Nexus Awakened (An Isekai LitRPG Gender Bender Story)

840. The Return of The Dozen Winged Bird

Millions of eyes across Grandis gazed up towards the summit of the shattered Mount Saris. The mountain was held together by a web of winding blood vessels. A column ran through the center like a spinal cord, giving it the appearance of a nervous system that had been freshly plucked out from the back of a giant.

It was alive. Mount Saris had come to life. Rock formations the size of small mountains swayed like the leaves of a tree. Blood poured through the great fissures as the four-armed, crimson star eternally bled. The wound never ceased even for a moment. It was a womb to a hellish dimension, endlessly birthing monsters that swarmed Grandis like an unstoppable tidal wave.

Cities as far as Aquadale Solitude witnessed scarlet abominations burst from the earth. Just one of these bloody monsters was enough to utterly annihilate settlements that had withstood countless wars across Grandis’ history.

Ruins were left behind by the swarms of Vexed Consanguinities. Rods of Agonizing Legibility littered countless settlement both great and small. Piles of human remains were stacked upon these rods, some towering as tall as twenty meters high. They grew like abnormal clusters of thin crystals, and the humans impaled like slabs of meat had their backbones entirely exposed with several ribs missing.

The Underflow which ran across the entirety of Grandis was severely compromised by shattered chains. But the Vexed Consanguinities, the Hemorrhagic Effigies, and the Tablets of Bleeding Truths, which were created by the accumulation of blood alone, were not the only things that threatened Grandis.

Maroon storms loomed above various settlements. These were the Wuthering Indignations.

Hardened relentlessly fell. They pierced through the roofs of homes and broke past their very foundations. A ring of blood pulsated with each impact, and it tore everything that lived within its immediate vicinity.

It wiped out entire towns in the blink of an eye.

But still yet, they were not the worst of the red apocalypse.

Enormous bipedal beings of blood roamed Grandis like lumbering giants. They stood over 40 meters tall. Each step brought a surge of blood that wiped all lesser lifeforms into a primordial soup. The beings walked on two legs, but also used their grotesquely elongated, thin arms to move like that of an ape. Their stretched faces were featureless save for a hideous maw that nearly spanned the entirety of their heads.

It could open vertically and horizontally into quadrants. Blood coagulated between these cracks, forming a cross that glowed as they ploughed through Grandis, their hands grasping onto trees and tearing them out like they were nothing but blades of grass.

They brought everything their thin hands touched into their mouths. Their mere presence caused material to gravitate towards them, suspending thousands of humans into the air, sucking them straight out from their homes and the holes they hid themselves in.

They plucked them one by one from the air by impaling them with their fingers. When they could fit no more, then they planted them where they stood, dislodging their fingers and regrowing a replacement to repeat the process.

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It was a tortuous process for the victims. They could not die upon the rods. After enough were accumulated, then they plucked straight from the ground. Countless were grounded and shredded apart across the thin ridges of its teeth.

It did not chew them, as though to inflict as much pain and terror as possible.

These were the Odium Corporeus Maximus – the Greatest Bodily Hate.

It was a Sin born from vast accumulations of the blood from inferior species and dominated the realms within the Subcut Layer. The majority of those present came directly from the Subcut rather than being born within the Epiderma Layer.

They were the next stage up from the Wuthering Sins and were considered by Uriel to be the first true depiction of what the Sins entailed. The higher the concentration of a Sin there was, the more powerful the monsters of Sin that could manifest.

This was the face of humanity’s wrath manifested. Each was easily between high Eternal Night and low Woe of the Fallen Star. Moons and Stars would need to band together to take out even one of these monstrosities.

Such was the level of malevolence that existed beneath their world.

But these beings paled in comparison to the formation of a 12-armed star. Their heads instinctively turned to the skies as they witnessed the flash of light that emanated from the summit of Mount Saris.

Upon closer inspection, one would find that those arms were in fact the grandeur wings of a celestial being.

12 great wings whipped across the regions beneath Mount Saris. They carved the world apart, upheaving hills and small mountains as though they were made of sand. Each of these wings were easily over 12 kilometers, spanning the entire length of Mount Saris and further.

They moved through the world like rakes. Entire ecosystems were destroyed along its path. Odium Corporeuses Maximus instantly burst into a fine red mist. Not even they – who were giants themselves – were considered anything more than an insect.

* * *

The Battle of Frontier came to a temporary lull. A calming spell washed across the battlefields as all eyes were drawn to the state of Mount Saris. The rage, the carnage, the bloodshed – it was all insignificant in the face of the absolute majesty of the twelve-winged being.

