Lord of the Foresaken-Chapter 135: The Entropy Throne

The void between realities writhed with hunger. What Reed had mistaken for darkness was something far more insidious—the collective death wish of a trillion murdered souls, given form and terrible purpose.

The Entropy Collective materialized before them not as beings, but as absences. Shadows that consumed light, silence that devoured sound, and at their center sat a throne carved from crystallized despair. Upon it lounged a figure that hurt to perceive—Nihil the Unmaker, whose form shifted between the faces of every soul Reed had failed to save during the Harvester War.

"Commander Reed Thorne," Nihil’s voice was the whisper of dying stars, the last breath of murdered children, the sob of widowed mothers. "We meet at last. Though we have known you intimately—through every life you’ve taken, every world you’ve ’liberated,’ every choice that led to this moment."

Reed’s tactical implants screamed warnings as reality began to unravel around the throne. His quantum armor, designed to withstand dimensional warfare, cracked under the weight of pure entropy. "You’re the ones behind this. The orchestrators."

"Behind?" Nihil laughed, and the sound was the death rattle of civilizations. "We ARE this, Reed. Every casualty of your righteous campaigns, every innocent caught in your crossfire, every soul ground to dust beneath the wheels of your noble causes. We are the accumulation of multiversal suffering, given consciousness and purpose."

The throne room—if it could be called that—stretched infinitely in all directions. The walls were composed of crystallized screams, the floor paved with the ashes of dead realities. And everywhere, everywhere, Reed recognized faces. Soldiers who had died under his command. Civilians caught in the wars he’d started. Children who’d starved because his liberation campaigns had disrupted supply lines.

"Each death," Nihil continued, rising from the throne with liquid grace, "each moment of agony, each final breath—they all flow to us. We are entropy incarnate, the universe’s own death drive made manifest. And now, at the end of all things, we offer you a choice."

Lyralei stepped forward, her dimensional armor blazing with defiant energy. "We’re not interested in your—"

"Silence, tyrant." Nihil’s gesture sent Lyralei crashing into a wall that materialized to catch her. "Your reign of order through suffering is as repugnant to us as Reed’s liberation through destruction. Both of you create more pain in your attempts to eliminate it."

Reed watched Lyralei struggle against bonds of crystallized despair, her face contorting with rage and something else—fear. For the first time since their reunion, she looked genuinely afraid.

"The offer is simple," Nihil said, turning those terrible, ever-shifting features back to Reed. "Join us. Help us unmake reality itself. Not to destroy, but to grant the ultimate mercy—true nonexistence. No more pain. No more loss. No more children crying for parents who will never return. No more lovers separated by death. No more heroes who become monsters in the name of righteousness."

The Entropy Collective pressed closer, and Reed could see them clearly now. They weren’t creatures at all, but gaps in existence shaped like the memories of the dead. A child-shaped void that had once been a refugee he’d failed to evacuate. A woman-shaped absence that had been a medic killed in his last campaign. A man-shaped hollow that had been his first commanding officer, dead these thirty years.

"Look around you, Reed," Nihil gestured to the crystallized screams that formed the walls. "Every liberation you’ve led, every tyrant you’ve overthrown, every world you’ve ’saved’—what has it accomplished? More death. More suffering. More pain. The cycle never ends because existence itself is flawed."

Reed’s mind reeled. His quantum consciousness, enhanced beyond human limits, began processing the implications. Every tactical decision he’d ever made, every sacrifice he’d deemed necessary, every victory that had come at the cost of innocent lives—they all led here, to this moment, to this choice.

"The Harvester War," he whispered. "The billions who died because I chose to fight instead of surrender."

"Yes," Nihil’s voice was gentle now, almost paternal. "The war you started to save everyone, which killed more than any other conflict in recorded history. The liberation campaigns that left more worlds burning than the tyrants you overthrew ever did. The righteous crusade that turned you into the very thing you sought to destroy."

Images flashed through the crystal walls—worlds Reed had ’liberated’ now ruled by warlords worse than their original oppressors. Refugee camps filled with the displaced victims of his campaigns. Mass graves of those who’d died in the chaos his righteousness had unleashed.

"But it doesn’t have to continue," Nihil said, extending a hand that wasn’t quite there. "Join us. Help us end the cycle. Grant the ultimate mercy to all existence—true, eternal peace through nonbeing."

Reed found himself reaching out, his hand trembling as it approached Nihil’s absence of a grip. The offer was seductive. An end to all suffering. No more choices that led to mass death. No more being responsible for horrors committed in the name of good.

