Lord of the realm

Chapter 219: Birth of Daemon God - 7

The Sovereign Queen, first among equals, most powerful of the Ascended. Her color-shifting eyes swept across the clearing, taking in everything with instantaneous comprehension.

She came alone, no consort, no partner. By choice, according to legends. Kailthrys answered to no one, shared power with no one, and governed by her own will alone.

Eight Ascended beings manifest simultaneously. Such a thing hadn’t occurred since the Separation itself, when they’d been forced to intervene to prevent total civilizational collapse.

And they’d come now for a single reason.

Suyajna.

The newly ascended daemon god met their descent with her own power blazing in defiance. Dark energy crackled around her, Jaenor’s stolen origin aura mixing with her ancient daemon dark origin, creating something that pulsed with terrible potential.

But her expression wasn’t fear; it wasn’t even cautious.

She was smiling.

Kailthrys landed first, her feet touching scorched ground with casual grace.

She looked at Suyajna for a long moment, those color-shifting eyes analyzing and cataloging every aspect of what stood before her.

Then, surprisingly, she laughed.

"Well," Kailthrys said, genuine amusement in her voice.

"I have to admit, I’m impressed. When we killed you the seventh time, when we scattered your essence across fifteen different prisons, I genuinely thought we’d finally ended your cycle.

But here you are.

Not just reformed, but ascended. Using methods we couldn’t have anticipated."

Aethermor spoke, his voice resonating with harmonics that suggested vast spaces between stars.

"You stole a child’s essence. Used him as a chrysalis, growing power within him that you then claimed for yourself. That’s... innovative. Horrific, yes.

But innovative."

"And effective," Chronalis added, her voice carrying echoes from multiple timestreams.

"We’ve observed this approach’s development across multiple possible futures. In most cases, it failed; the vessel couldn’t contain the forces required, or the absorption killed both mother and son. But you succeeded. Against probability, against our predictions, you actually succeeded."

Nerithys was recording, her parchment skin showing text that scrolled rapidly as she analyzed Suyajna’s new form.

"Origin aura integrated with the daemon’s dark essence. Ancient knowledge combined with modern techniques. And..."

She paused, text stopping mid-scroll.

"And something else. Something we’re not fully reading. There’s a component to her power that defies our normal categorization."

"Because I’m beyond your categorization now," Suyajna said, her voice carrying confidence backed by genuine capability.

"You’ve spent millennia as the sole arbiters of divine power. As the only beings who could claim true sovereignty over reality. But I’ve joined your ranks now. Achieved ascension through my own methods, following paths you never anticipated because you were too arrogant to imagine someone could circumvent your restrictions."

She spread her arms wide, and dark energy radiated from her in waves that made even the Ascended shift slightly.

"I am sovereign now. Equal to you. And you can’t kill me this time, can’t scatter me again, because I’ve achieved stability you can’t easily disrupt. The merger of dark origin and origin aura, the integration of stolen essence with my own, has created something that resists the techniques you used before."

Pyrraxis’s flames flickered with irritation.

"You speak boldly for someone surrounded by eight of us while standing alone."

"She’s not alone," Morgana said, moving to stand beside Suyajna. Her origin energy blazed as she revealed her true power, not the competent healer and teacher everyone had known, but a master whose capabilities rivaled some of the Ascended themselves.

"I stand with her. Against you and your tyranny."

"Tyranny," Kailthrys repeated, and her tone suggested she found the accusation amusing.

"We govern reality to prevent chaos. We maintain order so that civilizations can flourish rather than destroying themselves through unchecked power.

If that’s tyranny, then yes, we’re tyrants."

"You murdered her," Morgana said, her voice shaking with controlled fury.

"Killed her, scattered her, and denied her the right to exist simply because she was powerful enough to potentially challenge your authority. You don’t govern reality; you hoard it. You prevent anyone else from achieving divine status because you’re afraid of competition."

"Partially true," Vorathys admitted, her skeletal features showing no shame.

"We do prevent others from achieving our level of power. Because the last time multiple sovereign entities existed simultaneously, reality itself nearly collapsed from their conflicts. We learned that lesson through catastrophic experience. Better one stable hierarchy than multiple competing godhoods."

"Better for you," Suyajna snarled.

"Convenient for you. But I reject your authority. Reject your right to determine who lives and dies, who ascends, and who remains bound."

Her black eyes blazed with defiance.

"So here’s my counterproposal. You accept my existence. Grant me the same autonomy you claim for yourselves. And in exchange, I’ll stay out of your affairs. Govern my own domain without interfering in yours. We can coexist, parallel sovereigns maintaining separate spheres of influence."

Kailthrys studied her for a long moment.

Then shook her head.

"No."

The single word carried absolute finality.

"Not because we fear you," Kailthrys continued.

"Though your power is considerable. Not because we’re threatened by potential competition, though that’s certainly a factor. But because your ascension was achieved through fundamentally corrupted means. You murdered your own son, consumed his essence, and destroyed his soul. That’s not sovereignty. That’s parasitism."

Her color-shifting eyes locked onto solid crimson.

"And we don’t permit parasites to claim godhood."

The clearing erupted into violence that transcended normal combat.

Suyajna attacked first, not waiting for the Ascended to coordinate their assault.

Dark energy exploded from her hands, not a simple destructive force, but techniques that rewrote reality locally, that turned physics inside out, that represented powers stolen from Jaenor’s vast potential.

Kailthrys met the assault head-on, her own power manifesting as pure authority.

Where Suyajna tried to rewrite reality, Kailthrys simply commanded it to remain unchanged, and reality obeyed. The two forces collided in midair, creating a shockwave that flattened everything in a hundred-foot radius.

Trees were torn from the ground.

The ritual circle’s runes shattered. The demon general and his forces were blown away like leaves in a hurricane.

Morgana engaged Aethermor and Chronalis simultaneously, her origin energy weaving patterns that these spatial and temporal sovereigns found genuinely challenging. She’d been preparing for this confrontation for decades, had studied their techniques, and had developed counters specifically designed to disrupt their most powerful abilities.