Nyxalraith stared up at the beautifully massive inferno of an iris and the pupil of stars contained within. She was dumbfounded. The Great iris, which had been a permanent presence above Coral — and likely been so long before the station ever existed — was actually Little God? Her Little God?
It was unfathomable.
If somebody had told her, she would have thought them insane. If a thousand people told her, she would have thought herself insane. Even having guessed that the little guy was a god, there was a difference between a twelfth evolution baby god and the fucking Great Iris.
Honestly? Logic told her she’d leapt on the answer too quickly. There shouldn’t be any way. And yet, upon hearing those booming, yet familiar words, she’d been left without a single doubt.
This was Little God.
“You’ve grown,” she stated. The cult around her took a back seat in her mind.
“I have.” His words were curt and simple. A statement of fact. Nyxalraith almost huffed a laugh at how nostalgic it was.
How long had it been since he’d been whisked away by the whims of the Eidolons? Two years for her inside the Dark Star? Six months outside? They both felt wrong. It felt like so long ago that he’d been taken from her. And like her own time wasn’t exactly clear cut… Little God’s time appeared far more messed up than her own. It was the only explanation.
“What happened? How are you…” She gestured to all of Little God’s form, which took up a very large portion of the world around them. Despite the darkness still clinging to her, she doubted he would have an issue.
“I was given time.” For an instant, the stars spun again, their light shimmering through the massive eye.
The answer was so perfectly vague to reveal no more information than she already knew. Despite that, Nyxalraith grinned. It was annoying, sure, but it was familiar. It was Little God. And if she wasn’t mistaken, this was an intentional preciseness, rather than the cluelessness of humanity it once held.
Little God had been watching.
“Still can’t offer guidance, huh?” Nyxalraith asked. “Not even with me being a Seed?”
The stars spun ever so slightly once more and Nyxalraith suddenly got the distinct impression that it was a touch of amusement in Little God’s otherwise endlessly stoic gaze. For a split second, his iris shifted. Given the scale of difference, it was hard to tell — actually it was impossible to tell — but something told her he’d glanced to the black hole.
“Guidance is unnecessary. The path is yours to forge, whatever the result. Interference will only diminish what you can become.” A heavy silence hung as his words ended. It was strange, the sudden lack of a Deific Tempest to send Coral into a constant state of complaint. Nyxalraith let his words sink in, but immediately grew alert as his pupil spun into a steady spiral. “My perspective has shifted much in my time observing Coral. What I once saw as whole, I now realise was fractured and incomplete, uncertain of its own nature. You need not fear your truth, N̪ỷ̽x̱̽alr̘a͎ith.”
She blinked in surprise. After Little God’s initial limited statements, she hadn’t expected to get anything from him. But this… it was as close to a reassurance that the Seed wasn’t a threat to her as she was ever going to get.
“-urn your attention to the ones-”
Given Little God was linked to the Eidolons, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to trust any consolations he offered in regards to the Seed, but Nyxalraith wanted to.
He had spent so much time beside her during her youth. Through her captivity. He’d been there when she reverted to an earlier time. In all her times of distress and isolation, Eyeball had been there to watch over her, even when she refused to accept him as real. Back then, he’d been so simple. Incapable of lying. But his comprehension of the world had been lacking, so he’d often make comments about her that made no sense.
“-sacrifice. Our devotion has been-”
Looking down at herself now, she realised he’d seen through her cursed names. He had seen all the mutations she was to unleash. Now? He could probably see all those she still had coming.
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If the Seed, the full combination of every one of her names, was something he saw as well — and she had every reason to think he could — then he knew what it would do to her. Even back then. The very fact that he had continued to treat her as if she was fully in control of her own consciousness went far to settle her nerves about the nature of the Seed.
Little God wasn’t lying. He was skirting the rules set by the Eidolons that sent him here.
“-nd you will look upon us!”
Finally, Nyxalraith snapped her head down towards the buzzing noise. It took her a whole second to realise she’d completely forgotten where she was, what with Little God’s descent.
All around her, men and women of the Cult of the Everseeing Eye watched on with soul-gripping shock. Even Dan, who was back to almost perfect health after her little test of burning one soul to regenerate his body, looked at her with disbelief. A reaction more intense than even when he’d guessed she’d killed Solan.
Somehow, in his eyes, it was less believable that she was speaking terms with the Eye in the sky than a cult leader falling to her.
