Page 20 of Infernal Crown (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #3)
CHAPTER TWENTY
LYSITHEA
The grimoire raises its power to cosmic levels, preparing to rebuild reality according to its perfect template.
Energy flows through the false realm in torrents that make the Crown’s influence sing in recognition, forces that operate on scales typically reserved for the creation and destruction of universes.
But instead of containing the transformation within Verik’s carefully crafted boundaries, the energy punches through dimensional barriers like paper.
I feel the moment when our trap becomes irrelevant.
The grimoire’s power reaches beyond our carefully constructed paradise, stretching across the void between realms to touch other realities with tendrils of imposed truth.
Not just our realm, not just neighbouring dimensions, but every possible existence that has ever been or could ever be.
The sensation hits my god-like awareness like a hurricane, recognition of transformation operating on scales that dwarf anything I’ve previously encountered.
This isn’t the precise surgery of selective unmaking but wholesale reformation, reality rewritten according to cosmic logic that values truth above existence itself.
“The boundaries are weaker than expected,” the grimoire observes with academic interest rather than concern. “The working spreads beyond our intended scope.”
Through my connection to power, I sense other realms fracturing under the weight of imposed truth.
Entire civilisations simply ceasing to exist because their foundational myths contained beautiful lies.
Worlds where love transcends logic are crumbling because emotion defies rational categorisation.
Realities built on dreams and hopes and comfortable fictions are dissolving into component parts that will be rebuilt according to grimmer mathematics.
Each transformation registers in my awareness like a bell tolling, thousands upon thousands of changes that my enhanced perception recognises as necessary corrections to flawed existence.
But the Crown’s influence wars with my senses, divine approval clashing with supernatural horror at the scope of what we’re witnessing.
“Is that a problem?” I ask.
The words emerge with perfect composure despite the chaos in my thoughts. Part of me genuinely wants to know if this acceleration serves our ultimate purpose, while another part screams in protest at the casual destruction of infinite possibilities.
“Quite the opposite. The acceleration merely brings perfection to all existence sooner than planned.”
Horror crashes through my consciousness like ice water as I understand the true scope of what we’re witnessing. We are running out of time.
Verik’s face has gone pale as he realises his carefully crafted weaknesses won’t matter if the grimoire destroys everything before we can trigger the Armageddon spell and get our arses out of here.
The structural flaws he built into paradise’s foundation become irrelevant when the grimoire’s power extends far beyond those boundaries, reaching across dimensional barriers to impose its will on realities that never knew we existed.
“We have to stop this,” Dathan whispers.
“How?” Evren replies, watching galaxies of possibility wink out of existence as the grimoire’s influence spreads like infection through the spaces between worlds. “It’s not contained within our trap anymore. We could blow up multiple realms.”
The grimoire continues its working with methodical precision, unaware of our growing desperation or perhaps aware but unconcerned, confident that our power pales before its cosmic authority.
Each gesture it makes rewrites fundamental laws across multiple realities, creating consistency where chaos once reigned.
Reality warps around us as the transformation accelerates, the false realm’s perfect beauty becoming a template imposed on every corner of existence. Geometric precision replaces organic complexity wherever the grimoire’s influence touches, reducing infinite variety to manageable parameters.
Through my new and quite freaky awareness, I feel entire realities dying.
Not destroyed in the way we understand death, but unmade at the conceptual level.
Reduced to components and rebuilt according to cosmic logic that values truth above all other considerations.
Simply ceasing to exist as opposed to dying.
It’s like trying to count raindrops in a hurricane.
I can’t track each world that blinks out—there are just too many.
What I see instead is the whole mess of everything that makes reality interesting getting smoothed out, like the universe is being ironed flat to match the grimoire’s neat-freak vision.
The Crown keeps whispering in my head that this is all for the best, but I know it’s not.
“Shit, it’s working way too well,” Verik says. “The energy transfer is beyond anything we planned for.”
I study the connections stretching between our realm and countless others, pathways of transformation that carry the grimoire’s influence across distances that exist more as concept than geography.
Each link pulses with authority that resonates with the Crown’s power, divine will made manifest on scales that reduce our conspiracy to insignificance.
“Can you trigger the collapse anyway?” Evren asks, though I can see from Verik’s expression that he already knows the answer.
“Yes, but...” Verik gestures helplessly at the energy flows connecting our realm to countless others, streams of power that have grown beyond his ability to comprehend, let alone control. “Even if we destroy this realm and the grimoire, the damage to other realities might be irreversible.”
The weight of that possibility settles over us like lead, crushing hope with its implications.
We came here to save existence, but our trap might have enabled the very catastrophe we sought to prevent.
By providing the grimoire with a perfect realm to use as its foundation, we’ve given it exactly what it needed to reach beyond our ability to contain.
And it knew that.
The irony burns through my mind like acid.
Our combined power could probably overwhelm the grimoire’s connection to this realm, disrupting its ability to channel energy through Verik’s false paradise.
But the damage is already spreading beyond our reach, transformation cascading through dimensional barriers to touch realities we’ll never see.
“Lysithea,” Evren says, catching my attention.
I look at him, and for a moment, the Crown’s influence wavers enough to let my usual Nox Siren mind surface completely. Fear and determination war in my enhanced perception as I realise the same terrible truth that’s crushing them: success is no longer enough.
We’re winning the battle but losing the war. It’s like killing a seed after the forest has already grown.
Other realities continue fracturing under the weight of imposed truth, each one a civilisation dying because we failed to contain a force beyond our comprehension.
Beyond the walls between worlds, I hear them screaming.
Strange creatures I can’t picture in my mind cry out as they’re changed into something else, forced to fit the grimoire’s perfect pattern.
We thought our plan was big before, but now? It’s not enough to win anymore. We need something impossible—something that can fix all the breaking worlds before they’re gone forever.
And time is running out.