Roxom returned to his city embittered, disillusioned with his godly brethren. If they would not take initiative to use their power for the betterment of the world, for the betterment of their kind, he would govern them as he did the mortals, with firm guidance, the likes of which the star-beast couldn’t provide. 

He walked his city streets, enjoying the adoration of his devotees, their bows as he walked past, making his way to his church. At the entrance he turned around, back to the doors, facing his followers. ‘Who among you is the most devoted to me,’ he asked the assembled, ‘who will be my chosen.’ 

Such good children should get rewards, he thought with fondness as he brought the chosen to his tree propagates, allowing his progeny to crawl inside the devotee’s bodies. Some of the humans screamed, writhing as their lives were snuffed out, and some stood staunch in their dedication. They died just the same. With each newly birthed corpse Roxom breathed deeply from his stolen lungs, disseminating vaporized godseed to bequeath demi-godhood to each of his descendants. Soon he would be many, able to take on an army’s worth of gods and spread his will. Soon he would have a force mighty enough to take on the star-beast. 

His godseed was being stretched, further than it should be, he could feel it. But he couldn’t stop just yet, many more of his children had yet to be mobilized, he could feel their excitement through his shared consciousness at his vision being achieved. A taut weakened feeling twisted in his gut the further he disseminated his godseed among his offspring, twanging painfully with each addition. 

He pushed through, determined to fulfill his objective, his ambition driving him past the point of failure. He felt something snap, the sharp painful recoil knocking the breath from him, leaving him gasping, so much like he had done to the humans with his neurotoxin. He heard a shockwave boom as if from a great distance. He had overstretched, he thought ruefully, his last thought before his vision faded and darkness claimed him.

He woke in the midst of chaos. The heat from the explosion lingered, bodies burning around him, the meaty smell of burnt flesh filling the air. Humans raced around him, blood dripping from their eyes, their ears, their screams adding to the cacophony of destruction. He could see the ashy outlines where those standing too close to him had been vaporized, nothing left behind but a shadowy outline on a wall. Building collapsed around him, a massive crater of broken street below him, pulverized by the weight of the blast, succumbing to the pressure the recoiled godseed had released. A firestorm raged above, the superheated sky the red of blood and fire. A whirl of wind and fire rushed over him, forcing him to draw on his power to protect himself from its scorching blaze.

He had made a grave mistake. He reached out for his children mentally, seeking them out desperately, hoping that the destruction had not affected them. Silence was all that met him, none of the whisper thin echos he had come to regard with fondness. Just emptiness. His breath stuttered. He staggered to the last location he had heard one of his children, dreading what he might find but determined to know. 

A mangled form met him, the body covered in flash burns, the beautiful flowers completely evaporated, leaving only twisted burned branches behind, emerging from the human’s face like a final wail of the dying. Roxom collapsed to his knees, his petals fluttering from his branches like tears, tumbling down to land on the corpse of his child. The wind swept through his balding branches, a howl of mourning. Devastation, that’s what he had wrought. 

He released his godly power, accepting the radiative flames, letting them devour him. He welcomed the eversleep, willing it to cleanse him of his hubris. He would live in infamy after all, he thought, a manic laugh ripping out of his stolen mouth as he burned. 

The star-beast watched from above and laughed.