Act 2 - When Stars Fell

————————————————

Lothius finds himself in a lifeless forest of dead trees and charred soil, he looks up and sees numerous draconic creatures shrieking and flying across the sky as fire rains down from the clouds, he sees explosions and large chunks of land being thrown across the land. A large shadow looms above him as a massive golem-like creature made of igneous rock with cracks of red all over its body lands beside him, the creature turns to its left and looks at Lothius with its glowing red cyclopean eye. Lothius tries to act neutral by backing away slowly from the creature, however the creature soon raises its oversized cylindrical arms and prepares to crush Lothius. Lothius’ eyes widen and he instinctively holds out his hand, suddenly the golem is launched back and violently slams into the ground. Lothius sighs and turns around, he spots the floating castle and focuses his mind to teleport up there, he closes his eyes as energy encompasses every inch of his body, he opens his eyes and finds himself at the doorstep of the castle.

The castle’s gates have been destroyed and forced open, Lothius rushes into the castle and sees numerous soldiers firing arrows and screaming.

"Don’t let them in!", "Protect the castle!", "Reallocate the core energy!"

Lothius teleports himself inside of the castle, he sighs and calms himself down. He needs to find Horus. Lothius runs across the halls and comes face-to-face with a large dark reptilian creature with serrated teeth. The creature snarls at him and prepares to pounce at him, Lothius groans and readies himself. But just before the creature pounced on him…

"Lothy!"

The creature turns around and bows its head as Horus rushes towards Lothius, the latter sighs and approaches him. "Horus, what on earth is happening?!", Lothius asks, Horus orders the reptilian creature to go away before replying to Lothius, "The Olympians and the Kamis ordered an attack on my followers, they are trying to breach the castle".

Horus telekinetically opens the door to his throne room while Lothius follows him, "But why?! What is the purpose of them attacking you?!", sounds of explosions and creaking can be heard from outside, "Four months ago, the Divine Council legalized forceful integrations into human civilizations where every pantheon was allowed to enforce their control over humanity", Horus holds out both of his hands and uses his magic to repair the cracked walls of the throne room while Lothius watches him in awe, "I rejected the council’s decision and suggested them to leave the humans alone for once", shadowy tentacles emerge from the walls and reinforce the broken pillars, repairing any cracks in the room. "of course, the Olympians and the Kamis didn’t like that, and now…"

A blinding explosion was visible from the throne room, Lothius gasps in surprise as he approaches the stained glass to see what is happening outside. Suddenly, one of those igneous rock golem Lothius encountered earlier crashes down from the ceiling and lands in the middle of the room, it faces Horus and prepares to crush him. Lothius holds out his hand as numerous glyphs and runes begin to manifest, forming a cyan glyph circle that flies towards the golem’s back. The glyph attaches to its back as the golem suddenly twitches, the golem falls apart and crumbles to a mess of rocks. Lothius approaches the mess and inspects it, he looks up at Horus. "Are you alright?", suddenly the large window shatters behind Lothius.

Lothius swiftly turns around and gasps as another golem flies at him through the large stained glass window, he braces for impact when all of a sudden, massive tentacles of black liquid manifest from the ceilings of the room as they entangle and bind the golem in the air. The golem struggles with its bindings as more and more appendages start to manifest and continue binding the golem, Lothius watches in horror as the black tentacles and appendages envelop the helpless golem. Two condensed streams of violet flames fly overhead Lothius and come into contact with the bound golem, the golem lets out an agonizing scream as its rocky body melts from the intense heat of the violet flames. Lothius ducks down as the heat is too much to bear, he looks up at the burning golem again and notices its bindings melting too from the heat.

The streams of flames dissipate as the tentacles and appendages melt, dropping the melted body of the golem. Lothius gets back up on his feet and looks behind him to see Horus with violet flames engulfing his hands, Horus dusts off his hands together as the flames disappear before he approaches Lothius. "Are you alright, Lothy?", Horus asks with concern in his voice as he puts his hands on his friend’s shoulders, Lothius gives a slight nod and sighs heavily.

Horus lets go of Lothius’ shoulders and walks on the melted golem’s body towards the shattered stained window, ash and small specks of fire enter the room from the window. Horus looks out and observes the surrounding area, it’s all burned and war-torn. He snarls lowly and grips his fists as his eyes glow brightly.

Lothius could have sworn he saw a small grin creep onto his friend’s face.

Horus holds out his left hand and summons something, it initially appears as a blob of purple clouds until it morphs and solidifies into a spear with an indigo spearhead, a dark purple metal shaft, and numerous intricate symbols running across the shaft. "Dagon, prepare the core for activation", the reptilian monster Lothius encountered in the hallway suddenly appeared beside the latter and bowed his head towards Horus before dematerializing into ghostly clouds.

Horus turns around to face Lothius, "This is a proclamation of war, they want this to happen, there is no negotiating with them at this point. Lothius, do you see? This is the entropy I once mentioned to you”, Horus walks towards Lothius and looks him in the eyes, “I need you…”

”What do you mean?” Lothius slightly takes a step back, “You are the most intelligent person I have ever met, you have created technology far surpassing those of entire civilizations, you have succeeded in defending worlds from countless eldritch beings of terror. I need you to fight this war with me.” Horus extends his hand, “Horus, I-I can’t be apart of this…”, Lothius looks down at his friend’s hand, “Lothius, they will target you too! You are my friend and ally, they would target anything that you remotely care about just because you’re my friend!” Lothius’ eyes widen in horror at the realization, he doesn’t like it but Horus’ words do make logical sense. Lothius looks at Horus’ hand again, “Come on, Lothy…”

Lothius sighs heavily and waves his hand, small cyan portals appear behind him as shiny platinum pieces of armor with futuristic blue highlights fly out of the portal and attach themselves to Lothius. Forming light silver cuirass, gauntlets, boots, gorget, poleyns and plackarts with glowing cyan and blue highlights. More equipments fly out of the portals and attach themselves to Lothius’ back, Lothius sighs as he feels the energy of the armor course through him.

"Yes! Hahaha!", Horus grins as he offers his hand to Lothius, the latter takes his hand. Lothius looks out and sees the destroyed land, he feels his heart sink. He sighs and looks at Horus.

"From this day onward, all of creation will watch as we forever change the universe…"

Continue to Act 3