God of Nothing

Aleph crossed into his realm, ignoring the disorienting feeling of getting transported. He entered the sanctum and didn't miss a beat, walking up the stairs and all the way to the surface. He felt the tug of the mana surrounding him, as if eager to rejoin their master. Aleph kept it at bay though, knowing that he cannot bring this power back through the portal with him. Not without consequences, at least.

And so he walked, passing graves of friends and allies with nary a second look, his eyes solely focused on one in particular. This grave alone was set aside from the others, the first one he made. A sleek black spear served as its headstone, with the surrounding ground showing signs of being disturbed.

A figure was knelt in front of it, greeting Aleph as they paid their respects.

"Aleph. You've come."

"Marduk. Step aside. We can speak later." Aleph growled. He did want to speak with him, but he had to know.

"...Would you defile your lover's grave just to seek the truth, old friend?" The overgod asked with a pained expression. 

"Truth is secondary, Overgod. What I seek is comfort, knowing that what she had stood against for so long had not taken her to serve under it."

Aleph pushed him aside and began to dig. He could have done it with magic, but now, facing the grave he had laid Emily to rest centuries before, he felt the need to use his body for the task. 

Marduk watched in silence as Aleph exhumed the body. It was hard work, but Aleph's desire, completely unfettered, were unleashed on the dirt. He worked until his hands were bloodied with popped blisters, the pain an afterthought as he 

Aleph was manic. Emotions both new and old were running rampant in his mind as he clawed at the ground. Would he prefer that her coffin be empty, or would he much rather find her laying here as he left her, undisturbed? Either prospect scared him senseless. The old scars of her passing was gouged fresh by the enemy, though, and he needs to get an answer before he bled out.

It took a while without tools, but eventually, he had pulled out an ivory colored Coffin from deep in the soil. He jumped back up to the surface carrying the box, noting its weight. His heart sank, but he held out hope. Hope? For what? He wondered. He threw open the lid, and his heart completely sank.

"She's still here." He panted. There inside the intricate sarcophagus he created, was Aleph's wife. She was as beautiful as he saw her last, when she burned away the last of her strength to defeat Erebos. Aleph had restored her wounds long after her soul had departed, making her look like she was simply asleep. He caressed her cheek, as if trying to wake her, to make sure that she was truly dead. He already knew of course, he'd known since he hoisted the coffin up. But facing Lost the other day revived a feeling of longing in him. A feeling that he dearly missed, one he only got when the woman before him looked at him a certain way. A cry of bitter anguish emerged from him as he clutched Emily's body as tightly as he did on that final day.

"I am sorry." Marduk said from the side, mirroring that day almost completely.

"...Did you know?"

"I know not of his means, but Erebos had somehow taken Emily's soul and made with it this… abomination."

Aleph rounded on him. it was not the answer he was expecting.

"Are we certain it's her?"

Marduk sighed before getting down on one knee. He fixed up Emily's garments, which was tussled by Aleph's carelessness.

"The passageways of the soul are as mysterious as they are diverse. If one can harness it, they may pull any manner of creature from the ether to stand against us."

"Such powers are beyond you?"

"Matters of the soul are beyond the divine, I'm afraid. If it weren't so, I would have already returned her to you."

Done fixing her up, Marduk stood once again, this time using his magic to cover her coffin once again.

"I am just as certain that it is fate working against us rather than some of Erebos' machinations. If you want proof, look no further than the herald's heart in your pocket."

Aleph took out Oblivion's heart, its orange glow shown brilliantly against the synthetic light that Aleph cast upon this world. Once Marduk reached out to touch it, however, the light had gone.

"Oblivion's powers are a mystery, even to one such as I. Its very nature is antithetical to mine, as it had come from the Abyss. But I've seen what Erebos can do with it." He withdrew his hand, and the glow returned. Aleph looked from the gem to Marduk and back again, perplexed as to the nature of this power.

"That magic is beyond physical and targets the soul. You've seen its effects: from restoration of the body, to completely erasing, then overwriting one's soul."

"...Then that chimera was no chimera at all." Aleph said, remembering the mishmash of forms he faced back then.

"All of them were Oblivion, I believe. A shapeshifting soul, commanding its body in ways that overcome form, nay, even death. As the owner of his heart, you may harness it to do similar miracles in the future."

Aleph pondered that. Oblivion's powers were certainly miraculous. It was beyond healing, beyond even mana to an extent. He'd seen Oblivion's brood rise up after being smashed into pulp, seen Oblivion itself shrug off a beating that would have killed him dozens of times over. So long as their gemheart was intact, they rose again every time their master did.

