Starting Out As The God of Beasts

The cold night air howled across the desolate, glassy expanse where Kaelos City had once stood.

The vast, cratered valley, now nothing more than a smooth sheet of superheated, hardened slag, reflected the pale moonlight like a gigantic, dead mirror.

SWOOSH.

Two towering figures descended from the upper clouds, their boots coming to a silent rest atop the scorched, calcified stone.

Grand Chancellor Manuses swept his dark crimson robes over his shoulders, his golden mane and dark tiger stripes embroideries catching the faint moonlight.

While Pope Croak unclasped his heavy obsidian Greatsword from his back, resting its massive tip against the fused ground.

Before the two Martial Saints could take another step, two shadows blurred across the crater floor.

Duchess Alisa and Duchess Eurenia materialized before them, their postures erect and their eyes shining with deep respect.

Alisa bowed gracefully, her emerald eyes fixed on the two legends, while Eurenia let out a sharp, toothy grin, her dark wolf tail swaying smoothly behind her.

"Welcome to the frontlines, Grand Chancellor Manuses, Pope Croak," Alisa greeted smoothly, her voice carrying an elegant warmth.

"We have been awaiting your grand arrival."

Pope Croak’s deeply lined, battle-hardened face twisted into a heavy frown as he surveyed the barren wasteland stretching for miles around them.

He tapped the pommel of his colossal sword against the hardened glass.

"Duchess Eurenia... Duchess Alisa," Pope Croak grunted, his deep voice vibrating through the empty plain.

"What in the heavens happened here? If my maps serve me right, this desolate abyss was supposed to be Kaelos City.

Where are the outer walls? Where are the buildings?"

Eurenia let out a dark, amused chuckle, her green eyes glinting with fierce pride.

"You are looking at what remains of Kaelos City, Your Holiness," Eurenia answered, her teeth flashing in the moonlight.

"Master Jarden passed sentence upon this wretched place and reduced it to absolute dust. Or rather, to be precise... Lord Varanus, the supreme God of Beasts and Men, unleashed his divine wrath and eradicated every trace of their existence from the face of the continent."

She took a step forward, sweeping her arm across the smoldering horizon toward the distant, jagged peaks of the Northern Hashian Mountains.

"And now that Kaelos City has fallen, the stage is set. It is officially time to hunt down and devour the Glorious Mythical Sect next."

"Hmm..." Grand Chancellor Manuses stroked his long, sculpted chin, his sharp eyes narrowing in deep calculation as he looked toward the northern peaks.

"If I recall correctly, the Glorious Mythical Sect is merely a second-rate regional faction. A small, backwater sect led by a single Martial Lord.

Why, then, did the Apostle summon two peak Martial Saints from the kingdom’s core just to crush such a meager bug?"

This time, Alisa stepped forward, taking over the explanation with a calm, precise tone.

"The Sect Leader himself is indeed an insignificant ant, Grand Chancellor," Alisa explained, her emerald gaze locking onto the Chancellor.

"However, the reason Master Jarden summoned your overwhelming strength is because an unexpected variable has entered the board.

The Church of the God of the Sky has quietly stretched its parasitic hands into this mountain range. They seek to use this crisis as a catalyst to expand their religious domain and claim the Northern Hashian territory for themselves."

Alisa’s voice turned cold as ice. "Snapping the neck of the Sect Leader is trivial. But we must prepare ourselves for a far larger war.

Reinforcements from the Church of the God of the Sky are already en route to these mountains. They will prove to be our true obstacle."

Pope Croak exhaled a long, heavy sigh, a dark, solemn expression falling over his weathered features.

He turned his head, staring back out at the vast, desolate crater, slowly shaking his armored head.

"So... this is not a mere conquest, but a holy war between two True Gods" Pope Croak murmured softly.

"Such a bitter pity that the mortals of this city were caught in the crossfire and erased... though given their vile history in the slave trade, they brought this doom upon their own heads."

Pope Croak turned back to face the two Duchesses, his grip tightening around the hilt of his obsidian Greatsword as a violent, terrifying wave of Martial Saint aura flared subtly beneath his armor.

"The Church of the God of Beast does not retreat from divine challenges," Pope Croak declared, his voice booming across the empty plain like low thunder.

"We are here to unleash the absolute, unforgiving fury of our Lord upon these invaders. We await the Apostle’s ultimate command."

***

Meanwhile... far beyond the mortal realm, in the radiant upper planes...

In the vast expanse of the First Heaven, a realm directly governed by the Sun God Ra, the sovereign of the Sun Pantheon.

A creature of staggering, mythical proportions glided through the endless sky.

It was a colossal, mountain-sized red eagle, its feathers burning with soft, immortal flames as it soared serenely above a majestic sea of golden clouds.

The legendary beast moved neither fast nor slow, its wings beating in a slow, rhythmic cadence that rocked the very atmosphere.

Constructed entirely upon the massive, sprawling back of this mythical sky-beast was an entire, gleaming divine city built of white marble and pure gold.

At the center of this floating metropolis stood a magnificent, soaring palace.

Inside the royal solar, illuminated by the radiant light of three mini-suns floating near the vaulted ceiling, three high entities sat gathered around a carved ivory table, laughing merrily as they played a game of divine chess and drank rich, golden nectar from jewel-encrusted goblets.

The master of this floating city and host of the gathering was none other than Makane, the Sky God.

Makane was a tall, majestic, and strikingly handsome deity.

Long, vibrant crimson hair laced with natural, glowing golden stripes flowed over his broad shoulders like a lion’s mane, framing a pair of piercing, emerald-green eyes that radiated supreme confidence and noble authority.

"A bold line of attack, Brother," Makane laughed lightly, his voice smooth and melodious as he reached out his slender, perfect hand and slid a white ivory knight across the checkered board.

He looked up with a brilliant, effortless smile at his two divine guests—the God of the Unshadowed and the God of the Evening.

Like Makane himself, both of these entities were Lesser-tier True Gods serving as loyal vassals under the absolute rule of the supreme Sun Pantheon.

"You leave your flank exposed to my vanguard, Makane," the God of the Evening chuckled, raising his golden goblet in a toast as the God of the Unshadowed studied the board with amused concentration.

The three gods clinked their goblets together, the melodious sound of divine laughter filling the high palace room as they drank to their eternal contentment, completely detached from the minor struggles of the mortal realms far below.

THUMP.

Suddenly, in the middle of his laughter, Makane froze.

His golden goblet stopped mid-air, inches from his lips.

The vibrant, emerald-green light in his eyes flared, then violently contracted into pinpricks.

The warm, radiant aura surrounding his majestic body abruptly turned frigid, causing the mini-suns above to flicker erratically.

"Makane?" the God of the Unshadowed asked, his brow furrowing as he noticed his host’s sudden stillness. "What is it? Did a pawn catch you off guard?"

Makane did not answer.

He slowly lowered his goblet onto the ivory table, his handsome face twisting into a tight, grim mask as a sudden, sickening chill shot straight through his divine core.

Deep within the fabric of his divinity, a dark, suffocating premonition had just flared to life—an instinctual, terrifying warning from the threads of fate itself.

Something terrible... something absolute and catastrophic... was about to happen.