Chapter 2: The First to Kneel

The woman's words hung in the air, her violet eyes locked onto Rael's with an intensity he had not encountered in centuries. The abyss had swallowed countless deities, reducing once-mighty gods to hollow remnants of themselves. Yet here she stood, unbroken. She had not submitted to despair.

A slow, deliberate step forward. Her movements were graceful, regal, despite the ruin of her attire. The remnants of her celestial robes still clung to her form, torn and faded but unable to diminish the authority she once wielded. The weight of time had not dulled the power in her gaze.

Rael met her eyes with measured calm. "And what do you think?"

Her lips curled slightly, the amusement in her expression an unexpected contrast to the lifeless realm around them. "You radiate power, but power alone is not enough. Strength without purpose is as hollow as the gods who once ruled."

Rael chuckled, the sound reverberating through the abyss. "Then allow me to show you my purpose."

With a single motion, he raised his hand. The remnants of his celestial shackles flared one last time before vanishing completely, their energy dispersing into the void. The abyss responded. The very fabric of the prison realm shuddered as golden runes ignited along his arms, marking his divine reclamation.

A shockwave pulsed outward. The force was not violent, nor destructive. Instead, it was something far more profound—undeniable dominion.

The ancient titan gasped, stepping back instinctively. Others hidden in the abyss shrank further into the darkness, but not her.

The silver-haired goddess stood unmoving, her gaze unwavering even as the force pressed against her. A test. A challenge.

Then, slowly, she moved.

She lowered herself, descending onto one knee. A submission not of weakness, but of recognition. A declaration not of obedience, but of acknowledgment.

The first to kneel.

The moment the act was complete, the abyss trembled once more. The forgotten goddesses, the celestial beings stripped of their thrones, the remnants of divine figures lost to time—they all watched in silence. The choice had been made.

Rael exhaled slowly, taking in the moment. This was just the beginning.

He extended a hand toward her. "Your name."

She looked up at him, a small smirk playing on her lips. "Selene."

A name that once held meaning in the heavens, now reborn in the abyss.

Rael's grip tightened as she took his hand. The chains of the past had shattered, and the first piece of his new pantheon had fallen into place.

And soon, the rest would follow.

The other prisoners remained silent, their expressions torn between awe and disbelief. For countless eons, none had dared to challenge their fate. None had attempted to rise again. They had long accepted that the abyss was their grave, that the Supreme Pantheon had deemed them unworthy of existence beyond this prison. And yet, in a single moment, Rael had shattered that illusion.

A goddess had knelt.

Selene rose from her position, her violet eyes filled with something unreadable. Was it satisfaction? Amusement? Rael did not concern himself with such trivial things. He turned his gaze toward the others, his golden irises burning like embers in the darkness.

"If you choose to rot here," Rael said, his voice calm yet commanding, "then remain shackled by your own weakness. But if you still possess even a fraction of the strength you once held—kneel."

A ripple passed through the abyss. Uncertainty. Conflict. Some of them flinched, as if the very idea of defying their exile was a betrayal to their punishment. Others, however, hesitated, their gazes flickering between Selene and Rael, the weight of the moment pressing down on them.

One goddess, her form barely more than a flickering shadow, took a tentative step forward. Then another. Her body trembled, not from fear, but from the overwhelming realization that she had not been broken completely.

She fell to her knees.

Then another followed.

And another.

A chain reaction. One by one, deities who had been forgotten by time, who had been cast aside as failures, bowed before him. Not because they were forced to. Not because they sought salvation.

But because for the first time in an eternity, they saw a chance to reclaim what had been taken from them.

Selene watched the scene unfold, her arms crossed, her smirk deepening. "You do not give speeches like a ruler," she mused, her voice barely above a whisper. "You give them like a conqueror."

Rael turned to her. "A ruler governs what he is given. A conqueror takes what is his."

The last of the hesitant prisoners fell to their knees, their foreheads nearly touching the ground. The abyss itself pulsed, its dark tendrils no longer suffocating them but bowing to a greater force.

And in the vast distance, far beyond the abyss, something shifted.

A presence.

A crack in the heavens. A disturbance in the celestial order.

The Supreme Pantheon had noticed.

Selene tilted her head slightly, her silver hair catching what little light remained in this forsaken place. "You do realize," she murmured, "that the moment you leave this abyss, they will come for you."

Rael's expression remained unreadable. He knew. The gods who had cast him down would not allow his return to go unanswered. But that was what made all of this even more satisfying.

He turned toward the horizon, the unseen barrier that separated the abyss from the world beyond. The prison had held him long enough.

"It's time," he said.

Selene stepped beside him, her gaze steady. "And where will we go?"

Rael raised his hand, his golden energy crackling against the darkness, forcing it apart. A rift began to form, splitting through the abyss like shattered glass, revealing a world that had long forgotten him.

He met her gaze, a smirk of his own forming.

"To war."

The abyss collapsed behind them as they stepped through, and the forsaken gods who had once accepted their death followed their new master into the unknown.

For the first time in an eternity, the world would remember his name.