Light at the end of the tunnel

My eyes snapped open fearfully as I hungrily searched my surroundings for the imminent danger that had so mercilessly proclaimed my doom.

"Well that was interesting" An amused voice snickered.

I battled with incredulity for a moment. The last thing I remembered was clearly falling through the Abyss, but somehow I was here!?

What's more, I wasn't alone?

"Where am I?". I asked groggily as I surveyed the universe around me filled with stars and coubtless beautiful celestial bodies.

With great shock I finally realised, that the endless amounts of light were peering into my eyes once again, a sensation a dearly missed, however when I tried to touch my two eyes I found that I once once again confronted with two empty sockets.

My fingers stilled as my despair returned and they powerlessness fell to the earth.

I recognized my surroundings as the void in which I which I completed my first primordial refinement.

"This....is the origin of everything, the worlds primal form when it was new, the birth place of the old gods and our last rest."

I turned to the origin of the voice.

It camed from a robed old man with dangerous red eyes, deeper and hasher than mine had been.

His form rippled with unbridled power, however he looked too ancient....ancient enough for each passing second to be hist last and frail enough, to be dispersed by the next strong wind.

A curtain of whitened hair loosely fell to his forehead, and hs skin was pale to the point of abomination.

A dangerously cruel smile sat on his weary and withered face as he said slowly. "Nice to meet you. I am Calyx. God of darkness. You and I are going to have so much fun."

He remarked, a dangerous glint flashing through his eyes. "You....you are the one appeared my soul realm?" I asked slowly as I recognised his dark presence as of the child who held helped me overcome the demonic dragon soul when it threatened to erase my existence.

"Hm yes I find that weak minds are always far less wary of me in that form." Calyx replied with a faint smirk.

"And I made a promise to give you my aid when it was necessary." His eyes clouded with haze as he spoke, as if he remembered memories of a different life.

"You made a promise to help me....To who?" I asked uncertainly.

Calyx responded by simply shaking his head and saying. "You are weak right now, and knowing somethings will only destroy you. When you are powerful enough you will understand everything."

"How do I get out of here." I then asked, my eyes already searching.

"Straight to the point. I respect that!. But the abyss has tainted your body with my residual aura of darkness. To return to it as it is would be suicide.

Your soul however was extracted and anchored by my power before it was similarly affecteded." He replied.

"So, I'm dead?". I asked.

 The old man scratched his head for a moment and then she replied. "No, I guess not. Not as long as your soul still lives.

That is the hard part. If you give me enough of a reason, I can cleanse your body of the darkness within it and return you to it."

"You're a shura?" I questioned, but in response he burst into a rambunctious peal of laughter.

"Quite a sense of humor you have there, but please do not compare me to those lowly mortal peasants."

"You're a god." I realized.

"One out of ten." He said with mock seriousness.

He then began. "First I am a mere soul spirit, formed when my residual soul was merged with the core of my power. A new existence with the meories and will of the original, but ultimately a fading one.

The true me perished long ago.

And secondly I doubt I would fit into your classification of the word god."

 "My father was Shiva, and my mother was Nyx. As a result of the first ever intermythological primordial union I was born the first of my kind, the first Celestialsapien."He breathed.

 "Many others like me appeared over the ages. But we the first 8 were the most powerful.

In terms of pure physical strength I was the weakest of the eight. Yet my power eclipsed all the other living gods by realms.

Being alive felt like the universe was far too small for us, as if it was a fragile prison which could not bear the tiniest fragments of our power.

I for one grew arrogant and unconstrained. Were it not for her…" He paused as if remising a melancholic memory and continued. 

"We all found our martial paths as well as the ones we walked in life. I had the strongest eyes and the strongest connection to darkness. Soon many of us populated he realm. Unlike the old gods we were not bound by human faith.

They were unable to break cycles and without creativity, forced to fade as their memories did.

We had no such constraints. We lived as we willed. 

Perhaps the only downside was the fact that we did not share their immortality.

Haha but with a life span of several tens of millions of years how could we envy immortality.

We were a peaceful race as well, both those divine and demonic tendecies, having transcended all realms of power we understood how worthless all the rage hate and envy that stained mortals were.

We created our own realm; The one Shura's now populate. 

We had a glorious age, a shame it was indeed, that unfettered existences like us with near infinte power could never be allowed to exist.

Nature and balance had to protect themselves....so we were destroyed.

The biggest reason for this was our reproductive prowess, the initial divine gene was very reclusive. Demigods with divine power were very rare. Those who it manifested in could barely perform truly powerful feats.

