RISE OF THE SWARM

In another place, a giant, majestic castle could be seen floating atop multi colored clouds. The air shimmered with golden particles that illuminated the place. White fish with feathery wings jumped in and out of the cloud sea with jolly, golden engravings glistening on their back.

The castle was beautiful beyond words, a true celestial monument. it white walls glimmered, bearing no fault; golden runic engravings covered its surface. Large statues of unknown figures were implanted on the ground, their faces beautiful beyond compare.

The temple of the gods. A mystical place in the celestial realm, where gods and demigods alike lived, is also the goal of every mortal.

Inside the scene was far different from the one outside. Ten figures could be seen sitting around a large table. The mana in the air shook, strained by the immense power of the figures there. This was the pantheon of the divines, a gathering of the ten strongest gods in the divine realm. They sat at the table of concord, a vast circular plane of obsidian that reflected not their images. Above them, a nebula of captured starlight swirled in a silent, eternal dance.

At its head sat Vitalis, the god of destruction. Dressed in glistening purple armor, a crown sat atop his head, displaying his position as leader of the gods present. He leaned back in his throne, his head resting on his hand as he watched the gods in front of him argue.

"Enough." He said, his voice low and devoid of emotion, yet it contained immense power. The rest of the gods went quiet, turning to him.

"The incursions from the Abyssal Rifts on the material plane have increased by seventeen percent in the last celestial cycle," he continued. He raised his hand as black sand from the table began rising, coalescing into a giant black sphere. A three-dimensional map of the world. Parts of the sphere began glowing red, signaling where the incursions had begun.

"The mortal races are beginning to falter. Their prayers a constant, desperate hum; their faith in us begins to waver." He finished.

A goddess on the side with bright golden hair nodded. Lyra the goddess of light. A golden crown made of pure light floated right above her head, matching her bright golden eyes. "We should divert some more of power to bolster their factions to answer their prayers. But I'm worried the barriers....they are thinning way too fast. They are thinner than they have even been since the great binding." She trailed off, the final two words lingering in the air like a curse.

A silence pervaded the pantheon like never before. An unspoken name echoed deep in their minds, their eternal enemy, Motarion, the leader of the abyss, as well as the strongest being to have ever lived. He had been bound and imprisoned in the deepest part of chaos by the pantheons' combined might as well as with other gods in the divine realm, in the war of chaos, a battle that nearly destroyed the world itself.

"The chains and seal will hold," rumbled Borin, God of the forge and the mountain deep. His skin was deep brown, akin to the earth itself, his red eyes burned with resolve as he caressed his thick brown beard. "They were forged in the flames of origin and quenched in the void itself. They are absolute. They cannot and will not break. This is nothing more than agitation, the stirring of a caged beast," he finished, leaning back in his throne.

"And yet the abyss stirs with a purpose it hasn't shown in eons," a new voice interjected. Eliora, the goddess of life, caressed a white bunny that rested on her lap. "Its attacks are no longer random; the incursions are specifically happening where the world skin is thin or thinning. Its as if the incursions are being guided by something, perhaps a cruel intelligence is once again reawakening." She finished ominously.

"To give it credit is to empower it we must not..." Victoria, the goddess of war, said before getting interjected.

From the giant golden doors that lead into the chamber, a woman burst through. She was rugged, clearly shaken by something. Her brown hair had turned messy, her clothes torn to shreds, barely clinging to her body, around her neck a crystal necklace of different colors hung, some of them cracked. She was Ionia, a priestess, a minor goddess of oracles.

She turned to the pantheon falling to her knees.

"Heed me!" she cried, her voice a strained, dissonant symphony of breaking glass and dying echoes. "The veil is torn! I have seen! I have seen!"

Vitalis frowned he knew this woman well, it wasn't the first time she had come claiming to have foreseen a doomed future. The coming of the ice giants, the rising of the lost city of Zen, and many more that he didn't bother to remember.

"Leave." He commanded.

A powerful wave of energy was released from his being, filling the room. It fully struck Ionia, sending her crashing into a wall. She sat back up, spitting golden ichor, the blood of the gods. She looked up at Vitalis, her blank white eyes stained with red, as golden blood began pouring like tears.

"I fear I can't do that, I have SEEN, and I fear if we don't intervene, it will be our end." she proclaimed.

"Hmph, leave now, wench or I will disembowel you right where you stand." A figure on the table said.

He was a large, muscular figure, tribal tattoos etched on every inch of his body, his eyes glowed a deep, smothering amber as he stared at Ionia, his teeth lengthening to form large canines. On lion hide covered him. This was valir, the god beast.

"We have heard plenty of your tales here, wench; your false prophecies offer no use." He rumbled.

"NO, you have to listen or this will be the end of us. A great enemy has arrived onto the world. We must kill it at once." She continued forcing up a mouthful of golden ichor.