Chapter 1: A Father's Love (Edited)

His laughter shook the expanse of his ceaseless palace, etching quite a magnificent expression of embarrassment on his daughter's complexion.

'D-Did I say anything funny? What's happening? I never once saw him like this.' She thought deeply. Because even in the countless epochs she had been with her father, she never heard him utter even a single word that betrays even an ounce emotion, much less something like this---a laugh of mania. She was genuinely surprised.

"Father?..." She tried to break his father's laughter that seemed to play on repeat like a broken disc.

His abnormally long laugh was finally brought into a sudden horrifying halt, and then he sat on his throne that dwarfed his size while clearing his throat.

"You infantile egomaniac... How come you still have the audacity to stand before me after you have caused the downfall of one of my universes just... because... of a fucking... dick!?!?" Holding his head, Dipledius growled intensely while his eyes betrayed, once again, the forbidden vertical slit accompanied by a sibilant roar demanding a subservient kneel from those who heard it. But this time, it seems it is now beyond his control.

"AHHH!" Iliana tried to remain conscious under this pressuring tremor, reminiscing the event that she thinks angered his father so, but his reaction then wasn't as extreme as this, what changed? She thought.

She then looked up and glimpsed at her father's face. She triggered her innate gift---The Heavy Pupils of Ubiquity, and the room was lit with an overpowering brightness, but what she saw made her hold her breath, because of the sheer diabolical power hidden within her father's eyes, something she did not think he possessed; and something she do not think he should possess.

She wanted to know more, so she pushed her eyes to the limit. Now, the vast gilded throne room was completely blanketed with light. A light that's perfect, a light so pure that it doesn't even allow itself to cast a shadow.

But she quickly regretted it, Dipledius's eyes suddenly pulsated, it angrily rebuked the perfect light with a most malevolent darkness, avariciously devouring its every semblance, like a Heavenly serpent swallowing the Sun. In a blink of an eye, for half an incense stick, the firmament succumbed into an absolute darkness.

---------------------------------------------------

The Sacrosanct Sanctum of the Final Axe (Theastius's abode)

Theastius opened his eyes but failed to see anything other than himself. It is as if he was separated from the firmament. Normally, the deprivation of light doesn't prevent a God from seeing, they are not shackled by the same mortal limitations, you see.

'What is happening?' He thought while thinking about 'that man'. The sudden surge of power from that man's territory and the disturbance that disrupted their visions almost happened simultaneously. He thought about this carefully while grabbing the weapon of might that his superior bestowed upon him, 'the Final Axe'. With this, he blipped outside.

Standing on the sky, he held the axe with a single arm and a bright ring suddenly manifested behind his head like a halo. His eyes are etched with strange runes saying 'right' on the left pupil and 'hand' on the right, the proof of his rank in the godly hierarchy second only from the top. His veins are filled with golden light, brimming with inexhaustible power.

But it didn't stop there, sixteen draconic wings of divine proportions sprouted from his back, partially illuminating the firmament that's devoid of light.

'I can probably solve this by myself. I need not alarm the 'Lord' yet.' And then he just slashed.

HUP!

*BANG* *BOOM*

The firmament trembled from this overwhelming display of power that cracked even 'nothingness' which the firmament was sheltered in. The God-people breathed a sigh of relief when the darkness finally receded.

Whoo!

'As I thou-' Theastius was about to undo his transformation when the darkness suddenly regained its former foothold, enveloping the entire firmament once more.

'Fuck! What is this thing!' He slashed and slashed and slashed, but just like a persistent demon, it kept coming back relentlessly.

With that, he called his subordinates, the Celestials---the beings said to be the closest to the Gods.

----------------------------------

On Dipledius's side

'Vertical pupils. Is that a dragon's?... No... its not... Its something different... something more sinister' Iliana deduced, touching the lid of her eyes, as she felt a viscous liquid pouring out; a merciless pain suddenly followed. It was blood, she agonizingly thought.