He looked at the orb in his hand in a new light. So far, he had only been using it like a battery, an external source of mana he could use to fuel his spells with, but only now did he understand the full extent of its abilities.

The soul commands the body in ways that overcome even death… Those words echoed around his mind, mulling it over until he did a double take. He looked sharply at the God of Life, who looked like he had been expecting that.

"Did you notice?" Marduk smiled wryly.

"Your godhood, mostly owed to the Abyss, carries some of the same properties as the gem you now hold. This was how you were able to arrive on my new earth."

"That body you possess, it was a corpse long dead under that well. Your power, usurped from Erebos himself, reforged it to something similar to the form you had as a human."

"Hmmm." Aleph nodded, mostly surprised he didn't catch it before. It was understandable since he didn't know how that form of magic worked, but it made sense in retrospect. He was so focused on becoming human that his soul attached itself into a corpse and remade it into his own. Technically, he had used this world's magic before coming here.

"On my urging, you left the vast stores of power you gained in this realm. That lets you hone in on a human form, and have thus regained your mortality.

"I believe something similar was done with this woman called Lost. "

That made sense. If they had Emily's soul, reforging her the same way Oblivion did was simple. Heck, with the herald's powers, it was possible they could have turned any old soul into her. The possibilities of this power got Aleph excited.

"Then, with Oblivion's heart, I can–!"

"Don't get your hopes up too much, old friend." Marduk said.

"As I said, matters of the soul are beyond the divine. Let's say you revive all of those you lost? What of those who had already been reborn? Will you snatch them away from the lives they've known? That's to say nothing of the souls you'd use as collateral! As a god, please look beyond yourself in this instance."

Sometimes Aleph resented the overgod's ability to read minds. After dashing his hopes, Marduk decided to twist the knife even further.

"Whether she is your Emily or not, right now she is Erebos' thrall. She has to perish in order to save the planet. Remember, Erebos may choose to descend through her at any time in the fight. Will you spare her even then?"

Marduk laid her back down in her grave gently, before turning back to Aleph.

"I know this is a difficult thing to ask, but please. For the sake of the world your disciples inhabit, defeat the demon king."

Aleph turned to argue, but when he looked, Marduk was no longer there. He sat on the edge of the hole he dug, looking down on the coffin where Emily lay. His Emily, he clarified.

He hated to admit it, but Marduk was right. Emily is dead. 

He knew that in his head, and he was looking right at her coffin, but still. The power of his godhood floated all around this realm, teasing him with power that, for the first time, he actually yearned for. 

Coming here was supposed to give me answers, he thought. Instead, all it did was give him a larger mess to untangle.

"What do I do…?" He muttered aloud with noone to hear.

__________________________________

Rayse woke up with a start. He looked around the room, careful not to make a sound. He noted that it was still dark out. He had been waking up at weird times lately, likely from all that sleeping he did while he was injured. 

He checked the children tucked into each of his arms. Still sleeping? Good. He squished them together in bed, so that instead of his arms, they'd be hugging each other instead.

That done, he got up and went out back. He stretched his hand out towards the stack of spears to the side, but then he remembered his condition, and walked on over to pick it up himself.

He noticed that the workshop lights were still on and wondered if his master was there. He shook his head at that.

"...Nah. It must be Jodi pulling an all nighter again." he muttered to himself.

He took a stance and began to do some practice thrusts. Since he can't do magic anymore, the spear was all he had, so he wanted to hone it as much as possible. With enemies like Lost waiting in the wings, he needed to be on top of things.

So he practiced til the morning sun arose, focusing solely on what he was doing. It was only when he felt the sun on his cheeks that he snapped out of it and went back inside the house. He really wanted to get the stock boiling for the meal he was going to make.

He went back inside the house to get started on it, only to find that his master wasn't home. His bed stayed neat, as if he didn't even bother to come in last night.

"Strange… Where could he be?"

Mister Tom did say he had something to do here. He peered into the workshop, where all he saw was Jodi, who was hard at work on something he couldn't see. He tried to knock, but was promptly ignored, so he returned back to the front of the house to think about where to look next.

If he wasn't with Jodi, there was only one other place he could be. He went into the well to check the sanctum. Once there, Aleph was easy to spot. He found him sitting in front of Emily's grave.

"Master! Did you sleep here?" He called out as he walked over. As he got closer, he began to notice something was wrong. Aleph completely ignored him, for one. Plus, he noticed a hole in front where the grave marker, Emily's spear, usually was. He ran up to find that the grave had been completely opened. His master was looking at a pure white coffin on the ground, not even acknowledging his presence.

"Master!? Master!" Panicking, he tried to shake him, but he was getting no response. Cold sweat started to form all over his back. This has happened before.