“I’m going to make you an offer. You give me back my fellow deities and I promise I’ll kill you quickly and cleanly.”
Ahkron eyed the creature that was currently trying to hold him hostage. It was this universe’s death god, a pitiful excuse for a deity. However, the last time Ahkron had seen it, it had been black with yellow armour plating. Now it had silver skin and gold armour, as well as glowing blue eyes. From its back were a pair of tattered wings that barely seemed to function, but were there nonetheless.
“What if I refuse your offer, death god?” Ahkron tutted. “You are struggling. You cannot contain the entirety of this universe in your veins.”
“I don’t feel like I’m struggling!” The death god seemed weirdly chirpy. Ahkron felt a twinge of genuine pain as its claw tightened around his neck. “If anything, I actually feel better than ever. I can see why Epani wanted to hold me back.”
Ahkron hesitated for a moment, trying to recall this entity’s name, but failing. However, instead of simply killing this errant being straight away, he decided to play along, to get some information out of it. Sure, it was containing the Fundamentals currently, but all Ahkron had to do was wait, it could not hold out forever.
“So you are stronger now, death god.”
“You can call me Arkay, the Thantophor. Or, well, technically the Pantophor right now, since I’m in control of everything…” Arkay smiled, running a claw across Ahkron’s mask. To Ahkron’s dismay, he’d left a black, dirty scratch across it. “Now, about my offer. Are you going to give me back my friends or not?”
Ahkron laughed at the audacity of this being. “Of course not. I am going to kill you and preserve this universe, before torturing and murdering Time Drake Kairos. I have not decided what I will do with the two Life Goddesses yet, but, well, torture is always an-”
Arkay’s expression was one of mild annoyance as he ripped off Ahkron’s left shoulder plate, before stabbing a shadowy blade into Ahkron’s exposed flesh. Ahkron didn’t have a lot of actual flesh, so it bothered him now this creature knew where to look. Realizing that the death god meant business, Ahkron broke free from his grip and started fighting back, summoning golden spears and trying to pierce Arkay’s heart. The Pantophor though simply phased through these attacks, before regaining control of the fight, grabbing on to Ahkron’s lower left arm and nonchalantly ripping it off.
Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but as Ahkron tried to regrow his missing limb, he found his body wasn’t responding.
“What traitorous magic is this?” Ahkron hissed as he slashed at Arkay. Arkay didn’t answer at first and tore off Ahkron’s other lower arm. Out of the wound, golden blood began to drip. That made no sense. Ahkron didn’t normally traditionally bleed. He did manage to push the Pantophor away, but found he couldn’t retreat back outside the universe, its walls had become solid.
“You’re in my universe, Voidborn. With Kairos, Epani and Sini outside, it’s just me enforcing the rules. Meaning I can change them as I please.”
“That is not how universes work! No god in a multi-deity-run universe should be able to control all of it! Even Life Goddesses don’t normally mess with that sort of power unless they are in a universe entirely on their own! How did a Life Goddess end up being a death god anyway? Surely such duties are beneath you!”
Arkay smiled. Ahkron didn’t like that in the slightest. The decayling didn’t appear menacing at all, yet Ahkron was now beginning to feel uneasy.
“I’m not a Life Goddess. If anything, I guess I’m kinda like you.”
“You are NOT a Voidborn!” Ahkron spat, conjuring a large, flaming golden sword and swinging it at Arkay. The sword though passed harmlessly through him, then melted into little golden globules, burning Ahkron’s remaining right hand. The searing pain was making Ahkron start to panic. Nothing was making any sense. “What is going on? WHAT ARE YOU?”
“I already told you. I’m Arkay, the Pantophor. The Bringer of All. And since the universe is mine to command, I’m just, I dunno, altering the rules. Because I can do that. And the reason why I can do that is because the one rule we added around here was that we can all take on all four…” Arkay paused. “Uh…”
“Fundamentals.” Ahkron didn’t know why he answered that. Something about this universe was affecting him.
“Yeah, those. We’re not dumb… Alright, I’m kinda dumb and don’t remember much since I was brought back, but my fellow deities have long memories and when we rebuilt this universe, we made sure that, well, this wouldn’t happen again…”
Again, Arkay paused. Ahkron stared at the creature. He was right, Arkay couldn’t quite handle everything, he was struggling. Ahkron took this as an opportunity to attack again, but suddenly found he couldn’t move at all. All he could do was stare directly ahead.
“You think I’m having trouble with all this power, that it’s physically too much for me. That’s not true in the slightest. No, what I’m currently struggling with is what I could do with this power. And right now, all I want to do is hurt you. A lot.”
Arkay approached Ahkron’s frozen form, then ran his claw across Ahkron’s left arm. As he did so, Ahkron’s golden armour began to peel away, revealing flesh and blood. The Voidborn was tempted to squirm in pain, but the sensation was unusual and nonsensical. Ahkron didn’t have that much flesh, his arms were mostly supposed to be just empty armour.
“I bet you’re confused right now…” Arkay’s focus was elsewhere as he cut into Ahkron’s flesh with a serrated blade. “You’re asking yourself where this flesh has come from. I’m giving you flesh. And I’ll continue to give you flesh and cut that flesh out until you free Kairos, Epani and Sini.”
Ahkron grunted in pain. “Then you shall do so forever. I am Voidborn, I will not give in to a pathetic death god like you. And the Kenic Spore inside you will finish you off if you somehow kill me.”
