***The City of Light***

***Angrod***

Just as we are about to sneak away like mice who stumbled upon a tiger, a ray of energy hits Tjenemit with a roar, bathing him in the brilliant light of destructive energies. But the attack doesn't harm him. Instead, it is reflected in random directions, slicing up buildings and survivors.

“No! Idiots! Don't shoot at the god!” I roar, unable to change the stupidity of my people’s decision.

The men on my flying fortress must have taken action. I try to shield my eyes against the light to find out what’s happening, but Tjenemit shines like the sun, making it impossible to look at him directly.

“Hahahaha! Mortals are always so funny!”

With what must have been nothing more than a flick of his finger, Tjenemit retaliates against my flying fortress. The whole structure of the arrow-shaped fortress bends, breaking apart like a toy.

No! Damn! It took me years to build that thing! The people I trained!

But I am unable to help them.

The broken pieces fall to the earth, burning like falling meteors, impacting with an impressive blast of energy and leaving little chance for survivors.

“Evacuate everyone, give the order to retreat and don't look back!” I instruct the others. The thought of fighting Tjenemit in my current state doesn’t even enter my mind. There are times when all a person can do is to face the other direction and run.

Celes finally manages to collect herself. She takes my hand and nods. “We run!”

We turn to beat a hasty retreat, but suddenly the space behind Tjenemit distorts with a thunderclap and Seria appears. Throwing out a hand, she stabs it into his back.

The resulting thunderclap almost pops my eardrums and everyone is thrown to the ground as debris is hurled away from the two warring gods. All Celes and I can do, is to hold onto each other, hoping that the storm would leave us untouched.

Tjenemit’s unfolding scream of rage seems to shatter the world. “AAAAAARRGHH!”

He turns around and strikes Seria, driving the goddess back. With an incredulous expression, he reaches for his back, his hand coming away soiled with blood. “You injured me!? How!?”

Seria smiles and licks the blood from her fingers, her angel and demon wings unfolding behind her as two horns sprout from her temples like a tiara and a demon tail flicks behind her back. Her dress falls away and is replaced by a silver armour, riddled with chaotic runes.

“Nail polish with mana crystal dust. Works wonders against the auras of pesky gods.”

“What!? Who the fuck are you!?” Tjenemit raises a hand, making a sign to ward himself against this new foe. In the other, he summons a sword of blazing, white fire.

“Aw...” Seria pouts. “I am your one and only Goddess of Life and Death. Don’t tell me that you don’t recognize me without my glamour.”

“Whatever.” Tjenemit shakes his head. “You clearly overstepped your bounds. A whole world with mortals within your Void Zone? It’s not what I expected, but I will find the answers and what that form of yours is supposed to mean!” He charges her and they start trading blows.

Each one shatters the world around them.

I force myself to ignore the fight and lead Celes and the others away from the epicenter of destruction. When giants are fighting, we mice can only hide. Tjenemit and Seria haven’t even started yet, or this city would already be gone. Our only hope is that they keep ‘playing’ with each other until we get away.

“Can’t you teleport us out?” Arthur asks while running next to us.

“No chance!” I reply, pumping my legs. “They are discharging so much power that the interferences make it impossible to control the spell. Certainly not at long distances. We would likely end up dead.”

Then Seria is struck out of the sky and a mountain at the far horizon is blown apart. The resulting shock wave lays waste to the city and forces us to take cover behind the remains of a bombed building.

I look at the others who are sprawled on the ground, torn between just running away and risking my life. Behind us, in the rubble on the ground, I can sense Seria.

While I can barely hold myself upright, I act on reflex and teleport to Seria, risking death by my own spell. Grabbing her body, I teleport again, trying my best control the spell despite the raging energies all around me which try to sabotage my spell matrix.

Having extracted her from Tjenemit’s immediate grasp, I lean her down against some large piece of debris, hoping that she has an answer for this fucked up situation. “Great! Was that your plan!? Backstabbing a Council member and hoping for the best? That was the worst fight I have ever seen!”

