[BL]Hunted by the God of Destruction Chapter 272: Old wounds

The mirrored room wasn’t made of mirrors. The walls were slabs of polished blackstone and reflective obsidian, enchanted to respond to divine ether and mory. Reflections didn’t show what stood before them but what the person in the room carried in their mind and soul. It was useful when Victor or the others didn’t have the patience to deal with soones lies and today, the God of Destruction had little patience for intruders and even less for wasting his ti. Even if he had more than enough to spare... that was for Elias.

Victor stepped inside without hesitation.

The doors sealed shut behind him with a whisper of sound and a pulse of heat.

He walked to the center of the room, each footstep echoing against the geotric marbling of the floor. His reflection flickered in every surface, tall, immaculately dressed, every inch of him tailored to power and predatory calm.

But the figure already waiting didn’t rise.

They sat at the far end of the room, hood lowered, body half-turned toward one of the obsidian walls. As Victor entered, the walls behind the figure began to shimr with bloodline charts, flickering estate fragnts, and ghost-thin images of Elias at different ages, each reflected like water.

Victor’s eyes narrowed.

"You’re using mory permission without my consent," he said evenly.

The figure didn’t flinch. "I had it encoded years ago. Before the override was locked."

"Then you’re either a ghost," Victor said, "or an idiot."

The figure stood slowly.

Tall. Male. Mid-forties by appearance. Dark hair streaked with white, cut just short enough to be mistaken for piety. His robes were plain now, almost civilian, but Victor could still see it, the way he carried himself, the false stillness of soone who once preached with bloody hands and sanctified venom.

There was no ether signature on the surface.

But the pull beneath it... oh, Victor felt that. Felt it like old scars. Like temples collapsing. Like betrayal.

A thread of silence coiled between them, then Victor smiled, tilting his head mockingly.

"Oh my, oh my," he said, voice dipping into sothing almost delighted. "The sinner cos back to ask for forgiveness?"

The obsidian glowed faintly crimson behind him, as if it too rembered the last ti this room had hosted a traitor.

Andreas lowered his hood the rest of the way. "I never asked for your forgiveness, my lord."

Victor let out a low, amused sound. "Of course not. That would imply guilt. You’ve always been fond of absolution without consequence."

He took another step forward, and the floor beneath his feet shimred, ether curling up in elegant sigils that didn’t touch the man across from him.

"Imagine my disappointnt," Victor continued, circling slowly now, "when my most articulate high priest disappeared without a body, without a prayer, and without even leaving behind his cowardice in writing."

Andreas didn’t move. "You were descending. It was the first ti you’d touched mortal ground after ascending. I thought..."

"That you could kill ?" Victor offered. "Take my power? Split the godhead like it was sothing hollow and crumbling?"

He stopped directly across from Andreas, the shadows around him bending just slightly, the walls beginning to respond, mirrors flickering not with Elias now, but Andreas. A mory of a younger man cloaked in ceremonial red, kneeling before Victor’s old altar. Holding a sacrificial blade like a pen. Smiling.

Victor’s voice turned quiet. That kind of quiet gods use before they unmake sothing.

"You took my favor, my temples and then you tried to erase ."

"I failed," Andreas said, unflinching. "Clearly."

Victor didn’t blink. "You failed magnificently."

He tilted his head again. "So tell , High Priest Lowe. Why crawl back now? Why walk into my mirrored room, full of old blood and full truths, when you knew exactly what I left behind to watch for you?"

Andreas lifted his chin. "Because the Clarke boy is yours now."

Victor’s expression didn’t change.

And yet sothing in the walls pulsed once, like the room itself had inhaled.

"I know the look of celestial imprint," Andreas said. "And the stench of destruction dressed in affection. You’ve claid him."

Victor’s voice remained calm. "I marked what belongs to . You speak of stench, yet you stank of divinity for decades while preaching rot beneath golden dos."

"I ca to offer a trade."

Victor smiled, and this ti it wasn’t amused. It carved sharper instead, like sothing honed in ancient fire.

"You ca," he said again, slower this ti, voice cruel enough to silence kingdoms, "to beg."

Andreas took a step forward despite himself. His voice cracked.

"You killed her! You killed Amarath, Goddess of Continuum..."

Victor’s eyes flickered with irritation; he really didn’t want to lose his ti with the traitors while he had a pregnant mate waiting for him.

Golden sigils flared at his collarbones like sunfire bound in skin, divine ether flickering in a heartbeat, and the entire room seed to inhale. The obsidian walls rippled with the essence of Amarath’s sigil, half-fused and half-consud, twisted into Victor’s own.

He tilted his head slightly.

"She broke the rules," Victor said, almost lightly. "And I warned her. She wanted to preserve ti through manipulation. She lied to her pantheon. To her priests. To ."

And then, softer, as if he were sharing a secret rather than pronouncing judgnt:

"Besides. You shouldn’t grieve her."

His red eyes darkened.

"She’s not gone."

Andreas stiffened.

Victor took a slow step forward. The shadows followed.

"She’s part of now."

The words echoed through the room, behind him, one of the obsidian walls shimred again with the echo of Amarath’s eyes, her voice whispering just below audible range, tangled and devoured within Victor’s essence.

"Her domain was fragile," Victor went on, as if comnting on architecture. "Continuum? Ti bent over love? Soft. Weak. She faltered when confronted with inevitability."

Andreas’s hands curled into fists. "She trusted you."

"She trusted the idea of rcy," Victor corrected, like he was talking with a stubborn child. "But I am not that kind of god."

He stepped even closer now. Andreas was trembling. Rage? Grief? Regret? It didn’t matter.

Victor’s voice dropped to sothing colder.

"You served her," he said, "and when she died, you served the next power you could find. You fed Clarke’s rot because you hoped for revenge. So, tell what brings you here now?"