Thread by @CaithyLynn

Because many people were curious about the storyline of the AU for these designs, here we are:

Celestial Gods AU

In which some of the characters and their clans are celestial gods, and others try to ascend to godhood.

#mdzs #mdzsAU #wwx #lwj #mxtx

https://twitter.com/CaithyLynn/status/1620519375408361472?s=20&t=XHtMVw5jsmg0x0X634YemQ

Born from sun goddess CSSR and a human cultivator, young WWX follows in his mother’s footsteps and is appointed the next God of Sun after his parents death at the hand of one very power hungry WRH. Having no one else to turn to, JFM, God of Clouds, takes the new godling in.

In this AU, you do not need to be born a god to actually become one. The more godly blood you have in your veins, the stronger your affinity for it and the higher the chances, but it is decided on a fate/worthiness basis.

So despite only being a half god, WWX is the god of one of THE most important celestial bodies out there.

Which thoroughly displeases YZY, Goddess of Lightning, as her children are pure bloods but somehow less powerful and important in the eyes of humans than a mere halfborn child from CSSR of all people.

WWX’s influence, his inherent abilities and his worthiness quickly transform his half-human being into a full god.

Meanwhile, in Cloud Recesses, God of the Stars LXC and God of the Moon, LWJ - who have both inherited their parents title after their deaths in a tragic version of the Hades and Persephone myth - are raised by their uncle, who is a minor Deity of the Moon, but leads the Lans atm.

During a conference of the Celestials when both are godling teenagers, LWJ and WWX meet for the first time, and LWJ is immediately bound to him. Moon Deities, especially the God of the Moon, have one fated partner, their “sun”, so to speak, that gives them power.

Just like the moon can only shine if there is a sun, they need their sun to be at their most powerful.

Ironic, then, that LWJ’s sun is the actual God of the Sun.

Needless to say, LWJ immediately falls for this bright, energetic, warm young boy he found sneaking human alcohol into CR, though he is absolutely unprepared and too socially inept to actually do much about it.

The conference lasts weeks, months, because that’s just how Gods are. Their concept of time is… flexible, to say the least. WWX feels just as drawn to LWJ as the other feels to him, though he is absolutely oblivious as to why.

They spend a lot of time together, go and vanquish some monsters that bother humans, and sometimes just… are.

Meanwhile, in the human realm, a completely human but powerwise much too godlike for the Celestial’s liking WRH, is still hung up on his failed plan to usurp the Goddess of Sun’s power after killing CSSR and her husband with the help of demonic cultivation.

As the head of a clan that has long prided itself in being descendants of the Sun God…

What would be more fitting than him becoming the God of the Sun?

But after his last failure, he realized that his body must have been too weak to accommodate the godly power required to take on that mantle. So, what else is there to do except attacking weaker celestial Gods, take over their godly power, and simultaneously get rid of nuisances?

So he does.

The attacks against minor deities are noticed, but the great Celestials ignore it. A couple of stars vanishing really isn’t a big deal, after all.

Which, as it turns out, is a really, really big mistake. Having gained enough godly power, WRH starts attacking bigger celestial gods. And he soon comes to CR and absolutely razes the place.

Caught off guard, the Lan’s are also incapable of coming to the aid of the Jiang’s, who are WRH’s next target. Not only are JFM and YZY killed, with JC inheriting his mother’s mastery over lightning, said new God of Lightning is also attacked by WRH,

who manages to sap nearly all of JC’s godly powers before WWX manages to escape with his adoptive brother in tow.

It’s only thanks to Wen Ning and Wen Qing that they make it out of the celestial temples of Lotus Pier and the only reason that WWX doesn’t obliterate the two Wen clan members is that WN has always been a very devout believer in WWX and prayed to him regularly.

Sometimes he just wanted to thank WWX for blessing them with sunshine. Other times he gave offerings. Often, he would ask his god to grant him courage.

WWX had grown fond of the young boy and his branch of the family throughout the years. And he had often complied with his requests.

