The Unending Ancient One should have been happy. He had done his duties, he had corrected a mistake and he had obtained a rare treasure. An Oull had offered itself to him, for him to study. Of course, he had started vivisecting it, to see what he could learn, but the Oull hadn’t been happy with that. It kept on wriggling and trying to move, and it was fighting Epanophovon’s corrupting insertions. To stop it from squirming so much, Epanophovon had put the bastard into a coma.
That had worked for a bit. Until suddenly the Oull somehow corrupted itself. But it didn’t corrupt itself with the Unending Ancient One’s strain. No, it was, somehow, a completely new strain. One that Epanophovon’s vast infested infection and immune system completely failed to recognize. Or counteract. The new Started End strain (that was what Epanophovon was calling it, he refused to use its actual name, Arkidetelos) was so new that his vast, galaxy-sized main body didn’t know what to do with it, and at first, the Started End had eaten its way out of Epanophovon’s lab areas, making its way towards somewhere a bit more important. This made absolutely no sense, because the Unending Ancient One was, well, ancient. One of the oldest strains around. And older strains would ALWAYS consume newer strains, almost instantly.
All of a sudden though, the Started End had disappeared, burying its way so deep that Epanophovon’s hyperactive black immunization cells couldn’t find it.
That was fine. It could stay hidden. The Unending Ancient One didn’t care. He had more important things to deal with. As long as the Started End remained inside him, it couldn’t do too much damage. Even if his immunization system couldn’t destroy the Started End, the Unending Ancient One was so large and vast that it’d take may a year-string for anything of importance to happen. And, admittedly, Epanophovon had gotten some good data from the Oull before it had corrupted itself, so he wasn’t that bothered.
No, there was something else bothering the Unending Ancient One. As part of his agreement to obtain the Oull in the first place, Epanophovon had instructed all his Sentient Children, children that he had created as separate, intelligent individuals to assist him in his work (or just as experiments), to congregate in the Corrupted Warmth, the pentacluster next to Patagenic and Kentarasa, so he could move on to greener pastures. But as he informed his children of what had happened, some of them seemed… upset with him. In fact, a group of them, who went from universe to universe, offering protection from weaker strains, had decided to break off entirely.
However, one of them seemed to be calling to Epanophovon. His children were not as resilient as he was, so he’d given them all tracking beacons, in case they needed aid. And this one was summoning him from inside a large but empty universe that the Unending Ancient One hadn’t seen before. The universe was clearly a freshly made and freshly abandoned one, probably from a more mischievous Life Goddess who was experimenting herself and hadn’t cleaned up her mess. Since it was abandoned, that meant that the Unending Ancient One could assist his child and help himself to a good meal at the same time.
The universe wasn’t well-guarded either. Slipping in was easy, it didn’t even have a proper hardened membrane. So Epanophovon just threw himself into the universe where one of his children was hiding.
“Elthanios? Where are you?”
Suddenly, that gaseous membrane turned into diamond. Molten diamond. Why… why would someone trap a Corruption INSIDE a universe? The answer was somewhat swift as a Time Drake appeared, flapping overly large wings. And it was holding the beacon that Epanophovon had given to his son.
“Who are you and where is my son?” the Unending Ancient One snarled.
“Uh… Admittedly, I thought this beacon would lure your son here, and I’d kidnap him and offer him as a trade. I… didn’t think you’d show up yourself…” The Time Drake paused, then smiled. “That makes things easier though.”
“Answer my questions, Khra. Before I consume you and your home.”
The Time Drake shrugged. “Nah. You don’t need to know.”
Epanophovon growled, changing from his more gaseous form into that of a more upright being, matching the shape of the Time Drake. “I do not like repeating myself.”
“Tough. Although, I’ll be honest, I don’t have a clue where your son is. Also kinda weird that a monster like you actually has children it cares about… Anyway!” The Tme Drake smiled some more, then twisted their fingers around, summoning a small blade. “Did you know that I control time within this universe?”
“I would assume so. What happened to your Jahu owner?”
“She buggered off. Got bored. Left me behind. Lets me experiment though, you know? I have a question for you though. Do you understand how time can… vary, from place to place?”
