The Temple of Eternal Light shone beneath the firmament of immortal stars. Infinite columns of celestial marble stretched into the void, where constellations spun like watchful eyes. Beatriz walked in silence, her steps echoing like soft bells through the great hall.
She had been summoned there by Aetherion, her husband, the God of Stars. Her heart beat uneasily. Something was wrong. Aetherion was never cold in his invitations. But today… there was a weight in his words. An emptiness.
When she finally crossed the arch of falling stars, she found Aetherion standing at the center of the temple. He was not alone. Beside him stood Nyssara, the Goddess of Harmony, wrapped in silver veils, eyes calm like dead mirrors.
Beatriz stopped. Her golden eyes glowed with suspicion.
"Aetherion…?" her voice sounded faint but carried power. "Why is she here?"
Aetherion looked at her as if he no longer saw her as an equal. As if she were… just an obstacle.
"Beatriz," he said, emotionless. "You've grown too much."
"What are you saying?"
In that instant, the ground beneath her feet lit up. Rune by rune, symbol by symbol, a sacred circle was forcibly drawn beneath her. It wasn't a simple seal. It was ancient and forbidden.
"No…" her eyes widened. "This is a divine sacrifice ritual. How many lives would be lost… You wouldn't dare…"
Chains made of pure light and darkness emerged, binding her arms, ankles, her soul. A crushing pressure fell upon her, as if the heavens themselves wished to cast her out.
"This isn't just between us, Beatriz," said Nyssara, her voice smooth like poison. "The entire pantheon consented. They fear you."
Beatriz screamed, the pain piercing her essence. She felt her divine spark being drained, ripped away like a plague to be burned. She tried to resist. The temple trembled with her fury.
"You're cowards!" she roared. "I fought beside you for ages! This is betrayal!"
Aetherion finally approached. For a moment, his eyes glimmered with guilt. But soon they dimmed as he said, "You became unpredictable. You questioned too much. Challenged Nyssara too much."
Nyssara stepped forward, her lifeless smile intact: "And he chose me."
Beatriz's world froze.
"What?" her voice now only a whisper.
"Yes," Nyssara whispered with false compassion. "He always loved me. He was just waiting for you to fall."
Beatriz writhed, more from the words than the physical pain. Her wings, made of pure light, disintegrated one feather at a time. Her once radiant skin now looked human. Fragile.
"Even the other gods won't accept this…" she whispered, on her knees.
"They already have," said Aetherion, cold as the stellar void. "It was unanimous."
She fell. First her divinity. Then her body. Her once radiant godhood now nonexistent. Her body was unprotected, erased in real time. Crumbling piece by piece, like shattering porcelain.
But even with her body destroyed, Beatriz's divine soul still resisted. She looked at the two traitors with eyes full of pain and despair, but with a hint of defiance and mockery, as if saying, "Even with all this preparation, you only managed to destroy my physical body."
Nyssara, with her untouchable heart, untainted by mortal emotions, couldn't contain her irritation at seeing a mere remnant soul mocking her.
"You! How dare you mock me?!" Her gentle and compassionate façade slowly crumbled as she said, "Without your divinity, you are nothing to us! Like ants mortals trample!"
Even in her remnant soul form, Beatriz said weakly, but with unmistakable mockery: "Like ants?... Can you step on me?…"
Nyssara raised her hand to strike and destroy Beatriz's soul, but Aetherion held her arm. Nyssara looked at Aetherion in disbelief, as if to say, "What are you doing?"
Unbothered by Nyssara's questioning gaze, Aetherion looked at Beatriz and said in a confused voice, as if undergoing an internal conflict: "Nyssara… haven't you tormented her enough?"
Forcibly freeing herself from Aetherion's grasp, Nyssara said mockingly, her gentle façade now completely gone: "Enough?... No, I don't want to just torment her. I want to kill her. Destroy her."
Turning his gaze to Nyssara, Aetherion said in a complicated voice: "That wasn't part of the deal… You said you only wanted Beatriz's divinity… that she could live a mortal life when it was over."