Seria looks up to me and smiles while she coughs up blood. “It would have been funny if it had worked.”

I take her in, my hopes diminishing upon seeing the horrifying wound which spans across her chest. This doesn't look good.

Tjenemit appears above us.

There is no running from a god, but maybe I could have done something – anything – if Seria hadn’t been this badly injured. How is it even possible for Tjenemit to penetrate her defences so easily? Did she let her guard down intentionally?

“Look who we have here. Is this one of your mortal toys, Seria?” Tjenemit slowly lowers himself to our level, studying me with a raised eyebrow. “Though, you seem familiar.”

“Well, maybe you knew a distant ancestor of mine,” I reply, trying not to sound too mocking.

Tjenemit rolls his eyes and shrugs. “Whatever. Seria, I’ll leave you alive for now. You can watch while I pick through your world and kill your pets until I find out what you were trying to do here. One… by one…”

Not even looking at me, he points a finger at my neck and a small ray of white light stabs through my flesh before I can react. Going to my knees, I fumble at my throat, trying to stop the flow of blood, trying to breathe. It hurts!

“Hgr ee aall!” Heal! Damn it!

All I can do is to gurgle up blood, the one healing spell I know by heart being ineffective. I drop to my knees, trying to find a way out, a solution to the problem. I gambled my hopes on Seria having a plan and failed.

“Don't bother. That spell cancels any healing a mortal might be capable of.” Tjenemit waves his hand. “I guess I will go now and lay waste to this world. Once I find and have dealt with all those runaways, their souls will be caught inside this Void forever. The easiest solution will be if there are no bodies which could house a soul. No suitable body, no reincarnation.”

Tjenemit turns around and flies off. Destroying everything in his path with a casual display of his power.

I crumble to the ground, the lack of oxygen slowly robbing my consciousness. Seria crawls towards me and grabs my hand.

“I am sorry, Johann. I guess…”

Her words sound like they are coming from far away as I drift off into the darkness.

***The City of Light***

***Celes***

“Ooohhh...” I moan and cradle my head between my palms. My head hurts! Something must have hit me pretty hard. When I try to move, I realize that something heavy is weighing me down. It is dark. Was I buried alive?

“Celes, are you awake!?”

“Arthur?” I ask, recognizing my father’s voice.

“Yes!” His voice sounds relieved. “By the fucking gods! I thought we were all dead when that thrice-damned bastard turned our way and started blasting everything in his path. I think we were lucky that the wall collapsed on top of us. It must have shielded us from the worst of it.”

I concentrate and redirect the flow of mana within me, circulating the energy through my meridians and mana channels until I am confident that I am at least at eighty percent of my current power level. “What about Nicosar?”

“I don’t know.” My father’s expression sounds mortified. “I think he threw himself in front of us just when Tjenemit passed our position. He didn’t even bother with us.”

I wait until the energy in my body circulates in the correct pattern, making sure that the passive reinforcement technique is running without my full attention. It's quite a difficult process to sort this out after everything got messed up due to being unconscious.

Then I force myself to move, lifting the heavy stones which are burying me and pushing them to the side.

Something in my leg stings like a bitch and I shove the last of the debris off of me with a scream. This hurts! Now able to inspect myself for injury, I find a large metal rod penetrating my lower leg. Holy shit, that hurts!

Pinching the metal between my fingers, I straighten the rod and cut it off. Then I pull it out with a scream while my father asks what’s wrong. Ignoring him for now, I concentrate some of my mana to the ring which Angrod gave me. “Heal!”

The soothing effect of a minor healing spell washes over me and I rummage through my pockets, pulling out a vial with a major healing potion. I uncork it and down the bitter contents in one go.

Then I watch the wound healing rapidly until it is closed.

The time it takes to recover gives me the opportunity to survey my surroundings. The city was already a battlefield, but now it is in ruins! Far away, I can see the smoke of a big fire. That must be where Angrod's fortress fell from the sky.

The major buildings are completely gone.

