Lowly Ascent

The Kaiser rose from the massive hole in the earth, the hole that took the Cosmic Firestorm with it.

All around, stood God's army, anxiously waiting.

"Come with me." God looked at two people among the crowd, the Chancellor, and Kain.

...

"What is it that you need my Lord." The Chancellor bowed as his God sat on a golden throne with lingering stars infused inside it.

Kain bowed beside his superior and looked upon his God from the corner of his eyes.

The Kaiser sighed, "I fear winning will be hard, another player came in and killed Firestorm, I fear he is now even tougher to kill and his powers strange. We need to make a plan." He looked at Kain, "How much do you know about that other half of yours?"

...

In a city that was overlooked by a massive ancient mountain. Not a single sound was made.

A group of people moved in muffled silence, none spoke as they explored an abandoned building. Only when they entered a fallout shelter in the basement of a building and sealed themselves in did they breathe and sigh in relief.

"Do you think it will hear us here?" One of the survivors asked out loud, causing a few to look at him in disbelief.

"Has to, it could have already left as well, we can't know."

Seeing as they weren't dead yet, the group discussed the horrors of how their city was attacked, and the sound of a small jingling bell.

Ring Ring Ring

The sound stopped all hearts, their faces draining and turning stiff.

"Silence!"

A horrid voice broke the sound barrier, and the ears of the survivors popped as blood leaked from their ears.

The door to the shelter was blown open by a screech and a young man wearing a robe covered in bells walked through.

One of the survivor's eyes widened. "It's the one who s-"

POP!

The man's head exploded.

Everything returned to silence, the mysterious man looked at the survivors with eyes not belonging to a human, his very iris producing a rhythmic sound that induced sleepiness.

Before he went any further, his being felt a ripple and his head shifted to the east.

"One....fell?" He was confused.

POP POP POP POP POP

The rest of the survivors exploded one by one, staining the man's clothes and bells.

Closing his eyes, he felt the sound around him, eventually, he felt three others giving off the same response.

"Group up, we must find the reason."

The three others replied in agreement.

...

A woman sat on the throne of a serpent. Before her, figures in red cloaks bowed with their tongues sticking out in submission.

"Death...has come for one. Find who!" Her gray tongue hissed.

"Of course God! We are extensions of you!" Cromwell fervently got up and turned to the others, "Find out how the Cosmic Firestorm fell! God commands it!"

The whole world was a mess, even the gods were at a loss as to why one of them was already out of the game.

...

Deep under the earth, swaths of black moved in an inky ocean. Somehow, the dark limbs were more pronounced than the blackish depths.

"Everything is ready, I stabilized my soul for now, but I either need to offload it or complete my origin. Right now it's like I'm holding up a whole world, I'm going to break if I continue for long enough..."

Nihil yawned, unraveling his body. The volume of the ocean rose as he stretched, its borders grinding against the earth.

"It's time to find the fruit before anyone else!" With that, his limbs sprung into action.

...

Kain was walking throughout the Capital City of Stars, his thoughts lingering on his God's words.

'The thief became so strong...I can't believe it.'

Gazing at the city skyline, he watched the horizon. As he watched, he saw something.

Outside the city limits, where two gods clashed a few days ago, darkness escaped and wasn't extinguished by the light. The manifesting darkness rose as its size overtook the sky and blocked the horizon.

"What is that..." Kain's heart palpated.

BOOM!

The darkness crashed down, dyeing the land in black. From the large swath, countless small arms sprang out and chased all life. First, they caught small animals and uprooted trees, but as they touched upon humanity, people would be taken, houses destroyed, and lives lost.

It was an invasion, an invasion from an unknown enemy.

'It's him, it has to be...' Kain jumped from the palace grounds and into the city.

While running closer, he saw citizens being kidnapped or killed by the tendrils of Nihil. It was obvious they were searching for something, but what?

All over the world, similar scenes unfolded, even the gods could not damage the limbs in their entirety, only keeping them away from their domains. The City of Stars was saved after an hour of ravaging, but the other gods were more prudent, waiting a day or two to see what the limbs wanted.

The gods were cruel.

A few days later, Nihil narrowed his search.

'It's in one of the major cities, it has to be. I've uprooted every tree, gone through every grain. Only the cities where the gods reside haven't been fully searched.'

It was the end of days, and the gods were only of a lower standard. When someone thinks of a city belonging to a god, they expect cleanness, golden beauty, and splendor.

However, the cities under the gods' rule are not such a thing, the cities are in ruins, apocalyptic, and ravaged by human sin. In the final days, why care for anything? The cities were the last bastions and the final nail in the coffin of humanity.

Rats ran rampant, and human "kings" rose and fell in putrid back alleys. No one was the wiser about the end coming near.

Humanity rotted and so did the gods who achieved what they had been attempting for centuries.

They all sat, waiting for the fruit they believed had yet to appear. But they were not Nihil, they did not know the fruit was already somewhere in the world.

'I imagine if I don't find the fruit, the world will continue to exist like this, the kingdoms of the gods slowly expanding and turning into something different entirely. Perhaps, with thousands of years passing, this would be a true kingdom, where the gods only secretly sought the fruit of Doom. Alas, I exist, and Doom is on my side.'

Nihil snickered as his limbs slowly and stealthily reached into the lands of the gods.