Blessed by Night

They can feed on them, and some can start them with enough power and influence, but they cannot partake in the actual war itself nor can they assist either side.

The only way they would be permitted to take action would be if another divine force were to declare open war.

This is where the N'Kai come in.

Among the trillions upon trillions of races in the cosmos, they alone are the grey area between mortal and divine.

Billions of years ago, they were nothing but a small, weak race with numbers so few that they barely qualified as such.

Their disposition to overwhelmingly debilitating empathy for other living creatures made them easy pickings for the dominant race that overwhelmed their planet.

They were slaves, pets, and means of entertainment for the high ranking elite.

The N'Kai were filled with unimaginable grief.

Why were they being treated so horribly?

All that they wanted to do was love and be loved.

Why did that make them so worthy of scorn?

Why couldn't the dominant ones see that they should have all been taking care of each other since they were essentially just biological organisms trying to get by on a floating rock?

…What if they could make them see?

From desperation and despair came discovery, and the N'Kai learned that the gift of oneness could indeed be shared.

Not only that, but the formerly fragile and weak bodies that they possessed could grow stronger the more that they connected with others.

In a year of earth's time, the N'Kai turned their entire planet into their own idellic utopia, where every being was working for the advancement of another, and no man was greater than his brother.

Once their society developed a means of space travel, they excitedly took to the stars with the goal of spreading their 'gift' with other worlds.

But they forgot just how bad sentient beings could be.

When they traveled to their first world, they were immediately persecuted and attacked with the fiercest of weaponry.

And even though they abhorred violence, for the first time in history the N'Kai decided to fight back.

They beat back their enemies to the point of surrender, and on that day the race of pacifists learned a valuable lesson.

For whatever reason, cultures no matter the way of life are only willing to listen to different viewpoints after they have been brought to their knees by force.

The N'Kai applied this line of thinking to the next world that they visited and the next, and the next, and the one after that, and the one after that…

Eventually, as a race they grew so powerful that it was difficult to still consider them mortal.

They used to have a short lifespan of around ten years, but now even the weakest lowbreed can live for atleast half a million.

They used to have difficulties running single laps, yet now they could run and fly at near light speed.

They became immune to all forms of naturally occurring disease and bacteria, and had incorporated the DNA of countless species into the cosmos into their own genetic makeup so that they could continuously improve.

But they still weren't gods.

And with that distinction still separating them, they were subject to the powers of those who were.

Restrictions were suddenly imposed on the N'Kai from the heavens of the cosmos.

From that point on, they were no longer allowed to go to worlds as freely as they had before.

If they wanted to 'liberate' a new world, a game had to be played.

The divine ones would bestow their powers onto their presided over world and they would fight against the coming threat.

However, they were only allowed to bestow 35% of their power at most and highers at the primordial level were only allowed to give 25%.

The N'Kai were also required to give a five year 'warmup period' to civilizations so that they could acquire time to get acclimated to their powers.

The aliens assisted in this by offering to stage 'mock battles' using some of their already conquered worlds, and the gods agreed.

In addition, as a means of sweetening the pot the N'Kai would have to sacrifice something if they lost.

Artifacts and divine trinkets that came from the various religions of other worlds, collected from the victories of the N'Kai and containing powers that even most of the gods of earth did not possess.

Which brings me to the final condition for the game.

In order for the N'Kai to visit a world, they have to be admitted entry by the governing gods that make up a planet's higher beings.

So in other words…

The entire reason why the N'Kai could come to earth, is because the gods already took a vote to let them in in the first place.

It wasn't a unanimous decision and one that was certainly not entirely motivated by selfishness, but still.

The fact of the matter was that the gods that had chosen to allow the N'Kai into their world, had unfortunately condemned a massive ten million men, women, and children to die.

-

Roaming through a swamp as the unchecked apex predator was a massive crocodile that clocked in at over eighteen feet long.

It was clearly looking for it's next meal with a rather purposeful gaze and aggression.

It prepared to slither back into the water and continue on it's day when the sound of a branch snapping suddenly drew his attention.

Turning around, it released some air from it's lungs to make a hissing sound.

"Easy."

What the crocodile saw, it wasn't really able to make sense of.

Wading through the bushes was a humanoid creature that looked like a male.

His skin was completely black and devoid of any other pigments or markings, and his long grey dreadlocks swayed somewhat unatturally as if they had a mind of their own.

Behind his back swung four dark grey tails with serpents that made one think of venomous boa constrictors.

He wore a simple outfit that consisted of a pair of black pants and sandals with a matching sleeveless shirt to allow his lean yet powerful muscles the room to breathe.

Golden jewelry adorned his biceps, wrist, ears, and neck; but instead of seeming needless it all appeared to be ceremonial in nature.

Tied around his waist was a deep, rich purple cloth with depictions of a moon surrounded by six stars in the nighttime.

And one baby comet.

The man's bright purple eyes seemed to glow even within the daytime, and he stared unflinchingly into the soul of the egregiously large crocodile.

For some reason, this reptilian beast did not feel the need to bite the strange human who had just shown up.

It was like it had just run into long lost family at the grocery store.

And it was so pleased by the sudden reunion that it did not even bother to pay attention to the other, less friendly looking humans behind him.

*content hissing*

Smiling, the alien dropped down onto one knee and brought his hand towards the snout of the dangerous meat eating reptile.

A viscous, unknown black fluid pooled in the palm of the familiar humanoid.

Without really understanding why, the crocodile cracked open its jaws to allow the human to toss his own fluids inside.

No more than seconds crept by before the two of them let out groans in unison as the crocodile fainted.

When Malachi saw it start to transform, he immediately felt leagues better about everything that had been bothering him so terribly before.

'Banshee class on my first try… not bad at all.'