[-=Nox=-]

I awoke to divine suffering. I was coming apart! I was being forgotten! Tamara the human wasn’t thinking about me anymore. She wasn’t a true believer. I was doomed. I was hungry. So very, very hungry.

I heard a squeal nearby and turned towards it. I stuck out my tongue, trying to determine what was making the noise. It was something… dark. It wasn’t quite Voidy, I could tell… but it was definitely dark. Not the darkest shade of dark, perhaps a light gray even? It was incredibly hard to operate on one Void mana.

I sensed that I was in a room of some sort. Right. Tamara booked me a room for rest. I wasn’t resting at all. I couldn't rest off this lack of power. I needed Dark energy! My weak tongue-sense kept sliding off a spot of empty air, something that was definitely nearby, on the other bed present next to the window.

I spent .1 mana and extended a microscopic tendril, and looked for the energy signature, noticing an indeterminate shape that drew my senses away from it. A young darkling! I slid off my bed and slowly moved with determination towards the shape that radiated darkness.

As soon as I was close enough, I pounced upon the shadow, my tongue connecting with it, searching for a weak spot, latching onto something. It was the skin of a young darkling. The concealed creature tried to push me away, but I did not let go, did not disconnect, drawing, devouring all of the shadow magic that I could scrape off from the darkling into myself.

One, ten, twenty shadow mana! Yes! I had power once again! I compressed the shadow mana inside myself, crushing it into the much needed, denser Void. I now had 3 Void mana total. Excellent! I breathed in relief. I would not perish! What incredible luck!

“Nobody sneaks up on the Great Devourer!” I said, opening my eyes and looking down at the darkling.

“Ahhhhhhh! My tail! Owwww! Owwww! It hurts! Please! Help! Ahhhh!! Fire!” The distracting, Shadow magic had fallen apart. A thin… Beastgirl? Foxgirl? …was now hanging off the shut window by her tail, whimpering. I distantly recalled that one of my Archmages had planned to combine foxes and humans to create new life. I guessed that this was the eventual result of their handiwork after six thousand years.

I looked at the foxgirl, raising an eyebrow. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I’m sorry! Ahhh! Please open the window! My tail is trapped! Fire! Ahhhh! Help!” She cried, twirling, unable to get away. She was clearly in a very awkward, compromised position, unable to open the heavy, iron window latch that had shut automatically, trapping her tail.

Also, her clothes were on fire. In fact, most of the room was quite hot and on fire, now that I paid attention to it. This was fine. I still had the amulet of healing inside me. Fire didn’t scare me.

“Fire!” She yelled, pointing at the numerous things on fire in the room. “Please help me! We’re both going to die! Fire!!!” She pulled on her burning clothes, throwing them off herself.

“Indeed.” I nodded. I knew what fire looked like. I wasn’t an idiot.

I wanted, craved more of her darkness. There was shadow magic in her. Shadow magic was in her sweat, all over her face that was now twisted with fear. I started to lick her face.

“EeeeeEEEeee! What are you doing?!” She yelped. “Stop! We have to get out of here! What are you doing?!”

There was indeed delicious, Dark mana in her sweat. Tiniest, microscopic bits of her darkness were within them! It was an incredibly inefficient way to power myself, but I didn’t care. I licked her with increasing vigour. Finally! Finally, after thousands of years of being drained by a blasted prison and my idiot human I was getting something back!

“Ack! What are you doing?!” The beastgirl whimpered, trying to fight off my licking, pushing me away with her free hands. This would not do. I grabbed her hands with mine, holding her in place. She was too confused and terrified to resist me.

“Stay still. I need your fluids.” I commanded.

“WHAT?!”

“There is darkness in your soul and it's leaking out. I need to eat it to increase my power.” I clarified.

She looked at me, aghast and confused. “My soul’s not dark!”

“Yes it is. I’m Nox, Goddess of Eternal Night. I can tell when someone’s soul is dark.”

“You’re a what?” She blinked.

“I’m not going to repeat myself, mortal.” I said.

The room groaned, deep cracks growing wider on the walls. There must have been a serious magical resonance explosion here for this to happen I idly noted, busy licking the delicious darkling.

“Ha ha ha.” She giggled, shaking, sweating even more. “I’m ticklish there! Stop! Ack! What are you doing!? Let me go! This isn’t the time for this! Seriously!!! Stop!!! Everything is on fire!!!”

I ignored her noises. There was licking to do! The foxgirl screamed as the room cracked further. It shattered in half, the part with the second bed, me, her and the window turning sideways and plummeting down. I clung to my precious, magical battery. She could not escape me as her tail was trapped by the frame of the window. For a few seconds we flew through the air, until our half of the burning room smashed into the river that was apparently located right beside the inn.

The fire hissed, blasted away by the followup splash. The room began to slowly sink into the river. The foxgirl stared at me, eyes filled with panic.

She wasn’t a Void mage, but she was a natural Shadowmancer. Generally, only one out of 10’000 humanoids possessed the correct resonance of darkness in their souls that matched me perfectly. I didn’t know how rare Shadow mages were here. Either way, this foxgirl was excellent acolyte material. With a push in the right direction she could become my first apostle in this epoch. My own body was singing with power and life, enjoying this incredible find and victory, tingling in unexpected places in delight.

The inn above us burned, pieces of it rained down around us, splashing into the river. The room sank. Our bodies pressed against the glass window. It cracked under our combined weight, struggling to contain the pressure of the river from the other side, spiderwebs of cracks running across it.