They were cognisant of their conversation. All the cultists had heard Little God’s voice strike their mind. Given the fact that they weren’t all suddenly whispering her name or looking at her with any sort of realisation, the god had likely left that part for her ears alone.
But why let them hear at all?
She glanced up at the spiralling lights above. Ah. It seemed Little God had adopted a sense of humour in the… however many millions of years it had spent watching.
“Great Iris, I demand acknowledgement!”
And then there was Arasthis-Val’Boor. He was the only one still speaking, and by his tone, he was not taking Little God’s neglect well. That manipulative voice of his was affecting his own inner circle now, and instead of gazing upon the Great Iris that betrayed their misplaced trust, they looked upon their cult leader.
For a brief instant, Little God did just as the man wanted. He looked upon him. The cult leader, the one who had held Nyxalraith still before her sacrifice, took on the visage of undiluted glee. He was a true devotee.
Then, the Great Iris looked away, dismissing him entirely.
The heartbreak — for there was not a better suiting term — split Arasthis’s face. It was a deliciously satisfying expression upon his face. She whispered her silent gratitude, only for Little God’s attention to return to her in acknowledgement.
“No. No, this cannot be!” Arasthis’s words started as a whisper before rising to a near screech. “I have given you my eyes. I have given you the eyes of thousands. Everything I’ve ever done, it has been for you. To be acknowledged by you.”
The cult leader was leaving himself bare before his entire cult. His pain was obvious to all. And Nyxalraith? Well, she was hardly going to leave this treat alone.
“The Great Iris cares not for the worthless.” Her voice cut across the Observatory with the weight of a thousand echoes. “So what makes you think the eyes of the worthless will grant you more than a glance?”
Arasthis-Val’Boor’s eyeless gaze fell to her. Fury contorted his expression into something ugly. Nyxalraith knew the man couldn’t see her, but as soon as his gaze landed on her, she felt an impossible weight clamp down on her body. The same happened to her darkness.
Anything within Arasthis’ field of view became his to control.
“I will not be disparaged by an upstart. Whatever hole you crawled from, know that S͍̾ølą̛́̄n̼̙͈̘̄̍̓͘’s death means nothing. She was weak.”
No matter how much strength she threw into her efforts to break Arasthis’ hold, nothing worked. Not even her highly charged O̅s̫s̋thͤ̂o̲t͛h let her break space and move. Nothing, that was, until she added V̠ͅa͍i̝k͍na̓. Instantly, her body began moving again, albeit slowly. But her shadows? Now that they were freed, they weren’t slowed at all.
Concern washed over the cult leader’s face. Even facing some unknown monster from the depths of the black hole, he never expected his control to break. Nyxalraith had the advantage, and she was going to press it.
As her shadows curled over the edge of the upper platform and began to assault the upper creeds, she opened her mouth.
“Then your death will?” Nyxalraith laughed. A harrowing thing that unfortunately made Dan flinch violently beside her. “You remain unaware of your own insignificance. You still believe it was your eyes and your rituals that summoned the Great Iris here today? No. Even your best attempt at a ceremony couldn’t persuade the Eye to manifest before you. Only my presence has done that.”
Nyxalraith smirked as the upper creeds flinched within the grasp of her shadows. She couldn’t exactly kill them indirectly as she had with the lesser creeds, but she could still poke their souls.
“For that is why you have descended this day, is it not?” She grinned up at Little God, whose eye was spinning with her.
“It is so.”
And with that, Arasthis cracked. The man fell to his knees, then his hands. In an instant, it was as if the man aged a century and held the weight of a thousand Darkness tentacles pulling down on his shoulders.
“No. No.” Even to Nyxalraith’s enhanced ears, she couldn’t make out any more of Arasthis-Val’Boor’s murmuring.
Nyxalraith’s shadows encroached on the cult leader. She couldn’t kill him now. Even in this mentally fractured state as he learned of his god’s dismissal of him, he was powerful. Incredibly so. As sluggish as her body moved in his gaze, she wouldn’t be able to take the cult leader in any easy fashion. In the best of scenarios, it would turn out like Solan’s fight. But even then, there had been a lot of casualties in the cross-fire.
She came here for Dan. She was going to leave this place with Dan amongst the living. Now was not the time for her vengeance.
But she was hardly about to leave without getting one more blow. As Nyxalraith grabbed Dan and ripped open a Pink tear in reality, she gave a parting comment.
“At least S͍̾ølą̛́̄n̼̙͈̘̄̍̓͘ had been able to summon her god before I killed her.”