When the serpent's eyes swallowed light, Iliana, with bloodied eyes, dragged herself away from the menacing stare of this reptilian predator. She can't see anything, but when she tried to, a pair of blood-red orbs of abyss stared back at her. But before she can react, Dipledius shrieked in pain once more, trying to resist the encroaching invasion of this irrationality.

Both of them screamed in resistance of the pain that has enveloped the pair. Tremors got crueler and crueler, as if the firmament itself is rejecting the vengeful existence within Dipledius. And then suddenly, chains emboldened with something divine manifested from the void, attempting to subdue this disturbing aberration.

*CLANK* *CLANK*

The golden chains held Dipledius like a man in a crucifix. The second most powerful being in the entire firmament, who is the judge, the jury, and the adjudicator of multiple universes, was subdued effortlessly by these chains.

Iliana saw this, seeing the familiar chains, and her consciousness slowly fading away. "Those are... father's chains, aren't they...?"

"Ilianaa!" A voice distraught with fear, anxiety, and an overwhelming amount of worry came from the gates of the throne room. It frantically called for Iliana, seeing her in an almost lifeless state.

"Dipledius! What the f*ck have you done!" She is clearly frenzied after witnessing her daughter in catatonia. The gleaming light emanating from the golden chains revealed the face of a Goddess distorted with rage. But even then, her allure that made it look like as if she was the incarnation of beauty and elegance itself, hasn't dwindled even a bit.

"Dipledius...?" She glimpsed at her husband, almost unconscious and hanged by golden chains made with his own power. His left eye was already corrupted with the venomous malevolence of the serpent, the vertical slit being the evidence. But his right one it seems, hasn't given up yet. Just like Theastius, strange golden runes were predominantly apparent in the pupil of his eye, the only difference is, Dipledius's right one, instead of the rune 'hand', it was etched with the earthly symbol of... the 'Infinity'!

*BOOM* *BANG*

Hearing the labored efforts of Theastius from the other side, in the Eastern Hemisphere, Dipledius seemed to have been awoken from his momentary slumber.

His remaining unadulterated eye glistened, collapsing the chains that tried to shackle his left hand. With his freed limb, he tried to reach for the woman holding his daughter, and raggedly said "Anatolia...my love."

The Goddess shuddered. It's her first time being showered with such a word of affection.

But just when she was about to respond in reply, Dipledius opened his mouth again, and bellowed.

"With the might of the Pontifex Maximus, I, Dipledius SoLame, command thee with the Divine Authority of my true name, to be gone and be banished from this holy grounds!"

As if on cue, markings of runic symbols all over his body glimmered with a blinding azure light, healing his daughter's injuries and purifying the impurities that the serpent had let loose in his palace. But then suddenly, his eyelids shut close, the surge of power declined, and the azure emanation from his runic tattoos waned in weakness.

"Father...?!?" Iliana, struggling to get up, ardently screamed.

"Darling..." Anatolia dejectedly looked up and lamented when she felt that his husband's illuminating presence has already vanished.

The western heavenly domain stood at an eerie standstill. They all thought that Dipledius had been slain and fallen. But they knew it wasn't that easy to slay a God that existed since the primordial chaos.

Just as they thought, enormous glowing eyelids appeared abruptly on the starless sky of the firmament. And gradually, these doors of light burst open, imprinted by the symbol of infinity, it revealed two golden pupils that stared calmly at the citadel, as if nothing can ever take away this peaceful gaze. Then the infinities from both his eyes gloriously throbbed, and unbelievably, from his lifeless body, his hand bolted upwards, and at that moment, his thumb and middle finger met...then, SNAP!

"Infinitus Collosus" Dipledius proclaimed silently.

His divinity rippled destructively across the entire firmament, wrapping it with a peaceful silence. The disquiet was undone, returning everything back to as it was.

"Holy Mother of God!" Theastius grimly clenched his fists, as his hair was blown away by this conflagration of tangible shockwaves. He is visibly gripped by this phenomenon.