The Guardian gods

With a monumental effort, he reached the tower. His hands, burning and cracking under the strain, wrapped around its base. With a roar, he pulled, but there was some resistance and the tower was resisting being moved.

Ikenga was having none of that as from behind his back two golden arm constructs emerged latching on to the tower and he pulled again. The entire structure from its orbit and with a mighty heave, threw it away from the star and into the cold, silent vacuum of deep space. Ikenga would come back for it but now it needs to keep drifting.

His work done, Ikenga turned back to the diamond orb containing Vellok. The orb was now a terrifyingly brilliant prison, glowing with the light it had stolen. The light inside was a furious storm, a silent testament to the trapped angel's rage. Ikenga knew what was coming next. The angel, stripped of its host's containment would have no choice but to break free.

The angel would not be in a good mood when it finally broke free. Ikenga looked at the star, shaking his head. Vellok's use of its power was negligible, but the same could not be said for the angel.

With that in mind, Ikenga flew to the diamond orb and began to push it. He pushed it away from the star until the star was nothing more than a glowing dot in the distance.

He could feel the rising heat from the orb, a sign of Vellok's internal struggle, yet the mage was still hesitating to let go of the seal. Ikenga shrank, his humanoid form and diamond armor dissolving as he returned to his human form.

"Come to me," Ikenga commanded. The curse tattoos on his skin glowed for a moment, then calmed.

The space behind him shattered, and from the fractured void, a familiar object slowly emerged. From its depths, a celestial body, once a barren moon, now emerged with the slow and deliberate grace. It's appearance, gradually unfolding. First came the faintest glow of an atmosphere, a thin, shimmering veil of cobalt blue that caught the light of distant stars. Then, the outlines of continents became visible, not as jagged masses of rock, but as verdant landscapes painted in a thousand shades of green and brown.

It was a world fully formed. Great, swirling storms, like brushstrokes, moved across the surface of vast body of water, and colossal mountain ranges pierced through the cloud cover.

The fractured space behind Ikenga healed, and his body, dispersing into countless motes of light, fell into his summoned planet. He was no longer just Ikenga; he was now the world itself, his consciousness spread across its core. He could feel his divine energy refilling, drawn from the very life he had created.

Meanwhile, the diamond orb, containing the furious Vellok and the angel, was pulled by the planet's gravity. A large clearing appeared on the world's surface, made by the living planet itself. The island-sized diamond sphere descended and settled into the open space. The clearing, after the diamond landed, began to fill with glowing, bioluminescent plants, drawn to the intense energy radiating from the orb.

Ikenga, now at the planet's core, saw the orb and was intrigued by a new idea: sealing the angel within this new world before it could break free. He entertained the thought for a moment before letting it go. He saw no practical use in doing so, and more importantly, he had yet to present himself as an enemy. For now, Ikenga was content to be viewed as a neutral presence.

While his divine energy refilled, Ikenga's attention was divided. He was also monitoring the goblin world through a glowing plant with his eye. The plant hadn't come with the planet; it had been left behind. The sight that met his gaze made him pause. He shook his head with a bitter smile.

The moment Ikenga's curse tattooed glowed, and the moon was torn from its orbit, the goblin world began to die. It didn't happen in a flash of fire or a cosmic explosion. Instead, it was a slow, creeping terror that began with the planet's very breath.

The oceans, once a predictable cycle of ebb and flow, began to recoil. The tides, which had been a constant for millennia, were slowly being pushed away, leaving miles of glistening, barren seabed exposed . Coastal cities that once thrived on the shoreline were left stranded, their harbors now vast stretches of mud and people panicking.

The loss of this fundamental rhythm didn't just affect the water; it threw the world's entire climate into chaos. The winds grew erratic, storms changed their courses, and the gentle cycles of seasons began to unravel.

But the most profound horror was in the sky. The moon, a familiar and comforting presence, was simply gone. The night was now a suffocating void, a cold and terrifying darkness that swallowed the stars. The goblins didn't need to understand the complex physics of what was happening. They felt it in the shuddering of their world, the collapse of their way of life, and the emptiness in the night sky.

Ikenga, now one with his newly-formed planet, felt a summons a deep, resonant pull that was slowly getting closer "The Judges" for some reason his mind went to them. The call should be a signal of cosmic imbalance, a demand for him to answer for his actions. But as quickly as it came, it faded.

He watched the goblin world through the plant he had left behind. Zarvok's armies were pushing aggressively, having dealt with the empire forces that had appeared from the Abyss. Time felt different here in the void; from what Ikenga saw a few days may have passed yet for him it was like a few hours has passed.

The source of the Judges calling fading became clear when a sixth-tier demon from Zarvok's army noticed the slow-motion destruction of the world they were meant to conquer. The demon quickly accessing the situtaion ascended into the sky, its body expanding to a colossal size. It was not as large as the planet, but it was massive enough to matter. The demon unfolded its domain, a shimmering veil that covered the entire world. It began to mitigate the damage, holding the unraveling world together with its power.

The demon had taken on the impossible task of sustaining the dying planet. The call of the Judges vanished. Ikenga let out a deep breath, the tension leaving his form as the immediate crisis passed.

Ikenga's attention returned to the orb. He had to get his planet back to its proper place, back to the goblins who depended on it. So what was taking so long? Why hadn't the angel broken free yet?

Meanwhile, inside the increasingly powerful diamond orb, Vellok was in a living nightmare he had ignored for centuries. Deep within his mental space, he knelt, tears streaming down his face as he looked up at the being sealed within him.

The angel hung upside down in midair, its face cold and impassive. Thick, glowing chains held it in place, some loose and dangling, but others still holding strong. Vellok had finally found himself face-to-face with the being his people had betrayed, the being whose freedom he had stolen. For centuries, he had tried to connect with the angel, to make amends, but it had always ignored him. Until now.

Now he was suddenly face to face with the angel, and it wasn't going how he had imagined. In his foresight, he had always seen himself standing tall and proud, knowing that he held the key to the angel's freedom. He would be the one to decide when and how to release it, an act of mercy that would also secure his people's future.

But now, he had nothing. The four seals he had unlocked were enough to strip him of every ounce of power he thought he wielded. He had centered his entire power system around the sealed angel, believing for centuries that the strength he cultivated was his own. He now knew the truth: it was never his to begin with.

Vellok, on his knees, looked up at the unblinking, cold gaze of the angel. He could feel his very essence slipping away, absorbed by the diamond prison that fed on the angel's light. Desperation clawed at his throat.

"Please," he pleaded, his voice a hoarse whisper. "Let us go. Let me and my people be free."

The angel remained silent, its form chained and upside down, its eyes a blank void of light. It did not move. It did not blink. It simply hung there, a monument to a betrayal it had never forgiven.

Vellok's voice cracked. "I know what we did was wrong! We took your freedom, and in return, we built our world under the safety of your power. But we didn't know! We didn't understand the price." Tears streamed down his face, a river of regret. "We've had centuries of peace, centuries of life, because of you. Please, don't let it all be for nothing."