《The Day of Ascension》 The Spot on the Sun A speck, that¡¯s all that they were, that¡¯s all they¡¯d ever been. What a terrible thing to realise now on the edge of the sun when they were about to die to aid in the creation of a god. A genocidal monster, that¡¯s what this would unleash, they realised as reality began to crack and warp.¡± You still there, Priest Delta? Your belief is faltering; I hope your faith is not wavering. Heresy cannot be allowed on this vessel¡±, the archpriest¡¯s voice crackled over the intercom. ¡°Yes sir¡±, their voice crackled back. The ship, forged of glowing ore and belief, flew closer and closer to the sun as the central passenger, the one everyone here worshipped above all else, sat in the ship¡¯s core. This figure began to carve increasingly intricate runes into their flesh. Patterns formed and warped on their skin as blood poured out of their wounds towards the reactor. Where it touched, it began to glow brighter and brighter as the reactor began to dim. The passenger¡¯s face formed into a grin as their ship approached the sun, and their blood turned and started floating towards the star, the lights inside of the reactor room flickering and the shadows seemingly crawling towards the figure. The priest felt themself be gripped in terror. As he realised what was occurring, he felt a whisper crawl into the back of his mind, a whisper of burning flame, of colliding hydrogen, of burning plasma, of the fusions that gave life to his species. ¡°WHAT HAVE YOU TO SAY?¡± The whisper shifted to a deafening scream in his mind. ¡°What are you,¡± he thought as he felt his mind start to burn. As he felt his faith turn to fear and hatred of what he would create. ¡°I AM THE ONE WHO IS MADE OF FIRE, OF THAT MOST MIGHTY OF REACTIONS, OF HELIUM, OF HYDROGEN. I AM THE REASON YOU LIVE, AND YOU WOULD DARE TRY AND STEAL MY POWER,¡± The voice roared. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. ¡°I¡®m sorry, I did not know¡± The priest whimpered. ¡°I¡¯m not¡±, a new voice said. It was cool and calculated. Its very presence seemed to steal the power of the roaring. It was the voice of nothing, of entropy, of what is left behind when there is no light, no power. It was the reason people feared the shadows. It was the monster that had lurked there since humanity first could think. ¡°You¡¯re both here perfect¡±, the passenger¡¯s voice said. ¡±You can both die at once.¡± Then, the sun flickered, and a figure was ripped from it. The plasma of the star coalesced forward in a blinding flash of destruction. It was colossal, the size of an asteroid, its limbs forged of flame and plasma, each muscular and perfect. From the shadow that was formed in that instance, another figure formed one that coalesced from the darkness. It was tall and thin, each spindly arm seeming to reach towards them. Its proportions were off, its arms draping down to its feet, and its head seemed too big. Then the ship exploded around him, and from it, the final figure walked, the passenger. Runes were carved into his flesh, and the blood that poured from them glowed as he floated towards the two in front of the sun. The passenger reached out towards the two figures, and his blood lunged forward. As the priest¡¯s vision faded, he witnessed the blood touch the figures. He witnessed the flames of a sun-given flesh extinguish themselves as they flowed into the blood of a new god. He witnessed the monster that had stalked in the shadows since before his species had even existed begin to bleed from every pore and orifice, its blood flowed into the passenger¡¯s blood. The priest tried to scream as he witnessed what he aided in creating; the passenger turned towards him even though no sound came out and reached out towards him with a kind smile on his face. And then¡­ nothing. Just the laughter of a new god and the screaming of an injured star. The Tide Rises The ascendancy of the tides "Why are we here on this convention-forsaken piece of rock?" I mumbled, kicking at the pebbles that covered this lonely outcrop. "Because this lonely rock is the closest we can get to the centre of this ocean without the UNS noticing," Darick replied "And why do we need to be here again?" "Because this is the largest naturally formed body of water in all of the Sol, underneath the ice is an ocean spanning the entirety of Titan." As he spoke his visor began to fog up. "Really, there''s liquid water on this hunk of rock?" "It''s not water, but it''s an ocean nonetheless", Darick said, his eyes glinting as he surveyed the frozen wastes below us. He started to walk down the side of the outcropping, his boots crunching into the methane snow as he approached the edge of the outcrop. "Well, how can we get to it if it''s under all this ice?" I asked, trailing behind him "That''s where our ship comes in." " You want our ship to open fire on hundreds of meters of methane ice." ''''Exactly," he said as he reached the end of the outcrop and placed a metallic cylinder. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. "Now, we both need to run." he said calmly before slamming his fist into a button on his suit and sprinting away. "Wh-" I said before I looked up and saw the unmistakable glow of charging covenant cannons. I bolted in the same direction as Darick just in time as a massive laser slammed into the ice I was a mere 10 meters away from. I felt a pressure wave, and then what felt like my head exploding. I woke up in the centre of the outcropping, a sea of liquid methane swirling around us. "What happened?" I said, or at least I think I said. The ringing in my ears made it hard to tell. Regardless of whether I had actually said that, Darick replied, "It turns out that the methane right where we shot it decided to explode, it worked out quite well for us though, but the explosion did rupture your ear drums." "That explains the splitting headache" "Indeed, however no time to waste now ascension is near" " You never did tell me how you intend to ascend; with the others it mostly makes sense but with you-you brought no sacrifices or effigies, and you''re not here to kill someone, so what are you planning?" "That''s where you''re wrong, I do have a sacrifice." He said as hundreds of ships warped in above us, their cannons glowing in a purple light. "What better way to become a god of the ocean than to kill one?" he said The ships fired The world exploded around me. Literally. I felt myself being ripped apart, but right before I died, time slowed for me. At the centre of the explosion stood Darick. I felt myself teeter on the edge of oblivion, right as the explosion imploded inwards on Darick. Leaving me bleeding out in the bottom of a crater that I couldn''t see the edge of. At the centre of it stood Darick, but he was different; his skin had turned a dark shade of blue, and he was taller. In one hand he held a shield that looked to be carved from still liquid blood, in the other, a blade carved from what looked to be flowing water, and as I bled out, I felt the very blood in veins flow towards him as if it was answering that call of the tide. The Reality Rot A thousand folk, a thousand souls burning against the darkness of ignorance that the rest of the world lived in, their lady, the lady of plague, sat in the centre, her sermon reaching its crescendo. These were her lords of plague, the ones who had carved through the UNEPDF¡¯s unthinking legions. Who had turned their beating bodies into hollow, bloated carcasses with her ladies¡¯ most holy of plagues. The ones who had led legions to free this world from the sin of purity. Who had followed their lady against HEL and subdued her to the great lord of energy himself, whose blessing they had been granted for such an act. Today, they would ascend higher; they would create a new disease, one that would stain reality itself. What they did not know was that they would not be a part of spreading this disease but that they and all present would die to create it. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! Her holy sermon reached its crescendo, her words forming boils and popping them in instants on the skin of those present, and then they fell, all of them, the disease consuming them in an instant, their skin rotting, and the viruses inside their now ruptured cell flew towards her as she stood in the centre. Flashes of light left their bodies as their souls left them flowing into the centre. Reality screamed as her siblings ascended all around the world. When the dust settled, she stood there. An 18-foot-tall titan, she was hung in rotting finery, her skin consumed in boils and rashes, her eyes empty pits of nothingness as if they had been carved out of her skull, leaving behind two weeping holes. It was not a woman who stood her now, not a daemon but something far worse. A rot on reality, a blight on spacetime, the great lady of plague.