Cosmic Ruler - Chapter 559

Chapter 559: Outer Gods XI

The transition was not instant.

When Aiden stepped through the rift, he did not simply appear in another world.

He fell.

Not downwards—but inward.

The sensation was maddening. There were no directions, no time, no center. He plunged through colors that bled into each other like oil on water, past memories that weren’t his, past songs sung by throats that never existed, past the echo of his own name—spoken by a voice he couldn’t recall.

It was warm.

It was terrifying.

When it ended, he landed in silence.

The Chapel of Forgotten Names stood in the heart of a city that had no streets.

It was surrounded by buildings shaped like questions. Towers twisted into spirals of regret. Courtyards paved with unfinished oaths. And above them all, a sky of glass filled with moths made of memory.

The Chapel itself was vast—so tall its ceiling pierced clouds made of dreams, and its walls were carved with thousands—millions—of names.

Every one of them scratched out.

Forgotten.

Lost.

But not gone.

Aiden stood at the threshold.

The chapel doors were open, but no light came from within.

Only a whisper.

“You came back.”

It wasn’t a voice that greeted him.

It was a presence.

Cold.

Familiar.

Ancient.

Something deep inside him stirred—a piece of himself older than flesh, older than his soul, older than the worlds he had fought to protect.

“Who are you?” Aiden asked, his voice steady.

The answer came from within the Chapel.

“I am your First Sin.”

“And your Last Redemption.”

He walked in.

The floor beneath his boots wasn’t stone.

It was parchment—endless scrolls of forgotten truths, crushed underfoot by generations of wanderers who came seeking their names.

The chapel pews were filled.

But not with people.

Each seat held a mirror.

And in every mirror, a version of Aiden stared back.

Some wept.

Some laughed.

Some bled.

One screamed without end.

None of them looked away.

At the far end, upon an altar of broken tomes, sat a figure.

They wore no robes. No crown. Just a cloak of unraveling light and a mask carved from the moon’s shadow.

Their fingers were stained with ink.

Their eyes were stars.

“You have forgotten,” they said.

“But I have not.”

Aiden approached slowly.

“You know who I am.”

“I know what you were meant to be,” the masked one replied.

“And what you chose instead.”

Aiden paused before the altar.

The weight of the chapel bore down on him like gravity.

“Tell me.”

“Why do the Outer Gods fear me?”

The figure did not answer immediately.

They raised a hand, and the mirrors in the pews shattered—dozens of versions of Aiden dissolving into mist and silence.

“Because you chose to oppose them before.”

“You were once the Heir of the Empty Throne.”

“The one born outside the laws of origin, carrying the Flame of the First Thought.”

Aiden’s pulse stilled.

“But I’m just a man,” he said.

“You were. Until you abandoned the Throne.”

“Until you sealed your own memories and cast your destiny away.”

“And yet… you’re becoming him again.”

Aiden looked down at his hands.

They were trembling again—not from fear, but from truth.

Pieces were falling into place.

The visions.

The Eye’s refusal.

The Throne that bled.

“If I was so powerful… why did I leave it behind?”

The figure’s voice dropped.

“Because you loved something more than power.”

“You gave it up for someone.”

“And they were taken from you.”

Aiden’s throat tightened.

“Who?”

“I cannot say. That name is sealed even to me.”

The cloaked figure extended a hand.

A single name hovered above their palm—unwritten.

Waiting.

“But if you take your Throne again… you will remember.”

“You will become what you were, and the Outer Gods will tremble once more.”

Aiden stared at the name.

He didn’t reach for it.

Not yet.

“What happens if I refuse again?”

The cloaked figure paused.

Then gave a soft, sorrowful smile beneath the mask.

“Then you will die.”

“And there will be no one left to stop them.”

“The Outer Gods will remake reality in their image.”

“And every life you saved, every friend you loved, every world you fought for… will be rewritten.”

Aiden clenched his jaw.

He had fought gods.

He had survived oblivion.

But this?

This was choice.

The hardest kind.

Finally, he spoke.

“Then I’ll take the name.”

“But not to become what I was.”

“To protect what I chose to be.”

He reached out.

The name shimmered into his hand.

And in that moment—everything burned.

Memories crashed down on him.

A girl with hair like stardust, laughing in the rain.

A war that shattered the first world.

A choice made in blood and sorrow.

A Throne denied.

A scream that tore the cosmos.

A promise:

“Even if I forget… I’ll come back.”

Aiden fell to his knees, gasping.

The figure knelt beside him.

“Welcome back… Usurper.”

“Now go.”

“The Throne waits.”

Outside, the sky cracked open.

The Second Herald arrived.

And it was not alone.

The sky didn’t just split.

It screamed.

A howl ripped across the broken heavens above the city of Questions, echoing through twisted towers and crumbling cathedrals. The glass sky shattered—each fragment a frozen heartbeat of reality, each shard reflecting a different truth that could’ve been.

The Second Herald descended through the wound in the world.

It was not a being.

It was an absence—a void sculpted into the shape of a man, cloaked in robes made of collapsed timelines and crowned with the final breath of a dying star.

Where it walked, meaning unraveled.

Street signs forgot what they were.

Windows looked inward, revealing futures that would never come.

The walls wept ink, trying to remember the language of existence.

Aiden stood before the Chapel of Forgotten Names, and his eyes met the Hollow Star where the Herald’s face should have been.

“You should not be,” the Herald whispered.

“You chose to forget.”

“You made a pact with lesser things.”

“You abandoned your inheritance.”

Aiden took a step forward, his boots cracking bones made of metaphors.

“And yet I’m still here.”

“Still standing.”

He summoned his Martial Spirits—not with his hands, but with his will.