121 - This was not expected.

Strange was what Icarus would call the place he'd appeared in. Exploration was certainly fun and educative but when it brought him to places like this it was always a double-edged sword of excitement and trouble.

A fact he had learned harshly.

The pain in his core had him wince audibly, his teeth chattered within his jaws as the tenebrous wave of macabre pain racked his system like the vibrations of Hermes' feathers.

The god could only try to ignore it as he stared at the strange sight all around him. Something seemed off about this place. It was normal, stars and galaxies. Swirls of nebulas and clusters floating about in the dark expanse as all normal universes would be.

Yet simultaneously it was different. Something was off about the place and he just couldn't understand what.

Even as his mind tried to comprehend what it was that disturbed him about here a new thought rose in his head.

'How did I get here? No where am l'

The being floating his white wings spread out wide as he looked about and began scanning his memories seeking the memories of various things in them. Memories that he realized with panic didn't exist.

As much as he tried Icarus couldn't bring up a single meaningful scene to tell him what exactly had given him so cruel a pain.

He called it a pain since as much as he searched there was no sight of an injury, cut, slash, or any sort of opening on his body. Just a cold rattle and shiver of pure malignant pain and a terror within him.

His eyes moved from one spot to the other his brain trying to figure out many things before something clicked in him.

"Where are the worlds?"

Even as a towering behemoth of a god he was still just large enough to get as close as possible in his true form without disturbing whatever rules this universe had and therefore avoiding a backlash.

Yet it was unnecessary as he found nothing within the holds of the milky tethers that spanned light-years in mortal terms but just several distances for gods.

Curiosity rising in him as to why no world was within any of the galactic clusters he inched closer to see if he could perceive anything strange about this place. Yet at that moment a shudder tore through him.

The pain within his body that burned like the rivers of the Styx would to mortals dimmed.

'Huh'.

Icarus froze accessing himself for any changes. His eyes locked onto his body as he made various internal scans wondering if the wounds had finally healed. A bit of relief and joy seeped into him before his innate curiosity took over reminding him of what he was doing here.

As such he continued scanning the galaxies. The waves of aether as he knew it spun and moved familiarly yet held nothing within it.

"Did I by chance stumble unto a budding universe?" his words to himself sent a shiver of curiosity through him. Long had Icarus hoped and begged to watch the birth of a new world. Something he had no right to as a mere Mid-god.

But here. Maybe he could finally get the chance. As he moved to another cluster he mumbled to himself.

"But I don't even know how it works. All I know is that it starts randomly and totally.." his body jolted and froze, his mind quaking as a pulse of familiar pain racked him.

It was back.

'I thought I finally healed.' he sighed in a grievance. "wait. My divinity is reducing. But I'm not trying to heal myself yet." His confusion rose as he felt his energy deplete.

"No. Not deplete. Something is wrong ". Icarus could not only feel his divinity waning. He could feel something growing within him. Something strange and unfamiliar.

"But why did it stop earlier?"

While asking himself that question the Mid-god made several assumptions, assumptions that led to tests and tests that soon proved one result.

"The ether, no the divinity within this ether is either healing or halting the process of whatever this is " Coming to this conclusion his curiosity about both what afflicted him and where he was rose.

Yet at the same time, he felt something, even more, deeper within him. Whatever was growing within him as he hovered away from the ether was putting feelings of antagonism within him to the strange place he was.

Several self-made thoughts of destruction and consumption rose within his head in ways he couldn't comprehend. It made him twitch, and squirm, and added with the pain was slowly driving the poor Mid-god mad.

Then he sensed it. A greater surge of this energy far off to the distance. His mind now slowly splitting even faster than it had been doing when he found himself here pushed on two fronts. One to stay away from the energy while the other knew it had to get to this place.

If these clusters could negate what this madness was within him then the source could do better. At least that was his utmost hope.

Icarus shot straight his head pointed forward his wings parted like a plane as he dived ahead. His time ticked even as he surged forward his body shivering as something fought within him.

Not realizing his decision had hastened the speed of the things corruption or infection he was unaware of the slow color change to his wings and aura.

Icarus found himself shooting past a tower, one that he had to admit brought awe to him considering he'd seen far better things like Olympus and even Asgard. While he knew the tower had nothing to those places he also felt they weren't meant for that. But rather for something else.

It reminded him of various bastions of war those mortals had built on their empires and kingdoms. Awed by its design he failed to realize his body shooting past a wall of gold.

Not that he would have seen it if he didn't know it was there.

Icarus flew past even more empty galaxies and stars while he avoided nebulas and various other celestial bodies. Finally, his eyes caught something in the distance.

"Is that? A Sun?"

Surprised beyond anything his body slowed down as he got progressively nearer his eyes locked on the white ball of heat that dwarfed any known sun he'd ever flown by. Finally, he halted or had to halt as his attention was drawn by his hosts.

Closing his path in a line were nine divines each glowing or not glowing in a different color like a rainbow scheme.

He knew in his still active and good brain that these beings could help so his lips parted and a plea found itself out of his mouth.

Not all Gods were proud or bad or wanted to kill another weaker unaligned divine the moment they set their eyes on one. It was something Erizos was certain of. He hadn't met any god of course so no way would he be sure but he refused to judge an entire race of powerful beings in a harsh way for the sins of one or many.

Icarus a good example of how right Erizos was spoke with a plea... not.

"Devour".

Sounding hoarse and brutal, his voice taking on the impersonation of an eldritch entity, the pitiful Mid-god watched and listened with horror blooming on his face as the corruption took over.

His time was up.

Right in front of the nine he convulsed and screamed. His eyes rolled into his skull as the shiny bald head squirmed before bursting open. What should have been brains splattered out. The once golden but now a deep shade of malignant and repulsive green stretched out flowing down the god's face. The matter hardened as it covered the entire head of Icarus forming a helmet of grotesque animations.

Only two holes that were located where his eyes once were remained to glare at them. The wings whose color had long turned a sickly gray, whose feathers had decayed and become nothing but ash leaving only bony ligaments from which metallic-looking organic spikes draped to form a larger crooked wing.

The harshest change came from his body though. Choking while alive the god felt his legs and body erupt in severe pain as it twisted into ways even gods couldn't move.

While his upper body bled a black ichor that hardened as his brain had, it made quick work forming an armor that would frighten even demon kings. His twisting lower body finally halted when there was nothing left of it but the amalgamated form of cruel and vicious eldritch root-like flagellates. Several of them flay in the space as finally, the transformation completed.

As for the divines that had been exposed to a pure life horror transformation they just stared blankly their eyes hollow as they took in this scene.

While they had no idea what stood before them or how it got into their multiverse they all felt an instinctual almost racial coldness to it. After all, it was something that would make the other gods themselves shiver.

"Are we fucked?" Amor spoke first her eyes round mostly from surprise than shock.

"That depends on how you scale fucked." Quintapazzuri commented her eyes never straying from the eldritch monstrosity as much as she wished to look away.

"With ten being fucked and five being manageable," Amor replied sharply.

"Oh. Then yes. We are fucked". Her reply like a gavel from a judge slammed their weak brains into fright.