Arkay glanced at Ahkron, then shrugged, as he shoved his own hand into the stab wound that Ahkron caused earlier. After a little bit of rummaging, Arkay pulled out a glowing, golden globule, which he swiftly crushed into nothingness.
“You mean that Kenic Spore?”
Ahkron grunted. “Uh, yes, that one.”
“That one I just destroyed.”
“Yes…”
Arkay snickered briefly, then turned his attention to Ahkron’s chest. Again, Arkay started tearing off Ahkron’s armour plating, revealing flesh underneath. However, Arkay hesitated, then started moving down Ahkron’s body, removing armour from his stomach and groin. His eyes now glowed pink instead of blue.
“If you are a Voidborn, why do you have genitalia? I didn’t do that to you.”
“What are you doing, monster?”
The Pantophor completely stopped, then lifted himself up so he was at eye level with Ahkron. He blinked several times, his eyes cycling through the colours blue, red, pink and yellow, before finally settling back on blue. “Me? A monster? Coming from you? Fucking hypocrite.” There was a lot more anger in Arkay’s voice now. “I was going to be nice. I was going to give you a chance to free my family, in exchange for a quick, clean death. I’m not going to do that now. You wouldn’t give them back anyway. So I’m going to hurt you.”
Ahkron growled. “You kill me, your siblings remain trapped outside your universe. You cannot go out there to save them, not without losing control and losing this universe in the process.”
“I’ll figure something out…” Arkay fell silent, then took a long, deep breath. “First though… congratulations, you are now mortal.”
Suddenly, Ahkron had some form of movement. But he felt… heavy. He wasn’t just armour any more. He had… flesh. He could hear… there was something in his chest…
“What… have you… done?” Ahkron felt cold. He couldn’t breathe. Arkay immediately noticed this and formed a bubble of air around them both.
“You broke the No Voidborns rule. So you’ve been made into the closest compatible species. Which, in your case, is a Lanex. Which also happens to be one of the mortal races within my universe. Anyway, time to torture you.”
Ahkron tried to move, a bid to escape, but found that the Pantophor was once again restraining him.
Starting with Ahkron’s fingers, Arkay began tearing out strands of tissue, twisting them around the nervous system in Ahkron’s body, sending waves of pain across Ahkron’s mind. The Voidborn did his best to not react at first, but the agony quickly built up, forcing its way from Ahkron’s throat. Arkay ignored the Voidborn’s screams as he tugged at Ahkron’s nervous system and sliced off tiny slithers, before allowing the pieces to reconnect on other parts of Ahkron’s body, transferring the pain back and forth. With a flick of Arkay’s fingers, a cloud of acid made its way into Ahkron’s eyes, nose and throat, eating him from the inside out, while his stomach acid began to boil. The Voidborn’s voice went hoarse, the pain overcoming all other senses.
While it felt like an eternity, it only took about half an hour for the light to fade from Ahkron’s eyes, for his newly formed heart to stop beating. With a tut, Arkay gathered all of Ahkron’s remains and crushed them down, forming a small, golden marble.
Really, Arkay wasn’t satisfied. But he’d never be satisfied. As far as he was concerned, there was never enough he could have done to avenge the goodness knows how many beings Ahkron had killed over the millennia. What was more important was getting the other gods back. Luckily though, Arkay had… an idea.
With a snap of his fingers, the time bubble and shield around himself and Ahkron’s remains vanished. Arkay placed the golden marble into a little pocket on his belt, then focused on the walls of the universe. Taking a sharp breath, Arkay forced the universe’s walls outwards, expanding them until they sucked in the three cells containing the other gods. Bending gravity to his will, Arkay then pulled the boxes towards him, and returned the universe’s walls to their original location.
Thankfully, with the ancient Voidborn’s now gone, the cells almost instantly reacted to Arkay’s sheer power and shattered with just a flick of the hand. Kairos, Epani and Sini all struggled to reorientate themselves.
“Please, please take your powers back!” Arkay almost begged. “I don’t want it! This universe is too much for me!” As Arkay spoke, the metallics drained from his skin and armour, returning to his much more natural black skin and yellow plating. Arkay’s eyes also returned to their soft, golden yellow hue.
After a few moments of staring and checking that everything was working, Epani turned to the little Thantophor and wrapped her arms around him.
“Thank you, my dearest darling.”
Kairos and Sini also embraced Arkay, squishing the exhausted deity, before finally letting go.
“So, you killed him?” Kairos awkwardly asked.
“Yeah… Honestly, you should have killed him the last time round…” Arkay frowned. “If you had done, he wouldn’t have come back…”
Kairos snorted. “Well, we all now what we say about hindsight. I guess, back then, I was naive and believed that, after defeating him, he would change his ways, but I was wrong. But, well, we’ve saved trillions more from suffering a horrible fate. You should congratulate yourself, Arkay.”
“I guess…” Arkay trailed off, rubbing his head. “Didn’t think that briefly running the whole universe would be so… exciting and tiring at the same time. I think I’m gonna go have a nap, then get back to work…”
“You don’t want to celebrate?” Sini blinked. “I want to celebrate. We should go to one of Kairos’s palaces and celebrate. I’ll bring some hookers or something.”
Arkay waved his hand dismissively as he wandered away. “You three go do that, if you want. I’ve got things I need to think about…”