The vast council library loomed before Niu, its towering shelves and intricate arches whispering centuries-old secrets. Elder Rujik's wager had seemed almost laughable at the moment, the elder confident in his disbelief that the planet could be a massive magic stone. Now, with his victory sealed, Niu stepped into the library with purpose, he would not hide his joy.
Books of every size and color lined the walls, but as Niu reached for one, it refused to open, its enchanted lock glowing faintly.
"That old man, if I knew any curse words I would shower him with them. He never told me the books were sealed." Niu frowned but pressed onward, deeper into the labyrinth of knowledge.
Niu floated through the library, his understanding of telekinesis allowed him to levitate with little to no effort.
At the back of the council library, Niu noticed a peculiar wall covered in inscriptions written in the God Tongue. The golden etchings shimmered faintly, drawing him closer.
The ceiling was an intricate marvel, inscribed with luminous golden scripts that pulsed faintly in rhythm with the sanctuary's energy. Niu, standing at the library's center, craned his neck, his eyes narrowing as he made out the writing.
"The God Tongue," he whispered. "I have never seen it used in such abundance, let alone used alongside images as if for storytelling."
He knew enough from his mother's teachings to understand the language's sacredness. Each word bore immense power, capable of shaping reality itself. To write it with such power that is glowed was a divine act; to read it could unravel mysteries hidden since the era of gods.
Curiosity flared within him. He willed his body to rise. Slowly, he levitated off the ground, his small form silhouetted against the shimmering text above. Inch by inch, he floated closer until the golden light bathed him entirely.
Unlike the tomes, the wall did not reject him. The text seemed alive, its energy reaching out to him, beckoning. He traced his fingers over the markings, their meaning unraveling in his mind as if the words themselves spoke to him.
'The words sense I can understand them' Niu judged.
His fingers not daring to touch but following its curves. As he began to read, the letters shimmered and melted into his consciousness, pulling him into a vivid trance as the words formed images in his mind. The sanctuary faded around him as the story unfolded, his consciousness drawn into a trance.
His eyes glowed a golden hue as his mouth continued to stammer through the text yet his mind had been transported to another time.
The cosmos unfolded before Niu's eyes, a vast expanse of stars swirling in a dance older than time itself. At the heart of it all, stood the most handsome man Niu had ever seen. His figure is radiant and sharp, as though crafted from the essence of creation itself.
The man wore a fitting mechanical suit of armor, his golden hair flowed down to his neck. His eyes were as bright as the sun, his face was a masterful creation.
"Is this a deity-level being?" Niu wondered.
The man bore an aura of superiority, he moved with purpose, wielding magic that bent the fabric of reality. Planets spun into existence at his command, their surfaces bursting with life and endless possibilities.
The man's talents seemed unmatched; his ingenuity birthed sciences, new paths of cultivation, and realms that defied comprehension. The man changed his form enabling him to live among the sentient life, sometimes as a god other times as an observer.
The stars around him pulsed, their light dimming as ages passed. Civilizations rose and fell on the worlds he created.
As Niu watched the time pass by, a pattern emerged. The being's creations began to echo one another, their novelty fading. Planets bore striking similarities, their civilizations repeating the same arcs of growth, stagnation, and decay.
The man's once-boundless creativity turned inward, souring into frustration. His shimmering light grew dim as he stood amidst his countless worlds, staring at their beauty with hollow eyes.
"All his worlds ended the same, in a blast of destruction. His creations lead themselves to extinction." Niu summarized to himself, surprised that he empathized with the being.
"Even when he led the civilizations, they turned against him and destroyed themselves. What an empty existence." Niu was beginning to understand the emotional state of the deity when suddenly.
The being of shimmering lights raised his hands, and entire civilizations crumbled beneath his power. Planets that once teemed with life were reduced to stardust, their remnants spiraling into the void. His destruction was indiscriminate—it was filled with rage, a calculated fury born of dissatisfaction.
The stars lighting the cosmic landscape began to dim and disappear. One by one only the darkness of space was left. In the dark void, Niu watched as the being attempted to claw out his heart in rage.
"Why!!! I did exactly what the one being did yet after the age of hundreds of universes. I have gained nothing." the depressed deity said to himself. "I tire of discovering when will I be a creator."
In the pitch darkness of space, the intimate intra-personal conversation was cut short when figures shone with a divine radiance, their auras vast and commanding appeared around him.
"Colizak, what have you done? Your rampage has ended billions of lives. Yet you refuse to return them to the path of reincarnation." a beautiful woman shaped from a union of stars and biomass of vegetation spoke.
"Leave my presence at once" Colizak spoke with authority. For a moment his uninvited guests seemed to disappear only to emerge surrounding him.
"We have been authorized by the heavenly court to bring you in to explain your actions." a loud voice said. The voice came from a muscular humanoid being who had detailed glowing tattoos covering every inch of his body.
