Azareal staggered backward, his hand trembling as divine light began to gather around his palm. His voice cracked, desperate yet resolute.
"You… you're an Abyssal.""I cast you, in the name of Kaelor, God of the Weeping Stars… hear my call—""Cleanse the night and—"
Silence.
The air stilled. The words died before they could leave his lips.
Appolyth's eyes glimmered faintly — twin hollows of green and black.She tilted her head, and the faintest smile crept across her face.
"Calling gods, you say?" she murmured, her tone almost curious."How… surprising."
A pulse erupted from her, bending space. The world inverted, and before Azareal could breathe again, he realized—he was no longer standing on the obsidian ground.
He floated in a vast void —and before him stood his mother, or the thing wearing her face.Her gaze pierced through his soul.His reflection shimmered faintly within her eyes — two hollow green abysses staring back at him.
"You have no god except me," Appolyth said coldly."I am your god."
Her hand rose, slow and deliberate, fingers blackened and veined with pulsing red ichor.
"And for uttering such blasphemy…""…you are unfit to behold me."
Before he could scream again, her hand pressed against his forehead.A violent surge tore through his being — his soul screaming as something ancient and terrible dug into it.
"N-no—stop—"
It didn't matter.She was already tearing pieces away — fragments of memory, laughter, pain, and warmth.All shredded, devoured, unmade.
Azareal screamed, and the sound was not human — a dark, bloody scream that echoed beyond the void, shaking reality.
Appolyth's expression softened, almost tenderly, as she whispered:
"You shall forget we met… for now. The gods will notice."
Her voice wavered for the first time, as though it hurt even her.But he couldn't hear it.
Azareal's eyes had rolled back, his lips trembling. His body went limp as his consciousness shattered like glass.
And then —darkness.
The void consumed him whole.