Absolute Cheater

Chapter 68 Catherine Past - Last

For years, the world trembled under the shadow of two titanic forces locked in an endless, destructive war: Alaric Bloodcrown and the King Beyond Shadows. Their battles reshaped the earth, obliterating mountains, drying rivers, and turning cities to ash. Kingdoms fell, alliances shattered, and the world's greatest champions perished in futile attempts to halt the escalating chaos.

Alaric, consumed by the dark power of the orb, became a force of nature—a warlord whose every step left blood-soaked ground in his wake. The once noble lord of the Bloodcrown family, who had taken up the orb's power to protect his people, had been replaced by something monstrous. His armies, no longer human, were twisted amalgamations of blood and shadow, bound to his will. Victory after victory only dragged him deeper into madness, his obsession to destroy the King Beyond Shadows blinding him to the destruction he wrought.

On the other side of the world, the King Beyond Shadows grew equally twisted. Empowered by an unseen master, his hunger for destruction was insatiable. Entire continents were swallowed by his darkness, his forces spreading like a plague across the lands. Every clash between Alaric and the King left devastation in its wake, their battles scarring the world beyond recognition.

Desperate to stop the carnage, the remnants of Vampires and other races formed the Concord of the Last Light. This coalition of scholars, warriors, and survivors scoured ancient ruins, searching for forgotten knowledge and artifacts to halt the two warlords. They amassed armies, forged alliances, and launched campaigns, but all efforts were futile. Alaric and the King were beyond the reach of mortal strength. The Concord's armies were crushed, their champions corrupted or slain, and their last hope extinguished as the coalition disbanded in despair.

As the world crumbled, forces older than mortals turned their gaze toward the dying realm. These beings, neither benevolent nor malevolent, saw opportunity in the chaos—a chance to reshape existence itself. One such entity, known only as The Weaver, approached a small group of survivors. It whispered of salvation and a path to rebuild, though at a steep cost: submission to its will. Desperate and broken, they accepted, becoming the seeds of a new age.

Meanwhile, Alaric and the King continued their relentless war. Over the years, they had become less like men and more like incarnations of destruction, their madness eclipsing their humanity. Their final clash came not by choice but inevitability, drawn together on the last intact continent—a place where the skies bled crimson, and the earth was jagged stone and molten rivers of shadow.

The battle was unlike anything before, a storm of blood and darkness that ripped apart the very fabric of reality. The ground split open, and the sky wept ash. For days, they fought, neither gaining the upper hand, their fury obliterating the remnants of the world around them.

But as their strength waned, both Alaric and the King came to a terrible realization: they were pawns in a far greater game. The dark power that had fueled their rise had used them both, orchestrating the destruction of the world to reshape it in its image. The whispers that had driven Alaric into madness now revealed their true nature—a malevolent force that fed on chaos and destruction.

In a fleeting moment of clarity, Alaric made a final, desperate decision. He turned his power inward, channeling the last vestiges of his will to strike at the orb's essence within him. The act unleashed a blinding explosion of blood and light that tore through the battlefield. The King Beyond Shadows, unprepared for the backlash, was consumed by the surge of energy, his form disintegrating into shadow and vanishing into nothingness.

When the dust settled, the world was unrecognizable. Continents had been torn apart, oceans boiled away, and the air was thick with the echoes of their apocalyptic war. The few survivors who had hidden in the deepest caves and farthest reaches emerged to find a barren, silent wasteland.

But even in this desolation, there was hope. From the ashes of the old world, the seeds planted by The Weaver began to sprout. Strange structures rose from the ground, and new forms of life, unlike anything seen before, began to take root.

Alaric's name, and that of the King Beyond Shadows, passed into legend. Some remembered Alaric as a hero who sacrificed himself to end the war, while others cursed him as a destroyer who brought ruin to the world. Regardless of perspective, his story became a cautionary tale of unchecked ambition and the price of power too great for any mortal to bear.

As the survivors rebuilt, they could not forget the whispers of the past nor the shadow of what had been lost. A new age had begun—not one shaped by the wisdom of the old world, but by the echoes of its destruction and the mysteries of what lay ahead. Yet in the depths of this new creation, the faintest murmur could still be heard, as if the dark force that had orchestrated it all had not truly been defeated. It waited, patient and watchful, for the next cycle to begin.

For what remained of the world, what was thought to be a new era of rebirth turned into a cruel revelation. A thousand years after the fall of Alaric and the King Beyond Shadows, the truth emerged: the so-called Weaver of Salvation was a malevolent entity whose plan had always been to harvest the world's core. Alaric and the King were nothing more than tools—pawns crafted and unleashed to bring about the destruction necessary for the Weaver's ultimate goal.

When the world core was harvested, the remnants of the once-thriving planet were reduced from a living world to a barren realm. It became little more than a fragment of land adrift in the dark expanse of existence, a piece of property that could be claimed and bound by a master. The Weaver, triumphant, gifted the shattered world to his son as a spoil of conquest, leaving its denizens broken and enslaved.

Catherine Bloodcrown, once a proud elder of her lineage, had already endured centuries of guilt. She had sealed herself away in the ruins of the Bloodcrown estate from the moment Alaric descended into madness, blaming herself for his fall and the ruin of their world. Her isolation was a penance, an endless vigil of regret.

But her self-imposed imprisonment was shattered when the new ruler arrived—a cruel and depraved figure who claimed dominion over the Dark Existence Realm. He ruled through fear and excess, coveting all the beauty of the world as his personal playthings. Catherine soon learned of his atrocities: the women of the once-thriving world were now bound to his will, reduced to mere slaves by the dark magic imbued in the realm itself.

But Catherine was no ordinary soul. As a scion of the Bloodcrown family and a Child of the World, her very nature defied the binding laws of the realm. As long as she remained on the Dark Existence Realm—or even a fragment of it—no force could enslave her. The new ruler, blind to this truth, made the mistake of trying to subjugate her, coveting her beauty like all the others.

He learned the hard way.

Catherine unleashed the full wrath of her bloodline, tearing through the ruler and his forces with brutal efficiency. His death was not quick or merciful—it was a statement. She spilled his blood across his halls, making it clear that even in a shattered world, the Bloodcrown's legacy was one of defiance.

Your adventure continues at empire

In the aftermath of his demise, Catherine assumed control of the realm, but only temporarily. She knew the Weaver would come for vengeance. The loss of his son was a wound that would not go unanswered. Understanding the futility of fighting an entity like the Weaver head-on, Catherine made a desperate choice.

Gathering what power remained in the core of the realm, she enacted a forbidden ritual. She began to collapse the Dark Existence Realm into the void—a place beyond all existence and outside the Weaver's reach. The cost was devastating: the inhabitants of the realm would die after thousand years of survival, doomed to extinction in the emptiness of the void.

Yet Catherine believed this was the only path. If they were to perish, they would do so on their own terms—free from the humiliation and slavery imposed by the Weaver and his ilk. As the realm unraveled, Catherine stood at its heart, her resolve unshaken.

She gazed into the void as the Dark Existence Realm beagan to move into nothingness, a faint smile on her lips. For once in a thousand years, she felt the burden of guilt and shame lift. She had ensured that neither she nor her people would ever be tools of another's will again.

And as the last fragments of the realm fell into destined oblivion, she whispered to herself:

"If this is the end, then let it be ours. Free."

The Weaver, watching from the far reaches of existence, seethed in fury. His plans had been thwarted, his son avenged at a cost he had not foreseen. For the first time in eons, he felt something he had not known: loss.

But for Catherine and the remnants of the Dark Existence Realm, there was only silence—silent, eternal freedom in the void as short as it may be.