"What does it mean to be a god?"
The young girl stood in front of the white tower, which spiralled up beyond the clouds. An existence far larger than herself, both literally and metaphorically. She took a few deep breaths there, steeling her nerves for the fight that is to come.
A pair of eyes watched her anxiously from a distance, all the while quivering at the sight. She wanted to turn around and comfort him. She wanted to tell him that everything would be alright, that she'd live through this and witness the light of the sun once more, but in her heart of hearts, she knew it was impossible. She would die today. Here. Now.
[Apparently humans looked up to gods as divine beings - untouchable, incomprehensible, omnipotent beings that the could never dream to touch….. but is that really true?]
The darkest of shadows soon befell her and the rest of the landscape, cast by the scale of the tower's height. It was an existence far beyond herself, and she'd be battling one of the most dreaded beings of that tower.
The girl held her breath and after a momentary pause, the grandeous gates of the tower slowly creaked open, shaking the ground. The boy in the distance looked even more tense, but the girl couldn't afford to take her eyes off the sight in front of her. She could hear a choir accompanied by a band primarily comprised of trumpets, forming a complete orchestra.
Humanoid creatures, each with 3 pairs of white-feathered wings swarmed out from both sides of the gate and formed a pathway leading out towards the girl. She felt out of place in front of the majesty of these angels, and slightly belittled - how many sacrifices would it take to severe the neck of just one of these angels? How many gods would have to shed their lives away to claim victory over a single one of the dozens in this orchestra?
And yet she never glanced at them - her enemy was far more dangerous than them, so much that they'd fall to their knees at the mere sight of it, and it'd doubtlessly be even worse if they were the ones who entered its line of sight. Her heart pounded as the air temperature began to drop sharply. 12 364 degrees, 7579 degrees, 2964 degrees...
[We've deceived them, that much is certain. Maybe humans truly are that much weaker than us gods, but who are we to judge? In the face of true power, the gods ran. They never bothered to put up a fight - or rather, the thought never even crossed their minds. They threw away their prides as gods the day they threw down their arms, their will to fight, their will to live, and were content with hiding in the smallest corners of the realm until they inevitably died and yet they still have the gall to call themselves gods….. It was pathetic.]
And as the temperature dropped to the single digits, another angel, this time adorned with a blend of white and yellow robes, slowly, nonchalantly descended the tower's staircases, as if the girl posed no threat to her. She was furious, but couldn't deny the sheer power that the angel exuded. She scanned its number of wings in a hurry, confirming a total of 5 pairs, 10 wings in all. She was promised a battle and the angels had certainly provided one.
She smiled bitterly as it faced her, armed with naught but a grin that stretched from ear to ear. She didn't have a mirror right now, but she wondered what she'd look like through it.
The orchestra came to abrupt halt as it stopped in front of her. They exchanged glances for a brief moment as the pressure down onto her even more.
[And yet….. I was born as one of those pathetic gods. They deserved to die, that much was obvious. They could've done something about the current situation if they had tried, even just a little bit but they refused to move, always finding a new cave or smaller crevice to hide in, to cower under in fear, all the while praying to god - to themselves - that they'd survive the next day. In light of a common threat, some even refused to work together, believing it best to fight amongst themselves for what little power they had. It was outright disgusting.]
As Eclipsa rotated around the sun, a shadow was cast over the entire realm. A cool, but comparatively warm breeze blew past as the top of a distant cliff was illuminated a beautiful white. Night had befallen the realm, and tragedy would soon befall her as well. She drew her sword, its battered blade glowing under the moonlight. There was a marking on its grip, the same marking that she had on the back of her left palm. She bent her right foot while straightening her left, pointing the tips of her toes in the same direction as her blade - towards the angel.
It continued standing there unprovoked, barely moving, given its completely white skin complexion, one could have even mistaken it for a statue. At Eclipsa's rotation of the divine realm's 999th lunar shift, a night that would be forever recorded in the annals of history would be brought forth. A battle the entire realm, from god to angel and Lunarian, perhaps even Yurai himself, watched with bated breath. The boy turned away and closed his eyes, refusing to watch the ensuing battle.
Yulleria was the first to break her deadlock. She disappeared for a split second and appeared behind the angel, her sword just barely touching its robes as it continued to drive deeper into it....
…. But a split second later, she found herself lying in a crater on the side of a mountain, coughing up blood. A mere flick of that creature's wrist was capable of putting her in such a miserable state. If it were any other god, surely they'd have already lost their will to fight, and yet she stood back up in spite of the power gap. It was something she had long expected, the wings on its back weren't merely ornamental, but an indication of an angel's strength.
In front of her was a path, paved (or the opposite in fact) with scattered dirt and lined with burning trees. From the tower in the distant background, she could tell she was sent about 10 kilometres away. It was a great distance, but if it could accomplish this with just its wrist, it could just as easily cover that distance with its wings. It wasn't far enough. Not yet. She gripped the hilt of her sword so tightly it might've been crushed even before she could land a blow on the angel, but it was necessary. She concentrated on the surrounding air - the direction of the coldest air would be the trajectory that it followed.
