Ahkron hovered above the universe’s external boundaries, watching it silently. This universe made little sense. There had once been a vast, life-filled universe here, millions of light-years across. What he was currently looking at was barely the size of a small galaxy, with no actual galaxies in it, just clusters of stars and planets. It was young too, paradoxically young. As if time within the universe had fallen backwards, rebuilt history and zoomed back into the present day. On top of that, Ahkron had only detected four deities, with no distinct Personification and not a single trace of Voidborn presence. Something catastrophic had happened to this universe.
But still, it stank of the influence of the Time Drake known as Kairos. The hideous being had managed to abuse the power of its sibling deities, channelling three of its four Fundamentals, twisting the rules of its universe and using that strength to not only save its universe from preservation, but also destroying Ahkron’s old ship and stealing a potential wife in the process. While yes, Ahkron had managed to protect part of his beloved collection of preserved universes, he had lost far, far too much from the Time Drake’s attack, and had been thrown a little too far away to immediately launch another attack. Admittedly, embarrassment was the secondary reason why Ahkron hadn’t returned. He hadn’t been able to adapt in time, the monster had managed to hurt him and he had decided that it was better to retreat than risk death.
However, Ahkron knew this time would be different. When he had attacked this universe prior, he had taken too long. He’d made his normal offers, he’d attempted to take the beautiful serpentine being known as Yisini as his wife, and he’d not instantly imprisoned their death god. While yes, it had been Kairos who had defeated Ahkron, he had not predicted that the death god would have been willing to sacrifice itself to protect this universe and allow Kairos to take its power.
As Ahkron stepped into the universe, he was immediately met with a blast of energy. Clearly, they had amped up security around here, but Ahkron instantly knew that he was in the right place. That power had come from a familiar little death god. Ahkron realized he didn’t know the creature’s name, but he didn’t really care. It deserved to die. It was a death god, after all. Ahkron also decided that he would use this one to preserve the universe. Imprisoning Kairos and making the Time Drake watch his universe’s preservation would be far more fun.
The little creature though had other plans. While its attacks weren’t doing that much damage, there was an unusual energy pattern among them. Zontanic energy. The power of Life Goddesses. That made no sense, especially since this being was clearly a death god, if a particularly puny and inefficient one. Adapting to the blasts of energy, Ahkron reached forward and grabbed the death god by the neck, only for it to somehow slip away, making itself cold and shadowy.
“Get the fuck out of my universe!” the creature crudely shouted as it threw dark spears at Ahkron. The spears mostly just bounced harmlessly off Ahkron’s golden plating, but one managed to wedge its way into his neck, which was admittedly rather painful.
“I will leave your universe once I have preserved it, pathetic death god.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” The creature seemed confused. Clearly it didn’t quite remember who Ahkron was. Not that it mattered. Both its and Ahkron’s attention were drawn to the appearance of three other beings. The other deities of this universe. “Guys, I told you all to not come!”
Ahkron smiled. This was exactly what he wanted. He attacked the death god, skewering the tiny thing on a golden spear, before kicking it deeper into its universe, away from its siblings. One of the other deities, one that wasn’t the obvious Time Drake, attempted to chase after the death god, but Ahkron twisted gravity around them, forcing them to stay.
As predicted, Kairos attacked with icy, time-frozen breath, trying to stop Ahkron from doing any further damage. While deflecting this attack back at Kairos didn’t seem to harm him, it did however catch the uglier of the other two deities, not freezing them in place, but definitely slowing them down briefly.
“You have two Life Goddesses here, and they are both ugly. What happened to your beautiful serpentine sister, Kairos?” Ahkron tutted as he altered gravity around himself.
“Oh you cunt!” the pink, slimy Life Goddess snarled as she leaped forward, filling the space around Ahkron with toxic gases. “I’m more beautiful than ever!”
The Life Goddess’s response upset Ahkron. “Is that you, Yisini? My, how you have let yourself go. I suppose at least your, uh, sister here has taken a less stupid, space-monster-like form. A small victory, perhaps.”
“You leave Epani out of this! In fact, leave all of us out of this and leave!”
The toxic gases around Ahkron began to change, becoming more acidic. They were joined by a torrent of fire, caused by Epani. Ahkron noticed that Kairos was holding back, creating a time bubble around the battle, so Ahkron’s influence couldn’t affect the rest of the universe. Epani had also created a gravitational field around that, to keep Ahkron in place. That didn’t bother Ahkron at all. He just needed to alter his plan slightly.
Having tasted the universe’s fundamental forces, Ahkron waved his lower claws, twisting gravity to his advantage. Creating a large explosion, Ahkron forced both himself and the three deities outside of their universe. This caused Yisini and Epani to both immediately panic, and disorientated Kairos enough to be unable to fight back. Not that any of them could.
Now that they were in Ahkron’s domain, the Void which he had been born from, he was in control. With a snap of his fingers, a white and gold cell imprisoned each of the three deities. In each prison, Ahkron created a crystal window, so they could see what was going on.
“Now that I have your attention, I want you three to watch as I kill your errant death god and preserve your universe. Any second now, the little decayling will be no longer able to control all four fundamentals, and it will die an agonizing death as time freezes around it.”
Ahkron glanced at the cells. Yisini was bashing on the crystal window, Epani was creating motes of light so she could see in the darkness and Kairos just remained frozen, a look of sheer horror on his face. He had just worked out what was going on.
“Any second now…”
Something was wrong. The universe hadn’t shifted at all. It was… perfectly fine. It should have been dying, its lone, final deity collapsing under the pressure of having to carry four Fundamentals on its shoulders.
With a scowl, Ahkron stepped towards the fledgling universe, only for something to grab onto him and pull him inside…