Warm, orange lights flickered on as a hiss echoed down the narrow room. Rows of opaque, glass pods lined one wall, while beeping consoles lined the other. Right at the very end of the room, a viscous, sticky liquid began to ooze onto the floor, dripping from the bottom of the penultimate glass pod. After three minutes of hissing, everything fell silent, only to be rudely interrupted by the sound of shattering glass. The lights flickered briefly once more, before remaining permanently on, focused on this now broken pod, a hole smashed through the middle of it.
Theocydes snarled as he tore himself from the pod, soaked in embryonic fluids, the memories and scent of burning flesh still singed in his mind. Once he had taken a couple of rather pointless breaths, the Void Lord peered at his surroundings, remembering where he was. To his left were two hundred and ninety eight sealed backup canisters. To his right was one single, used canister, shattered as the pod Theocydes had just exited from.
The Void Lord’s anger slowly changed though as he pulled himself out of the pod and started traipsing down the narrow room. In hindsight, he should have built the exit at this end. But it wouldn’t have mattered much anyway, since this room was so rarely used. In Theocydes’s many billions of years of existence, he’d been forced to use this room twice. And today was the second time he’d needed it.
Being killed and forced to respawn in a new body was incredibly embarrassing. But Theocydes now had a more pressing issue at hand. His kind were not supposed to NEED respawn canisters. The Goldblessed were supposed to be above being killed. They were immortal deities, born in liquid gold, above all other beings. Their own deaths were considered abhorrent, and Theocydes had just committed a great sin.
The Voidborn needed to repent, and he needed to make up for that sin.
Normally, repentance would be simple. He would have to publicly tear out the heart of the being who had killed him, in front of the Highest of the Goldblessed. That would not have been an issue for most Goldblessed Voidborns. However, for the second time, Theocydes had been downed by a… a Life Goddess… And whenever that happened, different repentance laws applied. Theocydes still needed to kill to relieve himself of his sins. But he needed to do so in style, with plenty of additional casualties.
The first time Theocydes fell, he’d been taken prisoner by a standard Life Goddess, who kept him as her slave. It took millions of years of planning to kill that Life Goddess, by having her torn apart by her own Decayling child, bent into Theocydes’s will. But the end result had been worth it. The Highest always appreciated a drawn out heart removal and the death of a universe on top of that was more than spectacular.
However, this time, the being that had forced Theocydes to respawn was too… chaotic. He had failed to cleanly kill the hybrid himself, and it was highly possible that he would just waste respawns attempting to kill them again. But at the same time, there was almost no way that Theocydes could simply earn the hybrid’s trust and later betray them, like he had the first time. That being said, there was nothing in the Goldblessed Honour Laws that the tearing of the heart had to be… literal…
Theocydes grunted as he exited his respawn room and stepped into a golden, luxurious hallway. The main Goldblessed hub was always an astoundingly beautiful site. Already waiting for him were two Goldblessed Guards, ready to take him to the main throne room.
“I hope you have a plan, Sinned One. You must repent.”
Theocydes’s frown turned into a sly smile. “Oh, do not fret. I have… plenty of wonderful plans…”