Nothing mattered anymore. Just one of winding wings and the great tails of the beast would end everything they had fought for. Still, few continued to fight on. But thousands more were faced with an existential crisis that spawned both emotions of reverence and terror.

It was not just the Ateliers who faced this, and even Beholder E. who participated in the battle could not help but freeze as he set his non-existent eyes on the same thing that destroyed Paradise 15 years ago.

“… A crisis that no Beholder could fathom to amend. The audacity of Beholders believe that we stand above all of creation. We have only partaken in exploits that continue to devour us, while beings like those are unchained by the curse of our morality… I once sought to reach those heights.”

Beholder E.’s cold chassis was a reminder of the futility of his efforts. His mechanical ramblings were soon replaced by the sound of erupting steam and cranking gears. War slowly returned, and there was not a single person or Impuritas who were not in some way psychologically and even physically ravaged by the mere presence of the Dozen Winged Bird.

The same faces could be seen across all of Grandis.

* * *

“Is… is it over…?” Autumn was barely able to squeak out.

She collapsed to her knees, her hands grasping at the stone roof of the clock tower as her eyes trembled.

“Are… we going to lose Grandis after all? Just like that?”

“It returned after 15 years.” Deiman was also in a state of utter disbelief, but no one could tear their eyes from the reality before them. “The Corrupted was never destroyed?”

“I’ve heard of Impuritas… no, we had Corrupted kept in hiding. The Big Red Heart. A Woe of the Fallen Star. But that… We… could never have managed to keep that thing in check.”

“An Apocalypse was the limit. Puritas had it in their hands. And we watched it perish in an instant.” Mozheart spoke like he was simultaneously repenting.

He knew the Nexus was formidable, but he could never have imagined them to be this powerful.

“Uriel was a god to those who knew her by name. That… is the wrath of the Arbiter.”

“The reign of the Arbiter.” Moses corrected.

It was only her and Mae – who had not yet ceased singing her song – who were relaxed. The sight of the Icon of Judgement brought a smile on her face as though it served to relieve her of her boredom. At least this was how it appeared from the outside.

Moses’ smile was her purest way of expressing her reverence in the face of the Arbiter.

“Those wings that upheave the world belong to our Archetype of Judgement. Merely glancing in its direction stirs an unbelievable urge to prostrate. Survivors of Paradise mentioned that.”

She walked over to Autumn and tapped her head.

“They sought for penance in the face of a god. But those of us who did no wrong have no reason to beg for absolvement.”

It was clear who she was speaking to. Mozheart stiffened as her presence drew near, like how a small animal would play dead in the face of a predator. But comparing himself even remotely to this being was punishable by no less than death.

So he stood there, as though his existence was on the brink of fizzling away.

“You should confess your sins. There is an obligation all of us feel towards beings of the Nexus. To Stars beyond our wildest fathoms. It’s beautiful. Nothing like the crude Faux Angels beyond our seas.”

“… are we safe?” Deiman asked.

“The safest place in Grandis is beside me.” Moses hummed. “I will not allow harm to befall benefactors of the Nexus. It’s a different story for this one. You shall watch everything you’ve come to know break under the Light of the Nexus. The Icon of Judgement belongs the Arbiter. What is there that your kind has that the Nexus does not have a better version of? What is there that you can do that the Nexus can’t do better?”

She metaphorically threw Mozart into a well. Her words sept into his mind, and they branched into his heart like thorns. The sheer power of the Nexus was one thing, but it was the taming of a Paradise Lost Corrupted that caused him to question whether it was worth pursuing his ambitions.

But more than that, it was the fact that Mae remained the only thing that shined the brightest in his eyes. The incomplete Impuritas sang a song that came straight from her soul, and he could not help but to contemplate what exactly it was that he believed in.

Mozheart was not the only one who pondered on such thoughts either. There were Librarians who, amongst the silence, began to question whether it was worth fighting a losing battle. They knew nothing mattered now. But their Hearts continued to drive them ever forward, marching to their cyclic deaths for a reason they will never understand.

The Icon of Judgement became more than just a symbol of destruction. It fought gallantly against the crimson overflow and the bloody beasts that roamed Grandis. Even the prejudices that were held by the denizens of Grandis who had witnessed the event 15 years ago could not help but notice that it seemed to be fighting to protect them.

It was not enough to tear down the walls of fear that plagued the very notion of the Dozen Winged Bird.

But they could not help but wonder just why it had appeared that night.