AUCTION OF A FALLEN DEITY

                      Lord Khyronis Pov

The numbers climbed higher and higher, but at first, I didn’t understand. 

I thought it was some twisted game, another way to mock me. But then the truth hit me like a blade driven straight through my chest.

They weren’t gambling.

They weren’t testing me.

They were selling me.

An auction.

My jaw tightened behind the tape, my eyes widening as the voices roared around me. 

These mortals… these weaklings, were shouting prices as if I were nothing more than a rare jewel, a piece of art, an animal to be caged and owned.

Rage burned in me, hotter than fire. 

My chest rose and fell with violent breaths, my fists curling so tight the veins throbbed against my skin. 

My glare cut through the crowd, but they didn’t see a god. They saw a prize.

Inside, I was screaming. I wanted to tear through the bars, rip the cloth from their faces, and show them what true power felt like. But I couldn’t. Not yet. For my powers were stripped off.

So I sat there, trapped, forced to listen as my so-called value was tossed back and forth like a game.

“Ten million!”

“Fifteen!”

“Twenty!”

“Twenty-five!”

The words came sharp and fast, each one hitting me like a dagger. 

I could feel the greed in the air, thick and choking, as mortals shouted over each other, hungry to claim what they thought was theirs.

And then….

“Thirty million!”

That voice cut through the room like thunder splitting the sky, sharp and impossible to ignore.

 Instantly, the atmosphere shifted.

 The noisy chatter, the bursts of laughter, the greedy whispers of bidders fighting to outdo one another… everything collapsed into silence. 

It was as if the sound had carved the world in half, leaving only stillness behind.

One by one, heads turned in the same direction, drawn like moths to a flame. 

Even the auctioneer froze with his mouth open mid-sentence, his gavel raised in the air but unable to fall.

From the shadows, a man began to move forward. 

His steps were calm, unhurried, yet every eye in the room locked onto him as though he carried the weight of command itself.

The light caught his mask, and it gleamed with a cold, metallic shine…. like polished steel reflecting the soul of the one who wore it. 

He didn’t need to shout to be heard. He didn’t need to raise a hand to demand respect. 

His presence alone was enough to freeze the entire hall, pressing down on everyone like an unseen hand.

And I could feel it too. That suffocating aura that gripped the air, sinking into my skin. 

But to me, it was no divine power, no noble strength. 

No. It was filth. A polluted shadow pretending to be power.

Arghh. The audacity. 

The arrogance. The blindness of them all, to bow their heads and tremble before such rot.

For a heartbeat, the entire hall seemed frozen in place. No one moved. No one even breathed too loudly. 

The first bid had come like thunder, shaking the air, and for that single moment it felt as though the bidding was finished. 

It felt as though no one in their right mind would dare to raise the stakes higher.

But then…

“Fifty million.”

The words slipped into the silence like a blade sliding between ribs. 

The voice was nothing like the thunder before. It was calm, sharp, and terrifying in its own way. 

It did not roar. It cut. It carried a chill, the kind of tone that scraped cold and slow against stone, leaving sparks in its wake.

The reaction was immediate. The crowd gasped as one, as if the air had been punched out of them. 

Whispers broke out like flames in dry grass. 

People craned their necks to see, eyes darting back and forth between the two bidders. 

The truth was clear to everyone: this was no ordinary auction anymore. 

Two giants… two predators… had revealed themselves inside the same arena.

The first man, still cloaked in the shadows, leaned forward. 

Though I could not see his full face beneath the mask, I could read him as if he stood inches from me. 

His lips curved into a smirk, slow and deliberate, amusement spilling from him like poison into the room. 

To him, this wasn’t an auction. It wasn’t even business. This was entertainment. 

A game. And every single person present was nothing more than a piece on his board.

“One hundred million.”

The words rolled off his tongue with careless ease, as though he were simply tossing away coins, not speaking a number that left others trembling.

But the second bidder… he was different. He did not flinch. He did not blink. Surprisingly he doesn't disgust me.

He did not even raise his voice. His reply came steady, unshaken, as if he were not competing but merely declaring what the outcome would be.

“Two hundred million.”

The words fell like a hammer. For a heartbeat the hall went silent, and then it shattered. 

The room exploded with noise. Gasps, shrieks, and disbelief rippled through the crowd like a wave crashing against stone. 

Mortals clutched at their pearls, their suits, their wine glasses, as though steadying themselves against the impossible number that had just been thrown into the air.

Two hundred million.

Their voices rose, trembling, overlapping, trying to make sense of what they had just witnessed.

“No one’s ever…”

“That’s insane!”

“He can’t be worth…”

They choked on their own words, because how could they measure something that defied measurement?

And me?

I sat in the middle of it all, locked inside the cold iron cage as though I were some rare beast. 

The shadows of the bars cut across my skin, slicing me into fragments of myself. 

I could feel the fury burning hotter and hotter inside me, licking up my chest, clawing at my throat.

 My fists curled so tightly my nails bit into my palms. My heart pounded hard enough that it felt like the bars themselves might rattle with the rhythm.

How dare they.

They dared to put a price on me. Me. As if I were an object. A jewel to be polished. 

A rare treasure to be paraded in the open. Something to be held up for inspection and tossed between greedy hands.

To them, I was a body.

A toy.

A possession to own.

But to myself? I was beyond all that. I was not a number. Not a jewel. Not a prize to be displayed.

I was priceless.

Because a god cannot be bought.

A god cannot be caged.

And yet… here I was. Iron pressing against my back, steel biting into my wrists, tape choking the words out of my throat. 

I, a god, reduced to merchandise, stripped down to a body they could sell.

And tonight, they would sell me anyway.

The crowd roared louder, voices colliding like storms, but I no longer listened to their words. 

My ears caught only the sound of my own rage, steady, unrelenting. For every bid they shouted, my fury rose higher. 

For every number they spat, my wrath sharpened like a blade waiting to be drawn.