"If you say it like that you know I will resist," Colizak said with a wicked grin.
"I was hoping you would try." the tattooed figure retorted while summoning a spear of fire on his left hand.
"Please let us remain hospitable. All we want is for you to return the souls to the river of time. No need for viole…" before the woman clad in stars could finish.
Colizak was standing behind her. In his hand, a large black hole. He turned to look at the beauty that once carried stars and vegetation. Her figure had a large hole across her torso.
"My gift to you is a quick death," Colizak said as the lights over the beauty's body became dim.
The bulky man launched his spear at Colizak with direct thrusts aimed at his vitals. Yet Colizak dodged with grace as if playing with a child.
Armies of heavenly beings arrived, clouds and lightning crackling in their wake. Their strikes pierced the void, each bolt a fragment of their divine essence. The man of shimmering light countered with precision, bending the lightning into spirals of energy that fed into his growing power.
The lightning attacks bounced harmlessly on the reinforced rock that formed scales over Colizak's figure. His form began to shift, earth hardening into scales, his limbs elongating into talons. His newfound talons gleamed with a metallic luster, resistant to even the purest lightning.
When the armies of heaven launched oceans, their presence flooded the void with cascading waves of cosmic water. Colizak dove into the torrent, his transformation advancing. Scales adapted for water glistened as he swam effortlessly, his talons slicing through the watery realm. His breath burned with fire, vaporizing the deity's attacks. With each deity defeated, he absorbed their essence, their knowledge merging with his own.
As his form solidified, the man's light gave way to a monstrous visage. He was now a dragon—a predator perfected. His body bristled with the strength of the hardest metals, capable of conducting energy with no resistance. His fire could ignite worlds, his wings spanned the heavens, and his mind held the wisdom of countless lifetimes. He was no longer merely a celestial being, he had become a being forged by all the elements. He had transcended into the Father of Destruction.
Niu was putrefied by the power radiating from the dragon before him. A cold sweat rolled over his body as he watched the dragon land on populated worlds and boil the oceans with a single breath.
"After spending half of all time, finally I have evolved. The battle has transformed me. I followed the path of the One being, why then was I disappointed when he was always ahead of me." Colizak said with a laugh that shook the heavens.
"The heavenly court summoned me, it would be rude if I do not attend."
The dragon tore a hole through the space ahead of him and walked through leaving behind him a collapsing ecosystem.
The dragon, now fully realized, stood before a congregation of celestial beings. They shimmered like stars gathered in a cosmic arena, their curiosity mingling with trepidation as they gazed at his form.
Niu appeared before a spiraling mass of stars, the stars moved as if sentient arranging themselves into organized patterns according to their brightness.
The cosmic arena was a vast as the universe. The stage where the dragon stood, lay at its center where all the members of the heavenly court could watch from their domains among the stars. Each twinkling star was a seating member.
"Celestials, Creators, and the One being in absentia, I greet you all. I humbly stand before the members of the heavenly court. Pleading for a moment of your time to state my case." Colizak's voice boomed, each word reverberating across the void.
"Colizak, what monstrosity have you become." a creator realm being seating among the stars asked.
"I have become what I was always meant to be," the dragon declared, his scales gleaming in the ethereal light. "You are bound by the need for balance. But balance is stagnation. Evolution demands more. Choose your own path. Abandon your limitations."
"Have you ever wondered what is so precious about souls? They are the only thing none of us can create yet we are tasked with watching over." Colizak asked.
"Fear is the reason such a simple question lacks an answer." the dragon said with a wide grin. "I have studied souls and I am in the process of creating my own."
"Impossible", Various cries of disbelief echoed across the void.
Colizak extended his talons, a glowing orb of dark energy forming between them. "This is the soul refinement technique in action," he proclaimed. "A gift to those who dare to evolve. Consume the essence of souls, and ascend beyond your confines. Through destruction comes rebirth."
"That is unnatural, a break from the order of creation." one of the celestials spoke out in protest.
"A predator feeding on prey is nature's grand design." the dragon said.
While others murmured in awe, their light flickering with uncertainty. One by one dimensional tears appeared around the dragon, celestial beings appeared and accepted his gift, their forms warping and twisting as they embraced the forbidden technique. Some grew into monstrous forms, abandoning their humanoid appearances, while others retained their light but burned with a darker intensity.
"The insight you have received is the accumulation of countless lifetimes. While a single celestial being can live for the age of millions of universes. The sum of the experience of sentient beings on one planet is worth more than the time of a universe spent in isolated cultivation."
"My liege, what happens to the souls once we take from them." one of the recipients of the forbidden technique asked.
In a thunderous laugh, Colizak answered, "It becomes yours, part of you. The same way food is absorbed to build muscle".