WN fully intends to pay him back for that. So, dragging WQ along, he escorts WWX and a heavily wounded JC down to the human realm, to hide him from WRH. With WQ’s help, WWX transfers as much of his godly power as he can to JC, which still leaves him his role as God of the Sun,

but basically cripples him irrevocably. But that’s fine. He only needs enough to keep the sun shining for the mortals.

That’s enough.

Until it isn’t.

LWJ knows that something happened to his sun the second the real one flickers out like a candle. It’s just… Gone. Was there a moment ago, and now there is darkness cloaking the entire human realm. Panic ensues, but LWJ can’t focus on the prayers sent to him by frazzled humans.

All he feels is coldness running through his veins.

Wei Ying.

The sun is gone. For months, there is only darkness. LWJ’s power runs out quickly, now that the sun, HIS sun, has vanished.

The mortals despair. They lose their trust in the gods. Creatures of resentment and darkness that were once banished to live in the shadows are now roaming free. No one hears their prayers.

So they stop praying. And the gods become weaker, still.

WRH, however, rages on.
He simply does not understand.
He killed WWX. Pushed him straight into the burrows of the underworld, down the Burial Mounds. Weak as he was, he could not survive. The darkness around them is proof!

So why? Why did he not gain his title?!

His people lose faith in him. He had promised them domain over the heavens. He claimed to be the rightful successor to the sun. And now it was gone. Surely this was a sign!

Amongst the revolt, gods and cultivators join hands, fighting against WRH who has long gained the power to destroy them all. And that is exactly what he plans to do.

They dare revolt? Against him? The man stronger than even the gods?
Fools. Blasted fools, all of them!
So he kills them. He kills and kills and kills-

Until the dead do not remain dead. Until the sound of a flute floats over the battlefield, wafts like black smoke and soaks into the bodies left behind.

Until their limbs twitch and spasm, until their bloodied bodies drag themselves up and forward, first with a stumble, then, after a shrill tone, like a crimson wave swallowing everything in its path.

WRH does not understand. No matter how many of them he slays, there are always more. Minutes of fighting turn to hours, hours to days, until he is drowned. Drowned in bones and skin and blood, suffocating in their midst.
WRH is dead.

The frazzled melody that encompassed the battlefield for days now dies down along with the bodies it puppeteered.
That’s when LWJ sees him.
The one that had dimmed.
The one that had vanished.
His sun.

His sun, sullied, darkened, fallen.

WWX has changed. Irrevocably. Everyone can see it at a glance. The still missing sun was simply more proof.
He does not talk about it. Evades LWJ’s questions. His begging to come with him, back to CR, so that he can heal, can regain mastery over the sun.
WWX refuses.

The celestials murmur that WWX’s hatred for WRH drove him into madness, made him abandon his celestial powers and take advantage of chthonic ones, powers of the underworld, of the shadows, of the dead.

That his hunger for revenge, his dabbling in necromancy caused him to become unworthy. That he lost his power over the sun.
That it is his fault that the mortals lost faith in the gods.

LWJ does not believe it. Not for a second does he even consider this to be the truth. His sun, his Wei Ying, bright and charming and so very much in love with humanity soulmate… He would never abandon his duty.

But WWX refuses to talk to him. No matter how much the Celestials rave and rant, no matter how much LWJ begs and pleads…

WWX remains in the mortal realm, doing his very best to keep the monsters at bay. To keep his beloved mortals safe, even if he can’t give them the light they so desperately wish for.
And so his influence among them grows. Chthonic temples soon replace celestial ones.

Heaven’s fury burns and twitches and lays in wait for something to consume.

They chose the remaining Wens.

Watch, they proclaim to the mortals under them. Watch what happens to those who oppose the gods.

God of Rainbows, JGS claiming that they need to prove their might in these trying times, lest they lose it all. The Lan elders agree. NMJ, God of Rain, wishes to lay waste to the family that had taken his father away from them. JC fury strikes like the lightning he governs.

It is only when WQ finds WWX wandering the mortal realm, telling him about the horrific treatment her family faces, that what remains of them is saved. For many, he is too late.

For Wen Ning, he is too late. He finds him, flayed open, a sacrifice to the Celestials, a ritualistic murder, a warning sign. It is WN whose broken arms snap back into place, before they snap the minor deities’ necks that guard the temple.

