Rebirth and Second Chances

Chapter 267: New Horizons

Gwyn ap Nudd was the Huntsman, part of the Tuatha de Danann pantheon, and the only God not forced into [Sleep].

He was implacable, a force of nature. A Cosmic level entity placing him beyond and above even the Gods. When the multiverse wound down. When the last star flickered and died. He along with [Eternity], [Time], and [Infinity] would bear witness to the end.

His name could be invoked to right wrongs, his attention gained to give voice to the voiceless, but once someone took that risk, then justice would be served no matter the guilty party. Too often the person that summoned Gwyn ap Nudd, those that gained his attention were the ones that were slaughtered. While it was true that [Justice] was blind, Gwyn ap Nudd could see through truth and lie to dispense justice even if that justice was tempered with vengeance.

Tybalt, the King of Cats, ruler of the Cait Sith was an agent of [Time]. His duty, the duty of his people was to guard against [Paradox] and unsnarl the knots of disorder that could form before [Paradox] was slain. As long as he remained an agent of [Time], he could cloak himself in that authority. Authority he agreed to extend when summoning Gwyn ap Nudd.

Tybalt's intervention allowed us to parley with Gwyn ap Nudd. If we had summoned him without thought to Justice, he would have been confined by the rules that he served under to slaughter us. You did not summon the agent of justice and vengeance without a target for his ire.

His presence was oppressive. His aura filled with killing intent and bloodlust. I had managed to withstand that presence as Tybalt negotiated on my behalf. It had taken time, and it was only when [Oracle] the prophetess of [Time] spoke and explained that Zeus and Odin were corrupting [Laws] stealing the divinity of other Gods that he finally agreed.

It was his duty to see that [Justice] was done.

Events moved quickly once we had reached an accord as he reached out to enfold my companions and me within a bubble of his [Domain]. Once satisfied, he took a step through. The Summerlands I was familiar with opened before him, before us, for one brief second before it changed. The land and sky that we were familiar with transforming, becoming the void. That lifeless extension of the universe that existed between stars.

With each step Gwyn took, we moved across that void, a realm of endless night, countless stars, and shimmering barriers that allowed each of the galaxies and universes that numbered across the multiverse and [Infinity] to remain unique, distinct, and separate.

I don't know how he knew which Universe to aim for, I had only been informed that one of the incarnations of Zeus and Odin were at fault. Perhaps the System was guiding him. I felt the Wild Magic and Fairy answer to his will and finally understood. It allowed him to home in on our destination and kept most of what was lurking in the void hidden to spare our sanity.

Not everything. We passed eldritch horrors, Cthulhu that strained the mind and defied comprehension, but we were protected. He was Gwyn ap Nudd and even these titans of horror and nightmares of destruction gave way before him, intelligent enough to know they would not survive if they attacked.

The passage seemed to last forever, and take no time, and although we were protected, our ability to see the monsters that lurked within the void muted, the sight as galaxies formed, suns went nova, and planets were created and destroyed gave beauty and form to the path we walked.

Some time along that path I fractured, two parts of me were severed, as System functionality was diminished. The Universe we would arrive at was not guided by System, and unlike Earth, we wouldn't have the mechanics of a Dungeon to allow our connection with System.

System fought against the Universal paradigm we would have to work under, refusing to be severed from us completely. I sighed in relief once a small connection was formed. A large part of what made me what and who I was, from the support and prodding System offered.

I would lose access to Status as well as System access to my spells and skills, but I would retain System announcements, the ability to use [Identify], the [Map], and a way to track experience gained and quest completion.

It was a paired down System, and even these functions only existed because of my connection to the Summerlands. I would have to test my spells and skills, but I didn't think I'd lost anything. Instead, I would have to rely on natural ability and not System mechanics to function. The sensation was almost freeing in a way even if it was frightening, relying on myself instead of System. My actions and choices would be guided by my desire, not System generated quests and rewards.

Almost more important than the loss of System functions was the splintering of my soul as Caraid, the other half of my soul was splintered and ripped from me. He had been a part of me ever since I'd reincarnated into his body. The only time we had been separate since then was when he was acting as an agent of Gwyn ap Nudd. A responsibility he assumed to save my life.

This process of separation was painful, unlike when he answered the Huntsman's call. He was torn from that shared mind space where he and I had formed a symbiotic relationship. His removal made it possible for us to become him and me, something I had long yearned to happen.

