LGHTNOVELBOOK chapter 360 - Choices
The Vault trembled.
Not from fear, but from recognition.
Taufik raised his hand, and the very air shimmered with resistance.
His eyes blazed, not with fire, but with intricate, shifting glyphs of living code, layers upon layers of ancient logic interwoven with divine authority.
Aksara and Lembuswana stood still. They said nothing. The silence wasn't empty, it was reverent.
Around them, the world distorted, not violently, but as if existence itself was making room. Making space for something that had been forgotten by design.
Taufik whispered, almost to himself,
"Let's test this… Rewrite"
[Root Access Confirmed]
[Target: Basukhi - Soul Fractured Across Worldlines]
[Note: Fragments embedded in all Ancient Dragons. Removing fragments may erase entire species lines]
Taufik paused.
His breath caught in his chest as the implications unfolded before him like cascading code. To bring one back... Without undoing the millions that descended from him?
"Not remove," He muttered. "Copy. Restore the original without stealing from the descendant"
And then, he typed, not with fingers, but with thought and will, the interface bending to his mind.
# Basukhi.Fragmentation: Mikhael_protocol.divine_split
# NewCommand:
Reconstruct(Basukhi) using echo-imprint from Dragon Soulline.
Preserve descendants.
Maintain soul history.
Restore core identity.
A hum began to build.
Not a noise, but a presence. A low, resonant vibration that came not from the ground, but from across time. Like every ancient dragon, across every worldline, across the timeline felt the echo and responded with a heartbeat.
[WARNING: Temporal Conflict Detected]
[Do you wish to proceed?]
[This action will create a Unique Entity: "Basukhi, The Aboriginal Being of Draco"]
[This form has been erased before.]
'Erased… before?'
Taufik narrowed his eyes, a chill running down his spine.
He didn't look back.
"Yes"
Then...
Reality folded inward like a flower blooming in reverse, each petal a law of physics peeling back, each fold revealing the raw code of creation itself.
From the coded remnants of ancient roars and echoing scales, a shape began to form.
Coalescing from starlight, soul fire, and the eternal rhythm of dragon heartbeats, it rose...
Basukhi.
Towering. Coiled. Divine.
But no longer a shattered echo of primordial wrath.
Now, he was whole.
Regal. Sentient. A perfect synthesis of divinity and memory, of origin and evolution.
His scales shimmered with the iridescent hues of every dragon blood that had ever lived, each fragment once stolen from him, now singing in harmony.
His eyes, twin galaxies of molten gold and dusk, held not only ancient sorrow but something brighter:
Gratitude.
"Anchor..." He rumbled, his voice not mere sound, but a vibration that echoed through flesh, stone, and soul alike. "You remembered me… Without forgetting them"
Taufik exhaled the pressure in the Vault easing like a long-held breath finally released.
"Yeah," He said softly. "I figured… They all deserve to exist. So do you"
Basukhi lowered his head, not as a beast, but as a king returning to his realm.
"Then let me exist"
Taufik smiled.
"Done"
[New Entity Created: "Basukhi, The Aboriginal Being"]
[Status: Guardian-Class Entity... Bound by Will, Not Fate]
And just like that… The ancient wound healed.
No race was lost. No one was erased.
Basukhi lived whole and free.
--------
"... Basukhi"
A soft sound escaped Lembuswana's throat, quiet, almost insignificant.
But even that faint utterance carried weight.
It rippled through the stillness like a question unspoken, and yet it was enough.
The first dragon turned, not with threat, but with recognition. A stillness passed between them, ancient and intimate.
"…Lembuswana," Basukhi rumbled, the name rolling off his tongue like a half-forgotten incantation, familiar, heavy, sacred.
The sound carried weight, as though the world itself paused to listen.
At first, his voice was steeped in memory... A tremor of longing, of old kinship forged before everything turned to be like this.
But then...
The shimmer in his eyes darkened.
The warmth faded.
Longing twisted, memory curdled, and then... Hatred bloomed.
His muscles tightened, talons digging into the ether beneath them.
"You... You were there," He growled, thunder cracking beneath every word. "When I was broken. When they tore me apart. You did not stop them... We may be enemies, but before that, we are both brothers, Lembuswana... Why?"
Lembuswana didn't flinch. His form shimmered with layered shields, each one an echo of a battle long past. His claws flexed, his aura coiling tighter, focused.
"Basukhi... Have you forgotten what happened? Those whispers... Our battle... And what happened after that? Have you forgotten it?"
Basukhi's muscles pulled tighter, the space around him warping with latent fury.
The light dimmed, not from absence, but retreat like even the stars feared to witness what came next.
"Do you even know what they did to me, Lembuswana?" Basukhi's voice was cracked starlight, shards of divinity stitched together with rage. "I was divided. Not killed. Split. Torn into archetypes to power a thousand civilizations... And you watched"
"Watched? It seems like your memory has indeed been lost, Basukhi" Lembuswana said, almost sounding like a sneer. "I'm there too, Basukhi, we've shared the same fate! Do you think I'll let them do something like that to you?!"
