Creation Of All Things

The void rippled again.

Where Magnus had fallen, silence reigned. Stars flickered in the distance like nervous witnesses. The battlefield was scorched, frozen, and torn — but not still.

Not yet.

Because far away, above a broken moon and beneath a twisting aurora of leftover energy, three figures stood in a loose triangle.

Two of them radiated power. One stood still.

Mael.

The Absolute Monarch of Balance. His presence was… odd. Not loud, not cold, not warm. Just present. Real. Tangible. Like gravity, like breath. He wore simple white and black robes that shifted color with each step. Around him, scales floated — not made of metal, not made of magic — but something heavier. Older. Scales of reality, tipping ever so slightly depending on his thoughts.

Across from him, the second figure adjusted his gloves.

Joshua.

The Absolute Monarch of Order. Clean-cut. Not a hair out of place. His coat looked like it had been folded a thousand times and never wrinkled. Every movement he made was efficient, mechanical. Behind him floated countless golden runes — orbiting in perfect circles, clicking softly, like a divine clock.

Between them stood the last figure.

Kaelor.

The Monarch of the Timeless Roots.

He looked different from the others. No aura. No weapon. No spectacle. Just a calm, tired man wrapped in flowing robes made of ancient bark and green-white mist. Vines moved lazily around his shoulders. His eyes were closed. He breathed deeply, like someone who had just walked out of a long meditation and didn't want to go back into the world's madness.

He sighed.

"I said we shouldn't fight."

Joshua's eyes narrowed. "And yet you're here."

Kaelor finally opened his eyes — glowing, deep green, old beyond anything that should still exist.

Mael said nothing. His scales tilted slightly.

Kaelor looked at him. "I told them — Magnus and Selene — we should have stepped down. Let the new Monarchs rise. Not everything needs to be a war. But of course, none of them listened."

He looked down at the scorched battlefield below, where Magnus had just vanished.

"Now look."

Joshua's jaw clenched. "We are not here because of choice. We are here because of the consequences of your actions."

"That's exactly why you should've walked away," Kaelor said, calm. "But Order never bends, does it? And Balance… well." He glanced at Mael again. "You just go where the scale tips."

Mael spoke at last. "You caused it to tip toward conflict."

Kaelor let out a soft, bitter laugh. "Of course it did."

Joshua raised a hand, golden runes sharpening around his fingers. "We can talk after."

"No," Kaelor replied, raising his hand as well — not in aggression, but in resignation. "Now they've forced my hand."

Vines shot up from the ground — not normal ones. These were cosmic. Stretching through space like roots from another dimension. They pierced moons. Coiled through stars. Time bent around them, slowed, twisted.

Kaelor exhaled again, and the entire field trembled.

"I'll fight," he said softly. "But just know — I wanted peace."

And then it began.

Joshua moved first.

A single golden rune expanded — then multiplied into hundreds, each the size of a building. They rotated in calculated patterns, forming a ring around him.

"Protocol Twelve," he whispered.

Reality snapped.

Every object around him was frozen in stasis — a grid of golden light locking the area down. Time bent into squares. Motion became segmented.

He vanished.

Appeared behind Kaelor.

A blade of golden law in his hand.

He slashed — but it passed through a vine instead.

The vine blocked the hit mid-swing, curling like a serpent. Kaelor spun slowly, vines twisting around him like a storm of nature.

Then Mael stepped in.

His foot touched the void — and balance shifted.

The battlefield tilted.

Not physically. Existentially.

Suddenly Joshua was falling, despite not moving. Kaelor was rising. Everything was wrong. Gravity didn't matter. Up and down were meaningless.

Mael raised both hands. The scales around him tilted to one side, and a beam of raw balance — pure neutrality — shot toward Kaelor.

Kaelor's eyes flashed.

He reached out.

The beam hit his palm — and stopped.

Not because he blocked it.

Because time stopped around it.

The beam hung mid-air like a paused video. Then Kaelor waved his other hand, and roots grew around the beam and absorbed it — like a tree feeding on sunlight.