Feeling better, I turn around and start digging for my father. “Are you injured?”

I notice a few bodies here and there, but right now my family is more important. I have to find Angrod.

“No. I don’t think so.” Finally, my father emerges from a pile of bricks after I’ve removed most of the larger debris.

I take his hand and pull him to his feet, relieved that he seems to be fine. “Listen, you are going to search for Nicosar. This area seems to be safe enough for now with Tjenemit gone.”

“Okay. But why did he suddenly fly off?” Arthur looks at the destruction. “He was winning, wasn’t he?”

“I suppose he wants to find out what’s going on. Get the larger picture. This world certainly isn’t what he expected to find and now that he has beaten Seria that badly, he will take his time for a proper investigation.” I wince. “And as far as I know him, he is the type who wants to punish Seria by slowly picking apart her creation while she has to watch.”

Leaving my father to take care of searching for Nicosar, I command my spell ring once more. “Track: Angrod!”

Being able to cast at least basic magic is really convenient.

A small bubble of light appears in front of me and I feel a portion of my mana disappear. Then the guiding wisp shoots off into a direction to my left and I follow it as fast as I can.

The wisp leads me in a straight line over the wreckage of the wasted city. It looks like a tornado levelled everything.

After five minutes of tracking the spell, I arrive at the crumbled wall of a building. Seria is leaning with her back against it and I see Angrod on the ground beside her.

A few more steps take me to Angrod's side. He is lying on his belly. I reach him and turn him around. Something stabbed through his throat... badly... there is so much blood!

“No...”

I feel his pulse but there is nothing. My heart constricts and I feel tears on my cheeks while I try to give him first aid. I activate the healing magic of my ring again and again. But the spell doesn't work! Why! What is this devilry! I hit his chest in an attempt to restart his heart, but it doesn't work. I pull out another vial of my healing potion, but realize that he can't swallow it in this state!

“Nonono!”

“I am sorry.” Seria looks at me, a ghastly wound marring her chest. “Seems like this could have gone smoother, Sandra.”

“What could have gone smoother!?” I scream at Seria and turn on her, hitting the wall just next to her head, pulverizing it.

“He is dead! I lost him! Again!” I shake the stupid bitch, but then I realize what she called me.

“That… can't be!” I start shaking, rage boiling within me as I barely keep myself from losing it completely. “What's this! How do you know this name!?”

“Because I was Sofie, your daughter.” Seria smiles up at me, her guard completely down. “Hi, mom! Have you and dad made up? Took you long enough.”

I slap her. “Explain this!”

“While you two lived as Johann and Sandra, I took a little vacation from being a god and reincarnated to live a mortal life. Out of curiosity. I liked it very much, so I kept track of you two from then on, hoping to get you two back together, but it never worked out.” Seria winces as I pull her closer to me until we are face to face.

“There are also other reasons, older ones. Reasons which you don’t remember, yet. But you will, in time. I am sure of it.”

“How... what's this stupid game of yours!?” I howl, but somehow I feel that she is telling the truth. I would always recognize my daughter’s expression on any physical form when she played a particularly nasty trick on someone. My mind reels with the implications, but I can’t even fathom what is going on. I need time to think.

“Kill me, Mom. If you do, you can get father back.” Seria grabs my hands, begging for something unimaginable.

“A- are you crazy? I just learned who you are and you beg me to kill you!? And how should that get Angrod back? He is DEAD!” My hands form fists while my vision gets blurry, the rage welling up within me once more. Two decades ago, I would have never believed that I would come to love my worst enemy.

But I do.

And now I lost him.

Who knows if he will keep his memories after death? Will we be back to square one?

“He is still here. I bound his soul to his body, but to heal he needs to regain that part of his soul which makes him a god. I planned this far longer than you can imagine. I collected the souls of gods for an eternity, everyone who seemed to fit into this new world I was building. Everyone in this world is like you two, you would have found out if you ever had bothered to check.” The words spill out of Seria as she tries to explain the core points of her story.

