33. Markings

It was a dangerous time to be alive on Earth.

OR

It could be argued that it was the safest time to be Alive on Earth.

This debate started on online forums several years ago when the supernatural barrier and filter called the Veil, suddenly, stopped clouding humanity's eyes.

It was the year 2020, 3 years after the Veil had been lifted from the eyes of mortals, Levana's imposing figure could be seen standing on a stage. The 29-year-old goddess faced the crowd with her head held high. Her eyes glowed royal purple, the same colour her eyes had been glowing ever since she spoke to her father 10 years ago.

Levana was known as The Goddess of Contracts, Oaths, Promises, Heat and Reality to the whole world. The Queen of the Leva Pantheon. The Chief Goddess of the new Leva religion. A religion that preached honesty and free will.

Levana was also known as The Goddess who warped reality as She pleased and was the slayer of many gods. She was known as a fierce warrior Goddess who did not back down from fights no matter who challenged Her. No matter whether deity or mortal, whoever dared to issue a formal challenge to her would die the honourable death they wished for.

Her arms were stained with gold and red from the blood of deities and mortals that she had spilt. Her glowing armour seared the eyes of those who dared stare at Her body. Her eyes plunged all that dared to stare into its deep purple into despair and madness.

...

Spreading out her arms, Levana address the crowd that had come to hear her words. They literally couldn't see her after all. Her armour prevented that. In the slow time that she was used to, she scanned the crowd for deities or people she recognised.

She spotted all eight of her subordinates, the animals and humans that she had alleviated to godhood. However, she did not see any of her friends nor did she see any of her allied deities. She quickly suppressed her depression as she spotted her first believer, her pope in a sense, Ayita.

" I am glad to see so many people turn up today!" Her enhanced voice echoed across space reaching all the people in the stadium and the helicopters that hovered around. The depressing thought, that so many strangers had turned up but none of her friends did, ran through her before she once again, suppressed it.

" Today, I received an invitation from the Biblical God! To meet Him, Odin, Horus, Vishnu, Lugh and Amaterasu!" The crowd cheered at her seemingly gleeful exclamation. They assumed this meeting must be good for Levana in some way and hence useful to her believers.

" It seems that I am now part of the big leagues! Now, the Leva Religion shall spread further. What do we preach?!" She asked the crowd and the crowd answered.

" HONESTY!!!" Levana smiled as she heard this, indeed her entire religion was built on honesty.

" FREEWILL!!!" Levana's smile widened, that was yet another thing that she had spoken of. She had once used a power similar to mind control and it had left a bad taste in her mouth.

" Violence!" This was only spoken by a small group. They looked like thugs but were still happily cheering her on. She took note of this group and waited for the crowd to finish. While she did like fighting, she had not preached violence.

" PEACE!!!" This one upturned Levana's smile. She had not in fact preached peace. Her believers had made that one up all on their own. She had decided not to correct them. After all, it was true that if everyone were to come under her rule there would be peace.

" Hey, hey! I heard that! I heard a group say violence! I don't preach violence. It is just that violence is sometimes necessary to keep the peace, alright?!" The people cheered as she promoted the "peace" part.

In the current era they were in, the era of the gods, peace was something of a rare commodity that not even the rich can get easily. With how whimsical most of the gods are, a battle could break out just about anywhere. In fact, Greece and most of the USA were in pieces due to the civil war that the Greek Pantheon was going through.

" Anyway, I have decided to stop the civil war that has destroyed most of the great country that used to be America. A moment of silence for all the people who have died from this incident." As she said so, there was truly a moment of silence, only the helicopters could be heard.

" So, in order to stop the Greek Pantheon's rampage, I have decided to kill Ares, the Greek god of war. They have a civil war. So if I take away the "war" they shall just be civil, right? RIGHT?!" As she raised her voice the crowd cheered and some even began laughing. They didn't really know how the whole gods business worked. They just held hope that their chosen religion's Goddess would protect them.

" YEAH!!!" Levana basked in the cheers, though her heart wasn't entirely in it. She enjoyed fighting, sure. However, killing Ares would bring her no joy, there was not going to be a fight. Just a brutal murder. However, she had an image to keep up.

" Today, at this time, this moment. I announce the end of the Greek Pantheon's civil war." As Levana spoke, her voice began started to reverberate. Activating her Omnipotence for a microsecond, she teleported Ares in front of her with his back facing her.

In that same microsecond, she plunged her arm into Ares' back, and her hand exited his chest holding his still-beating heart. Still in that microsecond, she created a giant screen above the entire USA showing the subsequent death of the Greek God of war.

After what seemed like days to Levana, the microsecond passed and her power faded, she was returned to her base level of power. A shocked Ares was unable to even scream as she died a gruesome death. The god's corpse immediately started disintegrating, turning into golden dust.

However, Levana stopped the effect using her power over reality and the corpse shrunk to the size of a pill and promptly landed on her other hand's palm. The crowd cheered as they watched this happen. The death of a god was a rare sight, it was so rare that it could only be seen when Levana was doing it.

Tossing the pill-sized corpse in her mouth, Levana ground the corpse with her teeth and swallowed. Licking her lips for added drama, she addressed the crowd once more.

" That's it for today! It is time for all of you to go home!" Once again, Levana became Omnipotent for a microsecond and with a snap of her fingers. The entire crowd disappeared, and each individual returned to their place of dwelling.

The only people left in the stadium were the helicopters which had reporters on them, her priests and priestesses, her subordinates and herself. Waving her arm, the helicopters disappeared and were returned to the special buildings they had been assigned.

As her power faded, Levana continued to stand still on the stage. Her priests and priestesses began cleaning up the stadium. Her subordinates or children as they called themselves made their way up onto the stage and embraced their "mother".

Levana's glowing eyes continued to stare forward at nothing. Then, she closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh. She felt the warmth of her "children"'s hugs, it was close to what she wanted to feel but not quite right. Her "children" did not love her, they felt gratitude, they idolised her, and she was their queen, not their mother.

Levana gave each "child" a hug and teleported to a cave.

HER cave.

There she let the glowing armour fall off her body. Now naked, she examined herself in the mirror she had brought to the cave. Her arms had glowing spots of gold and dried stains of blood. She was unsure why, but these markings could not be removed. Cutting off her arms and letting them regenerate had not rid her of them, nothing would be able to get rid of them.

Other than those markings, her body had no scars despite the many wounds she had taken over the years. Correction, her body almost had no scars. On her back, there were scars that looked like claw marks and a more recent scar that looked like a scorch mark in the shape of the symbol of the sun.

A tear dripped from Levana's ever-glowing purple eyes down her face as she stared at the mirror.