Abaddon blinked several times as he tried to fully process the words of the mother goddess.
Right here and now, she was offering to make him a fully fledged god.
But the difficulty with which she offered this to him made him feel like there may have been some hidden danger that he was not privy to.
“What aren’t you telling me…? What are the risks if I do this?”
Asherah finally stopped stroking the dragon’s snout long enough to answer his question.
“You haven’t been given simple divinity like the rest I’ve pushed to ascend. You have been given origin, and therein lies an ocean’s breadth more difficulty in your ascension.
You will not be a simple god the same as all the rest. You will bear cosmic divinity, and in doing so reach heights that only a few could ever hope to scrape.”
“As of now I’m only hearing advantages.” Abaddon said plainly.
“Perhaps I have not done a proper job of emphasizing the dangers.” Asherah admitted.
“Where your wives were able to fuse the completed six fragments, you will only have four to force together.
This will drastically drop your chances of success and leave you with certain… disadvantages if you should succeed.”
“Disadvantages such as?”
“Gods come into being with an instinctive knowledge of their powers and divinities as well as the how they are to be used.
You will not have that fortune. You will have to learn from scratch, and at first you may even feel weaker than you do right now.”
“I’ve done something similar before. I can learn even quicker this time.”
“Foolish boy. Being a god brings an entirely new region of complexity and understanding to the soul that will alter you all the way down to the root.
It will take you thousands of years to fully understand yourself and materialize your capabilities.”
“I see…” Abaddon muttered.
Now, he was starting to see the problems loud and clear.
With his timetable against the abyss drawing ever closer to him, and his war against the gods just starting, he did not believe that he had the time to learn and master a new set of powers.
He wanted to become a god, but if it was going to prove to be a hindrance then he could truly do without it.
…Or could he?
What if this power would give him the final edge that he truly needed?
Then could he afford to not take the power and risk everything that he had built crumbling down in an instant?
He honestly didn’t know anymore.
“Asherah… tell me the path forward.” He asked sincerely. “On which road will fate be most kind?”
Asherah smiled sadly underneath her veil.
“I am touched that you would seek my council so sincerely, but I cannot help you.
Because you were created before the fates themselves, you are not beholden to their strings.
No one knows what you are going to do but you, and your life will be whatever you make of it. “
Asherah used to be able to see the fate of Abaddon like everyone else in her world.
However, the more he grew and recalled his former identity, the less of his fate she could see, until she eventually could not see it at all.
All seven of Abaddon’s heads smiled wryly as he looked into the sky.
‘So I am totally free… what a cathartic and frightening feeling.’ He thought inwardly.
“If you want council from someone, I think you are better off asking them rather than I.” Asherah pointed out.
Abaddon followed the mother goddess’s finger towards the two women floating in the air a short distance away.
Once his eyes landed on the two girls, he made a gesture for them to approach with his monstrous hand.
As always, the girls vanished from their places only to reappear atop Abaddon’s heads; sitting comfortably as if they could think of no better place in the world to be.
“I know that you girls were listening… Any thoughts that you care to share with me?”
Seras stroked one of the bony protrusions near her lovingly.
“We… do not.” She said.
“Truly? I am surprised.”
“What can we say after a revelation like that, dear?” Audrina questioned. “Now that we know that your destiny is truly within your own hands, we feel dramatically less worried.”
“Take whatever path you want most in this moment. We have faith that every obstacle that you face will be overcome either way, so how you overcome it doesn’t matter to us.”
Abaddon chuckled under his breath in what sounded like a monstrous melody.
“I take it that your sisters would feel the same?”
“Don’t be silly, you know they would.” Audrina laughed.
“All that we have ever cared about was sharing our lives with you. If even fate cannot stand in the way of that, then we have nothing else to be concerned about.” Seras added warmly.
“We know the risks, and we know the odds are not in our favor, but so what? You will make your own odds, darling. And make us all proud in the process.”
Abaddon let the words of the girls take root in his very soul.
He had their unbridled trust to see things through to the desireable outcome no matter how he had to get there.
It was especially meaningful since he knew just how much they all relied on him and feared losing him.
Though he was not bound by fate and crafted his own destiny, bad things could certainly still happen to him and he was more than capable of losing his life.
𝑣𝗅xt.𝒸𝑜
Hell he’d already died permanently once before, and that was when he was at the height of his power.
If he was going to act, he had to think about what would provide him the greatest security and longevity.
And though it was daunting… he felt like he’d finally reached a conclusion.
