“So let me get this straight, they want us to give them Kenon’s dead body and hand over Arkadin, even though Kenon is still alive and Arkadin is in the process of being punished? What right do they have to do that?”
Yisini was pretty damn upset. Not only was she trapped inside the Fortress of Kinigi while an army of glowing, golden beings kept them all under siege, but she’d had to abandon most of her work to not get caught by those golden bastards.
Yes, that’s what they want…” Kairos frowned, obviously still beaten up but most of his wounds healing nicely. “They said they would leave peacefully if we hand Kenon and Arkadin over, but I have no idea why they would want them in the first place! Or even who they actually are.”
“They are all worryingly quiet…” Epani added, peering over a ledge so she could monitor the army. “They have not moved. Standing, watching, waiting. Not good.”
“How long did they give us to comply?” Yisini asked.
“They didn’t say…”
The three deities continued discussing the situation, while Kinisis listened in, not saying anything, trying to form a plan of her own. Unlike the others, she knew what these beings were. And that they were most likely sincere. Impatient, yet sincere.
“Could we feasibly just give them Kenon and Arkadin to make them leave?” Epani exclaimed. Kairos and Yisini’s reactions quickly proved how much they hated that idea. So did Kinisis, but not for the same reasons.
“If you give Kenon back to them, they will brainwash him and force him back into their ranks again. As for Arkadin, well…” Kinisis sighed. “You think my imprisoning him for a few hundred years is harsh… If the Voidborns get their hands on him, they will torture him for eternity. Not for harming Kenon, but because he is a god of decay.”
Yisini tutted loudly. “Okay so we’re not doing that shit. Poor Arky doesn’t deserve that. But what the fuck are we dealing with and how can we get them to fuck off? And how comes Kenon was in a cult? That’s… weird.”
Kinisis tried to explain. “He was born into that particular cult, the Crysoprotans. They are all Voidborn beings who believe that any form of non-stasis is wrong and should be destroyed. They… are not supposed to be able to enter universes though, unless one of their own is killed within a universe. But Kenon swore himself away from the Crysoprotans billions of years ago…”
“So…” Kairos grunted. “Why are they here? And what happens… if we say no to their demands? Because that tail-kicking I received was not fun in the slightest.”
Epani also grunted. “I assume they will try to destroy us.”
“Oh, no, not at all…” Kinisis explained. “They’ll just destroy the walls of the universe entirely, declare the universe as part of the Void and then try and turn everyone into more Voidlord cultists. Well, the powerful mortals, anyway. They will flat out kill us. Maybe they’ll spare Yisini and myself, because we are life goddesses, but we will still be tortured…”
The deities all glanced uneasily at one another.
“So… how do we get rid of them?” Kairos finally asked.
“That… that is the… troubling problem…”
“We can’t?” Yisini squeaked, interrupting. “I take it, from the way you’re talking, that we’re kinda screwed. Or completely screwed. Are those bastards going to destroy us all?”
“They will…” Kinisis sighed, hiding her worries, trying to remain calm. She reached into a nearby pocket of space and pulled out a large, heavy file. “But we… we have one final option. It will require sacrifice, but we might be able to take the cult out with us…”