As if it had been dealt a physical blow, history itself groaned in pain as the sequence of events it had sat pretty with for eternity changed.
The Elder God's thick laughter hung in the air as I stood there, sudden and undeniable horror creeping into my soul at the sight of my younger self, lying there dead. History was changing. Within moments, my destiny would be sealed. This was where I would die, nothing I had done beyond this point would have happened. My empire would cease to exist. The changes I had brought about by travelling back through time would be nullified as well.
A thought made itself known to me. If I ceased to exist in my future state, then didn't that mean that this event would be avoided too? How could I kill my past self if my future self did not exist?
That hope was quickly shattered when I realised that I had fallen into the Elder God's obvious trap. I had been ensnared in an eternal paradox.
If I killed myself then I ceased to exist, then that event never happened; but then would because I would repeat it again.
History could not handle that recurring cycle and to counter it, it would erase the cause of the paradox from existence.
I was that cause.
"Goodbye Kain." The Elder laughed as the screeching and moaning of history derailed reached its peek.
This was an onslaught I could not hope to evade, to bear or even to ward off. All I could stop was stands there and let oblivion take me.
All across Nosgoth, even those fighting had to stop and stare up at the world around them as the roar of history; encountering a paradox it could not tolerate. The Hylden battling for their lives against the demons paused briefly as reality warped and bent and even the demons themselves seemed put off by this sudden change.
Clashing swords Vorador and Malek parted for an instant, both puzzled by the shaking and trembling, before the two of them advanced again with their weapons meeting in a spray of sparks.
Far away on the apex of the ancient citadel of the Apostles, the Hylden T'kral looked upon the one person he never expected to see again.
"U'mon?" He asked taking an uncertain step forward. The Hylden seer nodded once. "You... you can't be… you died."
"No." She told him softly. "I was merely beyond the boundaries of Nosgoth when the Pillars were erected. I was outside of the array." T'kral approved, footstep by cautious footstep.
"You escaped the demon dimension." He said, stating the obvious. "Your form is still fare."
The Seer looked for the first time in centuries upon the face of her brother. Gone was the handsome features which had attract so many, even vampire maidens, in days long since past. His long brown hair was gone, his face shrivelled and skull like and his eyes once sea blue now a sickly green.
His body was now thin and skeletal, thin to the bone almost lacking any muscle at all.
"And yours will one day be…with time." She told him. "But for now, please I need your help. The taint of the demon dimension still haunts our people. The madness must be driven back."
"Madness?" T'kral asked with a suddenly quickening to his features. "It was the madness that helped us survive. It was the madness that kept us going and it still be the madness that gives us our revenge." The glow in his eyes seemed to intensify. "Perhaps at a time yet to be determined the madness will go, but for the moment we need the madness."
"The madness will keep us in a prolonged circle for all eternity." The seer told him, an element of anger reaching into her voice. "It is a circle of hate. It has to be stopped."
Without warning, the roar of history around them intensified reaching a horrific peek.
Archon, clutching his bleeping shoulder; gazed up into the sky with a partly puzzled expression on his face.
"What is this now?" T'kral demanded.
"Merely…." The Seer started. "The Grand Alteration."
Preparing myself for limbo, I stood there in silence.
Nothing happened.
"What?!" The Elder demanded. I risked opening an eye and observed the situation around me.
The roar of history was still echoing around me, the perception of reality shaking in temporal flux but nothing had altered.
"This is impossible!" The Elder's voice proclaimed. "How can you still be here?!" There was a fair question.
Something had changed… but my existence was not it. Something felt… perhaps not strange but rather…. different.
"He is still here because the Kain still standing is not the Kain lying on the floor." A voice replied.
I looked back to the sudden intruder, a slender canine shape sitting in the shadows nearby. A pair of pure blue eyes stared at me from out of the darkness. It was the wolf, the guardian of Midgard; the creature we had encountered in the Seroli ancient temple.
"This is the Scion of Balance. The creature still dying is Kain the disruptor. They are not the same entity." It carried on.
"You can not apply such warped logic to the streams of time!" The Elder protested loudly. "Regardless of who you consider him to be now, at one time he was the disruptor! One can not exist without the other!"
The wolf laughed.
"Do you not recall the words of the Seroli seers? The ancient Scion prophecy you feared so much?" The Elder went silent but his distain and anxious fear was obvious. "The Lupine gospels reads; One wielding blood and soul shall rise and be one and not of time.
The Scion of Balance exists outside the influence of time, just like yourself. The only thing you succeeded here today was the weakening of your own wheel. Time is changing and you helped to bring it about."
"NO! I will not permit this!!" The Elder screamed in outrage and the ground beneath our feet started shaking.
"Complain all you want but there can be no denying it now." The Wolf replied. "He is the Scion of Balance. The counterpart they proclaimed would one day destroy you. Your end of times has come."
"Be silent you mongrel!" The Elder screamed and the metal floor bent up and a tentacle burst up through the floor. It came crashing down towards the wolf, who simply closed his eyes before his form vanished and the tentacle ended up smashing into an empty spot.