“I was not expecting this to be the way that I attained godhood and a second son… but I suppose stranger things have happened in my life.”
“My, aren’t we confident.” Asherah replied warmly.
“I try to be.” He admitted.
Abaddon shrank back to his normal appearance and held both of his wives ontop of his shoulders.
“Let’s begin, yea? I’d quite like to go home soon.”
“… As would I.”
Just like Audrina had done, Abaddon sat cross legged on the ground before he closed his eyes and fell into a trance.
Asherah reached out and poked him on the forehead a single time before she disappeared from the underworld entirely.
“I wish you success… and I so hope that this will not be our last meeting.”
In the space where Asherah touched, a red diamond shaped mark appeared out of nowhere and started to shine.
Within his mind, Abaddon focused on four shining fragments that were like broken slivers of the moon.
Even before he started the task, he knew it to be a daunting one.
Through sheer mental power, he began trying to stick pieces together that did not truly fit; all in the hopes of creating a perfect circle.
Unsurprisingly, he received a rather immediate pushback.
These fragments of origin were notoriously difficult, and they didn’t seem to want to fit together no matter how much Abaddon forced them.
It felt like he was pushing against the very sky itself.
He started to pour more of himself into the fragments in an attempt to truly make them whole and force a bonding process.
His body broke out into a fit of shakes, and he started to develop a headache rather quickly.
“Seras…” Audrina said worriedly.
“I know, but he’s fine, we just have to believe in him. Let us show him our support the best we can, hm?”
Seras placed a tender hand on Abaddon’s shoulder and smiled at him reassuringly.
Following her example, Audrina also placed her hand on his body and tried her best to comfort him.
Somehow, the burden Abaddon felt was starting to become just a little bit lessened.
His brows became unfurrowed, his breathing became significantly less labored, and he stopped shaking as terribly.
‘Come on… I refuse to fail in this trial after everything else I have gone through…!’
Abaddon sat in a statue-like state for hours upon hours.
As he continued to meditate, he filled the missing pieces of his divinity in with his very own being, causing him to flicker in and out of existence at times.
The entire time, Seras and Audrina never left his side, nor did they say a word.
Perhaps their silent but firm support is the reason why Abaddon’s vestige finally started to glow after nine hours of inactivity.
At first, his body literally regrew around his soul; making him flesh and blood once again.
Seras and Audrina could hear his heartbeat thrumming louder and louder with every passing second, and their heartbeats began to match his.
They never doubted him, but to see his success in front of them now was certainly a moment to become a bit emotional over.
Right before their eyes, Abaddon started to float upwards into the sky.
Though they could not hear it at the moment, Abaddon could hear Asherah’s voice loud and clear within his own mind.
She said some things about an ‘anointed one’ that made him think that she may have been talking about him to somebody else.
But her next words were ones that he could easily understand and comprehend.
“Abaddon Tathamet, Demonic Dragon God of…”
“Chaos…”
“Order…”
“Space…”
“Nature…”
“Rebellion…”
“Destruction…”
“Monsters…”
“Desire…”
“And sex…”
He wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not, but the mother goddess seemed to be a bit embarrassed to call out his last divinity.
Bit by bit, pieces of Abaddon’s grey skin started to peel off like he was molting.
Underneath was the softest, most picturesque, and delicate looking brown skin imaginable.
His white hair fell out next, only to be replaced by an even longer and more luxuriously vibrant red.
His ears became pointed and long like that of an elf, and the white tattoos on his body became bolder and brighter.
His features were sharper instead of square, his eyelashes longer and his eyebrows fuller.
The black claws within his fingers became dyed a permanent red; as if they were stained with the blood of all the lives he had taken.
Behind his back, six pairs of wings sprang forth.
On one side they were draconic with multiple eyes embedded within the membrane, and on the other they held black feathers with eyes within them as well.
Audrina felt a single tear fall from her eye, and Seras reflexively wiped it away.
“I’m sorry… he… looks so much like he did when I first fell in love with him. I feel as though I am seeing him for the first time again.” She explained.
“Believe me, sister… I know exactly what you mean.” Seras said as she wiped her own eyes.
Abaddon slowly descended onto the ground as a newly reborn god.
As soon as his feet touched the dark soil of the underworld, new and never before seen black flowers sprang up around his feet.
When he finally opened his red eyes, the first thing he saw were two white and silver blurs rushing into his chest and throwing their arms around him.
He started to laugh and return their gestures of affection when he had an upsetting realization.
His affinities, magic, spiritual energy, various powers that weren’t specific to his heritage… they were all gone.