THE LITANY OF THE TWISTED TREE OF LIFE

Chapter 1 — Earth

At the lowest point of the ocean, where no light had ever belonged, a red glimmer bloomed.

It bled through the abyss like a wound in reality, staining the empty seabed. There, unmoving yet immense, stood a colossal octopus-like entity, its countless tentacles spread across the dark floor. A greenish-black viscous substance clung to its flesh, dripping slowly, as if gravity itself hesitated to touch it.

Its eyes opened.

Crimson, veined with bluish black, they turned upward.

Above it, the ocean screamed.

Layers of twisting circles descended, rotating within one another, each ring studded with innumerable eyes. From their sides unfolded four pairs of titanic wings, tearing the sea apart by their mere presence. At the center hovered a single, blinding eye of pure light—so radiant that the abyss burned white, the surrounding water vaporizing instantly, the pressure collapsing into silence.

A voice spoke.

Calm. Absolute.

“Hand it over.”

The squid-like being answered as its body ignited with a blue radiance, sharp and unbearable to witness.

“You came all this way,” it said, voice echoing through water that no longer existed,

“just to say that?”

The light dimmed.

Its form shifted—tentacles folding inward, flesh rearranging itself into something almost human. A humanoid body stood where the monster had been, crowned by a squid’s head, remnants of its true shape coiling behind it.

It faced the being of wings and eyes.

Angelic—

No.

God-like.

Their bodies pierced the ocean, the sky, and pushed beyond, breaching into space itself.

This was not a clash of strength.

This was a battle for authority.

A struggle between deities.

—

Elsewhere, on the surface, night ruled a bustling city.

Then a sun appeared.

It hung low in the sky, impossibly close, flooding every street in blinding radiance. Panic erupted. Cars collided. People screamed, shielding their eyes as shadows burned into the ground.

Something vast eclipsed the light.

The sea rose.

A tsunami, larger than anything ever conceived, swallowed the city whole. Water surged across continents, boiling away under the false sun’s heat—only for the light to vanish an instant later.

Silence.

A shockwave tore through the planet.

Where the sun had been, a black hole bloomed, devouring the sky. Time seemed to halt as gravity went mad, consuming stars, tearing the dominion of light apart. Space folded inward, collapsing upon itself—

—and then, nothing.

From that absolute darkness, a single white spark remained.

It was pushed away.

Rejected.

Banished.

This was the death of a universe.

The light was cast outward, passing through nothingness, until it reached a place beyond worlds—a circular tree, threaded with chaotic lines. Around it drifted countless glass-like spheres, transparent and fragile, scattered like cosmic dust. Within each sphere, a swirling eye watched over innumerable points of light.

The spark entered one of them.

It vanished.

Only the eye remained, slowly turning.