The Corruption eyed the Time Drake. Epanophovon’s current physical form was about a kilometre tall. The Time Drake was, what, 50m long and wide, including its wings? It wasn’t very big, compared to him. “Of course I am aware of that. Why do you have my son’s beacon?”
“Dunno. Just found it… Anyway! Did you know that, within this universe, a year passes every microsecond?”
“That is nonsense. A year is normally determined by a planet travelling around a star.”
“Yeah. I got some very small stars here. And some very, very fast planets. Microplanets. The big planets are rogue ones that don’t orbit stars and are kept warm by the ambient heat of the cosmic background radiation. Either way, since this universe is mine, I can determine a year to be whatever I want it to be, as long as hydrogen, helium and caesium are all consistent across both the universe and the Periuniversal Void. We specifically agreed years, not year-strings.”
It suddenly occurred to the Unending Ancient One who this being was.
“So, Khrajahu, what do you want?”
Sini snarled, brandishing her dagger. “It’s been a million years. I want my brother back.”
“According to you. For me, it has been a little over a week. Not that it matters. The Oull turned himself into a Corruption. He gave in.”
“You never specified what a year was. You said a million years, you didn’t quantify that in any way. You didn’t clarify what a year was, or what period of time we were using. You are inside MY universe now, and we go by MY time laws. And if my power states that a million years have already passed, then that’s that. Give me back my damn brother.”
Epanophovon tutted. “No.”
“Then you are breaking your end of the deal!”
“A million years hasn’t passed.”
“It has in here!”
“But not out there. Now move aside, so I can consume this universe, retrieve my son’s beacon and we can both return to our duties.”
Sini hesitated, thinking to herself. “I… I don’t think that matters anyway. You broke your end of your agreement.”
“HAH! How so, little Khrajahu?”
“You harmed my universe by entering it, and you can’t leave my universe without harming it again. Part of our agreement was that you wouldn’t touch our creations. You also promised you wouldn’t threatened any universes that Epani and I made. Except… you just did that.”
The Unending Ancient One suddenly froze. Not because of the hybrid’s words, but because something was…
“YARA VOULL, NETRAD TON XATAMAH.”
The Started End had wormed its way into the Unending Ancient One’s corruption creation facilities, essentially its reproductive areas, and was now tearing through Epanophovon’s body, ripping holes in his side and consuming more and more of the elder Corruption. Worse, it had realized that Epanophovon had broken his end of the deal, and the Started End, while utterly consumed with hunger and race, did seem to be aware that it had made a promise, to hurt the Unending Ancient One should he break the agreement he had made with its siblings.
Not really sure what to do, Sini gripped her blade tightly, and stabbed Epanophovon, straight in what she assumed to be his neck, then continued stabbing at the Corruption, while her poor brother tore it apart from within.
Panicking, the Unending Ancient One flailed, then ripped the Started End from his body, casting it out into the universe, taking a large chunk of the Unending Ancient One’s gonads with it.
“ALRIGHT, FINE, TAKE IT, TAKE IT AWAY! LEAVE ME BE, FERAL BEAST. TAINT THE KHRAJAHU INSTEAD!”
Avoiding Epanophovon’s strikes, Sini summoned a specially prepared container, sealed the Started End inside it, then raced off, fleeing her universe. As she did so, she broke the universe’s Fundamentals, causing gravity to become the dominant force within it, while also slowing time down to a crawl. The universe began to collapse, trapping the Unending Ancient One inside it. While the ancient Corruption would eventually eat its way to freedom, Sini was glad that she’d at least keep it distracted for a while.
Once Sini had made it a safe distance away from her now truly dead universe, she inspected the container. Inside, the Started End was struggling, confused and disorientated, but also cold and frozen, slowed down by Sini’s time powers. But her little brother was long gone. They both knew that. Sini had expected it.
With tears in her eyes, Sini raised her Elkayne Blade, her anti-corruption dagger, ready to kill the exhausted new strain of Corruption, to put an end to its suffering and erase it entirely. But Sini found that she was hesitating. After a moment though, she put the dagger back down.
“I’ll keep my promise, I’ll give you your freedom…” Sini sighed as she opened up her wings and soared out into the Periuniversal Void. “But they deserve to say goodbye to you, in person…”