Nyssara looked at him as if he had spoken blasphemy. Her eyes, once calm as a lake, turned into silver storms.
"You're hesitating?" Nyssara said, her voice a cutting whisper, almost inaudible, but filled with fury: "Aetherion… you dare question me now? After everything we've done together? Remember it was you who obtained that forbidden ritual!"
Aetherion remained silent for a moment, staring at Beatriz—or what was left of her—the soul that still flickered, even in her ruin. Something in his gaze faltered. As if, for a moment, he saw not a threat, but the woman he once loved.
Aetherion closed his eyes for a moment.
"I… loved her," he murmured, more to himself than to Nyssara. "She trusted me. Fought for me. And even now, when everything is undone… she still defies me with dignity."
Nyssara took a step back, the rage in her voice rising like bottled thunder. "You pity her? She would have destroyed us if she kept growing! You saw what she was becoming!"
"No. I saw what you said she was becoming," Aetherion replied, his voice now firm, with the gravity of a thousand dead suns. "But maybe it was you who changed. Or maybe… I was the one who was blind."
He extended his hand. A scepter of pure starlight—the Scepter of Astra—materialized, pulsing with the light of the firmament. His eyes turned to Beatriz, and for a moment, he whispered: "Forgive me."
Nyssara screamed, her voice echoing through the temple, shattering pillars with her fury: "TRAITOR!"
Aetherion turned to her, raising the scepter, and the stars from the celestial ceiling responded. A sea of constellations descended like blades, swirling around him like a storm of light.
"I will not touch Beatriz again. And if you want to reach her, Nyssara… you'll have to go through me."
Nyssara exploded in light, her veils unraveling to reveal her true form: an avatar of cruel harmony, where everything was order, obedience, and absolute silence. Her body was a living score, emitting an aura that tried to impose her will upon reality.
"Then die with her!" she roared.
And the temple, witness to ages, trembled with the beginning of the battle between two gods: one consumed by regret, the other corrupted by the obsession for control. Light against light. Order against chaos. Stars against melody.
And amidst the ruins of the ritual, the weakened but undefeated soul of Beatriz watched, her essence shining with the faintest thread of hope. Because even at the end, someone had chosen to protect her. And that was enough… for now.
---
A silhouette with blue eyes watches the situation with interest and apparent amusement, speaking with a playful voice: "What a fun situation, Aetherion is proving more useful than expected."
The figure waves a hand, retrieving Beatriz's soul from the old ritual while the two gods are busy fighting.
Beatriz looks at the blue-eyed figure, her soul flickering with exhaustion and suspicion. She tries to pull away, but even in spiritual form, she feels like a puppet on invisible strings. Those eyes, blue as a sky belonging to no known world, stared at her with an intimacy she couldn't understand.
"Who… are you?" she asked, her voice echoing like a lost whisper among the stars.
The figure smiled. A smile that seemed gentle, but hid abysses.
"Oh, Beatriz…" he said, as if speaking her name was something ancient and familiar. "You've always been quick to sense danger, even now, so broken. But don't try to remember. You don't know me… yet."
She frowned, confused, trying to read any clue from his face. "You… know me? How?"
"Of course I do. I've been watching you for far longer than you can imagine. Your rise… your fall… every step, every choice. Fascinating." he said casually with a slight smile.
"You were… there? Watching everything?" she looked at him, waiting for an answer.
He didn't answer right away. He just looked at her, as if admiring an unfinished work of art. His silence was more suffocating than any answer.
"What do you want from me?" she asked, with a hint of firmness, even stripped of power.
"Oh, questions. So many questions." He let out a soft laugh, like an autumn breeze, but carrying an ancient weight. "But don't worry, Beatriz. Everything is unfolding as it should. You just need to… rest. All will be revealed in due time."
She narrowed her eyes, insistent. "Due time? You talk like you're in control of all this. Were you the one who caused it all?"
For the first time, his smile faltered. Nothing dramatic, just a faint boredom appearing on his expression.
