BXBX NOVEL Chapter 139: Rule #1
"He\'s going to destroy Zola-Prime regardless though." Dina countered.
The three had left the roof and were inside of one of the houses with Gadriel and Gabriell who had now been confirmed to be younger fragments of Ikaris\'s original whole, making them her direct younger siblings by several thousand millenia, and thus, they had the privilege of being closer to her than any of the other gods did.
"Where would we go if that happened?" Gadriel asked, raising her brow at Arla.
"It would take some effort but I think with the power I have stocked up I could create another habitable Zola-Prime-sized celestial body in a matter of minutes." Ikaris casually spoke and shook her head with her arms folded. "What matters is not that I can though, it is the risk of doing it." She explained.
"If the demons retreat to Zola-Prime it will cause chaos, there is no telling if we would get discovered, currently the only ones among us who would stand a chance are Arla, Dina, and myself, and although I am sure now that even Arla after arriving here is strong enough to hold her own, there are thousands of those beings, if they attacked us everyone would likely die."
"So, in conclusion, it is not because he cannot, it is because he has considered our safety that he refuses to go all out from the start and create hell in the heavens."
"You sound so confident of his thoughts and motifs." Gabriell responded as they all watched Sol continue to fight.
"I trust him completely, and have submitted to him completely, outside of what happened earlier, we understand each other on a level exceeding individuality, he sees through my acts and intentions all the time, and I the same." Ikaris huffed and then shifted in her seat when she felt the ground tremor and saw items on shelves rattling as the skies above them rumbled.
"Oh how I wish I could be a part of it:" Ikaris stared at the chandelier swaying above them. "A fight that shakes the foundation of the cosmos, it is a lustful thought." She added.
"You are a lot more battle-frenzied than I imagined a goddess of balance would be."
"I am no longer the goddess of balance though, at least... Not in my entirety." Ikaris mumbled. "That identity was shattered remember; I am only its memory; the largest fragment of what once was, instead it is more accurate to say I am the intent that followed her demise."
"What does that even mean now?" Dina asked, staring at Ikaris as a foreboding feeling caused her skin to break into goosebumps as Ikaris\'s eyes turned crimson for a brief second.
"When it comes to demonkind..." Ikaris stared at the system window, fighting the urge to smile as she watched Sol kill indiscriminately. "When it comes to demonkind I am no better than Sol, sure, I may be reserved to commit the same acts as he so passionately does, but my intentions are the fucking same, I want them dead, all of them, every last one, obliterated down to the-"
"Ikaris!" Dina grabbed her hand dragging her back to the ground while the other three had looks of horror on their faces, Arla in particular was bleeding from her nose while Gabriell stood before her in an attempt to protect her.
"Calm down."
"You are... the embodiment of our hatred..." Gadriel stared at Ikaris, who unlike the other times had completely lost her composure, much like she had done in the Arkadian pantheon, her divine power was rising at such a fast rate that it had begun influencing the gods on the outside who had become physically hostile as they stared to the skies and felt the tremors of Sol\'s fight.
"I am what?" Ikaris calmed down and looked at them.
"Hatred incarnate, the hatred we lack toward demonkind, the drive for revenge we never had I can feel it all in you." Gabriell clarified, but Ikaris only scoffed and shook her head, taking a seat and composing herself as if she had done nothing.
"That is impossible." Ikaris folded her arms and crossed her legs, leaning and looking at Arla wiping her nose, and then at Dina who was doing the same.
"To imply such a thing is to say I am flawed as a goddess, all beings have hate but there has never been any kind of embodiment of hatred, not in recent or primordial history, I would have sensed it the same as I sensed Sol\'s soul across dimensions, such an invaluable asset could have served-"
"Then... what are you then; what is the intent that followed Ikaris\'s demise, if you have no title, and hold no meaning what else could you be other than the hate we all fear and lack?" Gabriell asked, and Ikaris went quiet and started observing the fight again.
"Maybe the reason you never felt it is because you are the door itself."