“I stole the world which you two destroyed and rebuilt it. This place is inside a Void Zone. Time flows differently here. A year in here might be a mere second to the rest of the universe, depending on where in the Void Zone you are. I and my helpers played with the flow of time until this place was ready. Outside, just a few years have passed.”

She shakes her head in dismay. “It took me quite some time to get a working ecosystem running. I should have listened better when you taught me biology back then. I guess just taking random parts of other worlds is a really stupid approach.

“You two are the only ones who kept all your memories. When I saved the others from the Council, I split their souls and sealed their memories and divinity inside my own soul. I feared that they would try to escape this world otherwise. Once I die, everyone will get their powers back. My soul will be torn to pieces though. I think. Maybe dad could have saved me but he is indisposed at the moment.”

Seria looks towards the path of destruction in Tjenemit’s wake. “I tried to get myself killed by Tjenemit, but the bastard was too stupid to finish the job. So, you have to do it. The faster I die, the sooner you can start fighting back!”

My daughter clings to my hands with tears in her eyes. “I was always afraid of this part of my plan, but it has to be done. Please! Do it now, before everything I worked for is in vain.”

“I... I can't.” I hug my daughter, Angrod’s loss still hurting my heart. But how could I choose between him and her?

“Do it now! I put so much effort into this world. I don't want to see it destroyed, a world just for the gods. I am already on the ground anyway. Even if I survive, Tjenemit will come back and finish the job after he is done with this world!”

I grab her head with shaking hands, hating myself for sacrificing one for another. “I hate you for making me do this!”

And then, with a sudden jerk, I snap her neck.

She offered no resistance.

I hold onto the lifeless body of my once-daughter as it disperses into countless shimmering marbles of different colours while a pillar of light rises to the sky. They disperse like a giant storm of energy, passing through solid matter as if it isn't there.

Somehow I feel… empty.

But a fiery white marble stays in front of me. It feels like some lost part of me and I grab it without thinking. Something enters my body, expanding within me.

Suddenly, a glowing ghostly, smiling image of Seria is right in front of me.

And then she starts speaking with a happy, bubbly tone in her voice.

Hi! This is something like an automatic message to everyone in this world, so don’t be afraid, because a new age is upon you! For those knuckleheaded unbelievers who don’t recognize me, I am your one and only Goddess, Seria!

A long time ago, I saved everyone in this world. Though, you don't remember it right now.

A long time ago, every single one of you was a god.

But because of certain circumstances, you will soon remember it all. The rulers of the multiverse had something against you. The reasons might have varied from one to the other, but the fact remains that the Council of Gods declared the death sentence for each of you.

When I saved you from them, I asked you to help me once in exchange. It would be okay if you did whatever you wanted to do afterwards, but I hope you will be fine with keeping a guarding eye on this world.

So, grab the light in front of you and take everything back which once belonged to you. I am sorry about your memories. They will be a little blurry or feel not like your own after such a long time.

But if you look out for your king and queen it should be fine. They still remember everything of their past lives as gods. They will be able to guide you.

As for my wish, you will understand once you remember. It is an easy one! May you be peasant or noble, soldier or king, please crush the Council!

...and if it isn't too much to ask, I would be happy if you would be able to live in peace together afterwards, on this world for living gods! Create a new order of living gods! Be better than the Council!

I guess that's everything I wanted to ask of you. I sacrificed much for this little speech, so I will have to say goodbye to everyone now.

That's goodbye from your one and only Goddess!

Seria strikes a strange pose and throws an erotic kiss at me while the projection fades away, leaving me baffled.

“Stupid daughter! What did I do wrong with her education?”

Someone grabs my shoulder and I turn around to look into Angrod's face. He is pale, but the wound in his neck is healed. “I had a really weird and fucked up dream. Can you tell me why we are gods again?”

I throw myself at him, hugging and kissing him. The tears won't stop. “I thought that I had lost you again. But we will be together forever from now on! Forever!”

“Hahaha...” He chuckles and pats my back. “I guess... together... forever...”