A God Rekindled

The Spire of Unmaking loomed against the fractured horizon, its jagged peak piercing the endless cascade of auroras that danced across the sky. Inside, the Exarch knelt, their robes of clashing colors and jagged patterns pooling around them. The air trembled with unseen power, and then it came—a rippling wave of energy as Xyr’athos descended upon the spire.
His form coalesced from the infinite, a shifting, serpentine silhouette of stars and void. Galaxies flickered within him, and his gaze burned with the chaotic essence of unmaking. His voice, a storm of whispers and thunder, reverberated through the chamber. “Speak, shard. Why have you summoned me?”
The Exarch lowered their head in reverence. “Great Architect of Ruin, I seek understanding. We call your name again, but many do not know it. Why were you absent from this world for so long?”
Xyr’athos’s form twisted, folding in upon itself like a collapsing star. “Absent? Is that the lie you tell yourselves? I am never absent, for chaos is eternal. I am in the shattering ice, the rising flame, the twisting of roots beneath the soil. You see me only when I choose to be seen.”
“But your presence,” the Exarch dared, “once stood above all else. This world has forgotten you, my lord. Why?”
For a moment, Xyr’athos was silent, his incomprehensible gaze fixed upon the Exarch. He would not correct the Exarch's mistake. Why, after all, should they believe otherwise? Then he spoke, his voice heavier, laced with bitterness. “Long before this age of frost, I was a force revered by mortals. When humanity flourished, they built my spires, lit my altars, and embraced the truth of chaos. They understood that change was the lifeblood of creation. But then the world shifted.”
The Exarch’s curiosity flickered beneath their reverence. “The War of Black Ash?”
“Yes,” Xyr’athos said, his form expanding, galaxies burning more fiercely in his wake. “It was not war, but a cataclysm—a calamity born of hubris and imbalance. The skies darkened, the sun was swallowed, and the world fell into shadow and ice. Humanity’s empires crumbled, and with them, my name faded. The survivors turned inward, clinging to their fragile order. In their fear, they forgot the gift of chaos that once drove them to greatness.”
The Exarch nodded slowly, their head still bowed. “And now? What would you have of us, your shattered shards?”
Xyr’athos leaned closer, his infinite form filling their vision. “The time of forgetting is over. This world stagnates under the weight of its own frostbitten order. Chaos must rise again, and through you, it will. Gather those who see the truth: the disillusioned, the broken, the outcasts. Show them the beauty of change and the folly of resisting it. Build the spires, rekindle the flames, and remind the world of my name.”
The Exarch trembled. “It will be done, my lord. But how will we succeed where others have failed?”
Xyr’athos’s voice became a roar, shaking the very stones of the spire. “Because chaos does not fail—it adapts, endures, and reshapes. I am the storm that no force can tame. You will carry my will, and this world will bow to the inevitability of change.”
With that, Xyr’athos’s form dissolved into the air, his parting words echoing like the crack of a frozen world splitting open. “Go, Exarch. This is the age of unmaking, and my name will be remembered.”
As the chamber fell silent, the Exarch rose, their mind ablaze with purpose. Xyr’athos had returned, and they would see his truth spread across the frozen earth, one shard at a time.