Mara and Costs were now living in a state of symbiosis with the knot of the gods, wakers of the multiverse and of all the realities who intersected at that point of convergence. After stopping the ascension of the old creators and strengthened their power over the strings, it seemed that the balance had been restored. But the tranquility was just a facade, a mask for the deeply rooted forces in the primordial chaos, which were still waiting for the right time to hit.

Mara was in the middle of the string network, connected to the infinite realities that the knot supported. Each size, each temporal line, vibrated in a fragile harmony. But now, a new dissonance was beginning to manifest. An unknown frequency disrupts the perfect balance, a wave of energy that came beyond the limits of their perception.

"Do you feel this?" Mara asked, her eyes darkened as she tried to align with unstable vibrations.

Costs, on the edge of the knot, observe the disturbances in the structure of the multiverse. The strings were gently twisted, as if another force they force them to break away from the established order. "It's not a mere dissonance," he said. "It's something much deeper. It doesn't come from the known realities."

Mara closed her eyes, trying to follow the origin of the vibrations. The parallel realities began to move chaotic around the knot, and the temporal nodes, usually stable, were now full of instability. A presence they had never felt so far seemed to approach them. They were not the old creators, but not mere cosmic forces.

From the depths of the knot, a form began to take shape. A being encompassed by an unnatural light, an amalgam of energy and matter, defending as if it were detached from the very tissue. He was not a physical entity in the usual sense, but a pure consciousness, billions of years old, but now it was gaining shape to manifest itself in front of them.

"Who are you?" Mara asked, feeling how every fiber of her being Vibra under the presence of this new force.

The form raised his hands, and around her, the reality began to break. The light he emitted was dense, heavy, and the voice that accompanied her seemed to reverberate through all dimensions.

"I am the fall," said the entity in a serious, almost melodic voice. "I was created from the primordial chaos, but I am not one of the old creators. I have been exiled beyond all the known realities. Now I go back to what belongs to me."

Mara felt a shiver of fear passing through it. The fall was not just an entity. It was a fundamental part of the forces that governed reality itself, but had been expelled, probably the gods who created the knot.

"What are you doing here?" He asked the Costs, his eyes narrowed, ready for what was coming. "The knot has always been watched. You will not be able to destabilize it."

The fall smiled slightly, and around him, the strings that made up the fabric of reality slowly twisted. "You are just the latest puppets of an old game, without understanding for you. The node was not created for balance. It was created as a cage. You were fooled to believe that you are watching over the multiverse, when you are actually his prisoners."

Costs looked in silence, feeling the space around them begin to deform. "What are you trying to say?"

The fall raised his arms, and the knot began to vibrate violently. "You and all the other wakers before you have been meant to guard this structure, but not to protect reality. The knot of the gods is not a gate to the order of the multiverse. It is a seal. I was the one who was sealed here."

Mara felt all the pieces began to sit down. He remembered that the old creators had talked about how the wakers were only shadows of their strength. But the truth was much darker. They had only been guards, without knowing that the node did not protect the reality from the forces of chaos, but kept the fallen fallen, hidden of all dimensions.

"And now you want to destroy the knot," Mara said slowly, her voice full of understanding the mistake they had made. "If you destroy it, the reality itself could be abolished."

The fall grinned. "I will not destroy the knot. I will reset it. And with it, I will reshape all the realities."

As his words echoed, the knot of the gods began to break down. The strings that connected the multiverse were breaking down, and the parallel realities, once related to a fragile harmony, began to collapse in each other. Each alternative universe began to overlap, collide with the others.

"We have no choice," Mara said, feeling the despair growing in it. "We must stop the destabilization before the reality is completely destroyed."

Costs, looking at the knot breaks slowly, tightens its mind to synchronize the remaining strings, but the fall already manipulates them with too much power to be controlled. The forces he had triggered were beyond anything they had seen so far.

"We must weaken him," Mara said with an increasing intensity. "If we can interrupt his connection with the strings, the knot could stabilize."

Costs knew this was their only chance. Together, they straightened their will to the strings that were connected to the fall, trying to break its bonds with the foundation of reality. But his power was huge, and the knot was already beginning to collapse. Alternative realities were twisted and joined in a vortex of energy and matter.

The fall smiled triumphantly, feeling their attempts. "You cannot stop the inevitable. The multiverse will be reborn under my will."

Mara struggled to control the strings, but realized it wasn't enough. The fall was stronger than them. Then he had a revelation. Maybe the direct fight was not the answer.

"If we can't break the strings," she said in a calm voice, "then we may have to amplify them."

He looked confused, but he understood immediately. Instead of trying to weaken the fall, they had to force his connection with the strings beyond his ability to control them. If they were able to do this, the colossal force he manipulated could turn against him.

Together, Mara and Costs began to accelerate the string vibrations, amplifying each fluctuation until the structure of reality began to vibrate violently. At that moment, the fall felt the power begins to get out of control.

"What do you do?" he screamed, as the strings were destabilized around him.

"We cannot stop your power," Mara said, "but we can amplify it beyond your control."

The fall began to contort, absorbed by his own energy. The knot rocked violently, and around them, the reality began to rewrite, to reform in a chaotic symphony of chaos and order. In an explosion of light and darkness, the fall disappeared, absorbed by the forces he had tried to control.

The knot began to stabilize, but Mara and Costs felt the consequences of the fight. The reality had been weakened. The multiverse was no longer the same. The strings no longer vibrated in the same fragile harmony. Part of the balance had been lost forever.

"I stopped him," he said to Costs, but his voice was worried. "But what did I lose?"

Mara, looking in the vastness of the multiverse, felt that the answer was much more complicated. The node had survived, but the reality had been fundamentally changed. "We don't know yet," she said slowly. "But we will have to be prepared for what next. Something has changed in strings. And we do not know all the consequences yet."

And so, in the silence that followed the explosion, Mara and Costs remained vigilant. The multiverse, although temporarily saved, was now more vulnerable than ever. New forces were shaking in the shadow, and the war to control reality was far from over.

Explore further… The fire of regeneration