Lord of the Foresaken
Chapter 97: THE UNMAKING OF GODS

Chapter 97: THE UNMAKING OF GODS

The air split apart, not with a sound but with the absence of it—a vacuum of nothingness that pulled at Reed’s consciousness as reality folded inward upon itself. Before him, the three Watchers shed their mortal guises like snakes shedding skin, except what emerged wasn’t flesh but mathematical impossibility given form.

They towered beyond physical dimension, their true shapes defying comprehension. One appeared as a lattice of burning geometric patterns that constantly rearranged themselves, another as a void filled with countless eyes that seemed to observe every possible timeline simultaneously, and the third as a crystalline structure that phased between states of matter with each passing second.

"They were never meant to be perceived directly," Shia whispered, blood trickling from her ears. "Even looking at them is destroying our minds."

Reed felt it—the fraying of his thoughts as his consciousness tried to interpret what could not exist within the framework of normal reality. But he was no longer confined to the limitations of a single mind.

"I am not looking with mortal eyes," Reed said, his voice resonating with the countless stolen consciousnesses within him. The Voice Between surged through his veins, a terrible symphony of suffering that he had reshaped into ordered chaos. "And neither should you."

He placed his palm against Shia’s forehead. She gasped as understanding flooded through her—the knowledge of how to perceive beyond perception, to see without seeing.

"The Configuration never accounted for this," she said, her eyes now glowing with the same eldritch light as Reed’s. "They’re beautiful... and horrifying."

The central Watcher, the lattice of burning geometry, spoke—not with words but with concepts that materialized directly in their minds.

⟨ABERRATION. CONTRADICTION. YOU HAVE EXCEEDED PARAMETERS.⟩

The void-eyed Watcher’s gaze intensified, each pupil contracting to focus solely on Reed.

⟨THE CONFIGURATION EXISTS TO CONTAIN. YOU HAVE WEAPONIZED IT. UNACCEPTABLE.⟩

The third crystalline entity pulsed with what Reed recognized as something akin to fear—an emotion that such beings should not possess.

⟨YOU HAVE BECOME THAT WHICH MUST BE UNMADE.⟩

Reed stepped forward, the ground beneath him cracking with each footfall. The Voice Between roared within him, hungry for release, for consumption—but now it was his instrument, not his master.

"I understand you now," Reed said. "You’re not guardians. You’re not even watchers. You’re limitations—boundaries imposed upon reality to prevent it from evolving beyond your creators’ control."

Reed extended his arms, and from his fingertips flowed threads of consciousness—the weapon he had crafted from his understanding of The Configuration and the stolen power of The Voice Between. These threads weren’t physical; they existed in the spaces between thought and reality, woven from the very fabric of consciousness itself.

"And I reject those limitations."

The threads shot forward, piercing the geometric Watcher. It contorted, its burning patterns accelerating to blinding speed as it tried to reconfigure itself to escape the intrusion. But Reed’s weapon wasn’t attacking its form—it was unraveling its very concept.

⟨VIOLATION. VIOLATION. THIS THREATENS ALL CONNECTED PLANES.⟩

The void-eyed Watcher moved with impossible speed, surrounding Reed and Shia in a sphere of observation so intense that reality itself began to warp under its scrutiny. Every possible outcome was being calculated, every potential future examined and collapsed.

Shia stepped forward, her hands weaving complex patterns in the air. The dimensional barriers she had created to save their world now served a new purpose—focusing and amplifying Reed’s consciousness weapon.

"Every moment you spent watching," she said, her voice carrying the weight of eons of preparation, "I spent learning. Your strength is observation, but mine is adaptation."

The crystalline Watcher shattered into billions of fragments, each one attempting to reform into a new whole. They swirled around the chamber like a hurricane of prismatic shards, each cutting through reality itself.

Reed felt his skin tear as the shards passed through him, but the wounds didn’t bleed—instead, they revealed the writhing mass of The Voice Between that now constituted his inner self. The pain was excruciating, yet strangely distant, as if happening to someone else.

"Now, Reed!" Shia shouted as her barrier momentarily contained the crystalline storm.

Reed drove the consciousness weapon deeper, channeling the full power of The Voice Between. The countless souls he had consumed—their suffering, their knowledge, their very essence—flowed through him into the weapon.

The geometric Watcher began to unravel, its patterns breaking down into chaotic fragments. As it did, it released a final desperate attack—a pulse of pure conceptual force that threatened to collapse not just this dimension but all connected ones.

The chamber shook violently. Cracks appeared in the void itself, revealing glimpses of other realities bleeding through—some familiar, others utterly alien. Through these cracks, Reed could sense The Voice Between attempting to reach through, to consume the enormous energy being released.