But there were a few exceptional demigods who broke the trend. Someone like you with a fractional amount of divine blood who can trace your powers not only to Phobos but to his father Mars can only be described as a living miracle.

The true god gene is nothing of the sort. Mortal-Celestialsapien hybrids could become just as powerful as their parent or even more powerful and live just as long.

As such a tumultuous existence how could we be allowed to live..."

His aged expression had sunk deeper and deeper into melancholy the more he spoke and I....listened, it was the best anyone could do at times.

After a while he seemingly came to himself and smiled gently. "Thank you for listening to the rant of an old man." He finally said after a while, then continuing.

"But now we must tend to the reason you came to find me.

Indeed a vile curse afflicts you, it is too rooted in your soul so I can no longer remove it. That only leaves us one option." He didn't continue, rather his crimson eyes focused on my empty eye sockets as he finally concluded.

"Let it devour your soul." 

There was enough truth in his words, I could feel the curse pulsing beneath me as it surged through my being. 

After afflicting me for so long, it could have said to have merged with me entirely.

However I did not panic, rather I heard out Calyx.

He nodded at my still expression. "You are strong indeed." He praised.

"You should see a curse for more than it is. A seed. It lives and it breathes. It knows no other purpose than destruction due to its nature and the reason it was created."

"So you must show it another way, break down all your wards and offer up your soul as a willing sacrifice.

Its rapacity and appetite will increase and it will destroy you even faster, however you must not hesitate to allow it to do so, your sole intent must be to help it gain its sentience." I nodded in understanding, still eerily calm. 

"Thank you". I gratefully nodded at Calyx. Then all was still within me....

Ravenous lightning now encroached my soul.

But I had always found it easy to be selfless. After having infested my soul for so long I had understood its nature. It was used by its mother as mere tool. To perish as I perished. Born thrashing wildly in animalistic pain from the very beginning. Why did it deserve such a fate. Since it could not have a mother it would have a brother. I would be the first to extend my palm to it.

I willed the dragon soul sleep and my souls wardsto 

collapse.

Immediately the endless storm of Kei'eshi's seed rushed froward, destroying everything in its path. I grit my teeth as my form flickered and spasmed, afflicted by a pain that eclipsed all I had suffered.

The pain of having my soul devoured, an agony straight form the cumulative nightmares of the world attacked my mind endlessly.

Yet not once had I thought of lifting my wards, I croaked finally as the curse surged towards the last embers of my existence.

"I name you tempest! Live well!"

***

I awoke surprised to find out that my body though 

only a soul was still substantial. After giving myself 

a few a pats a familiar laugh reached my ears.

"Haha you aren't dead. You are quite the lucky fellow. The curse gained gained sentience at the last moment and forsook its vile path.

It now exists within you as a primal force on par 

with his mother, swimming freely through your soul 

realm as the dragon soul does. Born of you, a 

reflection of you, Call it." Calyx laughed.

I tentatively called. 

"Tempest."

[BOOOOM] A clap of thunder expanded from my 

location and a strange brilliant scarlet light 

brightened the infinite darkness. In my right arm was a flashing dynamic bolt of deep crimson lightning.

It was light and barely tangible but at the same time felt heavy and explosive.

"It it's an original storm of chaos but it seems lightning is it's favorite incarnation.

Either way you could already summon storms with the dragon's blood in you. 

Now you can summon storms of a hundred times the destructive power with a hundredth the energy 

taxation.

 Within my arms tempest cackled, impatient.

"Throw it" Calyx encouraged.

I made a throwing motion with my arm...[BOOOOM].

A pillar of lightning the radius of an oak blanketed my arm and descended toward a nearby forming moon.

Its crown spread endlessly across the fragment, and wild tendrils of scarlet elctricity lashed out it until it had been utterly and completely incinerated into nothing.

"Impressive." Calyx commended. "It seems that I have not let her down after all."

His voice was now extremely melancholic as a complexity I could not comprehend, one born form the vicissitudes of eons of life, settled within his deep crimson eyes.

While I still incredulously stared at the flashing bolt of plasma within my palm, Calyx suddenly rose.

His hunched old figure levitated across the space between us, and his s withered palm moved until it came to rest across my face.

Immediately an over powering drowsiness overcame me as I felt my awareness fade rapidly.

My alarm appeared and disappeared in my mind just as briefly under the forceful influence of Calyx.

'Sleep, you have suffered enough. As 'his' son I hope you are ablebto live a live free of pain and strife henceforth. 

Find your way back home and you will receive my gifts.

To you I entrust the very best of my being, though I hope you will never discover it,

for it also contains my curse of fate.

Sleep.'

He finished.