He was given a body, part Cernunnos, mostly Seelie. He didn't have the cloven hoofs the Cernunnos sported, nor the impressive rack that the most powerful stags grew for protection. His body was completely Seelie, the beauty, grace, and litheness of that race born of void and stardust.

He did have horns, similar to something a ram might have, two protrusions that curved gracefully from his forehead. Each horn had the flecks of starlight that had been used in the creation of this new body scattered across them. Each formed and shaped by void, each deepest black in homage of that shaping.

I normally wasn't aware when Caraid was serving the Hunt. His ability to answer Gwyn ap Nudd's [Horn of Gathering] a simple function of who he was. But this, perhaps because a barrier between me and the System now existed was more.

It was like a tooth that had been pulled. You knew it was gone, but you kept testing, pressing against it with your tongue to prove to yourself that what you knew, was, in fact, real. System and Caraid were a part of who I was, to have them both changed at the same time had my soul hammering at the barrier that had been created constraining System and warping my access.

I barely had time to batter against that barrier before between one step and the next, we had exited the void, the stars diminished until only one remained. A single sun broadcasting life-giving energy and light to a solar system of nine planets. One blue and green marble, the only planet to sustain life.

As we arrived, we held steady above that planet, watching clouds form, weather patterns follow slipstreams, and the moon rotate around the planet as the planet rotated around the sun. Gwyn ap Nudd reached forth, his hand streaming with magic and Domain, as he answered Time's demand to negate Paradox.

We watched as the planet slowed and stopped, before beginning to rotate in reverse. The years, decades, and centuries reversing as Gwyn continued to command Time to bend to his will. His actions were impossible if Paradox had not been involved. His actions proving that Time was mutable, the only constant that Paradox will not be allowed to warp the very nature of Time itself.

Gwyn continued to reverse Time, the planet's continents moving. Five continents became six, as a landmass buried beneath the waves of a vast ocean rose again.

His actions did not go unnoticed.

Gods, temporal and of time, railed against his actions. Levin bolts of divine energies were flung in an effort to stop his action, bolts that Gwyn ap Nudd embraced and added to his working, additional energies and divinity that allowed him to increase the speed of Time's reversal.

This Universe's God of Time, Chronos, finally was stirred to intervene. A Titan that had been confined to Hades, used the disruption that Gwyn created, the weakening of the bonds that constrained him to gain His freedom.

Instead of stopping Gwyn ap Nudd, Chronos joined him in his efforts, the planets, the solar system reversing in time, returning to a point before Zeus and Odin had stolen the tapestry of Fate and the scissors that snipped the threads of life from Atropos. Before they had learned how to corrupt and absorb the divine domains of the other Gods.

Finally, when the other Gods of Time had been forced to bend to the will of Gwyn ap Nudd, Chronos, and [Time], they finished their working. As one they commanded time to stop and then to flow forward again. The Universe exhaled, and the goal, the imperative to move forward and to expand ever outward, ever-larger was restored.

"I have given you time. Time to gain the Eye of Odin. Time to gather Zeus's Lightning. Time to restore Yggdrasil. Time to gather the Sidhe. Time to establish a Sithern," Gwyn ap Nudd informed me, his voice painful to endure. The weight of his duties from eons of his passing sentence in the name of [Justice] and [Vengeance] had become layered into the timber and tone of every word.

"The Portal to Summerlands is yours to command. I leave Caraid as an instrument of the Summerlands and Fairy to help you. I have gifted him with a small amount of my Domain. Once your tasks have been completed, he will open the path and return you to Talahm.

"To your Time.

"It would be too cruel to allow him to follow you and constrain his ability to offer aid or advice, so Fairy has created a body. He is Sidhe and has been gifted with illusion, glamour, healing, and immunity to iron.

"He can be killed, and if that happens, he will return to the Summerlands and await with his brethren to be called for the Hunt," Gwyn ap Nudd warned. "Be guided by the knowledge that his death, will have you lost in time.

"His death will bar you from returning to Talahm. Time will not allow Paradox to fester and grow, without him your return to Talahm would engender that planet's future."

Before the echo of Gwyn ap Nudd's last word had quieted, he had left, and we had landed. Our passage completed, our entrance to this world observed by Chronos, a few hundred Sidhe, and a legion of Fomorians.

The sounds of fighting, grunts of pain, and bellows of outrage greeted our arrival, as we found ourselves delivered to the scene of battle. The Fomorians attacking a rag-tag group of Sidhe that were about to be slaughtered.