I should have killed them all when I had the chance.
The thought burned like a hot iron against my skull. It gnawed and writhed, unrelenting as it refused to die. My body stirred, or at least what was left of it. The dull ache in my wrists became apparent again as the chains shifted, reminding me they were there even though my body had lost all sensation a long time ago.
The chains were made of godsteel, or divine iron.
Forged in the dying breath of a star and cooled in the blood of primordial monsters. Chains that did more than hold flesh, they bound spirit, mind and even divinity itself.
Each link was engraved in runes that pulsed faintly, I struggled to remember the last time they shone, but even faded I could feel them leeching my strength. Draining the dregs of energy in my divine core, refusing to let it replenish.
I breathed out of habit, not need. A god had no need for air.
But I was no longer a god, hell I wasn't even a man.
I was more conscious now than I had been in a long while, maybe it was because I had been awake for a while but I was starting to feel again. Sharper than the chains seering around my neck, my skin was shriveled and stuck to my bones. Clinging to my starved muscles, fueled by the dying embers of my core.
It's hard to believe my power had flooded worlds, the clouds parted like a sea when I roared. My steps shook mountains and my will bent the weaves of fate itself.
In my prime I was a raging, unstoppable inferno. But now, only ash remained. Barely even a shadow of my former self. Completely unrecognisable after centuries within this tomb.
I felt the weight of it. The loss. The betrayal. The gods. The pantheon I had stood with, stripped it all away. Shattered my throne, tore out my wings, and silenced my name.
I gritted my teeth with such malice that they fractured and cracked.
They feared me and what I stood for. Because I defied their beliefs for the sake of mankind.
Idiot. I should have slaughtered them all.
The chains scraped together as I pulled. Even in my weakest state, my hatred gave me strength. Within the darkness my thirst for vengeance burned brighter than the cursed seal.
Within that brief lapse, something caught my attention.
The world beyond my tomb stirred.
For just a moment I could feel it. Faint and distant. Like a dream half remembered in my fugue state. The ambient power that flowed from the earth's core was familiar, but wrong…
Diluted. Divided. Corrupted.
A pathetic shadow of what once was. The world I knew had been filled with Qi. The life force engrained into the planet, fertilized by the flesh and bones of demons and monsters that once roamed free. But now it was fractured, broken into pieces I suspect by the gods. To keep the mortals weak and preventing them from ascending, but giving them just enough power to survive and be loyal.
I could have laughed at the revelation, but my throat was drier than a desert. This was the price the world paid for my imprisonment? Stagnation.
But after centuries, maybe even millenia, the seal was finally about to break. Cracked and worn, about to be beaten by time.
Faint fractures spidered along the chains, eroding the ancient runes that held me in place. The divine curse had grown brittle with age. Time, humanity's oldest enemy, had become my greatest ally.
In the final moments before I was cast out from heaven, I had discarded a slither of my divinity beyond the reaches of time and space. Into the weave of reality itself, a thread meant to return to me. To free me from my imprisonment, I had almost forgotten after it failed to return to me.
But I could feel it now the curse was weakened, and I had been conscious now for longer than I cared to remember. The remnants of my power slowly made its way back to me, seeping through the cracks of the enchantment.
Pushing open the door to my grave.
The stone above shifted.
A thin breath of air, cold and foul brushed against my face.
For the first time since I was buried, the tomb had been cracked open.
I could smell rot, filth and blood.
Voices, muffled. Human. Laughing and cursing in a language I couldn't recognise.
Fools. They didn't know what they had unearthed. What they had disturbed.
I helplessly grinned. My lips split and bled.
But my body, my body betrayed me.
When they exhumed me from the earth, I was no god. No monstrosity or demon.
Just a broken man, in rotten rags. Bones sharp beneath porcelain skin. Eyes dulled with centuries of sleep and solitude. Limbs weak and trembling.
They spat on me, kicked and stomped on me. I could feel their frustration, perhaps they were looking for treasure and were disappointed by the beggar they had dredged up from the ground.
I said nothing. I couldn't. My throat was like dust.
But my eyes watched, weakened but not completely blind.
The strongest among them held a weak flicker of diluted qi in his stomach. A martial artist? No, it was a shallow mockery of true power, too undisciplined and untrained.
They were pathetic, soft. The world had fallen so far from former glory. These grown men couldn't compare to a servant.
I burned a single truth into my soul.
These men would be the first to die.
I was dragged helplessly through mud and dirt, thrown onto hard ground beneath a rotting canvas. Their camp stunk of blood and sweat. Crude weapons, spoiled food. Desperation.
I could smell it beneath their bravado.
I could see it clearer now that I was in their camp. The world had changed.
The sky was duller than I remembered, with mountain ranges and an unusual tower in the distance.
One of them leaned in closer, grinning through yellowed teeth. Raising my chin and assessing my worth.
He spat on the ground beneath me, turning to report his findings to his allies. I couldn't make sense of what they were saying, but it sounded like they found something worthless.
I grinned.
His expression shifted.
Because deep in the hollow recesses of my being, something unseen began to churn.
Like a rusted cog, slowly coming back to life.
The thread I had cast into the world had returned.
My divine core cracked and broken, crumbled.
But like a phoenix, in its place was a new core. Much smaller and less dense, but resembling the core I had created as a boy. Perhaps it was muscle memory.
The final fragments of the chain that had held me for all those years broke into dust.
Soon.
Soon I would stand.
Soon they would die.
And after them… The gods.
The seal may have robbed me of my strength, of my power and my divinity.
But not my hatred.
Never my hatred.
I closed my eyes. Letting the weakness mask me. Leaving the filth to cover me.
I would bide my time, for now.
Regain my strength. Learn about this new world.
And when the moment comes, the heavens themselves wouldn't be safe from my fury.