Monarch of Darkness, Arsene



From the moment my fingers glided across the piano keys, a familiar sensation tugged at my mind. The sensation was magical, filling me with a sense of peace I neither craved nor wanted after becoming what I am today. I had left all that behind me…

Us Snows can never be at peace. 

And yet… as this sensation tugged at this abandoned longing, images swept past me one after the other in an array of kaleidoscopics. My past was laid bare before me. Both my past. 

I saw Lilith

I saw Mother

Zariel

Truck-Kun

Aurelia

Vancuroo

Izzy

Zero

I saw them all laughing, joking, and… fighting. 

From past to present, war followed me, death on my heel at every encounter until it took me, plunging me into a dystopian hell in which Zariel, my youngest brother, freed me. Sacrificing his freedom to the One so he may raise me from the dead. Only to watch as I lived out billions of lifetimes, rising and falling, till I became writhing mad. 

I woke to a new world. 

"CLEAN MY POO!" 

"CALL ME THE FIRELORD! 

"GENJUTSU BITCH" 

Catching those peculiar memories, I laughed, unsure why tears streamed from my eyes, watching my life flash through my eyes. 

"I want a hundred Arsenes. All of them will be named Arsene! Arsene one, Arsene two, Arsene three!" 

"Damn it, woman!" 

Over and over, the memories came and went until the day little Iza and Ves came into this world. Small like too little fawns, so fragile and defenseless. They layed in my palm, unable to fend for themselves despite the monstrous power hidden away. 

"I get it…' I finally said, stopping as I looked towards the Red Room, now a film of utter white. Yahweh and Rhea were gone as if they never existed. But now all that existed was white, and as I blinked my eyes, a black stone door appeared, bearing my crest on its surface. The crest glowed scarlet, throbbing with a pulse of ancient power. 

Maneuvering around the piano, I glanced back to find the piano gone and a snow-white stone door bearing Lilith's crest on its surface, her own pulsing with azure radiance. 

Uncertainty tightened within my chest as I stared at the two doors, at the two divergent paths before me. 

"Why is Lilith's White? She's more evil than me. Shouldn't her's be black? I'm like a fucking angel compared to her. Low key, I forgot that crazy bastard pumped me full of bloodlines just for me to fuck a child into her." I shouted, but my words didn't echo. Nor did the color dynamic change. 

Tsk. 

Clicking my tongue, annoyed, I fell into thought. Two doors, two options, one decision. One abyssal, the other… Myriad. Pausing for a moment as everything began to come together, I smiled. 

"So these are my connections between the Abyss and the Myriad. " I muttered, wondering if I was being asked to pick between the Abyss or Myriad. It wasn't really a choice. My wife and my kids are abyssal. But… 

And I glanced at the Myriad doors that carried my crest. "I want both." I laughed. "Call it pride or greed, but I want them both. I was born to the Myriad. And I am now a part of the Abyss. I'm not changing that. Not for some upgrade in rank. There is always some other path. And who am I if not a man who spits on the concept of the unattainable? I'm Arsne fucking Snow… I've fucked the darkness and the Abyss. There ain't shit I can't do! WHOOOO!" 

A/N: -_- 

Laughing to myself, feeling my confidence grow and my heart pumped. I drew in a deep breath as both doors zoomed towards me, stopping a few feet from me at its center. I gave both doors a knock. 

Ripples pooled from both doors, catching the other and then nothing. Unaffected, I knocked again, and again, and again, and again, until my blood greased the doors. I continued. 

Unsure of the time that came and went, or how many cycles, or how many eternities, I never once stopped as I fell upon the Path of Ren-Shii. I don't know why I fell back on this mental technique that has guided me since I learned it, but it came to me during this time. 

The nameless technique that seemed so ancient no one seemed to know its origin resounded through my mind as I continued to hammer at each door, bearing the carnage like a sword in my heart. 

*BOOOM!

*BOOOM! 

*BOOOM!

Bashing each door with all my might, webs of cracks splintered each end as the madness fueled my bloodlust. I gave a roar as the white film of space shattered alongside the doors, pulling me back into the realm of Gods and Demons, of Angels and Fallen, both at odds within the Myriad Heavens.

Surrounding by an immeasurable amount of golden light twisting into white and black, spanning endlessly like two wings, I stood at its center. 

"Zariel…" I called to him, and as if he heard me, the formation I asked him to create sprang into being. 

Devouring the death, all the paragons, Fallen, seraphim, and those apart of Omnis. I saw a glimpse of omnipotence flash across my eyes in a blaze of ephemeral light embracing me. 

And in that one moment, that one instance, I felt it… 

"STOP HIM!!!!!" 

"ARSENE!" 

A stranger shot towards me, wielding a golden sword. The darkness whispered to me his name as his sword pierced toward my skull. 

The blade stopped as if met with an insurmountable force. And Shiva paled as omnipotence gathered in my palm. It crackled with the force of the Almighty as a gale of force swept throughout all of the infinite that was the Myriad Heaven, decimating life as though it were nothing. 

The endless stars of the Myriad died, leaving only Tenebrae's grace upon the realm. I pointed at Shiva, his arms already torn wreckage of destruction, as a small black and white orb congealed form out of omnipotence. 

"Die for me." 

I fired it, and from the darkness, light was birth once more as a scar tore through the Myriad into the Abyss, dismantling Heaven's End as though it never existed. 

I laughed, bellowing with laughter as Chaotic Qi, so primal, pooled form out of the Abyss into the Myriad; the very foundation of the Myriad Heavens began to quake and wither, visibly losing its structural integrity.

Silence fell.