Telmus' words hung in the air for a while and it was broken by the Empress's loud laughter, "I admire you Telmus, I truly do. You choose to bind yourself to the laws you hate and you still wonder why it does not follow your will. You are weak despite all your powers, and it is your madness that will come to an end, not those of the gods. The last time I checked, they were gods, and you are mortal. Your words are empty and your hand is weak."

Telmus sneered and pointed at the Empress, "You are giving me reasons to change my mind about keeping you alive with every word that comes from your mouth. I have not obstructed your war, and instead given more than it would ever need to succeed. This is my final offer and warning Scarlet, don't test me!"

The Empress tapped the side of her throne in amusement, "So you are finally going to shed your cloak of civility and rebel?"

Telmus growled, an air of menace erupting from his body that shook the stars and he closed his eyes and breathed out slowly, releasing the tension that had been building and making all the Earth gods nearly fall to the ground in relief.

They all saw the difference between them and Telmus, and it was as wide as the gulf between the stars. In their eyes were a mixture of fear and adoration. Telmus was an Earth god like them all, but he had reached such high levels of power by the effort of his sheer talent.

Was it possible that a single person could be so blessed? Surely even the gods would not be able to challenge him at the same level. Was there any single Earth god in all of creation that could stand before him?

The Empress could easily read the hearts of these Ancestors, and her smile grew brighter even as her rage burned hotter, she spoke sweetly and the Ancestors shuddered,

"Wise choice Telmus, we require at least forty million Earth gods from the Minerva bloodline, which should leave twenty percent of your population free of this purge. It is the most favorable condition you can ever have, no one here had this sort of grace given to their families. Including me, so you have no more excuses."

Telmus growled and began to walk away, his body began to slowly fade into the darkness leaving his long white hair floating like a mirage, the Empress chuckled but her eyes were filled with anger, "Oh, I think you might know that I took your daughter for my personal handmaiden until the war is over. She would be by my side and completely safe."

Telmus stopped walking away and his body returned, he looked down at his palms, where there were two lines wiggling, clashing, and attempting to fuse. He was close, but still so far away, "Fuck it, the stars are dead, what future does my child have in the universe of the dead? Better if it all burns"

He stretched forth his hand and grabbed one of the ephemeral chains bounding him to the stars and pulled.

The chains binding him to the stars were made so they were ephemeral and Telmus or anyone else was not supposed to have the ability to touch them. Telmus however, never cared for rules. His entire life had been about breaking rules.

The initial tug on the chain was made with so much power that the rotation of Trion, the biggest Major World in the universe, stopped for a second.

A massive shockwave erupted from his position that shattered the earth for thousands of miles and vaporized every single Earth god except the Empress, whose throne was shattered to pieces.

The shockwave could have continued spreading until it covered the entire planet, but instead, it returned to Telmus who used it to vibrate the hand he was using to hold the ephemeral chain in a mystical pattern and it created a loop in the chain that traveled up to the star, causing the chain to wrap around the star, squeezing it until it became the size of a small city and a continual force was still being exerted n the chains making the star smaller, hotter and brighter as it was pulled towards Trion with speeds leaving light far behind.

All this gesture was done almost instantaneously, and he seized another chain, pulling on it, causing another massive shockwave that pushed the Empress back for a few thousand feet.l, shattering the dozens of halos that had covered her from her crown.

Empress Scarlet's robes were torn to rags and she yelled in rage and summoned a blade of flame and frost, but the shockwave that swept past her shattered her godly weapon, and nearly threw her on her back.

A loud whining sound alerted her and she looked upwards where her eyes widened in shock.

Telmus had pulled an entire star, and she only had the chance to look back at him in shock and bring her hands up before a star that had been squeezed to a few hundred feet in diameter slammed into her body.

Surprisingly there was not a large blast because the Empress had caught the star and held it easily with her hands. She smiled at Telmus, "Nice trick, but you forget who you challenge. I am the daughter of fire, the"

Telmus simply brought his left hand forward, and a second star materialized beneath her feet, and unexpectedly the star she was holding multiplied a million times in weight, she could barely scream before the two stars collided.

A bright light shone for an instant and winked out, leaving behind a black stone hovering in the air.

Telmus opened his right palm and the stone flew down and settled on it. The angered screams from the Empress could be heard emerging from it.

"Killing you too quickly is a mercy. This should hold you for all time unless your mother frees you if she can"

"Telmus! Do you dare hold me here? You would set back our mission and the gods would no longer be amused by their favorite pet." The screams from the Empress were shrill, imprisoning her was a far more difficult feat than killing her, and Telmus had effortlessly done that, and even worse, using the tools of his captivity.

He looks at the skies ignoring her rants, and then he winds back his arm and throws the black stone, the stone rapidly flies out of Trion, heading deep into the universe, "If she is quick to find you."

His eyes traced the path of the stone through the universe and Telmus suddenly swung his arm backward, it was unknown when he had grabbed another ten stars, and using the ephemeral chains as a whip, he swung it behind him and turned around to a figure that had silently appeared behind him.

The figure was covered in haze and smoke from the devastation that had just occurred here and from their size they were taller than Telmus who was almost seven feet tall. It should have been possible to see their features, but the smoke and dust seemed to hug the figure, shaking any attempt to penetrate the obstructions.

Telmus looked at the silent figure and then looked at his right hand to see that the chains he was holding had been neatly sliced off. The chain emitted shrieks of pain before collapsing into a bloody fog.