First Demonic Dragon

The laughter of an enormous eastern dragon echoed throughout hundreds of thousands of miles in space.

Abaddon was only a fraction of his true size as he soared through space with Sif nestled between his horns.

She spent the first part of this trip mesmerized by her ex-husband\'s majestic new form.

As a simple eastern dragon, Abaddon was covered in glossy black scales wrapped in his usual gold tattoos.

His wise-looking whiskers were just out of reach so that Sif couldn\'t pull on them to force him to slow down.

In this form, Abaddon could take full advantage of his body\'s flexibility.

He did more loopty-loops than a pair of shoelaces and flew so fast that Sif couldn\'t even properly observe her surroundings.

She was glad she\'d made the choice not to get up and eat today, or else Abaddon definitely would have made her throw up already.

Sif materialized a large hammer made of ice and started bashing him on the top of his head.

"S-Slow down you big bastard! You\'re going to give me a heart attack!"

"Oh? I thought my ex-wife was a big girl?"

"You\'re going to have a big knot on your head if you don\'t stop trying to terrify me!"

"Well since you asked me sooo nicely."

Abaddon finally slowed down enough for Sif to get her bearings on her surroundings.

And now that she could, her eyes immediately began to water.

The pair of them had arrived within a famous spacial anomaly.

The Omega Nebula.

Her vision was filled with an immense cluster of stars and brightly saturated swirling colors.

It was incredible.

Sif was so speechless and stunned by the scenery that she missed the moment where Abaddon disappeared.

Or perhaps \'disappeared\' may be the wrong term.

Abaddon merged his physical aspect with the celestial space around him- causing it to appear as if he were slowly vanishing.

"Are you comfortable?"

Sif jolted when she heard Abaddon\'s voice come from all around her.

It wasn\'t until she looked down at her feet and realized that she was standing on nothingness.

"H-Hey, where\'d you go?!"

"I\'m still right here, stop panicking and just pay attention."

Sif was so startled by the fact that she could no longer see her ex that she completely overlooked her senses.

She could literally feel Abaddon all around her.

It was like her body was wrapped in a warm hug- minus the chiseled body that she had gotten used to groping.

But still, it was nice.

"You\'re blushing." Abaddon noted. "It\'s quite cute."

"Shut it, space man." Sif threw a halfhearted punch in the air.

"Ow." Abaddon said dryly.

"Eh? Did you actually feel that? Did it actually hurt??"

"Yes. And no."

"How interesting… but can you get back underneath me so that I can atleast not get nauseous when I look down."

"Technically I am under you." He chuckled.

"D-Don\'t be a smartass and just help me!"

Abaddon was trying to show just how much fun he was really having.

Out of nowhere, he materialized a wooden floor for Sif to stand on.

Half a second later, there was also a leather sofa, a fireplace, and a nightstand with a lamp on it.

For finishing touches, there was a photo of their entire family together on the mantle.

"Better?" Even though Sif couldn\'t see Abaddon\'s face, she knew he was beaming with smug satisfaction.

Sif tried to prevent her jaw from falling open as she walked over to the couch and laid down.

"Since when did you get so good at creation…? Val\'s gonna be jealous."

"Truth be told, I\'m still learning. But it all comes a bit easier to me here because I\'ve made this place my fulcrum."

Sif raised a brow. "Your place of power? Like the Creator?"

"Almost, but not quite."

Abaddon\'s consciousness is usually only active in the physical body he is using at the moment.

But upon shedding his physical shell, the part of his consciousness that is the most \'active\' is in this region of space.

If the entire cosmos were to be equated to Abaddon\'s physical body, the Omega Nebula is like his brain.

As for the reason why… he just picked this place because he found it the nicest.

It\'s a bit like ruling over Tehom; only as space the amount of effort Abaddon needs to do something isn\'t just minute, it\'s nonexistent.

Like wiggling a toe or pinky.

Abaddon knew that he was powerful already.

Under Gabbrielle\'s tutelage and his own independent study, he could destroy entire solar systems sixty different ways in sixty minutes.

But today… the totality of what he was finally seemed to settle into his mind.

This was perhaps the first time that Abaddon ever seriously felt like a primordial god.

He could sense all of his latent potential just on the tip of his fingertips.

"So… How do you feel, hon?" Sif finally asked.

"…Powerful… and old." He admitted.

Sif snickered as she sat up. "Well, neither of those things are new, so I don\'t really see why we had to come all the way out here."

"Apparently my place of power will be the only place I will be fully in tune with my being… and where I can deepen my understanding of my powers."

"You don\'t feel limited because of the seals or anything like that?"

"I… No actually." He realized. "How odd…"

Sif reached out and gave Abaddon a reassuring pat. "Well just do whatever you need to do. I\'m here for when you need me."