He spoke.

"My roots drink more than water, Mael."

And then vines burst outward — thousands of them, wrapping around the floating runes, cracking the stasis field. One vine slammed into Joshua — he blocked with a wall of gold, but the impact sent him crashing into a passing meteor.

Mael blinked — and reappeared above Kaelor.

He dropped down — palm-first.

Balance Pulse.

The moment his palm touched Kaelor's back, an invisible wave exploded outward. Time, space, energy — even thought — was forced into equilibrium. A perfect moment of zero.

Kaelor coughed blood.

But he didn't fall.

Instead, he grabbed Mael's wrist and pulled him forward — into a headbutt that sent Mael spinning through a frozen planet nearby.

Joshua returned.

Dozens of runes surrounded him now — all activated, all burning with order.

He pointed two fingers forward.

"Judgment Array: Final Edict."

The runes combined into a massive spear of law, larger than a city, brighter than a sun. It launched at Kaelor.

Kaelor raised both hands.

Roots grew — not outward, but inward. Into time itself.

The moment the spear reached him, it froze.

Then reversed.

The entire spell uncast itself — breaking into pieces, reforming the runes, which scattered.

Kaelor shook his head. "You're fighting against time. It's not fair, is it?"

Mael reappeared beside him, silent.

This time, he didn't attack.

He reached out — and touched Kaelor's heart.

Kaelor's eyes widened.

The scales around Mael tilted again — both sides leveling for a single moment.

Kaelor screamed.

Not from pain.

From imbalance.

Roots died around him. The time distortion weakened. Mael had equalized his internal flow. The centuries of stillness and patience — all pulled forward into the now. He was overwhelmed by presentness.

Joshua took the chance.

"Order Break."

He slammed a fist into Kaelor's back — runes cracking across his body like lightning.

Kaelor fell.

Down, down, through layers of space.

But as he fell, his vines reached out — and dragged Mael and Joshua with him.

They slammed into a root-covered planet below, shattering mountains.

Kaelor stood, coughing, bruised.

"Enough."

He planted his palm on the ground.

And the planet awoke.

Not metaphorically.

The entire planet stood up.

It was a beast. A root-titan, shaped like a man but miles tall. Vines for veins. Galaxies tangled in its shoulders.

Kaelor stood on its forehead.

He looked down.

"This is what I'm trying to protect. The quiet things. The rooted things."

Joshua's runes expanded again — forming a cube around the titan.

"Contain."

The cube snapped shut — then collapsed inward, trying to crush the giant world-being.

But the vines pushed back.

Every rune cracked.

Mael flew upward, drawing every floating scale to him.

He clasped his hands.

"Dual Balance — Creation/Destruction."

A white-and-black beam shot from his palms — one half building, the other half erasing. It struck the titan in the chest — tearing a hole through it.

Kaelor screamed — not in pain, but fury.

He snapped his fingers.

Time stopped — but only for him.

He rewound his own body ten seconds.

He reappeared behind Joshua and Mael — root-spear in hand.

He stabbed forward.

Joshua turned at the last moment — the spear grazed his shoulder.

Mael grabbed the shaft of the weapon.

Kaelor pulled it free, twisting it to deflect Mael's follow-up strike.

The three clashed mid-air, blowing apart stars with each movement.

No talking now.

Just raw movement.

Kaelor twisted time, looped roots through history, used memories as weapons.

Mael countered by shifting cause and effect — balancing momentum with inertia, intention with reaction.

Joshua locked them both in grids of logic — trying to predict, to contain, to isolate.

It didn't work.

They kept moving.

Exploding.

Slashing.

Falling through planets.

Kaelor's vines tore through orbiting moons.

Mael snapped a scale and reset his position.

Joshua launched a storm of golden judgment, each rune targeting a different version of Kaelor across parallel timelines.

Still not enough.

Kaelor remained.

Breathing hard.

Bleeding.

But still moving.

The three hovered in a wrecked field of broken light.

No winner.

Not yet.

But the galaxy watched.

And waited.