"Stop making such baseless arguments." Ikaris\'s irises shrunk, and she slowly turned around and stared at Gabriell causing the younger goddess to shudder as she felt a challenge against her existence rise up and shake her soul.
"I hate the demons just as much as any other god who has seen and experienced their cruelty, to address me as one who conceives and manifests hatred as an identity is nothing short of treachery!" She sneered while her eyes went crimson again.
"Power, prowess, fortitude, resistance, I inherited the will of the progenitor, and along with that will came the ability to stand up against demonkind, if nothing else I am the goddess of power, and of change-"
"You have been alone all your existence, you have no idea what kind of god you are, with the violence we have seen from you our eldest, it is a kind assumption at best to not reverence you as an evil god." Gabriell feverishly countered, and for a split moment she flickered in and out of reality when Ikaris stared at her, but before the goddess acted on her impulses and truly killed another god for crossing the line, she stood up and walked out of the room.
"Why would you call her an evil god?" Gadriel stared at her sister shocked, but the younger of the two cradled her head and sighed.
"Do not play hypocrite, you have seen it, we all have, she may be our ancestor, one of the first primordials and the direct descendant and fragment of the true Ikaris, but she is also massively unstable, gods of pantheons fighting against each other is common place, dominance can only be observed through power, but she needs not fight at all, why is it that we all fear her without even seeing her power?
Why does it feel like the Ikaris we are seeing is an incomplete being, and why is there such an abundance of hatred just beneath her surface?" Gabriell asked.
"Her existence feels like a sin in itself, her dominance feels obligatory, like irreverence will lead to slaughter, no god would ever rule through fear, it is the only thing we are unable to do, and yet we all fear her, the only one who does not fear her is the Godslayer."
"I am not afraid of lady Ikaris." Arla folded her handkerchief and shook her head. "In fact it is quite the opposite, I love her, and to say gods cannot rule through fear is null, I have seen it firsthand, the god of dragons; Diablos, was a terrifying being who ruled his subjects with fear, granting them power to do his bidding." She tried debunking Gabriell\'s claims.
"Do not mistake fear and greed elf, dragons are greedy, they spend their existences amassing power to gain sovereignty over their peers and enemies, as a god that instinct is mandatory and more heightened than ever, but she has no such trait, she is the descendant of a being that never raised a hand in combat, who always sought the middle ground peacefully, choosing to shatter her existence and spread it across the cosmos rather than fight, and yet she is the most violent god I have ever seen or heard of.
"She had to fight, didn\'t she save your life?"
"You are missing the point here, Arla," Gabriell shook her head while Dina left in search of Ikaris outside. "She had a choice, The Godslayer protects her, had she chosen to remain behind him he would have easily stood before her and fought, but she chose to fight because she wanted to, she chose to kill demons because it is a yearning that pulls her, she is so full of violence-"
"Enough." Gadriel rested her hand on her sisters head staring down on her. "This is blatant prejudice, Gabriell, shut it; to regard our saviour with such disrespect, have you no sense of gratitude?"
"I am making a point-"
"Ikaris is not perfect." Arla interjected.
"I do not believe that any being is perfect, not since the first light and the first darkness, we are all entities muddled with flaws and imperfections, personally I do not care if she is hateful, I am happy for it, compared to what she has done here, and the many gods she saved, she singlehandedly rescued hundreds of millions, maybe over a billion lives on my homeworld, had she chosen to stand at the side like the other gods we would have all died." Arla stared at the goddesses next to her.
"I love her, I adore her, I respect her, I worship the ground she walks on and she air she breathes, if she is hateful to the demons then let her be, the entirety of her existence and all her hard work has been plagued and destroyed by them not once, but twice, how many of us can say we lost everything twice?" She asked.
"What right do you have to-"
"I am giving you the alternative to being ungrateful." Arla stared up at Gabriell. "To speak ill of and accuse the one who saved you from the horrors of the demons... You are clearly envious of her, whether it be because of master Vestic, or because of the fact that she is able to fight back at all; you are."
"I implore you to look within yourself before you cast judgement on others, especially when that other is your benefactor and ancestor, is that not the first and most important rule of divinity?"