" I appreciate this. I might be silent for a while, so you are free to nap if you want."

"I got it. Happy meditating." She waived.

Once Sif laid back down, Abaddon threw himself into the deep recesses of his own mind.

Taking back control of his responsibilities was an odd sensation- indescribable to the mortal mind.

To the closest possible explanation, it was like suddenly swapping your self driving car out of autopilot in the middle of the highway.

But Abaddon did not seamlessly slip back into his responsibilities because he submerged his consciousness too quickly.

As a result, certain… incidents occurred.

The rotation of exactly 300 planets stopped on a dime for a fraction of a second.

This seemingly small event caused everything on the surface of the planets to be flung at speeds no less than 800 miles an hour.

Over half of the planets had sentient life and thriving civilizations.

They were all destroyed almost instantly.

\'No…\'

Abaddon\'s heart clenched.

Those were innocent beings.

He knew not their names or appearances, but the sudden freeing of souls was all too telling.

His guilt wouldn\'t let him allow billions to die for nothing.

He could fix this.

In an instant he formulated a plan to infuse Nether into the worlds he accidentally destroyed, giving them life after death.

Their civilizations would become ones comprised only of ghost, spirits, and oni, but it was better than premature death.

\'Do not do that.\'

\'Nyx?\'

Abaddon heard a sudden voice play so close to him that it was like she was speaking directly into his ear.

\'Does it surprise you how close we are, my friend? There are some cultures who consider us indistinguishable from one another, you know?\' She laughed.

\'So then you can also..?\'

\'No, or at least nothing on this scale. I can hardly even see 5% of what you are doing right now.\'

Unlike Abaddon, Nyx\'s cosmic awareness is not total.

It has a radius around the same size as that of earth\'s solar system.

But she, just like roughly every other primordial god, knew that Abaddon had just seized control of everything in space.

The sun and moon gods were absolutely shitting themselves right now.

As she said, Nyx was quite close to Abaddon in some cultures.

Therefore, she was one of the only ones who could slip into his mind when he wasn\'t on his guard.

And because he didn\'t know such a thing was possible, she practically walked right in.

A good thing too.

\'I need you to stop for a moment and calm yourself, my dear dragon. Pay attention to the worlds you are so focused on.\'

\'What..?\'

\'In your haste to fix what you broke, you almost broke it all over again. Nether is a very dense magical energy with certain stringent requirements. Not every world can handle it, but you know that already, don\'t you..?\'

Now that Abaddon was looking carefully, he could see what Nyx was talking about.

Not every world was comprised of the same exact list of ingredients.

They\'re like toilet paper.

Some are built durable enough to withstand certain kinds of \'excess\'.

Others tear easily and cause you to put a finger in your own ass.

The terminology may be a bit open for debate, but I digress.

Among the worlds Abaddon destroyed, 80% could not hold such a complex energy as Nether without the entire planet dissolving.

The remaining 20% could handle it, but he would have to introduce it into the atmosphere very, very slowly.

As in, over the course of approximately 3,000 years slowly.

By that time, the dead would have already dissipated and become true nothingness.

And even if Abaddon were to bring them back from oblivion, their sanity would not be fully intact.

He was stuck.

\'I… I…\'

Nyx \'hugged\' Abaddon warmly in understanding.

\'I know you didn\'t mean it, Abaddon. But this is what it means to have our power. Our responsibilities.

This is the harm that I wished to spare you from.

The mistakes we make have consequences that we cannot undo. We can only make better choices going forward.\'

Abaddon fell silent. experience mv,le, content

Amongst his own inner turmoil, he understood full well what Nyx was trying to get him to see.

There was no \'reversing\' things.

Only learning not to make the same mistakes in the future.

A brand new nebula appeared over each of the desolated planets.

The dead souls still floating around on the surface were all sucked up into the atmosphere- where Abaddon welcomed them all into heaven without distinction.

When the last soul was welcomed into paradise, the nebulas closed and Abaddon fell silent.

Nyx didn\'t rush him into speaking, she just waited quietly in the confines of his mind with her metaphorical hand on his metaphorical shoulder.

Nyx tended to play around a lot with him, but one thing she was always serious about was that Abaddon was her friend.

She would be there for him as long as it took.

But she knew that she alone would not be enough to hold him together.

\'My dear friend, I need to step away for a moment. Can I trust you not to do anything until I get back?\'

\'…Yes.\'

\'There\'s a good dragon.\' She \'smiled\'.

Abaddon felt Nyx leave the privacy of his mind not long after that.

As a result, the thoughts he began to harbor were known to him and him alone.

Thousands of years later, Abaddon would remember this day as one of the darkest in the time since his reincarnation.

But it would hardly be the last.