A Misled Hero

Chapter 2: The story of death

At the beginning of everything, there was a family of concepts called entities. None were alive, but they controlled the omniverse. "Nothing" was the oldest, and it gave birth to "Darkness" and "Null". Together, these two would give birth to "Death" and the first oddity among them, a living one called "Life".

Outside the boundaries of Nothing, there was a being better known as "Void", though it gave itself the name Erebus. It would often clash with entities.

Among them all, "Life" was the most peculiar one. It could create "something", but each of its family would erode whatever it created, staying true to its concepts. All except one, Death.

The ability of Death complemented Life well, killing off whatever shouldn't be to make room for the next. Together, these two would create the omniverse.

In the grand scheme of things, each knew of their fate. Life would die to Death, caused by the constant erosion of its family to it. Death would be erased by Null, which would then be consumed by darkness.

Once Null dies, Darkness would complement Nothing in the universe, eventually consumed by the lack of everything. And Void would eat away at Nothing, and be the only one to survive. Though Void would fail to kill Nothing, and the cycle would repeat over again.

Or at least, that was what was supposed to happen. As stable as this balance seemed, Void would consume more and more of Nothing each cycle. With the decreasing space, it could be said that this was the last cycle, and Void would dominate the universe alone.

To prevent such a fate, Life and Death created the omniverse, which disrupted everything. "Nothing" was beginning to cease to exist. " Null" was consumed by everything, eventually scattering its traces, creating what we know as black holes.

Darkness adapted to the limited power caused by the introduction of light to the omniverse. Void remained unaffected but would take his alias as Erebus, and try to restore natural balance.

...

"I'm sorry, sister." Life said, trapping Death in a cage made of bars of blinding light.

" Again?" Death said exasperated, it wasn't a rare occurrence for Life to get attached to its creations and prevent them from dying.

The last time was around a few thousand years back, when a species had managed to create interstellar travel. Both of them wondered what would have happened to that species should their time had not come, it was unfortunate.

At his sister's remark, life stayed silent. This was different, this time he was not gonna return. Sadly, he took a drop of power from all his relatives, enduring the painful erosion to create a weapon capable of shapeshifting. It was a scythe.

He handed the weapon to Death, his hand going through the light to place it. The cage was intricately designed, with multiple layers of light around it. It only harmed things that weren't alive, and Death, in the eyes of Life, was not something that could be considered alive.

" Take care of her" Life said to the scythe before disappearing.

He traveled to the middle of the multiverse. There, he placed his eye floating between the realms, and poured a drop of his essence onto it, ensuring it would bear fruit.

The eye would turn into his greatest creation, though he wouldn't be there to see it. From the most useful body part of life, his eye, grew Yggdrasil. Yggdrasil would connect all the realms, steadily supplying life to the universe.

It would bear fruit every once in a few billion years. Whichever mortal was lucky enough to find and eat the fruit would be granted immense powers, those of which would call themselves Gods, and maintain order in the omniverse.

Life then departed from all his creation, trespassing into Void to prevent the inevitable. He wanted his creations to live more, and perhaps his sister would manage to restore balance should he fail.

The minute he left "something" to go into the "void", he felt the familiar erosion his family had caused to it. Standing before a curious entity, the one which called itself Erebus, life knew it wouldn't return.

...

" Finally!" Death exclaimed, breaking free from her prison.

She believed it took a few trillion years, or at least, that's what those mortals that call themselves Gods told her. They used to come now and then to add more layers of light around her, but eventually, they stopped coming. She reckoned they were dead.

" Free at last? Master?" The scythe came to her. During the time its master was trapped, the scythe had the luxury of being unharmed by the light, as it was one of Life's creations.

It would often leave to explore the multiverse, taking the form of whatever was the prime species in the universe it was traveling to. When it came back years later, it would tell its master of current news and events, often about the gods.

" Where have you been?" Death asked it.

" Locating the original entities," It said.

Death was surprised, after all this time, this thing hadn't managed to find its creator. It would pass by other remnants of entities that were on the verge of nonexistence. The only ones it had yet to find were Life, Nothing, and Void.

" What do you mean you haven't found Void?" Death asked, interested. " Isn't it outside reality?"

" I don't dare trespass there, master." It said. " But I believe it's inside the omniverse. The selfish bastard wouldn't let his natural order break so easily."

" What about Life?" Death asked.

" There a few traces of life remaining, " It said.

" Few?" Death was a bit hopeful.

" Yggdrasil, Master." The scythe clarified.

Death nodded. She was told about the tree by both the scythe and the gods while she was still trapped. Of course, only the scythe could sense the tree's connection to Life.

" What about the rest?" Death said.

" Null still exists in remnants. I'm pretty sure Nothing doesn't exist now, and well, you feed darkness, Master." It said.

Death nodded. It was an unfortunate circumstance. Each time something was killed, it would be consumed by darkness, feeding the entity until it had enough power to fulfill its role and end Death.

Death also could not stop its purpose, as life itself was harmful to it. It could only escape by eroding its prison of light over time, as its aura was also harmful to life.

With a flick of her hand, a universe turned to dust, then was overcome by darkness.

" Ohhh that feels better." Said Death,  witnessing the destruction.

She waved her hand at the scythe and signaled it to come closer.

" A destination, Master?" It asked

" Of course," She said, " I miss my brother. We should go look for him."

With a flick, another universe perished, and darkness and Death reveled in its freedom again.

" And find Void." Her voice shook a bit. She couldn't afford to have such a powerful entity roaming unnoticed.

" What of the gods?" The scythe asked.

" Those mortals can't defeat me." She answered.

Then, with her scythe in hand, she began to reset the omniverse. The amount of "something" was daunting, and it would take her thousands of years to end it all. With her newfound freedom, she explored her brother's creations. They were fond of her, but her purpose was to end it.

She had begun to end her brother's project and reset the natural order...