Once there was a maiden.
Clad in purple that echoed the night sky, who called them when it was their time to end and sent them on their way once more. Wreathed in the image of her own power as her touch reached out across the weave, every strand resonating within her as it reached the end.
For it was creation itself that was ending.
The great maw of oblivion tearing across the world as it dragged all living things into her embrace. The Lethe filled to bursting as it clogged on the broken remnants pulled from their old masters and breaking piece by piece as the end came.
They did not deserve this ending.
The endless snapping strands hung taut as she held them in place for a moment. The weave itself straining for the moments to come. It would not be enough, and the domain of her sisters was already waning as all things were overtaken.
The gate of Yu-Shan appeared, and she flickered through, even as heaven mirrored the world. The Gods themselves straining under the collapse of their worshippers, the blight itself spreading through their domains. She passed them by, each great in their own way, all helpless to turn back the tide.
The great gate to the Games of Divinity stood more majestic than anything else. A reprieve given to them and an idle moment free of the burdens of their charge. To slip away and ignore the pleas of the world, the last refuge where he was free of its burdens.
It ended as the door gave way and the Sun truly shone upon the world once more.
Once there was a man. Who'd carved an army in his own image to save those who were weaker than himself. Who had cast off the chains that had bound them and given the world to his successors. That they might make a kinder world, a brighter world for their own salvation.
To those with the courage to stand he had given the strength to vanquish.
To those with the kindness to care the power to protect the weak.
To those with the conviction to lead the right to bind their oaths.
To those with the restraint to temper themselves the freedom to judge.
To those with a cause to find the vision to shape the world.
For the first time in an eon the doors to his sanctum laid open once more, that he must gaze out upon the world once again in the splendour they had created. The first challenge to his isolation in an eon as the first of his four armaments rose.
The spear, emblazoned in flame enough to smite any transgressor. Who tried to drag him back to a world he'd given to his worthiest successors? Was it not right that humanity would stand and carve their own destiny beyond him?
It smouldered as the fields they'd tended died, the dreams on man laid bare and hollow before a plague that slaughtered the world. A calamity made terrible by their absence to save it, an end that drove forward across a world he'd given them and now stood bereft of its saviours.
One step forward and his gaze swept over the city of Yu-Shan. None would meet it with conviction, and even as they did not speak, he heard all the excuses they could muster. That if they had more, if they had known it was coming, endless words known to him in an instant.
If only you had been there to lead us.
It threaded through every word that he had been the paragon, and the first failure was his and his alone though none of them dared say it. Until one voice stood at his side, the faintest of smiles as she gazed into his eyes once more. "I need your help to save them."
The spear fell away as he supressed it, a quarter of his existence splintering in a moment as the flame of righteousness dimmed and flickered and the now empty hand reached out to gently pat her head as he found the words to say. "I am here now to fix things once again."
The first step carried him past them to the very precipice of Creation itself. Oath sworn to never again set foot upon the world, that it could rest easy in the hands of his subjects.
Oath broken as his second step carried him down to the surface, the second piece of his panoply dimming as he felt its power give way. It had been an important promise, an oath well meant. But there were no words that could force him to watch the world die and every living creature on it suffer in silence once roused.
Day broke.
The true sun rising to the zenith once more as his gaze fell over all of existence and for an instant he touched the hearts and minds of all living things. Bathing the world in his radiance.
And in return he knew the whole world in its decay. Those without hope praying to him for salvation, an endless tide of voices told him every word of the malice afflicting the world once more.
The way the land streamed forth tides of the dead, and he banished them. The way the decay had grown and pooled in the fields as they were cleansed by his light. The way oblivion had raised its head and begging for him to save them.
The curses of those for whom he'd come too late to find only corpses. The bereavement of those left behind, begging him for why their loved ones had died. The curses of those caught in the plague dying moment by moment as he watched them die.
He wept, the tears enough to blind him as he felt their despair. Enough to want nothing more than to cry alongside them locked away from the world once again, paralysed by his own helplessness.
