Malcolm Tent
patreon
Wish upon the Stars chapter 868
🕑 Added 2025-04-18 20:10:33 +0000 UTCBlack Sorrow didn’t look even slightly uncomfortable with her position between us and enemy god who had been expecting her. Raxus, to his credit, didn’t look any more intimidated. He looked young, actually. Eighteen or nineteen, pale with sunken dark eyes and floppy hair. Very delicate. He looked like a really morose poet. In comparison, my great grandmother’s razor sharp features made her seem like an evil princess. Noble and malicious.
“Black Sorrow,” said the god of deception. “We meet at last. How lovely. I was expecting this particular encounter to come later in the war. I was under the impression you didn’t like this particular spawn.”
She snorted. “I like him better than most, but it wouldn’t matter if I wanted his head on a platter. That’s family. I’m allowed to make things hard for the brat, but heretic garbage like you isn’t permitted to lay a hand on my blood. If you think your little doublespeak trick is enough to keep me from bouncing you off every planet in this cluster, you’re even better at lying to yourself than you are at conning gullible kids.”
Raxus shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. I think you might be a bit less prepared than expected. I know how dangerous you are, given your foundation. It doesn’t do to underestimate one’s enemy.”
With a smile, he flicked his fingers, and the world…changed. Space around us warped, and reality rewrote itself. From the asteroid, we were suddenly transported to an endless city. Buildings pierced the skies around us, spreading out into the horizon like endless waves of steel and concrete grain on a planet of rolling wheat fields.
It wasn’t just us, either. I was disturbed to see my grandparents, my mother, and the crew of the Acheron alongside us, having appeared from nowhere. I looked around, trying to glean something, and I got…nothing.
Bethy’s Domain was a Domain, it was a world, but it was small, and it was made up of Impact in a way that was…not obvious, unless you had something to compare it to, but still notable. Domains were their own things, pocket dimensions. But this…this wasn’t a pocket dimension. This was a world. A real honest to gods reality.
Black sorrow snorted, and her eyes narrowed slightly. There was an explosion of darkness, and then jagged canyons of dark stone tore their way through the space around us, replacing the city. Around the edges, I could still see the previous Domain trying to push in, but sure enough, it was stopping cold.
Raxus frowned. “You already have the inkstone,” he said in annoyance. “This is stronger than your Domain is supposed to be.”
My grandmother stepped up next to Black Sorrow. “Mom, what the hell is going on here?” She hissed. “Where are we, and what is happening? Are we INSIDE his world? Do we need to worry about being attacked by his supplicants?”
The goddess shook her head. “Nothing that overt. Think of it like a divine shallowing. He’s breached the surface of this reality, but only with a tiny intersecting territory. The majority of his world is still in the void, and he’ll keep it there unless he’s an idiot. Trying to surface a world this close to a void break would be mindnumbingly stupid.”
He sighed. “Alas, you aren’t wrong. But luckily, I’m hardly the only one here to deal with you. Don’t forget, while being in realspace does give your world an advantage, it’s also a limitation. We’re nowhere near your territory, so you’re manifesting your Domain through yourself just like I am. Or rather, like WE are.”
With a smirk, he snapped his fingers, and a pair of figures appeared beside him. One was…well, old. Like, the oldest ascendant I’d ever seen. His face was so wrinkled that it was hard to make out the shape of his skull. He looked like one of those dogs with the scrunched up faces. His eyes were a malevolent red, burning in his sockets like bloody flames, no sclera or iris or pupil, just crimson fire.
From the neck down, he was almost disturbingly muscular, muscles bulging so overtly it seemed like they might split the skin, and his chest was bare, his collar of wired bones on black iron the only adornment except for the long robe bottoms that looked like they MIGHT have been sewn from human skin.
The other one was just terrifying. He was a colossal being, ten feet tall easy, and his whole body was wrapped in a long heavy cloak. Under the fabric, I could hear whirring and hissing. I wasn’t sure about the first guy, but the second was obvious. Stralthrem, god of dread fabrication.
My great grandmother sneered at the buff old guy. “Hatescream, how positively despicable to see you. Carrying water for the babies now, I take it. Well, fair enough. It’s not like you’re much of a threat on your own. Tell me, do they let you kill the small fries to feel useful, or do you just get in the final blow after they’re done with the real work.”
The old man snarled at her. “Vicious little bitch! Should have put you down when you first acquired Strakkenthar’s legacy. Pretentious fool never could keep track of his things.”
“Watch your mouth, old man,” rumbled a new voice. We all turned to see a tall young man with bright red hair and red irises step from seemingly nowhere. “That’s my wife you’re talking about. She might be a nightmare, but she’s MY nightmare.” My eyes widened as I saw the newcomer. Not just him, but the people WITH him. One of whom was Morgan fucking LARK.
And judging by the power I was sensing off them, there were SEVERAL S-rankers. My grandfather nodded to a tall dark skinned man with a blindfold on, and the man nodded back with a small smile.
Raxus snorted. “Two of you. Interesting. I’m surprised. We arranged a few nasty surprises for you all to coincide with this little incursion. You must be losing quite a bit of territory, coming here like this. It’s so nice to have friends, don’t you think? The Void Children hate you simpering cowards as much as we do.”
