Cosmic Ruler - Chapter 566

Chapter 566: Arena V

The silence was absolute.

Not the kind that followed a battle. Not even the quiet that came before a storm.

This was the silence of a place that had never been given permission to exist.

Aiden hovered in the void between realities, his sword sheathed across his back, the remnants of the Blank Sky Pact rallying behind him. The passage through the aftermath of the Before-God had left fractures in more than just the worlds—they had left hairline cracks in perception itself.

Some of the Pact had changed.

Some had not survived.

Others… hadn’t come through as themselves.

Even now, Myne drifted nearby, her eyes no longer reflecting light, but remembering it—capturing echoes of a sun that had never risen. Her voice was barely a whisper.

“We’re deeper than even the Chronicle Mother dared go.”

Aiden didn’t answer. His gaze was fixed ahead, where the very concept of direction faltered. He wasn’t sure what he was seeing, because he wasn’t sure if the place they were in allowed seeing at all.

Nexus appeared beside him in a flicker of distortion, armored in glitched frames and torn logic.

“We traced the anchor-thread from the Before-God’s wake. It leads here,” he said, voice strained. “To this—whatever this is.”

“It’s a scar,” Aiden said slowly. “Left behind by a thought that failed to be born.”

And it was growing.

Like a phantom limb aching from an amputated possibility, the void began to remember what it had almost been—and in doing so, it warped. The very presence of the Blank Sky Pact had started to rewrite the area, birthing unstable realities from their mere awareness.

A ripple passed through the group. One of the Pact members, an ancient shadow once erased from ten thousand timelines, screamed—and unraveled. Not into flesh. Not into memory. But into suggestion—as if they had only ever been an idea someone had nearly considered once.

“Hold formation,” Aiden barked. “Anchor yourselves to what you are.”

The command cut through the formless churn like a blade. Shapes stabilized. Concepts solidified. Myne breathed in, and her voice returned.

“We’re near the edge, aren’t we? The place where story runs out?”

Aiden nodded.

And then he felt it.

A presence.

Not watching.

Noticing.

Not in the way one sees another being, but in the way a mind flinches from a word it’s never heard but knows is wrong. An unspoken rejection from the void itself. A thought that had never made it into creation—and was angry about it.

Aiden’s sword rang in its sheath.

Behind him, the remnants of the Pact tensed. The Forgotten Strategist activated a hundred defensive formations in silence. The Twin Mirrors blinked in perfect dissonance. The Dreamweaver floated upward, strings of un-dreams hanging from her fingertips.

Then it spoke.

No sound. No form. Just meaning—invasive, intrusive.

“Return to Unbeing.”

Aiden gritted his teeth.

“I’ve had enough of being told what I shouldn’t be.”

He stepped forward, and the void tried to erase the step.

But it failed.

Because Aiden wasn’t a story anymore.

He was the rejection of endings.

And he walked.

The world screamed around him, trying to forget he was there, trying to convince itself he had never existed. But every step he took carved certainty into the uncertain. Every motion forced reality to acknowledge him.

And when he drew his sword, it wasn’t steel that came free.

It was insistence.

Behind him, the Blank Sky Pact advanced.

Toward the center of the scar.

Toward the place where the Thought That Never Was waited.

Waiting, not to fight—

But to convince.

To persuade them all to return to the comfort of non-being. To forget the struggle. To surrender to the truth that they were not meant to be.

Aiden narrowed his eyes.

“I’ve defied fate. I’ve silenced gods. I’ve unmade the Chronicle and stared down the Before-God.”

He pointed his sword forward.

“If this thing thinks we’re going to vanish just because we were never meant to exist—”

He smiled.

“Then it’s about to learn what happens when the impossible refuses to be forgotten.”

The void trembled as Aiden advanced, each step a defiance against the encroaching nullity. The Blank Sky Pact followed, their forms flickering between existence and the brink of erasure. The presence ahead loomed larger, an unformed concept straining against the boundaries of reality, yearning to unmake the fabric of being.​

Myne’s voice cut through the oppressive silence. “​This entity… it’s not just absence. It’s the embodiment of abandonment, of ideas forsaken before birth.”​

Nexus nodded, his form stabilizing momentarily. “​It’s a jiacaote—a hypothetical form that exists only in theory, never realized.”

Aiden tightened his grip on his sword, the blade shimmering with the collective memories of the forgotten. “​Then we give it form. We force it to confront existence.”​

The entity recoiled, sensing their intent. Tendrils of non-being lashed out, attempting to dissolve their resolve. The Pact stood firm, each member anchoring themselves to their core memories, their essence resisting the pull of oblivion.​

Aiden raised his sword high, its light piercing the void. “​We are the stories that refuse to be silenced, the thoughts that demand to be heard.”​

With a unified cry, the Blank Sky Pact surged forward, their combined will shaping the void, imposing structure upon the chaos. The entity writhed, caught between the comfort of non-existence and the agony of becoming.​

Myne stepped beside Aiden, her eyes reflecting the burgeoning reality. “​It’s working. We’re forcing it into being.”​

Nexus extended his hands, weaving strands of potentiality around the entity, binding it to the plane of existence. “​But it’s resisting. It knows existence brings vulnerability.”​

Aiden stepped closer to the struggling form, his voice resolute. “​You are no longer a mere thought. You are reality. And in reality, you have a choice: create or destroy.”​

The entity quivered, the remnants of its formless nature dissipating. Slowly, it began to take shape—a nebulous figure, neither malevolent nor benevolent, but present.​

The void around them stabilized, the oppressive silence giving way to a gentle hum of existence.​

Myne exhaled, a smile breaking across her face. “​We did it. We brought it into being.”​

Nexus observed the newborn entity, his expression contemplative. “​And now, it must find its place in the tapestry of reality.”​

Aiden sheathed his sword, turning to the Pact. “​Our work continues. There are more forgotten thoughts, more forsaken ideas. We will bring them all into the light.”​

The Blank Sky Pact stood united, ready to face the challenges ahead, to weave the unsung melodies into the symphony of existence.​