The Cleansing of the Ashen Sky The Obsidian Omniverse hummed with a fragile peace. The Apex Authority, that festering wound on reality, was cauterized. Vaporized. Reduced to less than a whisper in the cosmic winds. Yet, the infection it had cultivated lingered, a stubborn rot clinging to the edges of existence. The lieutenants, the enforcers, the insidious parasites who had thrived in the shadow of the Apex Authority's reign – they remained.
And Rolan, the man who had shattered the Apex Authority, did not hesitate.
There would be no grand trials, no drawn-out pronouncements of guilt. No chance for theatrical pleas of innocence or promises of redemption. Such things were luxuries he could not afford, nor did he believe in. These were not misguided souls; they were architects of ruin, complicit in atrocities that echoed across realities.
He hunted them with a chilling efficiency. One by one, he tracked them down, each encounter a brief, brutal ballet of power. He found them cowering in forgotten dimensions, disguised amongst the ruins, scrambling to escape the consequences of their choices. They were pathetic, stripped of the Apex Authority's protection, their swagger replaced with a desperate, craven fear.
Rolan showed them no mercy. Each execution was swift, precise. A flicker of his hand, a whisper of energy, and they were gone. Eradicated. Not out of vengeance, though a part of him yearned for it, but out of duty. He was not a dispenser of justice, but a cosmic sanitation worker, cleansing the Omniverse of its filth.
The silence that followed was heavy, pregnant with an anticipation that ground against his soul. The eradication was complete. The immediate threat was extinguished. But the weight of what remained, the echoes of what had been lost, pressed down on him with unbearable force. He was alone in his victory, a warrior stained with the blood of the wicked, yet haunted by the faces of the innocent.
It was in this desolate stillness that he heard the voice.
"Too late…"
The sound was faint, a spectral wind chime in the vast emptiness, barely audible above the thrum of his own power. Rolan turned, his senses sharpening, his hand instinctively moving towards the energy that pulsed within him.
Before him stood a boy. Or rather, the ghost of a boy. A wraith woven from sorrow and regret. He was no older than ten, his spectral form clad in tattered remnants of clothing that spoke of a life cut tragically short. His face was gaunt, his eyes empty, hollowed out by trauma he could barely comprehend. He stood in a place where life itself was an impossibility, a testament to the horrors that had transpired under the Authority's rule.
"You killed them," the boy whispered, his voice a raspy echo of innocence lost. "The monsters. The one who tore out my sister's soul. The one who fed my father to the abyss. You killed them."
Rolan nodded once, his gaze unwavering, his heart a leaden weight in his chest. "Yes."
"But you didn't save us." The boy's voice was barely audible, a breath lost on the wind.
Rolan remained silent, the boy's accusation a blade twisting in his gut.
"You were training," the boy continued, his spectral form flickering with suppressed anger. "Becoming strong enough. So while you meditated, while you learned to fight, my soul died. My mother died. My friends… Millions of us died."
The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. Rolan could feel the boy's pain, the echoes of his terror, the burning injustice of his fate. He had walked through hell, and now he stood before the man who had finally closed the gates, but too late for him.
"Why did you wait?" The question was a plea, a desperate cry for understanding that Rolan knew he could never fully provide.
Rolan stepped forward, the dust of shattered realities swirling around his feet. He stopped just a few feet from the boy, meeting his hollow gaze with his own. "Because I was born from the very thing that killed you," he said, his voice quiet but laced with a profound sorrow. "And to kill it, I had to become something it feared. That… takes time."
He didn't explain further. He didn't tell the boy about the agonizing years of self-imposed isolation, the brutal training, the constant battle against the darkness that threatened to consume him. He didn't tell him about the sacrifices he had made, the things he had lost in his pursuit of power. He knew that none of it would matter. None of it could bring back what had been taken.
The boy's eyes narrowed, his spectral form shimmering with an ethereal rage. "We didn't have time."
Rolan didn't flinch. The boy's anger was justified. He deserved to rage, to scream, to curse the world that had failed him. Rolan could only stand and bear the weight of his accusation. "I know."
The boy's form flickered violently, the very essence of his being threatening to unravel. He was a wound in reality, a constant reminder of the cost of the Apex Authority's reign. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the anger faded, replaced by a profound and heartbreaking resignation.
"I hope your light was worth our darkness," he whispered, the words barely audible above the hum of the Omniverse. Then, with a final, mournful sigh, he faded, dissolving into the void from whence he came.
As the last whisper of the boy's existence vanished into the nothingness, Rolan stood alone. The weight of eons pressed down upon him, crushing him beneath the burden of his victory. He had saved the future. He had given the Omniverse a chance to heal. But he could never erase the past. He could never bring back those who had been lost. He would carry their memories, their pain, their unspoken hopes, with him forever.
He turned his gaze towards the horizon, towards the infinite expanse of the Obsidian Omniverse. There was still work to be done. Countless worlds to rebuild, countless lives to heal. But as he walked forward, into the dawn of a new era, he knew that he would never truly be free. The ghost of the boy, and the millions like him, would forever haunt his steps, a constant reminder of the price of power, and the agonizing cost of delay. He pressed on, not seeking forgiveness, but striving to be worthy of the sacrifice that had been made. He would make sure that their light was not extinguished in vain.