She made herself present. The perfect goddess now standing before me. Her hair ever elegant and flowing like waves in the ocean, her eyes a radiant golden-yellow and full of disdain, yet love. Her face... her features all seamlessly fit together, as if she was made to be the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on.
She took a few slow, graceful steps to close the gap between us. Even her elegant march was bewildering. The overbearing sense of fear in my body slowly seeped out of my pores. I felt attraction in one singular instance, as if I was listening to the enchanting song of a siren.
Not because I wished to follow her.
But because something ancient within me recognized something equally ancient before me.
I look around the cave. It's now drenched in radiant light. Beautiful, shining drawings carved into its ancient walls of people, deities talking, fighting, joining together. One great story painted upon the cave walls. The dark and gloomy cave was now something of pure interest.
It was no longer a cave.
It was a temple forgotten by time.
A place where the memories of gods and mortals were carved into stone, waiting patiently for the day when someone would return to read them.
Just being in it filled me with a strange sense of longing, as if I yearned for something.
Someone.
I look back to Amaterasu, and she is now only a few steps in front of me. This radiant sun of beauty, the most perfect being I have ever had the courtesy of meeting, stands before me.
Every bodily instinct that resides within me beckons me to kneel, to bow, and to submit to the goddess.
It was not fear.
It was instinct.
The soul itself understood what stood before it.
Yet I stand.
I hold my ground.
I stand before her not as a god, not as an equal, not as a rival...
But as myself.
"Amaterasu. I bet you're used to every man and woman bowing before your divinity. They probably also beg for mercy before you even raise a finger. You see... there is just one issue with me. I can't bow for someone, something, that I deem not deserving of praise. Strip the powers from your divine shell, rid you of your godlike strength, and you're just like any other person. You just have a reason to bolster your ego compared to most."
I felt...
Anger.
Frustration.
The heavens themselves seemed to reject my words.
The sky, the sun in the beautiful sky, dimmed.
Dark, brooding clouds filled the blue ocean above us.
Dark ones.
Lightning began violently crackling and exploding miles above us. The infinite, radiant sunshine that covered me and the cave was dimmed and pushed back slightly.
The world that once embraced her warmth now recoiled from her anger.
The ancient trees outside were dragged and uprooted, pulling themselves closer to where I stood. The grass itself tried to pull free from the earth just to get closer to me.
Lu Bu stood in that cave as a man.
Yet the infinite constant of life...
Nature...
Was doing everything it could to get closer to him.
The rivers remembered his name.
The winds carried his presence.
The earth itself reached upward, as if creation itself was questioning who it was meant to serve.
Animals began ruthlessly fighting and clawing at each other. Insects began creating tiny constructs to resemble their liking of Lu Bu.
The lightning's relentless crackling resembled a triumphant symphony they used to play at Lu Bu's arrival.
Not a song of destruction.
A song of recognition.
Women and wives looked at their partners, man or woman...
In disgust.
As if they never liked them at all.
Like a cheating spouse who always had someone else in mind.
I look at the man before me with confusion.
I know everything.
I am Amaterasu.
I am the Celestial Sun Goddess...
Yet this man instills me with confusion. Such pure confusion that I feel, ever so slightly, fearful.
I can't figure it out.
He was mortal...
Yet I could smell divinity on his soul.
He was something that should not exist.
A contradiction written into the laws of creation.
He was.
Was he the one chosen by fate?
Was he the one destined to challenge us?
I straighten myself and look at Lu Bu with a newfound mindset.
"I see it now. I see why Chiyou had no effect on you. Fengxian... You fight. You struggle to break the cycle. You claw and break your teeth to chew through what you deem to be a cycle you are forced to live. I will be honest with you, Lu Bu...
You confuse me.
You are too blind to see what is happening to you."
I can't tell him or formulate it yet, but Lu Bu is a driving force in the world now.
No matter how angry it makes me, it is a fact I cannot turn away from.
This man is...
He is a cycle himself.
He is a constant in nature.
He is...
He...
Lu...
Bu...
Has command over life itself.
He does not simply walk upon the world.
The world reacts to his footsteps.
He can change our constructs and beliefs to further his agenda.
It was just folklore...
It was something we were told by the Emperor as a little story to relax us when we had our bedtimes...
I never...
Never thought he was real.
That Sun Wukong could exist.
Amaterasu stood in confusion whilst Lu Bu kept surging with an infinite fountain of energy.
He was teeming with life, almost as if lightning itself surged throughout his body.
He stared at the infinitely powerful Goddess, now with a smirk plastered across his smug expression.
The Celestial Sun Goddess had a human form, but her spiritual construct was mountains tall.
Yet Lu Bu looked down upon it.
He stood triumphantly above her.
He stood proud.
For the first time in ages, something beneath the heavens looked upward and refused to kneel.
There was no sun in the sky anymore.
There was no moon.
There was only the silence before the storm.
Lu Bu took a step forward and unearthed the ground.
The entire cave imploded outwards, completely opening up like a shell waiting to bloom.
He stared at the divine woman with a smile now.
"AMATERASU! You may be one of the strongest in the Mandate. You could kill me before I blink! You know that. We know that. But the predator kills not what they can't comprehend!
I will journey into your Mandate.
I will set foot into your divine temples.
I will make you all know my name!"
The second he finished his sentence, the sky began spinning, the clouds forming a colossal typhoon miles above the ground.
And Lu Bu stood at the center of it.
A mortal standing beneath heaven itself...
Yet refusing to be beneath it.
He was currently weaker than Amaterasu in every conceivable way, but that isn't what he cared for.
He knew that she knew something about him.
He didn't understand it.
But he was gambling.
Banking on her confusion.
"You can't kill—"
Amaterasu had enough.
She looked up, past her furrowed brow, and into Lu Bu's eyes.
Within a Planck instant, she appeared in front of the man, gripping his shirt with a grip tighter than a white dwarf star.
And with an elegant tap of her foot, they flew into the sky with such speed that the air itself parted.
The clouds shifted and broke open to let Amaterasu through.
They floated miles above the ground as the Goddess stared into the man's eyes.
"Lu Bu... you might be an ant compared to us. You might have such a minute amount of strength, but... you have a scent I only smell on him.
Not jade-scented...
More like...
A ruby.
You piss me off.
I can't figure you out.
So I'm going to break you."
Amaterasu let go of him and, in the same motion, flicked her finger against his chest.
I felt my entire soul and physical construct be catapulted backwards from nothing more than a flick of her finger.
I flew so fast that the clouds around me didn't part...
They didn't have time to.
They somehow...
Exploded into mist and plummeted like rainfall.
I flew so fast that I covered entire cities in nanoseconds.
I was traveling across the earth so quickly that speed itself could barely keep up.
I was moving with such overwhelming momentum, it was almost as if I were teleporting.
And that's when I stopped.
Suddenly.
Instantly.
Being suspended by...
Her.
Again.
This...
Is true power.