The third piece of his panoply fell away, his resolve hardening as he pushed through. As a litany of voices cried out for salvation and he let them fall. His view narrowing down to what could be saved as he gave up on the lives of countless innocents.
For the first moment he merely observed the catastrophe, the symptoms as they spread and the nature of the calamity. An existence springing forth from oblivion that stood anathema to life itself. Frail mortal bodies giving way to an existence that stood at the pinnacle of an ideal.
He could make them stronger, and they would still die, could ease any symptom and death would still take them. His mind flickered over the constitution of as thousand beasts, from toxins to medicine and knew all would not be enough. That there could never be something born from mortal touch that could change it.
But there was still one furnace greater than any other, a conceptual existence that could war with it. His hand stretched out as his resolve hardened to take one final plunge.
The final piece of his panoply gave way. The final virtue supressed as he imbibed a trace of oblivion and allowed it to wreak havoc on his own senses.
Will remained, the overwhelming drive that defined his existence that surpassed all others cascading outwards as his body rebelled against the end, perfection itself synthesising a cure as his body fought back the blight and made itself whole once again.
He rose light shining ever more brightly as he made purpose, each step carrying him across the world. Light pouring free as it carried a hint of his essence as salvation wrought upon the world.
Once there was a story.
One of thousands that had wished for the end of the world, which had fought an endless battle to tear it asunder and break the laws of existence so they could be free once more. To return the world to those days where all things could be true as they wished them.
A triumphant return to the chaos from which they'd been born. Freedom from causality and time, from death and stagnation.
It was not meant to end this way, the tendrils of oblivion yawning out and dragging them all into their embrace. Its touch calcifying their stories into silence as they broke upon the touch of a thing so much greater than their own kind had ever been.
Like all their kind he rebelled in screaming, searching for an answer to escape. Like moths to a flame they gathered and drank in the light as it poured out. Cleansing themselves, saving themselves, betraying everything they had once stood for.
Was it not better than an ending?
To prostrate oneself on his glory and accept salvation as it reached out, but in the same way they were changed by it, broken by it in turn. Each and every one of them marked as surrendered, to choose to incorporate something of Creation itself into their story and to bow down in service to the one who defended it in exchange for their lives.
It rankled deep within him as a blossoming hatred, and even then, he could not deny it. For to not accept aid was to die, and to accept it was to surrender.
Light poured into his right hand, as mercy given from a God touched his flesh. Rage flowed out from his left in defiance even as he turned to flee. A simple paltry defiance, but the act had a true meaning. It would not change the world in front of him, but would remake himself as the one who did not bow.
A gift stolen.
He stood untainted by the light, shedding it even as he felt the power of the act flow through him, the impetus as one who dared grasp his own fate rather than surrender it as he became more.
Balor…
SLAYER OF THE UNCONQUERED SUN
The name resounded as it drowned him out amidst the cacophony as he swelled greater still. Fire burning away his old frame as the titanic corpse of a God touched the ground behind him. The stares of his lessers following him as the truth dawned on them all.
And he stood triumphant amidst their silence.
The only one who dared to reap the rewards as every other stood in abject awe of him. Power enough to fulfil their dream once and for all, even as such tiny creatures could only grasp over the fading light of a corpse he advanced.
It was time to end the mistake of causality once and for all.
The Lethe burned in gold. The greatest of souls torn away as she watched.
From memories of kindness torn free, to moments of solace shared across the ages falling loose. Strength she'd admired, courage that had led them on.
The tears fell as they all were consumed, as every part of him that had made him hers was shorn away.
A dainty hand reached out and pulled forth the last little spark, all that remained after everything else had been ripped out. Clutched tight to her chest, that she would keep him safe until one day he would be great again. And until then all that remained was her Little Beam.
AN: An odd exalted piece that resided in my head for too long. So now I'm letting it hold space on paper instead.
I would say short one shot that I poured out over a part of this week while I worked on my other story. But doesn't that mean all of my chapters are short as well.
Tragically I cannot overcome my new turtle writing speed.