As Damnation joined the fight, everything started shifting for the worse for Nyar. As an abomination, her power was that of damnation, just as her name implies. Nyar wasn’t that good at giving names, and so all of the abominations had simple ones.

The tiny wounds grew bigger, the air became hotter, Nyar’s energy consumption grew, and each of his moves was now more prone to failure.

After Arad defeated and captured Damnation, Nyar lost control of her and couldn’t sense her presence anymore. He expected her to be dead and erased, but to his surprise, Arad had turned her into a void creature.

Nyar had never expected the emotionless and cold overgod to spare someone they deemed a threat to the universe, but that what happened. Instead of erasing Damnation from existence, he had turned her into a new being.

There was a reason why Tiamat had chosen to call upon the chains of hell to tie Nyar down, and it was just for Damnation’s sake. As an abomination, she controlled the power to sow suffering and pain, and she had used it to condemn the fire titan and their human servants to eternal burning. But now, she belonged to Arad, to the universe, and so, her power had shifted a bit.

Arad could already break the chains of hell due to being its creator, and now, hell had granted one of its master’s void servants the power to chain things down.

Damnation flew right through everyone and caught Nyar by the neck, and the chains binding him grew tighter and stronger. He tried to smack her down, but to his surprise, she was unharmed. Her body was made of the void, of nothing, and to hit her, he had to get creative.

"Turning on your father, how foolish." Nyar turned around, tore several of the chains binding him to pieces, and then kicked Damnation in the guts, sending her flying back at blinding speed.

"I don’t care if you’re made of nothing, I can just hit the space that nothing exists in." He flew right after her, "And did you really think that..." He grabbed her by the face and dragged her across the whole battlefield as everyone chased after them.

"A trick like this could stop me? This universe has no power over me." He punched her in the face, shattering the ground. Everyone who rushed behind them had to move back to avoid the shockwave, and when the dust settled, Damnation was nowhere to be seen.

Linda emerged behind Nyar and swung her fist, missing him by a hair breadth as he dodged away. She glared at him and growled. "Give her back!"

He laughed. "No way, she belongs to me." Nyar had eaten her, consumed Damnation into his being as he does with all the abominations that die. He’ll soon create her once more with his flesh to serve him, and she can’t do anything about it.

"She thought that getting him to take her in was a path to salvation." Nyar waved his hands, "Arad Orion, he is no savior, he is just a foolish being resisting the natural flow. Just like you mortals get born, grow older, and die, the universe is the same." He jumped at Linda and punched her away.

"He is trying to stop the inevitable. You’re all but fools!"

But then, Yog’s voice rumbled in the sky as she cleared her throat. "Ahem, actually... he is right and wrong." She took a deep breath. "The universe indeed has a lifespan; it gets created, exists for a long time, then eventually dies. It is nature, and it cannot be changed. What this slimy tentacle bastard is leaving out is that dying out of abomination infestation is not a just death, it is like a man dying of sickness instead of old age."

Nyar clicked his tongue, and Yog smiled. "So... when I call the abominations parasites, I mean it literally. They are parasites to the universe, a disease that must be cured and purged."

Nyar waved his arms. "Smart midget! I just took my parasite away; will you thank me now?"

Yog paused for a second, then cleared her throat again. "Actually, since Arad tamed her, she is now a valuable specimen that helps us study and prepare for the other abominations. So no, she isn’t a parasite anymore." She clapped her hands.

"Everyone, get Damnation back. This is a vessel, and I already cut him from the outside world; he can’t send Damnation to his true body without me snatching her in the way. As long as you destroy him once here, he will be forced to spit her out."

Everyone charged at Nyar, and he jumped back, mumbling curses. "Yo! Yog, don’t you know how to shut your mouth for a second or two?"

She laughed, "You know that I was made to talk." She increased the strength of her barrier, and Nyar kicked Tiamat away to focus on Maharaja instead. "If you want to talk, then I’ll talk. What do you want me to tell them? I know a bit of what you deem forbidden knowledge. If you don’t want me to cripple them all, then keep your mouth shut."

"Are you threatening me?" Yog giggled. "Oh, my dear. Did you forget who I am? Go, tell them and see what will happen."

Nyar smiled, dodged several attacks from Maharaja, and then flew right toward Arad’s wives. He landed between them all and chuckled. "Wives of the overgod! Arad had grown too soft. All of you are weak, too weak. Except for a few. But those are the old ones." He looked toward Kali and then swung his fist at the ground, causing a massive explosion that sent everyone flying.

"Arad Orion, the man you call a husband, is a monster, the first overgod, the being who made this universe." He blocked Kali’s massive golden hand with one arm, kicked Kayden’s sword away, and glared at Linda, jolting her mind with a strange mental attack.

"He is the reason everyone suffers, and that midget you call a goddess of magic is nothing but a puppet of his twisted mind." As he spoke, he started to realize something. None of Arad’s wives was dying, getting shocked, or looking like they heard something strange.

Yog laughed, "See? It isn’t working. Do you know why? I brainwashed them all long ago. Not a single living being in the universe can hear, understand, or fathom the forbidden knowledge unless I allow it."

The fight kept raging, and Nyar found himself getting pushed back more and more. What he has just discovered was mind-boggling. Yog didn’t just plan, she actively brainwashed everyone and made sure they followed her plan. This was a feat only achievable with omniscience, and she was the only one holding that power.

Nyar was certain there were things she knew that he didn’t, and that said a lot. He was also right; she had a lot of secrets hidden, and was even thinking of sharing one with Arad’s wives, about Arad, AO, and who each of them is.

AO refers to the creator as a whole. Arad Orion is him in person, the universe is his body, the omniscience Yog is the voice of his mind, and the core held by Violet is his heart.

For AO to be fully reborn, those things must all come together, and for them to merge, Arad Orion needs to grow strong enough to handle them.

At the dawn of existence, AO was all alone. He had nothing, was nothing, never existed, and would never be. It was before time, before space, before words were a thing, and before existing itself was possible.

When AO got bored and sick of flying the nothing alone, he stopped and started thinking, talking to himself. The voice that replied inside his head was Yog. She was there to talk with him, to entertain him, and to break the monotony of the void.

Then, he decided to create things and formed Creation first, and with her, he started making matter. But Creation was powerful, unstoppable, and soon would explode. So, to keep her balanced, he came up with Destruction.

As those two collided, the universe was created in a massive boom. Right at that moment, the fates were born alongside time and space. For a long while, it was just those three. Then, to stabilize the universe, he created Stillness and Entropy, causing the first stars to emerge, then planets to be created.

Everything ends up back at AO, at Arad Orion, which is why outside the labyrinth, a new flash of light sparked. Betty had run for ages, trying escape from her death, and she finally found an answer. It didn’t matter how much she studied Nyar’s magic; there was no cure for it. She was destined to die, without a doubt, she was certain that she should be dead by now.

So why was she still alive, able to run from Death like this? The answer was simple: She shouldn’t look at what was in front of her, but at what was left off, at the void in knowledge she lacks.

"I’m alive, thus fate is wrong, or chained and unable to act against me." She looked back at Death, "The reason is the mark Arad left inside me. So, tell me, why are you, why are the fates so scared of him?"

Betty smiled as she jumped, spreading her arms as the wound in her chest rapidly healed with a crackle of light and lightning. "No, no need to answer. I don’t need to know."

Betty had realized that being Arad’s wife came with a peculiar privilege. It wasn’t that the laws of the universe bent to her will, but the universe itself was reluctant to oppress her.

The halo of light twisted a beam shot at the labyrinth’s gate. Betty was back in the fight, and she was armed with something that edges on forbidden knowledge.