Kulana leaned against the mast, watching as the Hero searched through the storage compartment and as Arkanos steered the canoe with his one arm. The Hero pulled out a few food items, most derivatives of coconuts, before settling on a banana, the only other thing that actually grew on their island. He closed the compartment and sat on the side of the ship, his feet delving into the water.
Arkanos glared to the hero, clearing his throat to catch his attention. "Take your feet out of the water, you're causing too much drag." He scolded the young mortal, who slowly took his feet out of the water and placed them on the canoe. The Hero sat next to Kulana, snacking on his banana. Both were staring at the Fallen god and how he could use the oar efficiently with only one arm. Arkanos, who had returned his attention to steering the canoe, felt their gazes, sighing. "When you only have one appendage, you get used to doing things single handedly."
"But you had two before, correct? It is impossible for a god such as yourself, to be brought into creation with only one arm." The Hero commented, quickly taking another bite from his banana.
Kulana was seconds from placing a well deserved smack on the back of his head, but the Fallen god laughed. "That is a true statement. I did have two arms before. But my other arm was taken from me, as was my eye." Arkanos began to grovel, looking to the side. Kulana looked to the leaf patch on his face and saw that the area where his left eye should have been appeared odd. While this god's skin was rather pale, a small portion of the left side of his face seemed to be silver. As was the area where his right elbow should be was a strange cap, also silver and metallic in nature. She wondered where his missing body parts had bee.
"If it is not too much to ask..." She began, getting the god to turn to her once more, getting the full assault of his remaining eye. The emerald green iris of the god seemed to glow as he stared in her direction. "...Would you enlighten us on what happened to your arm?"
The god's face stiffened, then he looked away once more, towards the sea. Kulana averted her gaze towards the ocean as well, feeling ashamed that she had brought it up. She wouldn't want to tell of how her arm had been taken from her if she had lost it. "Certainly, if you are interested in hearing the tales of a foolish god." Kulana's eyes lit up when she heard this, turning to face Arkanos once more to see that he was sitting down on the edge of the canoe, still holding the oar. Kulana and the Hero both leaned forward to give the Fallen god their full attention. "Alright, young ones..." He began, chuckling at the eagerness of the two islanders, "... and let me tell you of my duel with the mistake of the universe: Rotiak: King of the Monsters and a personal pain in my godly ass!"
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Arkanos walked atop a mountain, the surface of which took the form of a skull. Phrea had created a realm within her planet to hold the Dark spawn prisoner, knowing full well that Rotiak could simply summon his beasts and send them forth unto what ever life took shape here. Arkanos came here to see that Rotiak would not pose such a threat.
The god looked down to the skull rock, seeing a slight crack on the mouth where the teeth connected. He grabbed the mouth and slowly parted the stone, opening the surface to a massive pit that lead to the Dark Spawn's prison. Arkanos pulled out his large blade and jumped, diving into the hole. The pit was covered in a dark miasma, and the god held his breath as he plummeted down into the earth.
Eventually, the miasma dispersed and he was introduced to a vast world under the oceans. He looked around, seeing some of the Dark Spawn that the beast produced making their ways into the waters, most likely to torment what living beings inhabited the waters currently. He grunted, flipping so his feet were pointing down and prepared to land in an opening amongst the rocky floor. Several monsters that were near sensed the presence of the god and began to converge on his landing trajectory.
The open space that Arkanos had picked to land was soon swarm by Dark Monsters: assorted Proto beasts of pure pitch black and glowing red eyes. Some took the form of ancient lizard like beasts while others were more familiar shapes. All with razor sharp teeth and claws that could easily cut men asunder. The god smiled, his right arm slowly beginning to deform at the elbow and shift into a metal line with blades along its length and a razor sharp tip at the end. His arm had turned into a weapon of destruction.
The god landed, sending shards of rock flying as the floor he crashed against gave away, pelting the monsters closest to his impact with stone shrapnel. Other monsters that were near and not affected by the landing roared and began to charge, only to get assaulted with a flick of his arm, gashing many of the beasts and killing others. The fallen beasts faded away, into a cloud of Dark miasma.
Arkanos swung his sword at anything that stood in his way while flinging his whip in a large area, massacring the Dark monsters that tried to assault him. The swing of his great sword in one motion, the flight of his bladed whip with another, creating a sort of majestic dance of death. Of course the beasts he was killing were no creatures that deserved to draw breath. These monsters deserved to be run through by his sword or assaulted by every blade on his whip.
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"Wait, your arm turned into a whip?" The Hero interrupted, causing Arkanos to sigh and look down in disappointment. Kulana did not want to interrupt the god, but she was curious as well.