There was power in submission, power in defeat, power in her struggle against me. Incredibly delicious, dark emotions leaked out of her. I needed a way to connect with her, to consume more of her energy. I realised that even more darkness leaked from her breath. Of course! Her mouth! I could use it as a connection between us.

I bent my head down towards her, connecting my mouth with hers. She gasped, in too much shock and pain to fight me off. My tongue wrapped around hers. Time slowed as a tendril of darkness extended out of me into her. I wanted, hungered for more power. I started to suck Shadow mana out of her. This was much faster than licking her sweat! I was growing stronger with every second! She suddenly bit my tongue with her sharp fox chompers.

“Aouuughchezzzz!” I disconnected from her mouth, looking down at her. Purple sparkling blood dripped from my mouth.

The burning, sideways room formed a vessel of sorts that was now being washed away from the city by the current of the river. I realised that it didn’t fall apart yet because the outside wall and the window must have been reinforced with rune magic.

Water seeped through various cracks around the room. The foxgirl beneath me slowly became submerged. The fire around us dimmed and her hair stopped burning.

“I’m sorry I bit you! Please! Please!!! I don’t want to drown! Help me unlock the window hatch! It's stuck!!! Please! I’ll do anything!” She cried desperately.

“You’ll be my dark acolyte? Believe in me with all of your being?” I inquired.

“Open the window, I beg you! For the love of the Gods! My tail is trapped! I don’t want to drown!”

“There is only one Goddess you should be worshipping now, foxy,” I leaned towards her face, waiting for the gemstone of healing to stitch my tongue back together. “Me.”

“Okay! Okay! I’ll pretend to worship you! I’ll do anything! Please!!” She cried, water nearly covering her. Ah, pain. An inefficiency of the human condition.

“Accept me. Do not try to bite off my tongue this time!” I growled, hungry for the Shadow energy within her.

“Huh? You want to kiss me again? Why?!” She looked incredibly confused. I stared back at her. She was an adorable darkling. I can't let a precious resource of dark magic like her run away from me. I shall make her my eternal minion, a disciple of Nox, I decided then and there.

Ah yes, this thing I was doing was called kissing. Thanks a lot, slow meat brain.

“Kiss me back and accept my divinity into your mouth. Make a pact with me. Become my acolyte.” I said.

“Why?! I just met you! We didn’t even go out on a date!” She protested.

“I’ll let your tail out if you do. Kiss me and accept me as your Goddess or perish in the deep.” I proposed a counter offer. I had no idea what this “date” was and my meat brain was much too slow in giving me answers as usual.

“Arghhh! Fineeee! I accept!” She cried, opening her mouth. An arcane connection of energy formed between us, power arching, reaching out from her breath to mine as she finally belived, driven by pure, undiluted fear. A [Pact] teather snapped her to me.

I kissed her, devoured her Shadow mana, compressed it and poured my divine Void back into her soul via the connection, rearranging her from within, blessing her with my radiance.

“Pleaseeeeee… window… my tail… ” She bubbled as both of our heads became submerged under the water. I dove into the raging river, and formed a tiny magic circle next to the latch that was trapping her. The circle exploded, blowing apart the entire frame of the window.

I grabbed her body, trying to swim up. The remnants of the room were churning the water beneath us, dragging us both into the depths. I weaved a few more tiny magic circles beneath me. They exploded as expected, propelling me upwards. The remnants of the room vanished in the depths of the river. I was not afraid of drowning. As a divinity, I managed all sorts of domains, including rivers. Holding onto my precious first acolyte I propelled myself towards the shore with small explosions of magic. It was a pretty ridiculous way to move through the water, but it worked.

I saw something red floating up through the water. It was my cape! Excellent. I grabbed it as I swam past it.

Soon enough, both of us emerged onto the shore of the river.

“Thank you for saving me.” She coughed.

“Address me properly,” I demanded, tying my cape back on. “You’re now my Acolyte. You may refer to me as... Goddess.” I clarified.

“Okay, Goddess…” she nodded, looking quite wet and defeated.

It felt good to have an acolyte after thousands of years of lonely dreaming.

“That’s better,” I slowly stood up, looking at the human city and the sky above it. The black hole was on the other side of the planet now.

Oh.

With shock, I realised that the world was no longer a planet nor a sphere. Enormous shards of the planet slowly passed between the flickers of far-flung galactic spirals and bright purple nebula rings. I could see human cities above me, circles of orange light dotting the continental shards a great distance away in the sky above.

Ah. This was probably my fault. Whoopsie. The orbit of the planetoids around the black hole was clearly unstable, each shard tottering on the precipice of harrowing future disaster. My unfinished System project was decaying, breaking apart into smaller chunks over thousands of years. Not good. At least gravity on this continental shard was stable! I sighed.

The somewhat burned, wet foxgirl was holding onto her freed tail, crying. It looked a bit mangled from getting crushed by the window frame. She didn’t care about the fact that the world was horribly broken. Her broken tail was more important to her now. She grew up in this place, staring at this freakish night sky all her life. The purple nebula composed of mana and floating continents above her were not alien to her. She never knew what the world was like before I started to mess with it. She likely knew nothing of the time when my own Archmages had betrayed me and sabotaged my masterpiece, declaring themselves Heroes of the Light, the pompous pricks.