"You talk too much," he muttered.
Beatriz hesitated, stepping back. But it was too late. The figure extended a hand, and in an instant, her soul was wrapped in an invisible, overwhelming force.
"Huh? I'd forgotten how much you talk." he said with disinterest, like someone wiping dirt from a white surface. His tone was pure annoyance, without hatred, which made it all the more cruel.
Then, he squeezed.
Beatriz let out a silent scream, her soul compressing like glass about to shatter. No light escaped. No hope.
The blue-eyed figure simply watched, unmoved, until her essence dissolved into fragments of pure memory, ready to be planted elsewhere.
With a snap of his fingers, he closed his hand, and the soul fragments vanished in a descending spiral.
"There. Now, silence."
---
Watching the battle unfold between Nyssara and Aetherion, the blue-eyed figure casually plays with something resembling a sun in his hands and says in a bored voice to himself: "Ahhhhh… fights between gods are so boring, they either last a few moments or an eternity."
Crushing the sun in his hands, the figure laughs ironically and sarcastically: "Thank me later, Aetherion… Or don't thank me, I don't care."
He snaps his fingers, causing Aetherion's divinity to ignite. The sudden release of energy creates a massive explosion; the energy waves strike Nyssara. Even with Nyssara giving everything she has to defend, it's not enough—the blast breaks through her barrier and obliterates her body.
The explosion destroys the entire Temple of Eternal Light, including the surrounding space, turning the whole place into a void. The remnants of that explosion shake the entire pantheon—not only because of its destructive power but also due to the sudden death of two great gods.
---
Watching the two divine figures—once untouchable gods, now mere fragments of soul in his hand—the blue-eyed figure wastes no time speaking, unlike what he had done with Beatriz.
He closes his hands and crushes the souls of Nyssara and Aetherion, breaking them piece by piece. Unlike Beatriz, whose memories he had left intact, the figure destroyed every memory the two had, leaving only their fragmented and ruined divinity behind.
The blue-eyed figure opens a rift in space-time to escape while laughing and saying, "Better leave before some god comes to check this... I don't want to be revealed... yet."
The blue-eyed figure disappears into the rift. Soon after, several gods arrive to investigate.
Their expressions were grim, with a flicker of fear in their eyes.
"What happened?... What could have such power to cause this destruction?" a handsome-faced god said, his calm voice betraying his inner turmoil.
"I don't know... I don't know..." said a second god, sharing the same turmoil, but with fear much more evident on his face.
"It was a battle between gods... Must have been a battle between Nyssara and Aetherion against Beatriz," an older god said, his expression dark and his voice deep. "We must report this to the other gods... Beatriz was very powerful... If Nyssara and Aetherion failed in their ambush... Beatriz might still be alive."
The faces of the other two gods turned pale, something that shouldn't happen to gods, but the fear of Beatriz's power made it possible.
The old god spoke in a deep voice: "Let's go! We can't waste time! If Beatriz seeks revenge, this could implicate our entire pantheon!"
The three gods turned into three rays of light, leaving the destruction behind, unaware of a pair of blue eyes watching them from the shadows.
---
After some unknown period of time, the blue-eyed figure appears above a planet located in an unknown place in the universe.
The figure holds Beatriz's soul while saying, "You will reincarnate in this world. Your name will still be Beatriz, your memories will remain sealed until the age of sixteen in this new world." After saying that, the figure simply throws Beatriz's soul toward the planet below.
Next, the figure takes the souls of Aetherion and Nyssara, naming each reincarnation as Gabriel and Lisa, respectively, then throwing their souls down to the planet as well.
Watching the three souls reincarnate into bodies suited for them, the blue-eyed figure smiles and says, "Well, my plan is almost complete, only one piece remains... but that won't be a problem..."
After saying those enigmatic words, the figure begins to fade, becoming illusory, slowly dissolving until he disappears completely, as if he had never been there at all.
---
End of Chapter Two.
This was the introductory story of the second protagonist, the fallen goddess Beatriz.