Basukhi stilled.
Not because he believed.
Not because he forgave.
But because doubt, sharp and foreign, pierced through the storm of his rage.
"You…" Basukhi began, but the word fractured, shattering halfway through as too many memories surged at once, clawing for dominance in his mind.
In one, Lembuswana stood above him... Proud, untouched, radiant with divine authority, watching as Basukhi was torn apart.
In another, Lembuswana was bleeding, roaring in fury, chained by forces unseen, his defiance shaking the skies as he tried, and failed, failed to reach him.
In a third, they were locked together, ancient claws raking, fangs bared, brothers in form yet enemies by fate, fighting tooth and nail beneath a dying star.
Too many truths. Too many lies.
Basukhi's voice dropped, quieter now, but no less heavy.
"Then tell me... What did you see, Lembuswana?"
Lembuswana took a slow breath. A soft blue light shimmered along his back, like a quiet wave of sorrow.
"... We fought without end, feeding our hunger with each other's flesh, our thirst with each other's blood. The land itself split into four great continents, soaked in death... Draco, we were dying... All because of those whispers…"
His voice dropped, heavy with ancient dread.
"Then they came... The Angels descended... Michael led them. I fought until my wings were broken, but I couldn't do anything, and I was sealed... They made me watch what they did to you. They made me remember, Basukhi"
Basukhi was silent.
The silence wasn't peace.
It was the stillness before tectonic fury.
The storm behind his gaze didn't calm, it redirected. Focused. Sharpened.
"You remember," He said at last, his voice quieter now, like thunder speaking through tears. "Then you know… What they did wasn't salvation. It was dissection"
Basukhi started to move. His long body slid through the air with slow, heavy grace, like planets circling a dying star. Each movement bent the space around him, making the air feel thick and strange.
"They called it mercy…"
Basukhi's voice cracked, not from weakness, but from the sheer pressure of memory.
"But it was mutilation. They didn't seal me, Lembuswana. They extracted me. Layer by layer. Purpose by purpose. Divinity peeled apart... Until I wasn't a being anymore… Just a blueprint. I was turned into fuel for prophecy. A god reduced to scaffolding. A soul rewritten into structure"
Lembuswana did not move. He stood firm, wings vast and starlit, stretched wide like constellations held in stillness.
Not defiant. Not dismissive.
Enduring.
"I know," He said, voice breaking. "I know, Basukhi. I saw the angels bring the [Spheres of Division]. I watched as they rewrote the threads of your soul, each one rerouted into a different realm... A different dragon"
"Then why did it happen?"
Basukhi's roar cracked the Vault, ancient glyphs fracturing mid-air, logic chains unraveling.
"Why did I wake in echoes, scattered through descendants who could not hear me?!"
Taufik stepped forward.
He didn't radiate power. He was power... Contained. Absolute.
"They did it," He said, calmly, "Because they feared what you would become"
Basukhi turned, slow and sharp, eyes narrowing.
Taufik met his gaze. No hesitation.
"They saw you and Lembuswana as too close to the origin," He continued. "You weren't dragons. You were concepts. You were balance. And balance... Is terrifying"
He raised a hand.
The shimmering glyphs returned, responding not to power, but to intent.
"You were divided," Taufik said, "But you were not destroyed. That was your flaw... And your salvation"
Basukhi's breath rumbled like tectonic plates shifting beneath divine oceans.
"And now?"
Taufik tilted his head.
"Now, you're complete. But that completion carries memory, and memory carries rage"
Another pause.
Taufik's voice softened.
"But I didn't bring you back for vengeance"
Lembuswana added, quietly,
"Nor for retribution"
"Then why?" Basukhi asked. "Why anchor me, now?"
"Because it remembers pieces of you" Taufik replied. "Because it needs to. Not to worship you. But to heal"
There was a beat.
Then two.
And finally, Basukhi... Breathed.
A deep, galaxy-woven exhale, shedding fragments of lingering wrath like broken stars.
"I will not kneel"
Taufik smiled faintly.
"I didn't ask you to"
"I will not serve"
"I didn't ask that either"
"Then what do you want?"
Taufik's eyes gleamed, not with command, but understanding.
"I want you to choose, Basukhi. Not to obey fate. Not to rebel against it. But to transcend it"
That stopped everything.
Even time faltered.
And Basukhi... No longer the first dragon, no longer Aboriginal being, but Being.
Basukhi closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, the hatred had not vanished.
But it was no longer alone.
"…Very well"
Taufik said, and then, as the Vault re-formed around them, for the first time in eons, a new thread was woven into the tapestry of reality:
Not a weapon.
Not a relic.
Not a god.
But a choice.
....
...
..
.