A Horrific Tale
First documented in the Distortion Codex, this account supposedly describes something the unknown author witnessed and is the main modern reference for the story of Likoa. This is part of what makes scholars almost certain that the author never actually visited Distortion -- the animum conditions there would tear apart any Dragite who remained for an extended period and it certainly would not be "indistinguishable" from Veritas until Likoa appeared. Dragite settlements in Distortion are simply not possible.
A group of young Dragites sits around a campfire, an elderly Quarth keeping watch over them. A Klaslan excitedly raises a leg.
"Can you tell us a scary story?"
"All right, honey. I'm going to tell you the scariest story I've ever heard. It's been passed down for generations, I first heard it when I was a little girl."
All around the fire, the young Dragites gasp and squeal in excitement. How scary was this story going to be?
"A long, long time ago, or I suppose I couldn't say it was a long 'time' ago since time and space didn't exist yet, there was nothing except Lixoa, the Void. There was no sound, no light, no life, nothing except complete emptiness, everywhere. Now, who can tell me what happened next?"
A Smutha raises her head from grooming her doll and interjects. "Ooh! I know! Lixoa created Vipheriv and Xinonix, the Incarnations of Order and Chaos so she could start creating the universe and stuff!"
The old Quarth smiles. "Yes, Taliah, that's close, but not quite. See, Xinonix wasn't the original Incarnation of Chaos. There was one before her." All the young Dragites gasp. They'd never heard anything like this in the temples.
"Lixoa created Pheriana, yes, with the force of her will, but the Incarnation of Chaos wasn't Xinonix. The original Incarnation of Chaos was far more powerful. Her true name has been lost to time, but we now know her as Likoa, the Degenerate."
All the Dragites gasped again. They'd heard about an ancient being called the Degenerate, but when they'd asked their parents about it, they shook their heads, saying that she didn't exist and was just a story people made up to be scary. But the elderly Quarth sounded like she knew something their parents didn't. Was the Degenerate real, or just a myth? Taliah had some doubts about Incarnations being real in general. After all, she'd never seen one.
"Yes, the Degenerate was a good Incarnation for a while, filling the role of cosmic destruction and giving us souls and free will. A beautiful white serpent, who could erase half of the stars from the sky with one strike of her tail. But alas, the Degenerate possessed something Xinonix didn't, and unbeknownst to her, Lixoa had made a terrible mistake in creating her. Unlike Vipheriv, who knew her role in the cosmos and dutifully filled it, the Degenerate had been embodied with a certain spark of life and a constant hunger for power and knowledge as a function of chaos. She wanted to be the strongest being in the universe! Now, in you and me, a desire for power is a good thing, but in an Incarnation, it can spell the end of all!"
A Gyar began to cry for his mother, and the Smutha and Klaslan had their eyes fixed on the old Quarth, trembling. They were somehow both horrified and fascinated, terrified of the Degenerate and deeply wanting to know what happened next.
"Yes, the Degenerate continued to destroy as ordered, awaiting the End of All. But in her desire for power, she looked upon Lixoa and Vipheriv and thought 'What do they have that I don't?' She had the power to destroy anything, to break it into billions of pieces, but she couldn't completely obliterate anything like Lixoa, just break it. She could inspire emotions or imbue us with the spark of life, but she couldn't create anything from nothing like Lixoa. The Degenerate hated this. After all, if she was meant to be the strongest being in the universe, she should be able to create and destroy. She contemplated Vipheriv and Lixoa, watched our dimension stay in order, and realized that Vipheriv was completely unnecessary. After all, why bother maintaining order? She had no need for it. She thrived in chaos. But Lixoa, the Void, that infinite expanse of unknowns...it had everything! Lixoa could create from nothing and rend anything to nothing. The Degenerate wanted that power, and she had a terrible idea of how to get it. If she could break anything into a billion pieces, why couldn't she break Lixoa? If she forged weapons from pure chaos and the deepest destruction in the universe, she could shatter the Void into billions and billions of pieces and absorb them into herself, gaining complete control over our dimension and the ability to create new ones. She could destroy everything and recreate it in her own image!"