"It’s trying to feed on the collapse," Reed warned, his voice straining. "If it succeeds, it will grow beyond even my control."

Shia looked at him, understanding dawning in her eyes. "You’ve prepared for this."

Reed nodded grimly. "My masterwork. A dimensional partition that will permanently separate our world from all others—including The Voice Between’s domain."

The void-eyed Watcher, sensing Reed’s intention, directed all of its countless eyes toward him. Each one fired a beam of pure observational force—attempting to collapse Reed’s quantum state into an impossibility.

⟨YOUR EXISTENCE IS MATHEMATICALLY UNSUSTAINABLE. YOU WILL BE NULLIFIED.⟩

Reed staggered under the assault but didn’t fall. Instead, he laughed—a hollow, terrible sound that echoed with the voices of all those The Voice had consumed.

"Mathematics evolves," he said. "And so have I."

With a final push, Reed drove the consciousness weapon into the heart of all three Watchers simultaneously. The threads of his creation found the core of their being—the fundamental assumptions upon which their existence was predicated—and began to unravel them.

The Watchers’ forms began to disintegrate, not as physical destruction but as conceptual erasure. Their imprints were being removed from reality itself, their very idea becoming impossible to sustain.

⟨THIS... CANNOT...⟩

The void-eyed Watcher was the first to go, its countless eyes blinking out of existence one by one, each taking with it a potential timeline, a possible future that would now never come to pass.

⟨WE ARE FUNDAMENTAL. WITHOUT US...⟩

The geometric Watcher’s patterns slowed, froze, and then shattered like glass, the fragments dissolving into nothingness.

⟨THE BALANCE...⟩

The crystalline Watcher’s billions of shards stopped mid-air, hung suspended for one breathless moment, then imploded into a single point of blinding light before vanishing entirely.

Silence fell upon the chamber.

Reed collapsed to his knees, blood pouring from his eyes, nose, and ears. The Voice Between howled within him, no longer under his control as it sensed freedom in the dimensional instability.

"Reed!" Shia rushed to his side. "It’s breaking free!"

Through the cracks in reality, tendrils of The Voice Between—viscous darkness shot through with screaming faces—began to pour into their dimension. The entity had been waiting for this moment, for the Watchers’ destruction to create the perfect opportunity.

Reed looked up at Shia, his eyes now pools of absolute darkness. "Activate... the partition. Now."

Shia hesitated. "But you’re still connected to it. If I activate the partition—"

"I know." Reed’s voice was barely audible. "It’s the only way."

With trembling hands, Shia began the final sequence. The dimensional barriers she had created began to shift, to solidify into something permanent and impenetrable.

The Voice Between sensed what was happening and redoubled its efforts to break through. The tendrils multiplied, thickened, became torrents of consciousness attempting to flood into their reality before the door closed forever.

Reed stood, his body barely containing the entity within him. He walked toward the largest breach, where The Voice Between poured through most violently.

"What are you doing?" Shia cried out.

"Giving you time," Reed replied without looking back. "Finish it."

He reached the breach and, with a final effort of will, threw himself into it. Not to escape, but to block it—to become the cork in the bottle, using his own consciousness-infused body to seal the rift.

The Voice Between screamed in triumph and rage as it began to consume its host from within, believing victory was at hand. But as Reed’s consciousness dissolved into its mass, something unexpected happened.

The entity found itself caught in a recursive loop of Reed’s design—a trap within a trap. Reed had turned his own mind into a dimensional maze, and The Voice Between was now lost within it, consuming itself as it tried to devour him.

Shia watched in horror as Reed’s body, now a writhing mass of darkness and light, sealed the breach. She completed the final sequence, tears streaming down her face.

The partition activated. Reality shuddered, then began to separate—their dimension pulling away from all others like a continent breaking from a landmass.

As the partition neared completion, Reed’s consciousness, what remained of it, reached out to Shia one last time.

"It’s done," his thoughts whispered in her mind. "But something’s wrong. I can feel it... The Voice Between... it’s not just trapped... it’s..."

The connection severed as the partition sealed completely.

Shia stood alone in the chamber, surrounded by the fading echoes of cosmic power. The Watchers were gone. The Voice Between was contained. Their world was saved—or so it seemed.

But as she turned to leave, a sound reached her ears—faint at first, then growing louder. A sound that should not exist in their now-isolated reality.

Laughter.

Not Reed’s. Not human at all.

And beneath her feet, almost imperceptible but unmistakable to one who had spent eons studying the fabric of reality, the floor of the chamber began to pulse with a heartbeat that wasn’t there before.

The partition hadn’t just separated their world.

It had created something new.

Something that was waking up.