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THE GODDESS OF DESTRUCTION
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Through the millennia, she had waited.
For chaos.
For bloodshed.
For revenge.
In the darkness of a cold stone prison, a figure stirred. She knelt amongst a blanket of thorns and vines, trapped in the earth of some other god’s domain, and each roughly hewn brick of her cell merged with the shadows. It had no door, nor windows, nor weaknesses in the runic magic holding her in place.
It was here that she had been trapped for so long, isolated in the darkness and forgotten.
The mortar binding the stone walls together glowed with an eerie blue and green light, as if the very stones were etched with the cold flame her sister had used to bind her. Magical runes locked her in this prison, each pulling her to her knees as her enchanted chains kept her rooted in place. Echoes of ancient torments lingered in the damp air, whispering of her untold miseries.
The faint drip of water from an unseen source punctuated the silence, each drop resonating like a sinister heartbeat.
She was a silhouette of raw power, barely contained by the gloom that sought to bind her. Destruction, one of the four true gods, lay in wait. Her vivid, fiery red hair, once a blazing inferno, now smoldered with suppressed rage, casting dim ripples of light against the forbidding walls.
She had begun to wonder if the world had truly forgotten her.
Perhaps they had grown soft.
Or, in their blissful escape from the ravages of her true nature, her legends had faded to myth, and then disappeared entirely.
Good.
It would make them all easy prey when she inevitably broke free.
Her eyes opened, glowing like molten gold, piercing through the darkness that sought to hold her. The faint, glowing veins that traced her skin pulsed with a sinister energy, promising chaos to come. She knew this place well, for it had been her tomb for five thousand interminable years—years of enraged contemplation and a festering hunger for vengeance.
Damn her sister. Once she escaped, she would see to it that her lifelong enemy burned.
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She wanted her sister to suffer.
Destruction had been trapped in this forsaken abyss for too long. The cavern around her dripped with an unnatural chill, each droplet echoing through the damp, shadow-cloaked chamber. Clinging vines, thorned and twisted, encased her, their barbs digging deep into her flesh, drawing forth black blood every time she dared to so much as stretch her fingers.
Her sister's magic had sapped her strength, leaving her a husk of the force she once was—an enraged lion, snared and contained by chains of treachery.
The air was thick, acrid with the stench of decay, and the walls seemed alive with the whispers of the devious shadows. Flickers of faint light danced across the jagged stone, casting grotesque shapes that morphed and clawed as if eager to finish what the thorns had begun.
Despite the suffocating darkness, Destruction remained the most terrifying figure in this pit, for she was a suppressed storm bristling with wrath.
It hit her, then—the surge.
It was familiar. Haunting. Distant, but there all the same. Her own magic pulsed from beyond her prison, beckoning her, calling her, aching to be one with her yet again.
Her Remnant.
After all these years, it had finally been found.
Its magic pulsed like a distant drumbeat. Hope, dust-covered and nearly dead, sparked in her chest. A servant would come, and she would be free.
A wicked grin spread across her beautiful face, a grim specter of her former self resurfacing. Blocked as she was by this cursed hellhole, it had been so long since she had tasted her own magic. She was still weak, her powers a shadow of what they had been, but now she had a chance.
The thorns around her wrists trembled in the surge of her power, and for a moment, they loosened. Her fingers curled into fists, but the enchanted chains tightened around her yet again. She gritted her teeth as the thorns zapped more of her magic, but the Remnant’s energy didn’t fade. Blistering bolts of pain shot up her forearms, but she welcomed it.
The cavern seemed to shudder, as if it also sensed the shift in power.
Her sister’s magic was weakening.
The trapped goddess tilted her head ever so slightly backward, relishing the thought of breaking free.
Soon.
Her eyes glinted with malevolent fire, hinting at the inferno barely contained within. The air grew tense with her awakening. Destruction’s once-dormant power now frothed beneath her skin, eager to tear through her cold tomb. She flexed her fingers, feeling her bindings pulse against her touch like it was aware of her defiance.
And as the magic rose to her challenge yet again, she sneered. It was a smile only the wolves of the world could master—one that bore no hint of joy, but only the promise of utter havoc.
The shadows dared to creep closer, whispering their false assurances, but she laughed—a low, throaty sound that sent them running.
Shadows and light.
Prisoners and stone.
Nothing could contain her forever. Every rock etched with ancient runes trembled in her presence, knowing their end would come.
Her wicked smile only broadened.
For every century she had been trapped here, she would unleash another surge of misery upon the world beyond her cell. There would be bloodshed. There would be death.
And in the rubble of her sister’s empire, Destruction would have her glorious revenge.