POV The Entity in the Shadows
He did not sleep. He did not breathe.
He simply was.
The space between stars.
The whisper before the scream.
The god they never dared name.
He stood at the center of his throne room, a jagged hall carved into the bones of a dying realm. The ceiling cracked with hellfire. Rivers of molten shadow pulsed through black stone. The walls screamed. Literally. Living flesh stitched into the architecture, punished souls forever whispering, weeping, begging.
He did not hear them.
He did not care.
Emotion was for the weak.
Attachment was for the foolish.
And gods?
They were for the taking.
He moved like a void wrapped in muscle and decay. A humanoid shape, cloaked in smoke, crowned in bone. Horns curved from his skull like scythes. His eyes were pits of nothingness bottomless voids that devoured light and spat out despair.
He had no name anymore.
He had discarded it, like the gods discarded him.
All that mattered now... was power.
And she was the final key.
The goddess reborn.
Moonblood incarnate.
The Star That Fell Through Time.
She was awakening too fast. The bonds had begun. The first, the pirate....was expected. The second, the wolf....was predictable. Loyal. Primal. Feral. But it was the third mate that interested him.
The broken one.
The haunted one.
The one with cracks deep enough to let his influence bleed in. He would have him for his own and use him to break this Goddess.
He turned toward the obsidian mirror hanging from the ceiling, suspended by writhing chains. Its surface rippled with blood and flame. And there he saw him, the third.
Beautiful. Broken. Dangerous.
And just human enough to be twisted. He'd been abused. Forgotten. Tossed aside. Beaten. Broken repeatedly. He was perfect.
The Entity raised one clawed hand and pressed it to the mirror. Shadows slithered out, tendrils of rot and temptation. They slinked across realms, invisible to gods and spirits alike. He would whisper to the third. Feed him doubt. Poison his dreams. Turn him against her.
He would keep the pentacle from forming.
The six bonds must be forged to complete the Ascension. Without them, the goddess could not take the Crown, drink from the Chalice, or wield the Sceptre. Each relic held a test. Each test would crack her open.
But if he got to them first?
If he stole the Crown?
If he shattered the Chalice?
If he corrupted the Sceptre?
Then she would fall.
And when she fell?
He would not kill her.
Oh no.
He would chain her.
Drain her.
Use her.
Breed her and spread his demonic seed through the realm. He would destroy everything. Fae and fauna alike. They disgusted him. Happiness. Love. Joy. Disgusting.
A living battery of divine magic.
A goddess on her knees, fueling his war machines while the world burned.
His smile stretched across a face that had forgotten how to be human. His voice echoed into the void, dark and cold.
"She will kneel. She will beg, and she shall bear my spawn and thank me for the privilege." He said to no one in particular. His sick and twisted mind already envisioning her swollen with demon child.
Demons writhed around his feet. Undead soldiers clawed at the stone. Shadow monsters howled in cages made of bone and prayer. They sensed the shift.
Their king was restless.
The Entity walked to the great black gates of his fortress. Beyond them was a wasteland of eternal night, his domain. His kingdom of despair.
Soon, it would not be enough. The entire planet of Andopeer would fall to ruin. The god realm with it.
Soon, everything would kneel.
The gods would fall.
The realm would burn.
And the goddess would break.
He turned once more to the mirror.
"To the demon mate," he whispered.
And the shadows obeyed, slicing through the realm as they races towards the demon. He stood, unaware as they slid into him silently, wrapping around his very soul like a virus. Spreading throughout his body as he went about his day, infecting his soul, mind and heart. He would slowly lose himself and go mad, as the entity pushed him to find and destroy the goddess Rhiannan.