Snippet #2434564

A hulking frame crashed into him, sending him spinning wildly. He whirled, searching. Claws reached out, ripped, tore, severed. A flash of light and he was whirling again. Pain seared, there were more flashes. Spirals and vortexes and explosions as the universe was rent in two, shrieking in protest as it was stretched and warped. Planets imploded. Stars shattered. Hails of debris mingled freely with the blood of gods. Their covenant lay shattered as their war shrieked around them. Reality screamed as another god was broken. His spirit imploded, bombarding the entire of existence. The fabric of the cosmos shredded outwards, clawing at the beings who made it. His claws reached up again, hellish infernos of energy lashing outwards. More flashes, more chaotic outbreaks of godly desperation and murder tore through and around him. All was chaos, all was anarchy. The very foundations of existence buckled. The sky peeled back as space and time collapsed, bringing all crashing inwards in a cataclysm of oblivion and void. Still the gods raged on, unending, infinite wrath and desperation tearing at foes, breaking their enemies, coating what was left in the gore of godly remains, shattering, crushing, immolating, rending, an incomprehensible inferno that smeared the lines of the mind and body, of reality and figment, of the body and soul of one god from another, so that all that was left was a maelstrom of infinite blood and fire and chaos and destruction and hatred and desperation and fear and...




At some point, darkness. Strach did not know when the fighting stopped. He did not know when the chaos and the bloodshed had settled. One moment his entire existence was war, the next he was slowly opening his eyes to the darkness of space. A moment of panic, and he lashed out.

"APOLLYON! Where are you?! Face me!" Strach roared, feelings beyond words cloying in his chest. "Nemea?! Ulmo?! Vara?! Crypt?! Mask?!" The screams were hoarse, and to no avail. He was greeted only with emptiness. The emptiness overcame him, and Strach fell unto a bottomless ravine of exhaustion. He floated there for some time, limp, ethereal. The universe had resettled itself. Space and time flowed along their usual routes. The fabric of reality reestablished itself. But Strach took in very little of this. He hung there, suspended in the infinity of space. Eons drifted past, and were met with little more than the occasional drift shut or open of a heavy, metaphysical eyelid.

Eventually consciousness returned in its fullness, and the Dragon God did wake. All around him was empty. He cast out his thoughts, surprised at what he found. He was withing his own realm. Strach was struck by disbelief, his sentience merely lingering. Had the battle claimed even the gods own realms? What had happened his fields of mist and magic? Dragon souls beyond count resided here, and now where were they? Fallen to the oblivion wrought by the gods battle? Surely some realm would have survived.

Alas, no. Strach traveled through all the realms, and found nothingness. Not a single god had returned to their realms. All were abandoned. This cannot be. I cannot be the only one. Could the battle really have claimed them all? Strach cast his mind back to that battle, but try as he might, little more than flashes and desperation and chaos would return to his mind. Images of deaths, gods being ripped asunder. Strach cast his mind once more outwards, calling to each of the gods realms. No answers. For Strach, that silence held a sadness deeper than words could ever express. Still... Apollyon was no more. They had known, the moment he returned, that the battle would be dire. Even if it had cost all their lives... it would be worth it. Images of the battle filtered through his mind. Of Gods breaking, blood pouring out, of planets shattering, flashes of power and destructi- planets shattering? Had the battle fallen unto the physical realm? Then the covenant of the gods was broken! Perhaps...

Strach tried cautiously to will himself across to the physical realm, conscious of the barriers that had always stopped such a thing. Success, he slipped through easily! Perhaps then, some of the others had lived on, seeking recovery here...

First though, he would need to form himself a body, to manifest withing this realm. He could feel it, somewhere in this realm. His mind set out, feeling the pull from it, directing himself to his own corpse. He was shocked at what he saw. The battle had raged to stupendous proportion. The body he saw before him was near infinite in its expanse. The battle had not been kind to it. It seemed more to be composed of a shattered planet than of flesh, blood and scale. Still, Strach pulled his soul into the craggy relic. He felt so little life. However he had survived the battle, it had been most narrowly. The body indeed seemed infinite, stretching on in a form fitting the final stand with his fellow gods. Yet the craggy relic consisted mostly of long dead remains, the life-magic remaining stretched so thinly as to be almost neglectable. Slowly, he began to pull it all back in, condensing what life there was. The process took an aeon. The ravaged remains were not meant to continue. Yet they must, for Strach needed a body. Slowly he what life remained condensed and linked until a living, godly body was formed, trillions of times smaller than the floating relic.

A bright, young spark streaked past Strach. Freshly formed eyes widened in surprise. The spark had the Aura of a god around itself. One young, and still pulling its consciousness together, but a god nonetheless! This was a good sign! He had been seeking for gods! Specific ones. He had searched far and wide, calling them out... had searched for each of them, for... for Crypt, and Ulmo.... and.. and, Nemea? And Lahar? No, not Lahar... the name was familiar, though it had been vanquished by the others long before. The others... They all seemed so distant, and calling up their names or faces was like sifting through the fogs of time. Still, Strach knew he had been searching for his fellow gods, and knew that he wished to catch this young god and speak to it. Learn the nature of the universe now.

He followed the young god, saw it descend upon a planet. Even at this distance, he could sense the auras of other gods upon this realm. He could feel.. For a moment he gasped, hit by a wave of recognition and joy that some of those so close to him had survived. Yet as soon as it was there, the moment passed. The memories has drifted passed, leaving him only with a vague sense of what should be. Yet none of the presences on this planet seemed any more familiar than the others. They all felt like new gods. And yet...

Strach descended upon the planet, noting it's youth. The gods had been at play, shaping and forming this planet. He forget, though, why he had chosen to come to this one. It all seemed so vague. As if there were some identity that belonged to him, knowledge of entire worlds that Strach simply could not reach. He descended towards the planet, floating down towards an unoccupied stretch of land. He no longer questioned why he had chosen this world. He was a god here, meant to forge and look over those who would inhabit it. He was an old god, he knew that, far older than these infant gods who were discovering their identities around him. Yet he could not say how he knew that. His power did not particularly outshine those he felt around him. Yet he knew that in some way, he was beyond them. Strangely enough, he felt this truth was beyond himself as well. A truth not beyond him, however, was his responsibility in shaping this world. Cupping his clawed hands above his head, Strach whispered within them.

"I give now a gift, to this world and all the worlds beyond it. To all those beings who inhabit it, sentient or not, animal or plant, and even unto the wild wills and happenstances of the world, I grant you a touch of godhood. The powers of magic, of actions beyond the laws of space nor time. The wild magics, those that are held by the lucky or cursed and summoned by chance more than by will, you will go to the beasts, plants, spontaneous events and the sentients who will hold power beyond themselves. The scholarly magics, you who are structured and controlled, you will be available to those who dedicate themselves to the learning of your craft, to elevate themselves above their mortal kin. This now, is my gift to the world."

A ripple of power rushed out, washing through all existence for a moment. A great rush as the gift of magic diffused throughout the world, changing it inexplicably. Strach lowered his arms, and sighed contentedly. The gift was given. Magic was his domain, but it was out there for all to use in some form or another, no matter how small. He was content to merely sit now, rest for a moment. Constructing his people would come soon enough.