Ravens of Eternity

450 The Fall of Civilization

Godeater continued its advance throughout the Milky Way galaxy completely unabated and unhindered. Absolutely nothing and no-one could stop it.

Worst of all, it did so patiently.

It could certainly have consumed the rest of the galaxy in short order by reflecting itself in every direction. But it instead chose to be slow and systematic, and pushed its own borders outward carefully.

The deep, dark void reached out in every direction and pulled in everything closest to it into shadow.

Except for three special cases.

Three of Dendrus’ mirror satellites adjusted themselves towards systems far past Godeater’s growing borders. They pierced deep into the three galactic territories, and struck deep in their hearts, at the very cores of their civilizations tens of thousands of light years away.

It struck three specific celestial bodies at the exact same time, and began to convert them all in earnest.

The first was Foundation, the ‘perfect’ planet that the Hegemony had been cultivating for the past few thousand years. Although it was completely free of humanity, and was possibly the most peaceful of all human planets, it was also swallowed up by Godeater.

Its inky shadow struck the surface without disrupting a single thing, and spread in every direction. Every perfect hill and valley were swept away. Its lush greens and earthy browns were wiped away and turned to black.

.....

Every snowy peak and glittering cavern, every blade of grass and insect, all wiped out.

More than that, those cities floating in the skies were also struck. They too converted and turned to darkness, even as Godeater swallowed up the ground beneath.

And although none realized it, all of their sky cities fell down towards the ground and struck the blackened soil. But not one of them shattered and broke and splintered. Instead, they joined the planet in its wholeness and simply became a part of Godeater and its infinite nature.

Grand Parliamentarians, their Voices, and Representatives of the Houses screamed and begged and ran as their individual worlds fell down around them. The planet’s engineers fought to save Foundation itself, even as they were themselves consumed.

Max was in one of the Archives when the shadows crept up to him from all directions. He watched in horror as it consumed people around him painfully, and bathed them in shadow.

Everyone around him screamed or ran in panic and fear, but all he could think about was his family. And of course, he thought about all of the things that he still needed to do. Of all the wrongs that still needed to be righted. The thought about the Corvus Republic, and hoped that they could carry on once he was gone.

He joined the others and screamed at the encroaching darkness. But not out of fear – out of anger. Anger at a life unfulfilled, at death coming too early.

In the end, it didn’t matter. He too was taken by the shadow along with everyone in every city on the planet itself.

~

Taloren Prime was also struck by Godeater, at almost exactly the same time.

It hardly mattered that their distances from each other were vastly different. Godeater wasn’t the kind of existence that was limited by elements as simple as light. When it traversed across the galaxy, it was practically instantaneous.

The shadow had struck the vast ocean surface before anything else, and quickly turned the entire body into shadow.

Every cubic meter of water was almost instantly turned into shadow, which eradicated all aquatic life at the same time. Nothing was spared, and everything was erased. It hardly mattered how beautiful or horrifying they were.

Colorful coral reefs and giant aquatic dragons and metallic schools of fish and endless fields of seagrass – all were enveloped in darkness. It took little time for everything to be eaten and absorbed and merged into the dark void.

It didn’t take long for every city floating on the surface to get consumed as well. The shadow crept upward into the Lower Dome through the water itself, and pierced through to the inside. Arcs of purple energy crawled in every direction and tugged at everything in sight.

Countless drogar died screaming and in absolute pain as Godeater ravaged their bodies and converted them into it. Those who fled to the Upper Dome only found despair as they watched the shadow creep across the dome itself and blotted out the sky.

Like many who had already fallen, they too realized that there was no outrunning Godeater. There was no escaping it. There was only oblivion.

Some took their own lives in realization, and pierced their bellies or cut their throats with their own beltknives.

Godeater took everyone with equal fervor, no matter where they were. It didn’t matter if they were on the streets or high up in their skyscrapers. In fact, as the Grand Parliament on Foundation screamed their dying breaths, so too did the Senators at the Spiral Towers on Lacroseth City.

Senator Paveloth sat back down in his seat in complete defeat and exhaustion. Life had been one long, arduous fight for him. And now that armageddon had come, all the fight had finally been beaten out of him. He had lived through decades of struggle only to come across something even he could never fight.

All he could do was watch as dozens of Senators and Aides and Lobbyists and Representatives ran amok across the Grand Hall. Many screamed painfully as the darkness swallowed them. The others simply screamed as they ran.

The only one who didn’t shout out was Paveloth himself, who only uttered a groan as Godeater’s purple energies swept across his body and took him.

~

High Admiral Sara Chase stared at her screen blankly. The reporter on it exclaimed frenziedly what was happening to Helios – that it was becoming overrun by darkness and that people were dying by the thousands. Behind the reporter were multiple live feeds of the various cities inside of Helios. All of them showed Godeater as it advanced through every street.

