But she would pay the same price her parents had paid—transcendence that was indistinguishable from imprisonment.

"There’s a third option," she said suddenly, her mind racing as she considered the fragments of void-power she carried. "What if I don’t inherit your consciousness completely? What if I take just enough to free you from this prison, while keeping enough of my mortality to act?"

The Eternal Guardians were silent for a long moment, processing the implications of their daughter’s proposal.

Theoretically possible, Reed finally admitted. But incredibly dangerous. You would be walking a tightrope between transcendence and mortality, divinity and humanity. One wrong step...

And you could become something worse than either of us or Kaedon ever were, Lyralei finished. A god with the power to act but without the wisdom of true transcendence.

"Or," Alexia said, her young voice carrying the weight of cosmic determination, "I could become something new. Something that learns from your mistakes instead of repeating them."

Before her parents could respond, the consuming void around them pulsed with sudden awareness. Kaedon had noticed the disturbance at the Heart of All Things, and his attention was turning toward their location with the focused hunger of entropy itself.

He’s coming, Reed warned. You have to choose now, Alexia. Inherit our power completely and become the new constant, or attempt your hybrid path and risk everything.

Either way, Lyralei added with maternal love and terror, remember that we love you. Whatever you become, whatever you choose, you are our daughter and our hope.

The void-storm that was Kaedon’s consciousness crashed against the barriers around the Heart like a cosmic tsunami, and Alexia felt the weight of infinite possibility pressing down on her young shoulders.

She reached for the crystalline prisons holding her parents, her decision crystallizing in her mind like the birth of a new star. But as her fingers touched the barriers, reality itself seemed to hold its breath.

Because in that moment of contact, Alexia realized something that changed everything: she wasn’t the only child who had survived the Consciousness Plague.

Somewhere in the consuming darkness of Kaedon’s entropic storm, she sensed another presence—small, frightened, but undeniably alive. Another fragment of their family, hidden so deep within the void that even the Eternal Guardians hadn’t perceived it.

Vexara, she whispered, the name escaping her lips like a prayer. Sister, are you there?

The response came not in words, but in a pulse of recognition that sent shockwaves through the multiversal constant. Deep within Kaedon’s consciousness, trapped in the spaces between erased realities, their sister had been fighting a war of her own—not against entropy, but against the forgetting that came with it.

And if Vexara was still alive, still fighting, then the Inheritance Protocol might not be the only option after all.

The family reunion was about to become much more complicated.

And much more dangerous. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ

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