“Oh, hello!” Kayel smiled as the vast, ghastly being floated outside his balcony and two very large Rethans stood on it. Kayel loved visitors and today was no exception. Well, Kayel liked visitors, but his K-Class body guards hated them. Sadly, he knew these particular guests weren’t here to see him, but for something else. “How can I help a pair of beautiful Rethans such as yourselves?”
Gath blinked, looking very surprised that someone other than Retvik had called him beautiful. Retvik patted him gently on the arm, then took the reigns of the conversation.
“We are looking for the Thantophor. We believe he is in your territories.”
“Is that the Panelix?” Kayel immediately responded, pointing to the ominous, floating beast behind them. “Because if that IS the Panelix, she is both amazing and slightly terrifying. Way better than the Allbirther at least.”
Retvik nodded. “Yes, that is the Panelix. Do you know where Arkadin is?”
Kayel nodded. “Arkay? He’s in our best hospital. He wasn’t feeling well and someone strapped an immovable bomb to his chest so we are looking after him-”
Everything suddenly flashed white. The two Rethavok were just as shocked as Kayel that everything had suddenly moved. Clearly the K-Class guards had predicted something like this since two of them had been stationed in this new room and were already communicating with Kayel’s previous guards, informing them of where their leader now was.
Also present, but not paying attention, was the Thantophor. Multiple drips were being fed into him as he leaned on a table, scribbling notes and rummaging through paper. As Kayel had mentioned, a strange, gold and silver device was wrapped around the Thantophor’s chest, quite obviously leeching off him, but also allowing fluids to seep from a large wound just below where the Death God’s diaphragm was. The weirdest thing of all though was that the Thantophor was breathing. Heavy, laboured breaths.
Someone else appeared within the room. Epani had changed her form into that of a silky smooth upright being, almost as if her were a fur-less Ksithan, with glowing emblems embedded in her skin. She rushed over to Arkadin and briefly hugged him, before letting go.
“You are not well, little brother…”
“Not well?” Arkadin hissed. “My divinity is being used to make every other conscious being in the universe immortal and it is fucking killing me. I wouldn’t fucking mind dying if that also didn’t mean the whole universe would collapse when I died…”
“Slow down!” Retvik exclaimed as he approached. “What do you mean, the universe collapsing?”
Arkadin looked up at Retvik. He smiled ever so slightly, happy to see an old friend. “Hah. Yeah. I fucked up. That fucker got me and turned me into a time bomb. He trapped Yisini and Kairos and did something to them, so now Epani is channeling life as well as space and I’m…” Arkadin paused, grunting a little. “I’m… channeling time and death… Except I’m currently too weak to do so…”
“Is it that…”
“This stupid thing, plus the gaping stab wound. Hurts a lot…” Arkadin paused again, taking more deep, laboured breaths. “Basically, everyone has been made immortal at the expense of me. But if… when I die… everything will be passed on to Epani, which will kill her because she physically cannot deal with all four fundamentals…”
Retvik and Gath glanced at each other. “So… the universe is dying?”
“No, not yet. But it will…” Arkadin huffed. “Which is why I am desperately trying to keep myself alive for as long as possible.”
“We already tried removing the thing, by the way…” Kayel piped in. “Like, we can’t even touch it. Not even a scratch.”
The Thantophor sighed, then stumbled over to a chair to sit down. He was obviously in a huge amount of pain. Epani though had been quiet the entire time. Almost as if she was lost in thought.
Suddenly, the Panelix spoke up.
“I have a plan. But it is not a good one…”