The Bloodied Lord had roamed across this domain for as long as they could remember. They were the god of death, the end of life, for both good and bad. This beautiful universe with its permanent pink-tinted skies and lilac clouds was utterly ancient, and the Bloodied Lord had served both it and its Universal Creator nobly and without concern for a long time. Not just as its god of decay, but as its guardian as well. Death was generally a required thing inside this universe, routinely so since the Bloodied Lord had to protect it and destroy any external forces that sought to harm, eat or otherwise destroy it.
Today though, after so many aeons, something felt off. Over the last few years, the Bloodied Lord had begun to experience something new. Pain, but not the pain of battle. The pain of ageing. But also a deeper pain that they couldn’t understand. Pain hadn’t been a stranger to the Bloodied Lord, but normally it faded away after only a few days. The pain in their arms and chest had been a constant thrum, never fading, gradually increasing.
Before the Bloodied Lord could consider things further, a voice echoed across the cosmos. Their Mistress, the perfect Universal Creator known as Syklas, was beckoning them. But normally she would beckon the Bloodied Lord from her Internal Sanctum of Peace, where she normally resided. The voice today came from the Entombed Edge, the one place the Bloodied Lord was not allowed to go to without permission.
With a sigh, the Bloodied Lord followed the luring echoes of Syklas’s voice, only to find the Creator Herself standing outside the Entombed Edge. What bothered them more than Syklas’s presence outside of the Sanctum of Peace was the fact that she was wearing mourners’ robes.
“My little Helkas!” Syklas smiled weakly. “Thank you for heeding my call.”
The Bloodied Lord made himself apparent, dismissing his cloak of soaked souls, revealing a more lithe but armoured form underneath. Rings of light ran up Helkas’s body, but his duty as the Bloodied Lord had turned those rings from a bright white to a dim red, matching the permanent black stains on his hands.
“My Lady, why have you summoned me?” Helkas asked.
“Tell me, my dear, what is one of the fundamental rules of my universe, the one you enforce the most?”
Helkas grunted. The fact that Syklas had asked him a question instead of getting to the point was a bad sign. She only did that if there was something wrong.
“That there are no infinities inside this universe, except for you.”
“Yes, exactly. Now, tell me, my darling, how long have you served me for?”
“My entire existence, ever since you refused to let my soul return to the Rivers of Renewal.”
“A long time, yes?”
“Yes.”
“But not an infinite amount of time.”
Helkas tipped his head to one side, only slowly beginning to understand what the Holy Mother was talking about.
“You are saying that I am not infinite. Which means, at some point, I have to accept my being finite and fade away. I will finally return to the Rivers of Renewal.”
“You won’t. You are finite in more certain terms. Do you know what the Entombed Edge actually is?”
Helkas sighed. “You have never told me.”
“It is two things. It is the edge, the access point that protects and encases our universe. But it is where all my former deities are laid to rest. Every deity I have ever made has eventually died. Their remains are added to the Entombed Edge, so they may protect the universe even though they are long gone. You are not my first Bloodied Lord, you will not be my last. And we are reaching the point where you are to be added to the Entombed Edge.”
“So… the pain I have been feeling, the aching in my bones, the pounding of my hollow heart… you are telling me that I am dying?”
“You are dying, yes.”
“But… I… I do not want to die…”
Syklas smiled. “I know. And I do not want you to die either. You have been my best, my kindest Lord of Decay. It would be a shame to entomb you alongside the previous Lords. But I cannot go against my own rules. I cannot allow you to be infinite inside this universe, the same way I am. Thankfully, I have a solution.”
Helkas noticed that the Holy Mother had raised her hand ever so slightly. He already knew it was too late, that there was nothing he could do. But that didn’t stop the panic bubbling in Helkas’s voice.
“W-what are you… what are you doing?”
Metallic tendrils appeared out of nothing, but they turned into silk as they wrapped around Helkas, striping him of his deadly armour, taking away his bloodied claws and wings, cleansing his body.
“You cannot be infinite inside my universe. But outside my universe? There are no rules out there. Perhaps, if I send you out there, you will not die. You may become infinite. And perhaps you will create a new path, maybe even a new universe for yourself.”
“But… but mother… I… I am scared…”
Syklas gently stroked Helkas’s cheek as the tendrils worked, slowly sealing Helkas in lead, but also reversing his wounds, reversing his age, making him smaller, weaker and younger. But at the same time, Syklas was breaking her child’s bonds to the universe.
Eventually, Syklas removed her hand, and Helkas found himself trapped inside a metal cocoon, but also protected by silk sheets.
“Mum?” Helkas whispered from inside his metal tomb.
“Don’t be scared, my little child. You’ll survive out there. You won’t die. Because you will write your own rules. I am sorry for your pain, I am sorry that you feel sad and scared, but this is the only way around your own demise. Do you understand?”
“I… I guess…”
“You are a good kid, Helkas. I love you.”
“I love you too, mummy.”
“Go to sleep now. Everything will be alright.”
Inside the metal cocoon, Helkas found himself closing his eyes, drifting off. Once sleep had claimed him, Syklas wrapped the cocoon in a black cloak, shielding it from both the universe and the unknowns outside of it. She then ejected the cocoon out of the Entombed Edge, out of her universe, out into the Periuniversal Void, the Eternal Dark. She watched the cocoon fade into the darkness, until she could no longer see it.
With one last, tired sigh, Syklas waved goodbye to her former deity, her former child, then headed back inside. She had new gods to make.