Chapter 148: She Who Dreamt

Oyue was fading in and out of her consciousness. The sleeping goddess was slowly slipping to an endless sleep as her powers waned even further. Helping her selected champion seemed to have been very detrimental to her. All things considered, Adlaw-on wasn't a believer to begin with. The rest of his comrades were, but it still wasn't enough to help her.

The current era she's in had constantly been at odds with her. There were less devotees worshipping her and most people had remembered her for being a monstrous goddess or as the mother of all monsters.

Well, she can't blame them for such. But she hoped that she couldn't be blamed for it either. She did what she can to save her sister and did what she must to stop the darkness from spreading. Although she knew that the wisest decision would've been to leave her sister dying in the Darkness' creeping arms, she could never stand losing one of them one last time. She had lost so many of the ones she loved, another one would really break her.

And thus, when she saw the mistake, she made as she spat the darkness into the world, she made up for it by sacrificing her life and godhood for the sake of the entirety. She took out her own home and crashed it along the young earth, cleansing it from the monsters at its wake. She also gifted the earth and the first inhabitants its first taste of magic. The start of the Age of Wonders.

The leylines that formed into the broken world helped it mend anew and Oyue, the forever bright, stayed in eternity below the earth carrying the blame for the damages she never intended to create in the first place.

For more than three thousand years, she had remained under the earth asleep and drowned in her sorrows but was still powerful enough to answer a prayer or two. To her worshippers, during the Age of Wonders she was a generous and benevolent mother. She was willing to risk herself for her children and their creations. She appointed heroes to kill the remnants of the crawling darkness and help herself be absolved of the dangers she brought on this world.

However, it wasn't going to last soon. Just as the seasons came and went, the Age of Wonders ended with the ley lines closed and the age of the deities came to a close. Up until now, she still hasn't known the reality how that timeline ended. She only sensed power coming from her sister struck the ground, then everything else went dark. But what she does know, was the Yldars' creations were now the new stewards of the land.

Oyue did her best to materialize in the new mortal plane, but it was difficult. Too difficult than when the ley lines existed. The world also felt different from the Age of Wonders, as magic albeit existing was nothing more than just a small puddle rather than the ocean it once was.

During this difficult time, the Lady of the Moon woke up in the darkness. She no longer slept, instead she sat down on the deepest ground where her moon was lodged and tried to visit the surface as much as she can. But with each visit she felt her powers slowly dissipating from her. The ley lines who were supposed to connect with the fragmented moon, her abode was no longer existing, and thus it became difficult for her to draw powers from it.

It took another century or two, before she was finally found by their former creation. An Yldar, one of the creations of the gods of old, scoured the earth just to find her, and it took him almost three centuries to finally get to the bottom of where she was. The Yldar wasn't alone with this endeavor, with him he brought a nation full of devotees, willing to call out to her and worship her being. Oyue was pleased and gifted the Yldar powers after hearing how he lost his at the end of the Age of Wonders. She appointed him High Priest and Speaker to Lady Moon.

They created an underground city using the earth to create tunnels and wonderful structures worthy of praise for both its beauty and mysticism. They used the shards of her broken moon to light up the growing city, and sometime later, used it to create even powerful weapons and items that the surface dwellers hadn't seen before.

Fast forward, another two centuries past and the underground kingdom had now grew to the deepest recesses of the earth. Many people from far and wide came and joined praising her, showering her with gifts and praises. It was a peaceful time she thought would've last, but even as a goddess, she couldn't foresee the fate of this kingdom.

The Yldar whom she gave powers was slowly being consumed by it. With each passing day, his envy towards Oyue grew until such time he devised a plan to lock her up inside a room made of her moon shards as he ascends to becoming a god in his own right.

He had almost succeeded as he was able to trap her inside that crystal prison and killed most of her followers that were not willing to convert to his religion. His spear of influence grew, and it took a hundred years or so to finally end his reign. A few of her surviving devotees finally found a way to defeat him. They used all their might and banished him from the realm of existence, but he was already too strong for them to do it.

As the heroes were at their last breaths, they unlocked her cage and released her to the mortal plane once again, but this time, she was already filled with despair and hopelessness. After Oyue had sealed the mad Yldar, she went and used her powers to seal the kingdom and herself from the rest of the world, burying the culture, knowledge and people that once made it prosper.

Oyue slept a thousand years once more until the otherworlder came into the world and reactivated some of the remaining ley lines in the sky. She immediately opened her eyes and woke up to an unfamiliar world. A world where everything was too new and strange for her eyes.

She tried to manifest herself once more above the surface. As she materialized to the world once again, a vast majority of knowledge came right back at her. It was coming from the energies of those who had worship her after all this time. Little by little, she learnt what happened after she went to slumber. The world became plagued with wars, diseases and oppression.  She could hear her children's cries once again.

She manifested herself on the one person that never believed in her nor the deities, but what else can she do? He was the only one who required less effort, power wise. She helped and guided him throughout his grueling adventure and tried to become her trusted ally, but even that wasn't enough for the human. She knew how the otherworlder was treated by her brothers and sisters, and thus she understood his mistrust towards her and her kind.

She gave him a portion of her powers to try and help him out, but the consequences were almost deadly to her. With every usage of her power, she became weaker. For some reason, the otherworlder had something different with his physiology. He was almost closely related to her than the Yldars could've been. It was almost he was a deity in his own right, but that was her guessing because she really can't tell up until now.

She tried her best efforts to get in touch with his comrades, helping them at the cost of her lifeforce. Now, Oyue couldn't do much, but she was confident that she had planted the seeds she needed to once again rise. She hoped as her consciousness continued to fade, farther from this plane of existence.