As the tentacle slashed around, I brought the Reaver across sharply, cleaving the sickening slimly flesh with the blades tip. As the green blood poured out I heard the screams of the captive souls within scream in anguish. The Elder seemed to hiss in mute rage as his limb slid back in through the hole and disappeared, retreating back into the shadows.
The wolf reappeared nearby and softly padded its way over to the side of my former self still lying on the floor.
"He has not yet joined the wheel." He stated before lowering its head and nudging the vampire's face with the side of its wet nose. "Come Scion, there is something you must do here." The animal's gaze glanced off towards the blade in my hand. "You as well Raziel."
Raziel projected his transparent form nearby, managing a surprised look.
Deciding that I trusted his wolf more than the Elder I did as he asked and came close, kneeling down beside the limp body of my former self.
The wolf was right. It was a small but there was some spark of life left in him. Was this why I had been spared? No... that couldn't be it. If it was, the memories of the event would have written themselves into my mind.
"The Elder is a creature whose mind exists simultaneously in past, present and future." The wolf explained. "When you were cured of the corruption that plagued you your whole life and became the prophesied hero, the Scion of Balance, you were granted similar protection from time.
History could warp into parody of itself and you would remain untouched."
Was that how the Sarafan had risen to power again, in contradiction to the history I knew, without me knowing it? Did the role of Scion of Balance protect me from all alterations in history? Was I now fixed, outside times influence?
It was too incredible to imagine but it explained so much.
"His life is slipping away." The wolf stated, glancing down at my former self. "This is the end. When he ties, the tether binding him to the pillar of Balance will be broken and the burden truly lifted from you.
Once he has died, you will be able to face Sabre in the Election with an equal claim to the position as Guardian.
This is the death of the creature who damned Nosgoth to the history it knows."
"But that is me. If he dies, the events that led up to my becoming the Scion of Balance will be voided." I looked the wolf in the face. "And they are just as important as my existence. If they do not transpire then that can be almost as damaging as my own death."
Despite lacking the facial muscles for it, the wolf smiled cruelly.
"That is were destiny begs to differ. Can you not feel it around you? Changes are still taking place, history is being stained." I glanced up. The roar of history, obstructed by the paradox was still echoing in the air.
Suddenly however the roar changed from a sound of pain to a melody so beautiful I had to stop and listen.
The shift that came with this music was undeniable. It was as if everything, every aspect of existence had lurched to one side, away from the oppressive feeling I often got from it to something completely…. different.
Suddenly I realized what had happened. The course of history had been completely blocked by this event. It could not handle the paradox of my slaying my past self and it could not remove the irritant that caused the paradox in the first place as I now existed outside of time.
No longer was I a pebble. I was a dam, blocking the river completely.
"Time is resetting itself Kain." The wolf assured me. "Even before has this happened. To save itself from collapse, time is adapting."
"Adapting?" Raziel asked. "How can time adapt?"
"By altering its nature. This one act, this one paradox, has caused fate to become less…" The creature paused as if looking for the right word. "Less tyrannous."
He moved down to give the face of the vampire a nudge.
"Before he passes there is something that must be done. Raziel must assume his position."
"Excuse me?" Raziel asked blinking.
"Kain may exist outside of the influence of time but you do not." The wolf explained. "And your fate is interwoven with that of the Scion of Balance. Ones fate affects the other.
Kain has faced his dark past and won. Now you must face your dark future… the insane spirit you may yet still become."
Raziel's gazed fell down to the second Reaver, the one my younger self had been using, the blade containing another version of himself. The insane spirit, the ravenous deranged future Raziel had thus far managed to avoid.
"You must confront and defeat it." The wolf told him. "Face the demon. Kain, the two swords…." I glanced over towards the weapon my younger self had dropped. The Reaver, its older self, had been chipped in the battle. "Take your own weapon, lay it down beside the other."
I did as instructed, the two Reavers past and future lay beside one another.
"Raziel…" The Wolf started. The projected form just nodded once.
"Yes I know." He replied before he disappeared. A short flash of light erupted as the spirits within both sword almost leapt at each other; clashing in the air.
One Raziel still retaining sanity, the other deranged and insane. As they clashed, I watched as the two blades began to edge closer to one another.
Then as if they were liquid the two swords merged, becoming one whole.
The paradox of this did not seem to bother the adapting history either. In fact it sung its appraisal as if it approved.
Was this the true mission of the Scion of Balance? To recreate time itself? To recreate the nature of existence?
When the two swords had become one, I gazed down upon the newly re-forged weapon. Its skull like lit gazed out at me with its double set of horns and the long curved blade which had lengthened slightly.
"It is done." The wolf stated with an unmistakeable sigh of relief. "Time is still in flux, the two aspects become one.
Now Kain, it is your turn." I looked at the wolf with a half worried expression. "Raziel has performed his task here and now you must do yours. You must take your own place."
"This changes nothing!" The Elder's voice angrily started from the abyss as I laid my hand across the chest of my former self and history, redefining itself, began the merger. "Empower this one vampire as much as you like. He will still not prevail. He can not best me. I am eternal. I am mighty! I am undeniable!"
The wolf simply looked down at the darkness with a sly expression.
"And so he is."