The sky broke before the sound arrived.
A sphere of brilliant blue tore open the heavens, blooming outward with such intensity that daylight itself seemed to recoil. For a breathless moment the world held still beneath it, every shadow sharpened, every surface washed in cold radiance.
Then the sound followed.
It was not merely heard, it was felt. The air trembled. Windows shuddered within their frames. Even the horses screamed.
Enoch's hand flew to his chest.
Something answered the explosion.
It began as heat, sudden and invasive, pressing outward from the center of his heart as though a long sealed ember had been forced awake. He staggered, gripping the side of the carriage.
Not warmth.
Fire.
It spread through his ribs, climbed his throat, poured into his limbs. The sensation should have burned him alive, yet it did not harm him. Instead it filled spaces he had not realized were empty.
Divine essence.
Returned.
Changed.
This presence was not the gentle light he remembered. It was fierce, scorching, threaded with an authority that made his breath catch.
The carriage lurched to a halt.
They had stopped before a manor of pale stone bordered by trimmed hedges and iron fencing, but no one paid it any mind.
Rose pushed aside the flap first.
"What… is that?" she whispered.
Thomas stepped down beside her, already staring upward.
The blue radiance continued spreading across the sky like ink through water.
Enoch followed them out slowly, one hand still pressed against his chest.
The ground felt different beneath his boots, steadier and yet somehow fragile, like glass pretending to be earth.
Another explosion split the heavens.
This time it was not only blue.
Gold collided with crimson. Violet shattered into streaks of white. Vast currents of color crashed into one another with violent grace, spilling across the firmament like warring tides.
Then the power reached the world below.
The earth screamed.
A line carved itself through the fields beyond the manor, soil splitting open as if drawn apart by an invisible blade. Stone burst upward. Trees folded and vanished. A canal formed in seconds where no water had ever run.
Part of the manor collapsed with a thunderous crack, its western tower shearing away and dissolving into rubble.
"Inside!" someone shouted.
But Enoch was no longer listening.
A figure fell from the sky.
Not dropped, not thrown, fallen, trailing shattered light as it struck the ground beyond the gates with a force that bent the grass flat in widening circles.
Even from a distance, the armor was unmistakable.
Golden.
Untouched by mortal craft.
Enoch's voice tore free before thought could restrain it.
"Leave this place!" he shouted toward the manor. "Run! The gods are fighting above us!"
Panic caught instantly.
Servants spilled from the broken entrance. Nobles stumbled down the steps with no dignity left to preserve. Someone cried out for a child.
Another impact thundered somewhere beyond the hills.
Enoch turned to Rose.
"Forgive me," he said quickly, and lifted her into his arms before she could protest.
She clutched his shoulder as he ran.
Behind him Thomas was already moving, dragging a fallen beam aside so two servants could crawl free.
"This way!" Thomas roared. "Do not stop!"
They fled the manor grounds together, gathering others as they went, fear driving them faster than reason ever could.
Enoch did not slow until the village lay well behind them.
Only then did he turn.
More figures streaked downward, flashes of gold cutting across the wounded sky before vanishing behind distant ridges. Each descent carried a muted shock that rolled across the land seconds later.
Enoch set Rose gently upon her feet.
His jaw tightened visibly.
Gods were bleeding into the world.
At last the violence above began to fade. The colors thinned. The trembling lessened until quiet, uneasy and incomplete, reclaimed the air.
No one suggested returning.
They made camp upon a hill where the scarred horizon remained visible, as if looking away might invite the sky to break again.
Villagers approached in hesitant clusters as dusk settled.
"You saved us," an older man said, gripping Enoch's forearm with both hands. "Had you not shouted…"
Thomas received the same gratitude, though he waved most of it aside with tired irritation.
"We simply ran first," he muttered.
Night deepened.
When at last there was nothing more to be done, Enoch withdrew into the tent offered to him.
He sat cross-legged at its center, staring at his hand.
The heat within him had not faded.
If anything, it listened.
Slowly, without knowing why, he stretched his palm outward.
A word rose into his mind.
Foreign.
Unfamiliar.
Certain.
"Ider."
The syllables left his mouth with natural vowels, Ih-dehr, shaped by a tongue he did not remember learning.
Fire ignited instantly.
A sphere the size of his fist hovered above his palm, crackling with compressed fury. Its light painted the canvas walls in restless amber.
Enoch stared.
With a small flick of his wrist, the flame vanished.
He stumbled backward, breath turning sharp.
"By your name…" he murmured. "What is going on?"
Again the word surfaced.
"Ider."
The fire returned.
He laughed softly, wonder breaking through caution.
He clenched his fist, extinguishing it, then cast again.
And again.
Again.
Each ignition came faster, easier, as though the flame had always belonged there, waiting only for permission.
Time slipped.
By the hundredth casting his eyes shone.
By the hundred and fiftieth his shoulders trembled with quiet exhilaration.
Just as he summoned the word once more, aiming for the two hundredth, pain speared through his skull.
The forming fireball sputtered and died.
Enoch sucked in a harsh breath, pressing his fingers to his temple.
"I am guessing I have reached the limit to how much I can cast this amazing thing," he said weakly.
He lowered himself onto the mat and lay on his back, exhaustion settling heavily at last.
A smile touched his lips.
"Oh Adam…"
Sleep claimed him before the questions could.
He stood within the royal palace of Elren before the doom. The walls their usual ivory. He stood upon a balcony, watching the bustling people in crown street moving about and minding their own business.
He smiled, but before he could do anything else, the place around him grew heavy and the clouds turned dark. The sun turned dark, as if not willing to witness what came next. Then around the people balls of shadows with trailing darkness weaved among the people claiming a few in the process.
Enoch panicked urging the people to go inside but they didnt listen to him. Just as he was losing his mind on what to do, the whole world froze.
Then a voice reached him, he didn't just hear it through his ears, he heard it even through his very being.
"Enoch."
The name carried weight greater than mountains.