A Xifwo looked ready to burst into tears, clutching her favorite stuffed toy in fear.
"But...she didn't do that...right? Because we're all still here."
"Oh, hold on, Elex, I'm going to get to that. Once she realized what she needed to do, the Degenerate got to work. She solidified the bolts of chaos she controlled, turning them into impossibly sharp blades. One could crumble anything to particles, and the other destroyed minds, souls, all the energy contained in something and gave it to her. As she set out across the dimension with her weapons on a path of destruction, absorbing all the energy she could to gain strength for her battle against Lixoa, her own body became just as sharp and deadly as her blades. Her weapons fused with her hands, and she sprouted spikes, just as sharp and capable of destruction as her sword all along her body. Her once completely white serpentine form developed veins and gashes, scars in black and red, tinged with a twisted light. She grew two new arms with vicious claws whose sole purpose was to tear and maim, turning her entire body into a vessel of destruction. But even worse than the corruption of her body was the slow degradation of her mind. Once a faithful servant of Lixoa, she became more and more vicious with every life she stole, delighting in the ground crumbling beneath her and the screams of those whose energy she fed on. Though beneath the gashes, her form glowed an ethereal white, her soul became as empty as the Void she aimed to harness, filled with nothing except a burning desire for power and control. There was no room for anything other than her sheer lust for domination."
The young Dragites' eyes were wide, their tears of terror reflecting the fire, which appeared to be turning redder by the second. Several of them had left to find comfort in their mothers' arms.
"When she had gathered all the energy from the world, leaving our entire dimension a burned wasteland, she set upon the Void with her blades, screeching like the savage beast she had become. Even with all the energy of the world, Lixoa's infinite power quickly overcame her, but it was too late, for being infinite, one sector of the Void possesses the same power as all of it. The Degenerate had gained all the power of creation and destruction. But even with the power of the Void, the Degenerate still was not infinite in herself, and Bicolored began to attempt to destroy her for violating the cosmic order of our dimension. But instead of being destroyed, the Degenerate vanished, having created a new dimension for herself to rule, alone, outside of the power of Lixoa, but she left a fraction of herself behind, which Lixoa used to create Xinonix to restore our dimension, but without the Degenerate's hunger for power as she had seen the damage it could cause. This dimension grew, and possessing the power of creation and destruction, capable of chaos but not order, the Degenerate created worlds, and life to inhabit them. She imbued her creatures with souls and free will, giving them control over their own actions. Even without cosmic order in their dimension, the creatures of the Degenerate's dimension created order for themselves through their words and actions, and now some would say, unless one looks into the Void, the Degenerate's worlds are unmistakable from those ruled by Pheriana and Xinonix, until she appears."
Instead of being focused on the old Quarth as she completed her tale, all the Dragites' eyes were on the fire, which had gone from a comforting beacon to a blazing inferno, splitting the sky with vibrant red plumes of pure destruction, igniting the trees and houses of the village beyond. Thunder began to rumble in the distance as spirals of wind and lightning combined into a massive tornado, prepared to destroy anything it hit, heading for the fire and combining with it. The Dragites all tried to flee in terror, salvaging some aspect of their homes, but they were too late, consumed by the wind and flames, screaming in pain and fear as their lives were stolen from them, as if reaped by a massive scythe. A glowing white tendril, interrupted by black scars, emerges from the fiery vortex and looks down upon the ruins of the village of Tyraka, taking the form of a Sluslis-like serpent, levitating above the ground, her four arms flexing, two wielding massive blades, the other two massive claws made entirely of spikes that may have once been gold before being stained by eons of corruption and death. Nothing alive remained in Tyraka to see her, but the serpent smiled nonetheless, talking to herself as she observed the chaos.
"The Degenerate, huh? Heh. Cute. It's so funny when they try to name what they don't understand. It's like trying to name death, or the Void itself."