Arkanos returned his gaze to the hero and raised his right arm, showing the missing limb. The area where his elbow would have been was a smooth silver nub. If I go deep into detail, we would be here for days that we do not have. So long story short: I, along with every other god in the universe, were once mortal. I had what you would call Cybernetics. My right arm was synthetic, as was my left eye." Arkanos gripped the metal nub and pulled it away, revealing an assortment of things Kulana could not comprehend. The Hero reached out to touch it, and had his hand quickly smacked away by Kulana. Arkanos covered the exposed parts once more and continued. "After we turned into gods, I had the ability to create anything I could think of with my Eye, and destroy anything I wished with my arm. I was given the moniker of god of innovation, and my name was...." He sighed, looking off into the ocean. "...Inovak."
Kulana resisted the urge to laugh. What civilization named their god Inovak? It sounded like an insult. The Hero swallowed the piece of banana he was beginning to choke on and asked the next question. "So, what did you even do for the people that came to worship you?"
Arkanos' head turned back to the two mortals. "To those who prayed to me, I gave them marvelous ideas to try and better their lives. New more efficient forms of technology; works that would make their lives easier. One man wished for a way to transport water to an arid land, and I helped him reach the concept of an aqueduct." When both of the islanders kept the same gaze of curiosity, Arkanos sighed. "It is essentially a man made river."
"What happened to those people?" Kulana asked leaning forward, her curiosity getting the better of her. She hoped that one day she would meet these people and see what kind of life they lived. So alien and different compared to her lifestyle.
The god's face grew more discontent and he averted his eye to the two. "It does not matter. They are no more." That reply killed Kulana's excitement, causing her to sit back down. After a moment of silence, Arkanos cleared his throat and faced the two islanders. "Now, to continue where I left off...."
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The god flowed through the horde of Dark monsters swiftly, approaching the epicenter of the sea of monsters. Whipping and slashing any and all monsters in his path, he soon emerged from the swarm and stood before a large rocky structure, with dark mist surrounding the openings and creating a fog door where there should be an opening. Arkanos took a deep breath, his arm shifting back into its complete form. He raised his hand as he approached the black fog door, his fingers melding to create a torch which emanated a bright white. This was Light energy, the opposite of Dark Energy. Light energy, while being capable of providing live to all living things, was also the force used to fight all things that spawned from the Dark.
The fog door began to evaporate as Arkanos approached, exposing the chamber within the stone structure. Inside was a grisly sight: mortals on sharp crosses hung around still alive. Their life essence being drained to form a new Dark monster. Arkanos watched as some poor soul from a different world had his life sucked out of him from pitch black tendrils. Following those tendrils, Arkanos saw the Monster: a centaur with the sturdy and thick body of a rhino and the upper torso and muscles of a gorilla. The beast turned its head to the side slightly, revealing two large rhino horns on its forehead. The hybrid then gave off a deep and amused guttural laugh.
"You waste your time here, Inovak. You people may have imprisoned me, but the Dark ones have promised me revenge." The beast's voice was deep and filled the room. It retracted the tendrils from the dying soul, causing the mortal to jerk as they slithered out of his body and forcing him to hang on the cross as he drew his last breath. The gorilla stomped its rhino legs as it turned, facing the god that would be Arkanos.
"Rotiak, you've already assisted those false deities in consuming a world, I will not allow you to do that again!" Inovak shouted, flourishing his blade and landing it on his metal arm, the flat surface scraping against the metal arm as he prepared to lunge at the moster.
The demon let out another laugh, raising his hand out as if to reach for something. tendrils then shot out and brought back a large two bladed sword. He began to slowly approach the god. "You are wrong, godling. They are galaxies above you. You are an ant compared to them. They have shown me the reality of our universe, and I will aid them in making the mortal realm their servants!" Rotiak then brock into a charge, his legs causing the chamber to vibrate. Inovak jumped towards the beast, thrusting his sword forward.
Rotiak twirled his blade, knocking Inovak off course and into one of the crosses, crushing the corpse of a recently dead victim. It was not the man he had been draining, for this body Inovak had crashed into was empty and the bones hollow. The god stood up from the rubble, wiping the dust off of his face. After cleaning his eyes, he whipped his right arm away from himself, the arm seemingly becoming a whip within the moment of that motion. He then ran towards Rotiak, who was in the process of turning around from his turn.