The darkness literally crept over everything slowly and surely. Every hopper and bit of trash and drone was completely swallowed up by its darkness. People screamed as they were wracked with purple energies and turned to shadow.

But it hardly mattered what was on the screen or what the reporter said.

It hardly even mattered that the screams of her neighbors in the apartment building echoed up and down the hallways, and through the floors.

Instead, High Admiral Chase simply began to chuckle as she stared off into the distance.

“It’s just like you said,” she muttered to no-one in particular. “Like you’ve always been saying. Since the beginning. I didn’t believe you at first, I know, I know. But then you got so… so loud. And I started to hear you so much clearer.

“And I began to understand what you were trying to tell me. So here we are. As promised. Everything unmade, undone. The end of the galaxy as we know it.”

Chase burst into a raucous laugh, as though she had heard the most hilarious joke in existence. But she stopped soon after and returned to a daze.

“Since it’s all over,” she said, “does that mean I can go now? I can stop listening, thinking, building, growing? I mean, you’re here, so what’s the point of me going on, hm? No more tech to build. The work’s done.

“I did my part, and you’re finally here, out and about. So everything’s good to go.

“Or, well, you’re not here. Not quite yet anyway. Close, but... I may as well get my reward before you do get here. Since I won’t get to enjoy it and all.”

The High Admiral stood up from her cubby, then walked to the edge of her hab. There, she tapped a control and slid open the doors to her balcony and stepped out.

A rush of wind hit her as she looked down over the railing. Godeater’s shadow crept across the ground far below, and halfway up the other buildings all around her. It had all turned to shadow, and she could hardly tell where each building began and the ground started.

Perhaps it didn’t matter any longer no matter where anything was.

So, she put a foot up on the railing, then launched herself out into the darkness. And at some point, Sara Chase struck the darkness and ceased to be.

~

Half of the stragglers at Yggdrasil Station erupted in clamor as all manner of reports and live feeds scrolled by on the massive holographic projection of the galaxy. They simply couldn’t believe what they were seeing – entire solar systems were being taken by Godeater.

Not only that, but it had specifically targeted the centers of galactic power – the very hearts of each of the three galactic nations. And over the course of mere minutes, they watched as Godeater consumed them all.

Everyone talked and argued and agreed and debated and imagined over what was happening, what Godeater was, what its purpose truly was. Speculation of all kinds rippled through the crowd.

Freya’s voice cut through the din like a blade. It was loud enough for all to hear, and sharp enough for all to fall to a hush.

“It wants to end all of us,” she said. “As far as we can tell, anyway. I wish I could explain it, but…”

She wished she could tell them that she had ‘spoken’ to Godeater, that she understood it to some miniscule degree. And also that it showed her what she believed were its desires. If desire was even the right word. It seemed like something between desire and duty. A bit like passion.

But of course she couldn’t say any of that. She was certain that they wouldn’t understand.

“It’s like,” Freya began, “like… think of Godeater like a security system. One massively complex system that’s designed to keep things like thieves and other rogue agents out.”

“Antivirus,” Raijin added, which Freya nodded in agreement with.

“Like antivirus, yeah, exactly. Or, antiseptic! Antibacterial. You get what I’m saying? It’s made to protect something from other extremely harmful things. That’s all I can really understand about it.

“So I think that maybe it thinks we’re a virus, and that we need to get wiped out. Maybe it comes from some other universe where that’s actually true.”

“How does any of this help us?” said a Federation admiral. He was joined by a chorus of murmurs in agreement.

“Don’t be a fool, human,” Orsethii chided him. “The more we know about our enemies, the better. Honestly, this is why you all lose so often. Your intelligence is always lacking.”

A number of Federation officers were immediately incensed at the drogar’s provocations. A few even began to curse her out aloud.

“Can you please not provoke anyone!” Colviss said before any fights could erupt.

“Just trying to make a point,” Orsethii replied with a shrug.

“I think we’re beyond all that now,” the albino refuted loudly. “Our nations are pretty much gone. Whatever divided us before literally doesn’t exist any longer. Fragments, sure, But the beating hearts have been torn out.

“The Federation, the Hegemony, the Empire – all gone!

“Fighting who’s better or worse whether by blade or by word is an absolute waste of our time because it doesn’t matter in the slightest any longer! We have so much bigger things to contend with than these petty disputes over invisible lines out in space.

“So please, by the love of all that’s holy, let it go. Consciously. Purposefully. I know it’s hard, especially for the more impulsive of you. Now, how about we refocus our attention on the end of the galaxy and get to work?”