[But I can't help that I was born as one of them. I can't help that I love them, in spite of their inherent ugliness.]
A morale-depriving force rammed into her side at literal breakneck velocity, but this time she reacted in time to raise her sword, mitigating some of the impact. Again, she flung through the air and landed even further away. Her vision blurred and she felt as if her feet would give at any moment now, but she stood up and continued trying to judge the distance. It was approximately 30 kilometres this time.
Still not far enough. She gripped her blade once more, concentrating all her efforts into making sure that she could block this next one, and that she'd take the blade with her. Blocking it was her only lifeline - she couldn't hope to dodge these outrageously fast attacks.
Once again, she could hear the sound of something snapping as blood clotted around her stomach. Like a pinball, she was sent bouncing into mountain again and again and again. Each time she was hit, it only got stronger and stronger, while she'd only weaken. The angel was noticeably annoyed by the unexpected persistence of the bug it faced, always rising back up no matter how hard it was hit.
The gods averted their eyes. A great majority of them have seen the girl's strength with their own two eyes, but in the face of a 10-winged angel, there was nothing the gods could do. It was admirable how far she had come, but this would doubtlessly be her resting ground. The Lunarians cheered as their longtime enemies quickly lost any tiny snippet of hope they once held. Most of the angels watched on in pity at a race inferior to their own but Yurai... was simply smiling.
He was the only one in the whole realm aside from the girl herself who knew what she was planning. It would cost her her life, but the value of an ant was far below that of an elephant's. It was a tradeoff of great value and she knew that it must be done.
[So….. I'll give them one more chance. I'll show them that even a human could face a god, an insect could face a giant and come out victorious.]
This time, her back hit something hard. It left no craters like the dirt on the mountains and she could feel the bones on her back snapping on impact as divindum leaked out of them. The surrounding temperature suddenly shot back up from 0. This was it. She was now back at the tower. There was no time left, she had already wasted a few seconds idling by after the initial impact. She wouldn't be able to survive the next strike and this was far enough for her to enact her plan. 5- no, 3 seconds was all she needed.
She rummaged through her pockets and dug out a few small, marble-shaped objects. She hurriedly scattered them around and pierced the ground with her blade with both hands still on its hilt. Despite her shattered back, she forced her body upright and the symbol, engraved in red on the back of her left hand began to glow a yellow-ish hue.
"I invoke the name of the divine goddess of ###########, Yulleria. By my will, the universe shall bend as I see fit. In the face of my authority, the laws of space and time shall be rewritten. In my presence, this cruel, shattered realm shall be reborn….."
There was a slight pause as Yulleria breathed in heavily.
"Universal Law: Absolute Balance."
The world seemed to hang still for a brief moment as Yurai's smile widened. The marbles Yulleria had thrown onto the ground were shaking violently, the symbol on her hand was glowing so brightly it was as if the sun itself had descended and in the midst of all this, she opened her eyes and looked straight at the 10-winged angel, whose face was now crumpled in a mix of shock and horror. It lashed out at her again, this time at full speed, but it worked against it as a white barrier of light expanded from them and crashed right into the angel.
Yulleria, her body in tatters but still somehow moveable, staggered towards the angel as the walls closed in around it. Just a little further and it would be in her striking range….. but her body gave out first. She fell towards the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, but was caught mid-fall by someone. She looked down and saw her arm wrapped around the boy. Though his eyes were welling up with tears, they were no longer in refusal of the battle.
[With the end of my story,]
They stumbled forward a few more steps and stopped in front of the angel, who was smashing his fists into the unbudging walls that encased him. Yulleria raised her blade for the final time and cut into the angel. No blood or divindum flowed out of the wound in its shoulder, it simply travelled through the sword and to Yulleria.
It was checkmate. The walls would be maintained as long as the angel had divindum, and if it didn't, then it would be dead. If the marbles were broken, then the barriers would be brought down as well, but they too, were protected by the barriers. Only Yulleria's blade was capable of passing through this specific barrier. Otherwise, every other barrier was completely impenetrable.
She looked down on the angel, who was screaming helplessly, its wings now shrivelled up and blackened from the constant siphoning of its divindum. It conceded defeat, shaking its head rigorously while using what's left of its remaining strength to pry the sword out of its shoulder, but to no avail. All the way up until its final moments. Divindum was no longer flowing out of the angel. Its physical body was gone. It was dead. She slowly retracted the sword and sheathed it before collapsing onto the ground.
Yulleria brought her left hand up to her face but it was already disappearing before her eyes. The barriers would continue to drain her of divindum until she either ran out or the marbles were destroyed. The latter option was impossible, so she was only left to die, suffering the same fate she subjected her former enemy to. The courageous human boy watched her final moments with tear-filled eyes as the last remnants of her divindum disappeared into the night sky, leaving only her blade behind.
The barriers were now gone as well, leaving only the boy to dwell on his thoughts in silence.
[I shall give rise to the age of the gods.]