16 Before He Slept

{Before the Vampire Progenitor went to sleep.}

{The divine realm}

The usually sunny skies were cloudy. Red and purple lightning flashed across the sky without pause and thunder roared fiercely.

An army of twenty-five superior gods and fifty of their subordinate gods stood on a massive field prepared for war.

There used to be more gods than this but the fifty were those who remained after the war with the being who they had come to call godsbane.

A red portal opened and a familiar aura swept over the fields, making time slow down and the gods tremble.

The portal closed and where it had been stood six of the oldest beings in the universe.

A man who looked to be in his thirties with white hair and golden eyes stood at the front wearing leather amour and a velvet cloack. Behind Him, were five beings dressed in armour more radiant than that of the gods.

The godsbane and his knightly generals. This would be the end of the divine beings in that era had they chosen to fight.

"I apologise for the theatrics but I needed to alert you of my arrival." The godsbane spoke then with a wave of His hand and the lightning stopped and the sound of roaring thunder disappeared. The clouds were still thick, black and threatening.

The gods swallowed. They had been attempting to fix the weather since it began hours ago and failed, yet this beast quieted the storm with His hand!

They had been at war with this being for two hundred years but they had been losing. Why had this war even began?

Because the gods dared try to spread their religions to the races that already existed in this world.

The gods were divine spirits that came from different dimensions and by spreading their faith they were able to grow without training and resources.

The more followers they had, the stronger they became and the more they understood the laws of the universe and how to bend them to their wills.

On an empty world the gods would have to create races and teach them their ways from the beginning but this world already had powerful and advanced races roaming it's surface.

This greatly pleased the deities and they formed a pact to share the worship and begun their invasion in earnest but to their dismay, the races had a monstrosity backing and nurturing them.

He did not need worship to grow stronger but He would not sit back and watch as invaders dared encroach on His people, feeding them sickening ideals and thoughts.

The results of this was a war which led to the extinction of some of the races created by the gods and the death of many lesser divine spirits.

Over the last two hundred years, it felt as though the godsbane had been toying with them. The gods seemed like a mere nuisance and though He could wipe them out chose to take His time doing so but now, here He was, seemingly ready to destroy them.

"Please forgive, my attire, I am going to war and a definite attack will come soon. I must be prepared. I am not here to fight you, though." The godsbane spoke politely.

"Why should we believe you? You have massacred more of our brethren than I care to mention!" A god shouted, unable to hold back his rage.

"I have killed many things. What I have done to you all barely counts as a massacre in comparison. Your transgressions were not easy to ignore." The godsbane answered diplomatically.

"So why are you here?" A superior divine spirit spoke.

"I wish to make a deal."

The gods were in shock. The godsbane then began to continue speaking.

"A real threat to me and this universe is fast approaching. I do not know if all my strength will be able to defeat it but I have a plan.

"As this entity, one I call the Traveller, sees into my world, I can see into his, it will be gruesome and if I should fail we will all die but if I succeed, the Traveller will be gravely wounded but you as well as this universe will all be saved. I will sleep for some time. But in that time you must grow stronger and hunt whatever presence the Traveller leaves in this world. So that when I awaken I may do combat with the Traveller once more and end this."

This time the godsbane was silent and waited for a response.

"If this threat is as great as you say then we should join forces and finish it off. We could be of great assistance." One of the superior gods said.

"That is impossible. With your current strength, you will barely survive the Traveller's first attack and will die with the second one. You will be nothing more than fodder against him.

"I also do not trust you. The moment I alter my plan around your, so called, assistance I will leave myself open to your betrayal. The Traveller will make all of you turn tail and run, making my plans fall apart. Watch from the relative safety of your realm and you will see I am right.

"Make this promise to me, hunt whatever remains of the Traveller in this world, all of you together will match those weakened fragments and be able to win. Then I will have the strength to battle their origin again when the time comes."

The godsbane spoke harshly but the words rang true.

"What do we get out of this? What if this is a lie and you wish to distract us?"

"I have no reason to lie. I could have wiped you all out two hundred years ago but chose not to. I get bored and some of you kept coming up with interesting things to entertain me." The godsbane spoke seriously. There was not even a shred of mockery in His words and that angered the gods more.

"Bastard!!" Five superior gods charged at the godsbane. They wanted to overpower Him but the five generals behind Him were not for show. They leapt forward and landed with their knees on the backs of the gods.

In fluid motions, they pulled out daggers and slit the throats of the five as if they were nothing.

The five generals leapt off the corpses and returned to their master while five bolts of lightning came down and destroyed the corpses.

The rest were no longer mad when they saw this. The were just terrified.

"Since our deal hasn't been struck, I will treat these actions as the act of individuals and not your pantheon." The godsbane spoke with little sympathy.

The gods realised that He meant it when He said that He could have wiped them out a long time ago.

In the past, their confrontations with the godsbane had only been with Him but clearly, even His subordinates were powerful.

"In return for our pact, you get to keep your lives and you get to spread your religions to the races in this world except for the vampires. They are exclusively mine. Agreed?"

"Agreed..." the twenty superior gods said.

*****

{The Underworld}

"Damn that Hades! The godsbane will punish us all!" The Primordial god of nature cursed as she flew quickly.

Nineteen beams of light flew into the mortal realm were rushing to face the Seed!