Arkay had hoped to have been able to take a quick break, but as soon as he had managed to lie down in bed, he’d received a frantic message from Epani, begging him to deal with a Voidborn that was hovering just outside the northern entrance to the universe. So Arkay grabbed his favourite gunstaff and took a nearby convenient shadow portal straight to the universe’s edge.
Just as Epani had explained, there was a Voidborn present. However, unlike the one Arkay had just brutally tortured and murdered only a few hours prior, this one was just standing around, looking awkward. And it definitely looked different from that other Voidborn, lacking antlers and having much more silver and gunmetal on its body. It was standing on the small, black, metallic platform attached to the universe’s edge, a way for the deities to temporarily leave the universe and still be connected to it.
“Uh, hello, I wouldn’t be here if I were you…” Arkay announced his presence as he stepped out onto the platform. “We don’t allow Voidborns inside our universe.”
“I do not wish to enter, I just wish to send a message. I have a grave warning for-” The Voidborn spotted Arkay and immediately froze. “You… I… Please do not teleport me into another sun.”
It took a moment for Arkay to recognize this being. It clearly knew him, but he wasn’t sure how. Rather than standing around looking like an idiot, Arkay decided to just ask the Voidborn who they were.
“Do I know you from somewhere?”
The Voidborn nodded nervously. “Yes, little hybr- uh… Decay Lord Arkay… I clashed with you Thantir Decay Lords a while back. A… few times. You teleported me into a sun, forced me to respawn and then your fellow Decayling Litvir convinced me you had killed yourself and for me to renounce my cult, kill most of the Goldblessed and set off on my own. I had no idea you… went into the universe-running business.”
“That does sound like the sort of thing Litvir would do…” Arkay shrugged. “You really must have changed if you are squirming at the sight of me. Most Voidborns tend to remain overly proud and boastful no matter what, until I make them mortal and teach them what it’s like to die. Why the fuck are you here?”
After realizing that it looked stupid, the Voidborn straightened itself out. “Ahem. I am Theocydes, the main Voidborn presence in this collection of sectors. Or, at least, I was, until recently. I have been visiting nearby universes in this sector, warning them of a highly aggressive Voidborn that breaks into universes and abuses their rules in order to destroy them, before turning these universal remains into small trinkets. Ahkron has already killed me and forced me to respawn several times, and has killed many, many universes…”
Arkay crossed his arms and tutted. “Oh, so that guy’s name was just Ahkron… Didn’t occur to me to ask him what his full name was before I killed him, assumed it was something longer.”
All Theocydes’s bottled up nerves suddenly came flowing out. He was visibly trembling now. “You… killed Ahkron?”
“Yep.” Arkay pulled something out of his pocket, a small, golden marble, and showed it to Theocydes. “This is all that’s left of him. Unless he had like a small pocket dimension he kept his stuff in or something.”
“H-how?”
“We have a very strict No Voidborns rule inside our universe. The punishment for breaking this rule is death. Had to add this rule after our last universe got destroyed by Kinisis using me as a bomb to nuke both the universe and a Voidborn army.”
Theocydes calmed down a little. While Arkay could still very much do horrible things to him, the Decay Lord (former Decay Lord? Theocydes wasn’t sure) seemed rather tame, perhaps even tired. This seemed like a good opportunity for Theocydes to do some risk assessment, especially since he was now free to loosely reclaim the sector.
“So… you are an intra-universal deity now?”
Arkay nodded. “Yeah. Not willingly, but yeah.”
“What happened?”
“Why do you care?”
The Voidborn hesitated. “Well, uh, most Decay Lords tend to remain as Decay Lords indefinitely. You did not. You are… if you do not mind me saying so, an… unusual specimen.”
“So I’ve been told…” Arkay sighed. “Theocydes, I appreciate the obviously somewhat late warning, but I’ll be honest, I don’t want to have to deal with another errant Voidborn right now, and I’m definitely not in the mood to talk. You’re also scaring my fellow deities, which is yet another thing I don’t want to deal with, Epani is always a pain when she’s scared.”
“Is Epani your Life Goddess?” Theocydes couldn’t help but ask.
“One of them, yes.”
“You serve two Life Goddesses? Despite being a… despite being part Life Goddess yourself?”
Arkay nodded. “Yeah, I do. Epani and Sini at least mostly treat me well, but, eh, I’m looking forward to going back to being a Decay Lord when this universe is over. I miss Retvik and Litvir…” Arkay’s nods turned into an annoyed tut. “Why am I still talking to you? Go away. Go and tell everyone Ahkron is dead or something. And if you’re planning on sticking around this sector, do me a favour and stay the fuck way from us. We’re not harming anyone, we’re just running a stupid little universe.”
Theocydes bowed. “I understand. With Ahkron out of the way, I will… once again be the main Voidborn in this sector, and I have no interest in conquest or anything. It should keep larger Voidborn factions off your backs. Unfortunately, I cannot do much about smaller Voidborn entities though.”
The Thantophor wasn’t too sure what to say. “Uh… thank you, I guess? Actually, now that I think about it… Can you… do me a favour?”
“Oh?” Theocydes’s eyes lit up. “You want to ask a favour of me?”
“Yeah…” It was Arkay’s turn to hesitate. “Have you seen the Thantir lately?”
“Indeed, I have. I warned them of Ahkron’s presence, and they requested that I visit nearby universes in order to warn them of the threat. Do you wish for me to pass a message to them?”
“That would be nice. I’d actually appreciate that. Just, like, send them my regards or something. Tell them I said hi.”
The Voidborn bowed. “A simple request. One I shall carry out for you. And, in the mean time, I shall leave you to your work. Have a good one, Arkay.”
“Yeah, you too.”
Arkay watched as Theocydes stepped out into the eternal darkness of the Periuniversal Void, before teleporting to a shimmering silver sphere in the distance, which Arkay assumed was Theocydes’s new ship. Once the coast was clear, Arkay climbed back into his universe, double-checking that the entrance was sealed shut. He then glanced at his communicator, where Epani had left him a message.
“Is everything alright?”
“All good, they’ve gone away.”
“Good. Thank you, Arkay. Go and take your break now.”
Arkay sighed, typed out a thank you, then went home. Hopefully he could go five minutes without some other catastrophe happening.