"Reed, no!" Lyralei’s voice cut through his despair. She’d broken free of her bonds, dimensional energy crackling around her like controlled lightning. "Don’t you see what they’re doing? They’re offering the coward’s way out!"

"Coward?" Reed laughed bitterly. "I’ve been fighting for sixty years, Lyra. Every victory has been purchased with innocent blood. Every liberation has led to new suffering. Maybe... maybe ending it all is the brave choice."

"The brave choice is to keep fighting!" Lyralei snarled, her form blazing with power. "To keep trying, even when we fail! To believe that existence has meaning despite the pain!"

"Spoken like a true tyrant," Nihil observed. "Willing to let others suffer for your philosophy."

The void around them began to shift, and Reed realized they weren’t alone. Through tears in reality, he could see the last stable dimension—a realm called Haven’s End, where the final refugees of a trillion dead worlds had gathered. And bearing down on it like a plague of locusts came ships bearing his son’s insignia.

Kaedon had found them.

"Your son understands," Nihil said, following Reed’s gaze. "Even now, he brings his gift of mercy to the last holdouts. The empty ones who serve him, the hollow men who feel no pain—they will make it quick."

The viewing portal expanded, showing Kaedon’s fleet in terrible detail. But these weren’t the sleek warships Reed remembered. They were organic things, grown rather than built, their hulls pulsing with veins of dark energy. And crewing them weren’t the mindless puppets Reed expected—they were volunteers. Beings who had chosen emptiness over pain, who had willingly surrendered their souls for peace.

"He’s not enslaving them," Reed whispered in horror. "They’re joining him willingly."

"Of course they are," Nihil said. "Your son offers them what every thinking being ultimately desires—an end to suffering. He grants them the mercy you never could."

On the screens, Reed watched as Kaedon’s ships opened communication channels to Haven’s End. His son’s voice, calm and eerily peaceful, echoed across dimensions:

"People of Haven’s End. I am Kaedon Thorne, Bearer of Merciful Silence. I offer you what my father never could—true peace. Surrender your pain to me, and know the bliss of emptiness. This is not death. This is mercy."

The response from Haven’s End was immediate—not defiance, but desperate hope. Voices crying out, begging for relief from the endless cycle of loss and terror that had driven them to this last refuge.

"No," Reed breathed, watching families volunteer to have their consciousness stripped away. "This isn’t mercy. This is murder."

"Is it?" Nihil asked. "Or is continuing to exist in this broken multiverse the real cruelty? Your son understands what you refuse to see—that consciousness itself is the source of suffering."

Reed turned away from the screens, unable to watch as entire populations lined up to surrender their souls to his son’s empty peace. But Nihil’s voice followed him, inexorable as entropy itself.

"The choice is before you, Reed. Join us in unmaking this failed experiment called existence. Or watch as your son converts the last free souls in the multiverse to his hollow mercy. Either way, consciousness dies. The only question is whether you’ll help us make it quick and complete, or let it drag out in this obscene parody of salvation."

Lyralei was fighting now, her dimensional powers tearing holes in the entropy realm, trying to reach the viewing portals. "Reed! We can still stop this! We can still save them!"

"Save them?" Reed laughed, the sound harsh and broken. "Save them for what? More war? More suffering? More children orphaned by our ’heroic’ choices?"

"Save them for the chance to choose!" Lyralei screamed, her power burning away sections of the crystal walls. "For the right to exist, even if existence hurts!"

Reed looked at his former lover, blazing with desperate defiance, then at Nihil, offering the ultimate surrender. Between them, on the screens, his son’s fleet began its final approach to Haven’s End.

And in that moment, as reality held its breath, Reed felt something he hadn’t experienced in decades of warfare—true, paralyzing uncertainty. For the first time in his life, he genuinely didn’t know what the right choice was.

The sound of Kaedon’s ships opening fire echoed across dimensions, and the last light in the multiverse began to flicker. freёweɓnovel_com

"Choose quickly, Reed," Nihil whispered as existence itself began to unravel. "The game is entering its final phase, and the board is almost clear."

But before Reed could answer, before he could make the choice that would damn or save all creation, the crystal walls exploded inward. Through the breach came something impossible—Vexara, his daughter, but not as he’d ever seen her.

She was riding one of her nightmare creatures, but this one was different. It wasn’t chaotic or destructive. It was... ordered. Purposeful. And its eyes held an intelligence that made Reed’s blood freeze.

"Hello, Father," Vexara said, her voice carrying harmonics that shouldn’t exist. "I’ve been having the most interesting dreams. And in every single one..."

She smiled, and the expression was worse than any nightmare she’d ever created.

"...you all lose."

This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