At Creation's End - SCP Foundation

Long ago, there was nothing. A Great Abyss spanning all that never was, and never would. And it was beautiful. The indescribable nothingness. And all was content. But it was not to last.

Long ago, there were Three Brothers, born of the darkness predating creation. And where others would have seen nothing, they saw a canvas. And so was the Tree of Knowledge planted.

Creation exploded outwards like a bomb. Narratives beyond number, thought spheres transcending comprehension, information circles beyond logic, all of it setting the foundations for what was to come.

And then came the gods. Gods of Metal, of Flesh, of Knowledge and Fives. And there was the King Ordained in Crimson. Their numbers flowed like a river then.

And all was at peace.

And all was content.

But it was not to last. As it was before, so too was it again.

Long ago, there was nothing. A Great Abyss spanning all that never was, and never would. And it was beautiful. The Great Planting had left it fragmented, a sickly shade of what it once was. And these fragments, sharp as they were, began to breach the veil between reality and unreality, leaving a path of corruption in their wake. And so it was the King Ordained in Scarlet came across a fragment.

The King was cunning, cunning beyond peer. Where others only saw fear, He saw raw, untapped potential. Potential that could be manipulated, taken. But the King was intelligent enough to know that he was not strong enough to take it. Yet. But there were rumours, rumours of a Great Library, the sum total of all knowledge that could ever exist, and most that never would. An opportunity.

The King Ordained in Crimson was quick to track down those who repeated such rumours. And from them, he would tear the knowledge they had from their minds, tracking down the one who had started such a rumour. And so it was the King came across Jeser the Deceitful, He of Many Faces, and his kingdom of 24 worlds. It was he who had started the rumour. And so he too must have known where it was. Strong as Jeser was, he was helpless to watch as the King crushed all resistance and took control of his kingdom.

To Jeser, a task was given. The Library was to be found. Deep within its catacombs was the knowledge that King Ordained in Scarlet needed to take what was His, the power of the Great Abyss. To this task, Jeser agreed, for what else could he do in the face of such power? And on his way was Jeser sent.

Long did Jeser toil. Long did he walk. Far did he go. The journey was treacherous. The Gods, as innumerable as they were in those days, blocked his path on every route. Threats, attempted murder, violence plenty, Jeser faced this and more on his journey to the Library. Until… there it was. The pillar of wisdom, the river of knowledge. It was all it was imagined to be. And there, wrapped around its base, was a great Serpent.

This Serpent was almost as intelligent as Jeser's master and twice as wise. It could not be fooled. It could not be bypassed. And so Jeser had but one option. He walked up to this great snake and asked if he could read, if he could partake of the knowledge that lay within the Library's walls. And the Serpent let him in. As intelligent as it may have been, it was not omniscient. That privilege lay with his master, and his master alone. It could not have known…

In these early days of the Library, security was lax, more lax than it would ever be from then on. And the Prince of Many Faces walked. He walked past the infinite shelves of books, he walked past the locked doors. He walked and walked until he found himself somewhere completely different to the Library. He had entered the catacombs.

The catacombs were the place of residence for only the most forbidden knowledge, banned by the Creator himself. And it was there that the knowledge the Prince's master required. And Jeser walked. And he walked some more. And he walked more until finally he found it. But alas, the alarm had already been raised, the Serpent alerted, and the Docents geared up. Someone had figured it out.

Quickly stashing away the knowledge, Jeser ran. He did not stop. He did not look back. He did not slow down at all. The Serpent was coming. Making use of the art of deceit, Jeser was able to slip out of the catacombs alive, where he ran into more and more problems. Leaving the catacombs revealed his location.

Ironically, it was Jeser's use of force, not deceit, that spared him from the eternity of suffering that would have awaited him had he been captured. Fighting off the Serpent and its Docents, the Prince of Many Faces made his escape. And all the way back to his master he ran, back through the hordes of gods, back through it all. And there the King sat, waiting, expectant. And there, Jeser handed over what he had stolen.

Rising from the throne in one swift movement, the King began. Knowledge did not exist in physical form at the level of the Gods, allowing for all forms of manipulation of it. And so the King subsumed it, made it a part of his being, tying himself to it. And to the Great Abyss, he went, sitting for 7 days and 7 nights, wrestling with the power of the fragment. And at last, he won. The fragment of the Great Abyss was subsumed into himself. But it wasn't enough. He needed more. And so he continued, fragment after fragment, corrupted god after corrupted god.

The shockwaves sent throughout Creation were felt everywhere.

The shockwave was felt on Terra, where it burrowed into the minds of the primitive species that lived there, forming the first of his Children.

The shockwave was felt in Heaven Above, where Lucifer led a rebellion against the Creator.

The shockwave was felt everywhere, shaking creation to the core. And then the King resurfaced.

What resurfaced eons later could no longer be considered a God. It could no longer be considered the King Ordained in Crimson. No, what rose from its finished task was so evil, so soul-consumingly mad, it could no longer be considered a thing. So consumed in its own madness, the ineffable abomination once known as the King Ordained in Scarlet vowed to devote himself to one thing, and one thing only: the Tree of Knowledge, and all it held in its infinitely many branches, would die.

What rose was not a God, or anything else. What rose that day was, and would always be, the Scarlet King.

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