God of Destruction: Living Among Mortals

Above dimension, above time, and above space. The place he was in was nearly above the pinnacle of the Universe.

The light flared, and for an instant, he saw it clearly. Not with eyes, but with the part of himself that still hung to logic. It was not a flame, not a star, not anything he could name. It was like a convergence, completely and utterly pure and unyielding, the origin and destination, the beginning and the end pressed into one. His soul trembled just by thinking it.

The voice returned, closer now, as if it were inside him, and if he were to describe this voice, he could do it as a gentle breeze in the summer, sitting near the beach, and that of a girl, like a little sister: "Nova."

It wasn't commanding. It wasn't pleading. It felt inevitable.

He moved toward it, though there was no movement. The void vent, folded, carrying him. His hands trembled; he couldn't help it, since his soul was making them tremble, as his mind cracked like the Titanic hitting the iceberg.

The light felt closer now, almost brushing his skin, almost burning him with its raw presence, as if he was standing in front of divinity.

He didn't know if he was chasing it or maybe it was chasing him. He only knew the "distance" between them was thinning, unraveling, pulling him into a place where distance was no longer applicable. As if the concept of having distance disappeared, and the concept of not having distance also disappeared.

The light pulsed again, and the voice whispered again, like a blade slicing the nucleus of an atom, powerful, yet soft as a breeze: "You are not done, yet..."

She wanted to say something more, but stopped, and Nova could feel like the girl on the other end was smiling at him gently, with content, as if teasing him.

The void quivered as if something beyond it was rising from its ashes. The void felt alive, alive in a way that somewhat terrified Nova, yet also calmed him, as if assuring him that his previous intuition was correct.

The light brightened, then crumbled. It did not shatter like glass, but instead expanded outward, exploding silently into infinitesimal pieces. Every fragment was radiant, each one kind of like a droplet of the "place" he was in.

They scattered everywhere, and nowhere. Becoming sparks, or resembling stars, or specks of dust so fine they could have been mistaken for logic itself.

Nova's soul recoiled, then stretched forward, captivated. He could feel each fragment touch him as they drifted, as if his being were transparent.

They moved through him, some clinging for a moment, some slipping away, but each left warmth, small and fleeting.

And then, impossibly, the fragments converged.

It was not a return, not the way shattered glass could reform into the same brittle shape. Instead, it was kind of like evolution. The pieces of light reassembled themselves, as if guided by hands beyond that of the mortal realm.

Lines curved, folds deepened, structure took hold. Each piece locked into the next like a 6-star constellation, just perfect, knitting a design that had always existed, waiting to be revealed.

Color returned first, soft at its edges. From that brilliance emerged skin, so smooth, so pale, as if it glowed faintly under the moonlight reflected on still water. It took shape with perfection, settling into the slender form of a young woman.

She was small, but not delight enough to break easily, standing at five feet four inches. Her hair cascaded around her shoulders like strands of silk, each motion flowing as if water had learned to dance.

Her eyes opened next, eyes that glowed a striking aquamarine, piercing yet playfully teasing, holding the might of the water supply in the universe, with depth. They were beautiful, almost surreal, and they looked at him not with judgment, but with delight.

Her lips curved upward, the faintest, almost genuine, kindhearted smile. A smile that was neither childish nor otherworldly, but something suspended in between.

Something that carried the innocence of a girl seeing the world for the first time, and the strength of someone who had walked far further than her age said otherwise.

The fragments of light wrapped themselves around her, clothing her in a radiance that warmed up the "place". Yet when she stepped forward, it was not divinity that moved; it was just a girl. A girl who seemed impossibly real, impossibly human, impossibly alive in this place above life itself.

Nova's chest tightened. His breath caught, though breath should have been meaningless here.

She tilted her head, strands of white hair spilling across her cheek. Her aquamarine eyes sparkled with mischief, with curiosity, with the reckless enthusiasm of someone who found joy in simply existing.

There was a childlike energy about her, boundless and pure, as though the universe itself had been waiting to reveal this side of itself.

And yet, despite her playful presence, her shape carried maturity. She appeared as though eighteen, balanced perfectly between youth and adulthood, her figure divine, angelic, her bearing natural. Innocence and understanding coexisted in her, in a way that felt both strange and inevitable.

Her smile widened, and she put her hands behind her back, somewhat interlocking them together, leaning forward slightly, as though sharing a secret that only he was allowed to hear.

For a heartbeat, Nova could have sworn she laughed, light, melodic, free, though no sound reached him.

She was not the void, not the light, not the voice alone. She was all of them, condensed into something his mortal mind could understand, wrapped in a form that felt familiar, safe, and utterly untouchable.

Nova trembled, his soul shaken by her radiance. She radiated life itself, playful and radiant, and yet when he looked at her, he felt the weight of eternity condensed into a smile.

"Elesch," he suddenly spoke, his voice echoing throughout the void. Then, everything returned to silence as if the echo never existed to begin with.