The red haired man, who I was beyond certain was the Red Revenant himself, my great grandfather, who I was meeting for the first time, just smiled. “We borrowed a few legions from the Empire. I’d worry more about your own business than ours. This doesn’t bode well for you three.”
Hatescream let out a mocking laugh. “Three on two? You might be stronger here, but we’re older, and much more experienced. Not to mention we’ve been preparing for this little encounter for quite some time.”
“If that’s true, then you should be as aware as we are that this isn’t the place,” my grandmother said. “Any serious divine combat here would shatter the void shallow. Mixing up the void during such a complex process would cause untold damages to everyone involved. It might not do much to you, but some of your adherents could die. I think we should move this a little deeper into the system.”
Black Sorrow beamed. “That’s a wonderful idea, Celia. You’re such a sensible girl.” She sneered at the revenant. “YOU didn’t think of that, did you Samuel?” She waved a hand and we vanished, appearing on what looked to be some kind of moon…somewhere else. Happily alone.
“I JUST got here,” he groaned. “Literally less than a minute ago. Can I have a second to process before I start making plans? What happened to keeping family business in the family? We’re supposed to be on the same team here.”
My grandmother groaned. “Enough, mom. Dad is here to help, be nice.”
“Thank you,” said my great grandfather graciously. “And you must be Shane.” He finally turned to smile at me. “I regret that our meeting has to be under such tense circumstances, but my grandaughter raves about you so much I feel like I already know you. I hope we can talk more after this battle.”
I nodded solemnly. “I’d like that. I’ve always been a little curious about you.”
“This is all very heartwarming,” Black Sorrow said with a groan. “But we have gods to fight. And while Shane’s little army is very cute, it’s not even remotely relevant here. Nor is the layabout my daughter married. Celia herself is too young to be placed in a fight this dangerous, and we couldn’t get any more gods. Among those three behind you, the Vampire might be useful, and your sword whelp has some talent, but I don’t see how the third one will be useful.”
The third man she mentioned, a tall refined looking noble with a well groomed black beard and blue eyes, bowed deeply. “Your Holiness, I am Schrader Elston Raleigh Von Drexel, first prince of the Imperial Family. Among my people, I am known as the Iron King. One of the legions his holiness mentioned is within my Domain, and my personal ability lends itself to the use of their power. In combination with the forces we have arrayed, I believe that I might be able to aid in this offensive.”
My great grandmother squinted at him for a second. “I don’t like you. You irritate me. Switch spots with the vampire, you’re standing to close to me.”
The Red Revenant, or Samuel as Black Sorrow had called him, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Really Alli? You can’t be nice to our allies for five minutes? Schrader was kind enough to volunteer to assist us with what might be a suicide mission, and this is how you repay him?” He paused, then cleared his throat and said. “Not that we expect you to die. I’m sure you’ll be fine. This is perfectly safe.”
Schrader looked decidedly unconvinced, and glanced nervously between the other two. Black Sorrow sighed. “You’re such a hypocrite, Sam. Always acting so polite to everyone when you’re just as arrogant as I am.”
“Yes, that’s called ‘manners’,” he said dryly. “Regardless, we only need them to hold the machine god for a time.” He glanced at my grandmother. “Celia, did you bring it?”
She nodded, then flicked her fingers, and something very familiar appeared. A scythe. She’d been holding it for Callie, and when she saw me looking, she smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry, dear. Mother is just borrowing it. In fact, that was always part of the plan. There are ways to divine information such as the owner and possessor of items. Otherwise they’d never have shown up.”
Black Sorrow plucked the scythe from her fingers, whirling it around herself fluidly in a way that told me she’d had plenty of practice. Then she glanced at the Red Revenant. “I despise you.” Her tone was hard, but her eyes looked a little sad.
He smiled sadly. “I know. But this is about protecting our family.” He held out a hand. “Dance with me?”
She broke out into a radiant smile, setting her hand in his. “I thought you’d never ask.”
He pulled her in, whirling her in a circle, and the two of them sort of…exploded. Darkness and flames bursting outward and mixing together, sweeping up the three S-rankers together. Before us, out in the blackness of space above the moon, a world bloomed. A black world of dark stone canyons with volcanic rivers running through it, and all of our people appeared in it, standing in the caldera of a volcano. Around us, the world shifted slightly as my grandparents manifested their domains, black power and white flame becoming a small sea of stars more exquisite than the real one we stood in, wrapping around us and protecting us.
“Watch this closely, Shane,” my mother said as she put a hand on my shoulder, and the other on Chelsea’s. “I have a feeling we’re about to see something that no one has witnessed in a very long time. This is what a god war really looks like.” I watched intently. Because she was right, and I planned to learn everything I could. One day this would be me.
Comments
CringeWorthyStudios
Is it weird that the interactions between Sam and Alli just remind me of Callie and Shane except with a few extra million years of grumpiness? That ‘dance with me?’ line especially. Thanks for the chapter!
thaughton2
Terrifyingly casual. That last interaction between Sam and Alli was... interesting.
Void
Well I was correct, and of course Lark is here. Maybe he will eat hatescream and use him to fuel an ascension?