He takes them with him, to the Burial Mounds, where they settle down. His light has dimmed, his fury died down to embers, only reignited, snapping into punishing blazes, when agitated.

He builds a life there, with them. Reawakens WN’s consciousness. Grows fond of little A-Yuan, too small, too delicate for any of this.

Until the heir to the God of Rainbows is killed.

It is a set up. Someone lured them to the same place, let loose demonic beasts, more and more and more of them. But that alone should not be enough to overwhelm them.
It does not matter why. In the end, WWX stands in the middle of a sea of flayed shadows.

And the body of his shijie’s husband.

He can’t explain. Even if he had answers, he can’t communicate with the Celestials anymore. When WRH took what little power he had left, his ties to heaven were severed irrevocably. It matters little. They wouldn't listen, anyway.

The Celestials invade the Burial Mounds. Destroy the temple. Kill the Wens. Raise their weapons against WWX.
He is tired. So, so tired.
He stops struggling.

Fades into shadows, when swords and arrows pierce his body.

They hadn’t told LWJ about the siege. His brother had kept it a secret from him.
So when all energy drains out of his body, his breath punched out of him, he falls and with a thundering heart just knows.

His soulmate, his sun, his Wei Ying is gone for good.
Banished to a place he can never go to.

When he finally is able to gather just a bit of energy again, he goes and retrieves A-Yuan, the only link to his soulmate, the little boy whose smile reminded him so much of that beloved one, the one he so desperately wished to see in those months WWX had been gone.

Now it is a piercing, painful reminder of what he would never have again.

He shares his celestial energy with A-Yuan, brings him up into CR.
It is against Celestial rules.
He does not care.
It is against destiny.
He does not care.
People ask questions.
He does not answer.

A-Yuan thrives in CR. Soon, he does not require LWJ’s power anymore. He generates his own. LWJ believes that it was WWX’s influence, his presence, his love for A-Yuan that connected the boy to the divine.

A century passes.
Two.
Three.
Darkness cloaks the land.

Until the day LWJ names his son Lan Sizhui and the sun chases away the shadows.

LSZ is the new God of the Sun. He is not LWJ’s sun. But he is his family, his son, his beloved memory to his soulmate.

The Gods slowly regain their influence. Following WWX’s death, monsters and ghouls razed the lands, now that the only thing that kept them at bay in the underworld was just another of its inhabitants. But now that the sun shines, mortals start praying again.

JGS rages. His influence has taken an enormous hit and does not recover at nearly the same rate as that of the others. In times of need, a rainbow is simply something pretty to look at, nothing of actual substance.

So he calls XY, who he had elevated to Godhood once he saw his abilities in manipulating resentful and celestial energies.

In the time of endless darkness, JGS had used his many halfblood children as energy sources. As much as he despises JGY, he had some use. Rounding up halfbloods and using XY’s abilities to drain them of what was not rightfully theirs in the first place had been JGY’s idea.

JGY continues doing this, long after he killed and absorbed some of his unknown half siblings, killed and absorbed NMJ and killed and absorbed even his own father.

It is only when the new God of Rainbows attempts to drain MXY, that he realizes the danger he is in and sacrifices his body in a desperate prayer to the God of the Underworld.

LWJ feels the thread that had been cut with WWX’s death twist and pull and rearrange itself. He rushes to the mortal realm, searching and searching and searching…

Until he finds a boy. A boy that is not his soulmate, not his sun, not his Wei Ying.
They share the same bright smile, the same warmth, the same silver eyes.
But it is not him.

LWJ concludes that it must be WWX’s child. WWX must have found a mate, down there in the Underworld. And his son, somehow, managed to leave the realm of the dead.

They travel together, lead by the new God of Rain NHS, meet LSZ and LJY and JL, meet JC and fight XY and kill JGY.
Somewhere, inbetween, LWJ realizes that his sun had returned to him.

But it is only when WWX finds himself between his soulmate and his son, his beloved LWJ and brilliant A-Yuan, his moon and his sun…

That fate makes him the God of the Eclipse, the bridge between life and death.