Chapter 719: Absolute Law & Abolishment
It\'s a common theme among you lesser beings. This \'but wait!\' trope. It\'s amusing, but embarrassing. Cute, but insignificant.
Aeons make absolutes. Through the power of laws, what they wish for will be so, and it will be eternal. Immovable. There is no room for outside deviation to overturn it\'s design.
These laws create principles beholden only to the will of their maker. Allowing them alone to determine what can or can\'t happen, how or why it will come into being,
They are the height of creation. It takes all impossibility and spits on it.
You\'ve had your taste of it already. Creating worlds at your whim and tearing open doors to new universes far beyond your prior imagination.
But the difference in dealing with absolutes is that no common outsider can come and break down what you\'ve built or close the door you open.
Once an Absolute Law stands, it stands until… well, until us." Oblivion smiled.
"What does that mean?" Abaddon finally asked.
"Make no mistake, brother-man. We come for all. Regardless of splendor, dedication, or forces who fight us, we are the end of all things. As is only natural.
Because of that, we alone are tasked with glorious Abolishment.
We have the responsibility to render almighty laws moot and erase them, their creators, and everything in between.
All must return to the quiet dark. We are an inescapable part of the cycle of all things. Though we do have restrictions..."
When he was finally done with his explanation, Oblivion put away the laser pointer he\'d been using during the demonstration.
Somehow, Abaddon felt like he was back in community college on earth.
"So if everything that you have said is true-"
"It is."
"Then what ability was I about to use that would\'ve warranted you pulling me here?"
"You almost created a law. And don\'t bother asking me which one, because I ain\'t telling you." Oblivion nodded firmly.
"…Which o-"
"The fuck did I just say?!"
Abaddon shrugged.
"Listen… I need that kind of power. If I have to play in a game of absolutes to save the lives of my wives, then it\'s what I will do."
Everything that Abaddon is and tries to be rests in the hands of the eleven women he married.
If he were to lose even one of them, he would at best become an empty shell.
At his worst he would become the same monster that the gods already thought he was.
However, Oblivion was still unwilling to budge on his refusal.
"I know that you are thinking that you have no other options aside from this, but you do. And this absolutely must be the last time we have this conversation."
Abaddon clenched his fists in desperation.
"I\'m sorry, but I have to save her. And I must make Lucifer pay."
Oblivion suddenly turned his head to the side and whistled.
"…What?"
"Nothing."
"Oblivion!"
"Call me Big-O!"
"I\'m going to call you a fucking ambulance if you don\'t tell me what you know!"
"Alright, alright, fine!" Oblivion hurled his laser pointer at Abaddon\'s head. "Truthfully, there is another reason why I called you here aside from the massive blunder you were about to make. Your actions were about to do more harm than good."
"Meaning?"
Oblivion sighed. "Your best chance to save Lillian was by letting her sacrifice everything that she had. Feeding her our energy was only going to delay her body\'s process."
Death.
Sacrifice.
And Resurrection.
Lillian was not given those divinities for no reason.
Like most of the group\'s divinities, hers feed off one another to enact specific chain reactions.
Lillian gave up her body and soul for their child.
While it was certain that she would die, it was also certain that she would resurrect.
However, sacrifice and resurrection don\'t come cheap.
Lillian could\'ve resurrected without her memories, emotions, her powers, but she most certainly would have come back without her body.
Not to mention the actual time of her resurrection wasn\'t instant. It could have been 7 days or 700 years.
Abaddon and his other brides couldn\'t go a single day without her at their side.
So what was the way to help her?
"Fighting her body\'s natural process is only going to slow down the inevitable. You filled her with energy so the process was slowed down a bit, but what you should\'ve done was…"
As Oblivion explained the only way to truly aid Lillian, Abaddon felt his eyes widen at the sudden enlightenment.
It was a very risky plan with a very high chance for things to go wrong.
But he knew that this was the absolute only option.
"Alright... Now what\'s the other thing you need to tell me?" Abaddon asked once Oblivion was done.
"Other thing? There is no other thing." The entity responded innocently.
"Don\'t bullshit me. Spit it out."
Oblivion smiled wryly as he scratched the back of his head.
"I really shouldn\'t be spilling so many secrets to you about the aeon you\'re living in. It takes all the fun out of it for an outside observer like me. "
Oblivion suddenly began floating upwards like some sort of messiah while wearing a shit-eating grin.
"Besides. Aren\'t you here harassing me because you are already thinking the same thing?"
Abaddon stood up as the room began to glow white. "What are you doing? We aren\'t done here!"
"I can\'t hear you over the sound of my badass all-powerful exit!"
"Oblivion!!"
"Stay up, big homie!"
-
Abaddon\'s vision snapped back to the real world, just a couple of seconds into the past.
Lillian was still crumbling, but he was no longer screaming at her sacrifice.
Now, he was just holding Seras and Sif back as they tried to run towards her.
Abaddon closed his eyes and calmed his aching heart.
In his mind, he could see clearly that while Lillian was breaking down in body and soul, she wasn\'t necessarily leaving.
At least, not yet anyway.
Using their bond, Abaddon pulled on the small fragments of her broken down essence.
He held them delicately and brought them towards him, where he did the most asinine thing imaginable.
He shaved off a part of his own soul to give to her.
The pain was excruciating, but it didn\'t hurt any worse than losing her would have.
He used the now detached and rudderless piece of his soul as a sort of adhesive to keep Lillian\'s essence together until she could properly regrow her own.
Most importantly, he tied her essence together with his, and all of his other brides. They instinctively bonded and held onto her firmly as if they needed her more than the breath in their lungs.
Because they did.
Last but not least, Abaddon fed her some of his energy. Not in a desperate bid to keep her alive and here with him.
It was more akin to the way that she woke him up in the morning. A gentle, soft nudging that let her know he was waiting for her.
And that alone appeared to be enough to do the trick.
There was a flash of light and a wave of energy knocked back the trio of concerned lovers.
Abaddon caught Sif and Seras and shielded the two of them with his body as debris threatened to fall on them.
After he knocked it away and ensured that his loves were alright, he checked on the progress of his efforts.
A body was being stitched together out of thin air.
Vein by vein, cell by cell, it was all coming into fruition.
The first thing he saw was her face. A beautiful, shining orange-gold like the sun on a grand summer day. Her full lips were gone, but her bright green eyes were as radiant as ever.
From the neck down, her orange body was covered by a protective outer layer of flesh like cooled magma; running along her body in a scaly reptilian pattern.
The largest surprise were her legs, or more specifically, the lack thereof.
Instead, she had a set of black and orange tentacles that were each larger and thicker than a full-grown person. Abaddon figured she must have been somewhere around 12 feet tall with those things.
At that moment, Abaddon felt his body move on autopilot.
His feet carried him to stand in front of Lillian, and he collapsed on his knees in front of her.
She took his face in her hands and his body unconsciously trembled.
Her touch was the same.
Soft and gentle, the kind of touch that overcame every tribulation in the world at his back and reminded him of what was important.
But even though his love was the same, something was not.
Lillian gently pulled Abaddon\'s head towards her stomach.
With his forehead pressed against her navel, he could sense the new life brewing inside of her.
But something was wrong. Their baby was very, very weak. So weak that he almost missed it.
But now that he was fully paying attention, he could see it clearly.
Their child was human.