Inovak began his second attack with his whip, flinging his arm forwards to shoot the bladed whip at Rotiak. The demon got cut with some of the blades of the weapon before it wrapped around his free arm. He grinned as he was about to pull Inovak towards him using the whip, but the god was one step ahead of him, pulling oh the whip and propelling him towards the staggering beast. Inovak brought his sword down on Rotiak's right arm, slicing it off at the elbow. The centaur creature dropped his weapon and grabbed his new wound.
Inovak smiled as he watched the beast howl in pain and prepared to finish him off until he noticed something. He focused on the arm he had just cut off which was still wrapped within his whip. He watched as the fingers collected the whip within its hand and held onto the weapon length tightly.
Suddenly, within an instant, tendrils connected with the limb and pulled back, the whip tightening from his limb. Inovak groaned and fell to his knee, and felt the force of the pull beginning to rip the whip off of his arm. The god dropped his blade and grabbed the whip to try and stop it from coming off. But it did not matter, for his arm was cut off by a flaming sword from behind. Inovak watched as his arm and a number of connections flew away towards Rotiak, merging with his arm which began to reconnect itself to his body. The arm began to give off a metallic shine, the cybernetics merging with the monster's arms. Inovak watched as Rotiak used his new arm to attach to multiple victims, draining them almost instantly.
Then, the being that had cut the rest of his arm off moved in front of Inovak, and the god could see the magma-like feet seeping onto the stone. "Poor, poor Inovak. Here trying to play with the savage instead of helping the people grow." The being spoke, his voice akin to that of someone who was speaking under water. The figure shifted, his feet facing the fallen god, and the magma man knelt down to look Inovak in the eye, revealing the figure. His face was pure lava, with molten rock in the place of his eyes and mouth. "It is such a shame you left your prized children unattended while you fought these Dark things."
Inovak's began to take shorter breaths, not out of pain, but out of anger. "What did you do to them, Helroar?!"
The god laughed, standing up and approaching Rotiak. He pointed towards those few left on the crosses. "Let's say that these few lucky souls survived their planet succumbing to hell fire." Confused, Inovak scanned the podies that were dead. His eye spotted the thing he wished to not discover: All of the bodies were Inovians, the people of the world he had cultivated. His children.
Who had just discovered the energy potential of the atom.
Inovak began to yell, letting go of his injury and reaching for his sword before Helroar punched Inovak in the jaw, knocking the furious god back to the ground. "Yes, It was fun watchig bombs turn that eyesore into a crater covered rock." The god said, moving towards Inovak. "...Speaking of eye sores..." Helroar grabbed Inovak by the neck and lifted the god off the ground, holding the god in the air. He then raised his free hand and focused on Inovak's left eye, a normal looking eye save for the silver ball that would be the sclera. Helroar pushed in on his eye, causing Inovak to groan in pain as hot magma entered his eye socket. This would have killed a normal human, but the pro to being a god was that they were mostly immortal. The con was that it did not get rid of the pain receptors.
Helroar then ripped the eye out of Inovak's head, electrical sparks flying as the connections were ripped apart. Helroar dropped Inovak's convolsing body, studying the eye. "This eye will help me destroy the gods of this universe..." He placed the cybernetic eye against the molten patch that was his left eye and the orb sunk in, acting almost like a normal eye for the magma god. He turned to look at Inovak, who was holding the left side of his face. "Let the other gods know that Helroar, god of Destruction, shall consume this universe."
Inovak wanted to continue, wanting to get his lost body parts back, but unexpectingly, a circular portal opened up underneath him, dragging him and his sword through, leaving Helroar and Rotiak alone in the chamber.
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The Hero and Kulana stared at Arkanos with wide eyes, unable to comprehend what just happened.
"So, you lost your arm and eye in the same fight?" The Hero asked, throwing the peel into the ocean. Arkanos and Kulana both gave him a look that could cut glass. He jumped as they glared him down. Arkanos sighed once more, sulking as he remembered the event.
"Yes. I had no idea that Rotiak and Helroar were working for the Dark Ones." He then looked back to what remained of his arm. "I lost both of my tools for my craft. That is why we need to go to your Realm of Monsters before we go deal with Helroar." He said, moving back to manipulate the oar. "I need my arm back."
The Hero and Kulana both looked towards each other. Along the journey, the Hero was beginning to feel less and less useful. If he just needed to find this god and help him defeat Helroar, why would he get a ceremony? He was more of a messenger rather than a true hero. Kulana, on the other hand, was feeling sympathy for this god. There was no way she would know how he felt, but she knew what it felt like to lose. She had lost the chance to become a great shaman on her island, but Arkanos had lost his entire people.
She hoped that they could save their world and redeem Arkanos for the crime he was framed for.