Varian returned to Hortus with heavy injuries.
During the battle, he pushed this world to its limits. The consequences were visible.
Hortus seemed exhausted, its vitality running low. The great mountains and rivers had all shrunk. The animals, birds and other creatures also seemed visibly aged.
The only silver lining was that they're recovering slowly.
'At least they will recover.' Varian thought, happy for Hortus. But that same thought also brought a lot of bitterness about himself.
'What about me? What am I going to do? What can I do?'
As the negativity filled his heart, Varian was suddenly held by five women who rushed over.
"Var!" """Varian!"""
Hearing their voices led him to drop some of the negativity and smile. "I am back. For a final vacation."
There was silence at his words before they hastily checked his condition through synergy.
Varian let them. They saw his great battle, the first defeat and the desperate attack. The victory that came next and the final defeat that followed.
There was shock and pain but they remained somewhat stable.
It was the sight of his half-shattered origin at the end broke them.
Sia and Enigma collapsed to the ground powerlessly. Sarah was deathly pale while Isadora looked aghast. Aurora didn't know what they saw but could guess from their reactions.
Biting her lip without realizing it was bleeding, she hugged his arm and declared with a smile. "Yes, a nice vacation!"
Her cheers brought Sarah and Isadora to their senses. They rushed him to the same workshop where Aurora was treated and lay him down.
Varian didn't say it was a going to be futile. His words wouldn't be able to stop them. They'd try everything they could. Just like how he tried everything to save Aurora.
It's better to let them work it all out and then come to terms with it.
The next few hours, the four women did nothing but work, work and work.
Testing his origin, soul and body over and over. Only the origin was the problem. They knew it too. But it was an attempt to deceive themselves, that maybe if they fully heal his soul and body, his origin would also turn alright.
A synergy session was conducted. Aurora was asked to participate by Sarah, the one who was the most opposed to it earlier.
Varian's body and soul 'healed' in the traditional sense.
But he soon started to break down. He wasn't a water in the bucket under the scorching sun slowly evaporating. He was water spilled on the ground, being absorbed into the soil.
It was an inevitable death. But they still had hope.
Since it was an origin injury, they tried to heal him the same way Aurora was treated. But they ran into roadblocks from the start.
Varian used the sliver shards and his knowledge of origin to let the origin repair itself.
There were no sliver shards. Varian did give mini slivers to his women. But once God Emperor took the slivers, these mini slivers inexplicably dissipated.
As a substitute, Sarah and Isadora used their own powers of order and chaos to try heal him.
Since they had the link of synergy, there was no rejection from origin towards these 'foreign' forces.
Unfortunately, his half-shattered origin showed absolutely no reaction. It was as if the slivers possessed a special quality that they lacked, no matter how good they were.
The treatment couldn't even begin.
"No." Sarah held his hand and cried like a child. "No, no, no. This is a dream. A bad dream. Everything will be fine after I wake up. Var will be fine again. Please, please, please…"
Her breakdown triggered Sia and Enigma, who somehow managed to remain silent all this time, to collapse into a mess of tears.
Sia fell into his arms and wailed. "Varian, please don't die. I beg you. I beg you."
Her sobs turned more and more painful as she trembled. It was heartbreaking.
"Can we exchange origins?" Enigma whispered as she hugged him from behind.
Her tears soaked his shoulders and her trembling hands held him tight, afraid he'd disappear.
Isadora cupped his cheeks and kissed him on the forehead. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but she held the most gentle smile he ever saw. "You did your best. Let's have the sweetest final days anyone could have."
Aurora looked into his eyes and said with the best smile she could muster. "Let's do all things we want to do. The world is ending soon!"
The final days of Varian began.
Sometimes they took turns, but mostly, everyone was doing everything together.
Walking in the mountains. Fishing in the river. Playing in the snow. Going for a sail. Hunting in the wild using bow and arrow.
Watching the sunrise on mountain tops as the mist cleared.
Visiting the wild as it roared to life in mornings.
Making out in midday without a care.
Sleeping together in a sea of flowers in the evenings.
Rowing a boat one-on-one under dreamy nights.
While this happened, Varian also bid his farewells.
Primula, Evander, Hazel, Matriarch, Boo and Oob knew nothing of what happened. They were told a different version, that Varian was preparing for a breakthrough and needed a lot of time and space.
Varian met them all and spent time with them, saying it would 'take a long, long time' before he returned from seclusion and he'd like to spend some quality time with them before he left.
They all believed him and were hopeful that this breakthrough would let him stop the cosmic destruction.
Things seemed peaceful in Hortus but outside, the world was long in disarray.
Natural calamities and unnatural disasters struck, killing endless people. There was nowhere to run, for no place was safe.
It was chaos, chaos and chaos.
But inside Hortus, things remained stable. Perhaps because it's carefully crafted by the primordial gods, no 'glitches' happened here.
The days rolled on.
World seemed to stop mattering to this family, as they spent their time together doing everything they wanted, as if they had an eternity to spend.
But Varian clearly felt the time passing. Because each day, his lifespan would shrink and his power would dwindle.
Mid rank 2.
Low rank 2.
Peak rank 1.
High rank 1.
Mid rank 1.
Low rank 1.
Varian laid on grass with a carefree expression as he watched the clouds drift. The women had gone off to make a surprise.
He counted the clouds passing, evaluated their shapes and wondered when he'd see a sword, a ghost or a maid.
'Wait, are maid clouds even possible?' He laughed at himself but his smile quickly vanished as gloom filled him.
He had once vowed to bring Logos out and make her a maid.
'Logos.'
He wondered how she was. Was she even 'alive'?
How could he lose her like that?
'Samsara.'
What must she be feeling now? But no matter what she felt, what could she even do? Her 'master', her 'Var' lost. He failed to save her.
'Damn it! Damn it! Damn it all!'
The bubbling bitterness he had been trying to suppress broke out and Varian clenched the grass, his chest heaving up and down.
'I want to fight. I don't want to give up. I hate giving up. I must win.'
He was in a huge shock after the defeat but with the care he received over the days, he recovered a little. And with that recovery, he was also questioning his actions.
Should he just give up? Accept defeat? Ad let it all go?
After all he's done, all the battles he fought and all the times he risked his life?
Just accept defeat?
He checked his origin once again.
Half of it was completely shattered. The other half was riddled with endless cracks.
"Aurora had one crack and was dying in a week. It's been two weeks and I'm still alive. It's a fucking miracle."
He told himself. That's indeed the case. Even he didn't understand why he was still alive with a half-shattered origin.
Aion conducted deep experiments into this and had pretty simple conclusions.
'If your origin has even a scratch, a teeny weeny scratch, you die. That's it. It's hard to get that scratch. But if you get it, it's all over.'
It was these experiment findings that Varian used to heal Aurora. That tiny scratch which was said to be unhealed by completely healed by the slivers of order and chaos.
'Logos…' Varian looked into the vast world and felt empty inside. 'Samsara…what are you doing now?'
The talkative and cheerful one was also gone.
Without these two, he felt a different sense of loneliness.
As he drifted into the memories, he inadvertently a light buzz near his origin.
He probed it curiously without any caution. What else could happen now anyway?
"A…message?"
And that power holding that message was the power of order and chaos.
"Logos left me a message?" Varian opened the 'letter'.