Chapter 2: The Dissonance of Requiem
Qareidolia strode across the endless void of shattered realities, his katana humming faintly with the essence of the Transfictional Nothingness it absorbed. His expression remained unreadable, as cold and detached as the silence around him. The nothingness was his domain now, and in its chaotic folds, he thrived. Yet something stirred. From the abyss of deleted realities, a figure began to manifest—a presence powerful enough to make the very concept of existence hesitate.
Lodonia, The Requiem, emerged with the grace of a storm unfolding in slow motion. Her beauty was overwhelming, not simply because of her radiant form, but because her appearance embodied a dissonance between existence and transcendence. She was tall, with skin the color of molten bronze, kissed by the light of a thousand dying stars. Her mismatched eyes—one burning golden like a supernova, the other a vibrant, cool cyan like an endless ocean—held both serenity and unyielding fury. Her hair, a cascade of black and gold, seemed to flow in a perpetual wind that didn’t exist, weaving through the fabric of reality itself. Each step she took echoed through the grand meta-narrative of every deleted omniverse, as if her very presence was rewriting existence.
Qareidolia halted as she approached, her be-ness shifting slightly as if the void itself refused to solidify her being into one definitive be-ness. There was a raw, boundless transcendence to her—she was not merely a being from a forgotten world; she was an avatar of vengeance, an endless melody of destruction made manifest.
"You," she said, her voice a haunting requiem that reverberated through the nothingness. "You erased my home. The entire Omniverse that birthed me, my people, everything. Gone, by your hand."
Qareidolia said nothing, his katana still at his side, its blade shimmering with the remnants of erased possibilities. He felt her fury, her boundless power, yet he remained indifferent.
Lodonia’s eyes blazed with righteous fury. "You think you can simply wander through existence, erasing entire Omniverses, leaving nothing in your wake? No, Qareidolia. You’ve taken from me what can never be returned. Now, I take from you."
In an instant, she attacked. Lodonia’s be-ness became an otherness beyond the necessity of any conceivable reality that could process possibility or actuality. Her hands, wreathed in golden and cyan energy, tore through the fabric of the void, unraveling the very essence of non-existence. She swung a blade forged from the transcendental chaos itself, and as it collided with Qareidolia’s katana, the impact sent shockwaves through boundless unmanifest expanses beyond comprehension.
Qareidolia barely reacted. He parried her strikes with the precision of a warrior who had long since transcended the need for thought. His katana moved in calculated arcs, each slice devouring portions of adjacent realities and collapsing the concept of actuality with every movement. But Lodonia was relentless. Her attacks weren’t just physical; they resonated with the forgotten dreams of her deleted Omniverse, a symphony of vengeance that sought to dismantle the very nature of the void.
"You can’t fight this, Qareidolia!" Lodonia shouted, her voice a melody of both sorrow and rage. "Every strike I land erases your ability to manifest possibility. Every breath you take brings you closer to oblivion!"
She struck again, this time with a torrent of golden energy that erased the concept of potential in its wake. Qareidolia felt the force of her attack as it tried to unravel him, as if Lodonia’s very existence was a contradiction to his nihilism. Yet still, he stood.
"You misunderstand," Qareidolia finally spoke, his voice cold and indifferent, carrying the weight of Transfictional Nothingness. "There is nothing left for you to take from me. I am beyond the bounds of what you can destroy."
Beyond the necessity of movement, Qareidolia unleashed a void-laden strike, the negation of Transfictional Nothingness flowing from his katana in a wave that devoured everything in its path. The attack shredded the fabric of beyond-dimensional reality, collapsing the grand meta-narrative in an instant. But Lodonia wasn’t so easily deterred. She countered with a wave of her own power, golden and cyan energy exploding from her hands as she deflected the void with sheer will.
"You think yourself untouchable, Qareidolia," Lodonia said through gritted teeth, her power pushing against the erasure of existence. "But I am the Requiem. I sing the final note for every reality you’ve destroyed, and I will not be silenced."
Her next attack was nothing short of cataclysmic. She summoned the essence of her deleted Omniverse, a power so overwhelming that it defied any and all conceptual boundaries. She raised her arms, and from the void behind her, countless worlds began to emerge—fragments of what had once been, now pulled into existence by her will. With a single gesture, she hurled them at Qareidolia, each world carrying the weight of its deleted history, each one a bomb of boundless transcendence aimed directly at him.
Qareidolia’s eyes narrowed. His katana shimmered as it absorbed the void around him, and beyond the necessity of omnipresence, he sliced through the oncoming worlds. They shattered upon his blade, their potential and actuality erased in an instant. But still, Lodonia pressed forward, her power growing with each passing moment.
"You can’t erase me, Qareidolia!" she screamed, her mismatched eyes burning with the power of every world she had lost. "I am everything you’ve destroyed! I am the memory of every forgotten reality!"
Her strikes became more transcendent, more ferocious. She attacked with the fury of absolute infinite erased histories, her power expanding beyond the bounds of what should have been possible. She was relentless, her form flickering between existence and transcendence as she pushed Qareidolia back, forcing him to retreat further into the void.
But Qareidolia remained calm. He had faced opponents like her before—those who thought their attachment to existence made them powerful. In the end, they all fell. He could feel it now—the edges of Lodonia’s power beginning to fray, her endless transcendence unraveling as she poured more and more of herself into the fight.
"You think you’re invincible because of what you’ve lost," Qareidolia said, his voice cold and detached. "But that loss is what weakens you."
With a final, devastating strike, Qareidolia unleashed the full power of his Transfictional Nothingness. His katana glowed with a black light darker than black as it cut through the very essence of Lodonia’s existence, severing her connection to the boundless transcendence she had drawn upon. The void itself seemed to recoil as Lodonia’s form flickered, her power faltering for the first time.
"No!" she screamed, her voice filled with both desperation and disbelief. "This can’t be... I am the Requiem! I can’t fall!"
But Qareidolia’s attack was absolute. The void closed in around her, erasing the concept of her power, her transcendence, her very being. In a final moment of defiance, Lodonia reached out, her golden and cyan eyes locking onto Qareidolia’s cold gaze.
"You may erase me, Qareidolia," she whispered, her voice barely audible as her form began to disintegrate. "But my song will echo through the void... long after you’re gone."
And with that, she was gone. The void swallowed her whole, erasing every trace of her existence.
Qareidolia stood alone once more, his katana humming softly in the silence. There was no satisfaction in his victory, no sense of accomplishment. There was only the void, and the endless journey ahead.
He sheathed his katana, turning away from the battlefield as the remnants of Lodonia’s power faded into nothingness. Another opponent had fallen, but the void was eternal. And so was he.
Without a word, Qareidolia resumed his path through the endless void, his gaze fixed on the horizon of non-existence. There would be others, and they too would fall. In the end, all things would.
For Qareidolia, that was the only truth that mattered.