Cosmic Ruler - Chapter 560

Chapter 560: Outer Gods XII

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

The Golden Sword ignited first, gleaming with purpose sharp enough to sever fate.

The Reaper’s Scythe followed, wrapped in the whisper of those who never got to speak.

The Death Dragon of Infinite Darkness coiled above him, its roar shattering unspoken laws.

And behind them all, threads of Million Miracles danced like fireflies rebelling against night.

“This world isn’t yours,” Aiden growled.

“You don’t belong here.”

The Herald raised a hand.

Time halted.

The wind froze mid-scream.

The light bent backward.

Even thoughts became sluggish.

But Aiden… moved.

The seal within him—newly broken—crackled with cosmic defiance.

His blood glowed, swirling with ancient authority.

He stepped through frozen time, space folding around him like pages in a forgotten book.

He appeared above the Herald in a blink.

“I remember now.”

His sword descended.

The Herald didn’t dodge.

It didn’t need to.

Reality bent in its defense.

But this was no longer the old Aiden.

He had crossed a threshold.

He had reclaimed the name he once threw away.

And now… he wielded Authority.

The sword carved through the Herald’s shoulder, not with force—but with concept.

It severed its place in the story.

Where once the Herald had stood, there was a void in narration—an unspoken paragraph left blank.

But the Herald wasn’t defeated.

It twisted itself back into being.

“You’ve remembered too early,” it rasped.

“The Outer Gods will not allow this.”

“You are a threat to their rewriting.”

“A scar on the blank canvas they seek.”

Around the city, shadows moved.

More presences emerged.

Other Heralds.

Each different.

Each more terrifying than the last.

Some looked like children made of constellations.

Others were serpents whose scales bore prayers written by extinct civilizations.

One had no body, only a scream that reshaped nearby buildings into grief.

They circled above Aiden.

Waiting.

Watching.

Measuring.

The Chapel behind Aiden glowed.

The cloaked figure—his First Sin—appeared beside him again.

“You cannot face them all,” he said quietly.

“Not yet.”

“But I can give you time.”

The ground trembled.

The Chapel rose.

Its foundations unspooled like ribbons of language, wrapping around the city’s bones, forming sigils of resistance.

The mirrors inside reformed—not with reflections, but memories of battles Aiden had never fought… yet.

The figure pressed a hand to Aiden’s chest.

“Remember this moment.”

“Remember who you are.”

“And when you reach the Eighth Gate, call me.”

With a final whisper, he stepped forward into the circle of Heralds.

“Come, old friends.”

“Let us remind the gods why they learned to fear the name Aiden.”

Aiden didn’t argue.

Didn’t grieve.

Didn’t waste time.

He turned—and ran.

Not away.

Toward.

Toward the Ascension Bridge, a path only visible to those who knew it existed.

Toward the Eighth Gate.

Where he would awaken the other part of himself.

The one even the Outer Gods had failed to erase.

The Hollow Star shrieked behind him.

And the war for the Second Layer of Reality began.

The Ascension Bridge was not a structure of stone or steel.

It was a path woven from memories of gods who had failed.

A ribbon of regret and resolve stretching across the Second Layer of Reality, visible only to those who had once reached beyond—and turned back.

Aiden walked its length with heavy steps.

Each footfall echoed with lives he had lived, deaths he had denied, and choices that had left scars in the soul of the cosmos.

The sky above was not sky, but a vast, trembling eye.

The world beneath, not land, but a swirling sea of discarded fates.

Here, names had power.

And Aiden could feel his—burning against the chains wrapped around his heart.

“They sealed you,” whispered a voice on the wind.

“They feared your rise.”

“But you are inevitable.”

With each step, the weight of memory pressed harder.

He saw flickers—glimpses of a past even he didn’t remember.

A war with Outer Realities.

A throne made of broken timelines.

A sword he once wielded that didn’t cut flesh—but removed possibilities.

And a choice… one that left him shattered across lifetimes, reborn again and again.

Not to save.

But to prepare.

Ahead, the Eighth Gate loomed.

A titanic door of interlocked geometries and impossible angles, floating in an orbit of forgotten languages.

It pulsed—alive.

Not guarded, but mourning.

Aiden approached, his fingers tingling with anticipation and fear.

As he reached out, his palm touched the gate’s center.

It didn’t open.

Instead—it remembered him.

And it wept.

“You came back.”

“Even after all we took from you.”

“Even after what you became.”

The gate cracked open.

Light didn’t spill out—truth did.

And it hit Aiden like a storm.

His body arched, trembling, as memories flooded in.

Not like visions.

But like reunions with parts of himself long exiled.

He saw himself sitting on the edge of the First World, writing runes into the void to bind the hunger of Outer Gods.

He saw himself standing atop the corpses of universes, weeping as the price of his victory devoured all he loved.

He saw the deal he made—with Time itself—to fragment his soul, to hide his powers, to forget everything… until the Outer Gods returned.

And now, they had.

So the seals… shattered.

A new Aiden emerged from the light.

Still himself—but whole.

A being who had once been more than mortal.

One of the last true Universal Lords.

His Martial Spirits trembled as they evolved, infused with ancient cores that hadn’t seen light in millennia.

The Golden Sword now bore runes etched by the first civilization, glowing with axioms that commanded logic to obey.

The Reaper’s Scythe whispered in languages of extinction, able to sever connections from timelines themselves.

The Death Dragon of Infinite Darkness no longer roared—it sang, a hymn that unmade fear.

And the Destiny Thread of Million Miracles?

It shimmered like a sentient nebula, binding not just future and past—but the spaces in between.

Behind him, a pair of eyes opened.

Ancient.

Familiar.

Watching.

“You’ve returned,” the voice spoke.

“Now the game truly begins.”

Aiden stepped through the Eighth Gate.

Beyond it lay a world outside creation.

A Stage crafted for one purpose alone.

The War of Wills.

The final battleground where ideas clashed as armies, where identities were currency, and where only one force could win:

The Writer of Reality… or the Eaters of Meaning.

And Aiden?

He was done playing by anyone else’s rules.