The council chamber echoed with the low hum of magical barriers shifting into place. Crystal projectors crackled overhead, displaying broken runes, seismic patterns, and spreading infernal corruption like veins across the continents.
Mr. Johns sat in silence, legs crossed, arms folded, eyes burning with bitter understanding.
"We are losing," he said at last.
Lisa turned toward him from across the long table. Her eyes were weary, sleepless. "We're doing what we can."
"No," Mr. Johns said, voice sharper now. "You're doing what you're allowed to do. There's a difference."
Leo stood near one of the displays, adjusting data projections. "Then enlighten us, old spider. What's your brilliant plan? Trust the angels again?"
Mr. Johns shot him a look. "You mean the ones who just killed fifty civilians in a 'surgical strike'? The ones who believe anyone not glowing with self-righteousness is a corrupted vessel waiting to be burned?"
"The angels are necessary," Lisa said. "Tartarus isn't something we can face without them."
Mr. Johns rose slowly to his feet, the creak of his joints loud in the stillness. "Neither is it something they can face without us. And yet both sides refuse to acknowledge that we are not enemies. Not yet."
Nicolas, silent until now, glanced up from the scrying mirrors. "They don't care, Johns. Heaven sees mortals as pawns. You know this."
"And what about him?" Leo snapped. "Your little dragon. He's chosen by a god older than half the pantheons in this room and he's now consorting with djinn, eating demons like appetizers, and disrupting every order we try to maintain."
"He saved his wife," Mr. Johns said simply.
"And tore through half of the Pit to do it,"
Lisa added. "He's unpredictable. He's dangerous."
Mr. Johns looked at each of them, his ancient gaze slow and deliberate. "You're afraid of him."
"Of course we are," Leo said.
The old man turned away, his cane tapping against the marble floor. "Then we've already lost. Because you're still playing sides in a war where the battlefield is the world itself."
Lisa frowned. "What would you have us do?"
Johns paused at the doorway, not turning around.
"Make a real truce. Not with Heaven. Not with Olympus. With the only faction that doesn't care about divinity, only balance. The Djinn."
Silence.
Then laughter, bitter, incredulous.
"You want us to align with half-breeds?" Leo said. "With ancient shapeshifting parasites?"
Nicolas didn't laugh, but the tension in his shoulders said he agreed.
Lisa's voice was flat. "Even Maymun's people have their own agendas. They don't answer to us. They aren't part of the Orders. Aligning with them would be seen as betrayal."
"It would be betrayal," Leo growled. "Of the gods. Of the laws. Of everything we've built here."
Mr. Johns finally turned. "Everything we've built is falling. We are new to this era of gods. And the people sitting in this room would rather polish the statues than fix the foundations."
He left without another word.
The ancient corridors beneath the Temple were quiet, haunted by the click of his cane and the murmuring of enchanted scrolls lining the walls. His private study, more tomb than office, sat at the heart of the library: a domed chamber lit by soft rune-glow, books stacked higher than the light could reach.
The moment the door sealed behind him, the weight in his chest settled into a cold, heavy finality.
They won't listen.
They never listen.
He moved toward his central desk and slumped into the old obsidian chair. Around him, magical tomes fluttered open, ancient maps unrolled themselves. Sigils, movements, leylines, none of it mattered now. Tartarus would open. The only question was how much of the world would remain after it did.
He leaned forward, rubbing his face with tired hands.
"I've wasted my time in this new world," he muttered. "All of it. Just to watch fools who were given the powers of gods, too prideful to act."
A voice answered.
"Pride is a poison."
The voice was high and smooth, like silk wrapped around bone. A clicking sound followed it, dozens of tiny legs on marble.
Mr. Johns turned slowly.
A large spider, the size of a dinner plate, sat at the edge of his desk. Its eyes glowed with intelligence. Its voice came not from a mouth, but from the shimmering rune etched onto its back.
"You…" Mr. Johns narrowed his eyes. "You're not just a djinn messenger, are you?"
The spider bowed its front legs. "I am Binyai. Mike's… associate and servant of King Maymun."
Mr. Johns frowned. "Mike? As in…"
"The dragon." Binyai added.
Johns stood slowly. "Why are you here?"
Binyai adjusted its stance, legs tapping once.
"Mike asked me to deliver a message. He wanted you to know: Thank you. For helping his wife. For watching the signs when no one else would."
The old man blinked.
He sat down again, slower this time. "That's… unexpected."
"He meant it."
Johns stared for a long moment at the spider, then said, "I want to speak with your king."
Binyai twitched.
"That is not a light request."
"Nor lightly made," Johns said. "The council will never allow a truce with the djinn. Which means they cannot stop Tartarus. You already know that."
Binyai was silent for a moment. Then, "Very well. I will tell King Maymun. If he agrees, you'll be summoned."
The spider crawled up the wall and vanished into smoke.
Back in the chamber, alone again, Mr. Johns stood by the fireplace, staring into the flickering flame.
All he had were his memories.
Memories of watching chosen rise and fall day after day while the council handpicked those they thought were useful. The other's were left to die or join the demons.
Of spending half a century in silence, studying history and religion as a professor.
Until the veil cracked.
Until the myths returned. Until the dead walked. Until the names of old were spoken again with blood. Gods returned to earth and are destroying it.
He took a long breath and stared at the wall where books lined the shelves, each one filled with lore no one wanted to read.
He had warned them.
He told them when he first joined the council. When the false comets fell. When the sacred lines began glowing again.
But the council thought him senile. Or paranoid. Or just too tired.
Now Tartarus stirred.
And Mike, that broken, furious, engine of wrath… he might be the only one who could cross the boundaries that no divine army could. Not as a soldier.
As a wild card.
Mr. Johns moved to his desk and pulled out a small, iron-bound ledger. It was one of his few written by hand.
Inside were the contingency plans.
Plans that broke doctrine.
Plans the council would burn him for.
He opened to a fresh page. At the top, in neat ink, he wrote:
Plan E — Djinn Accord.
And beneath that:
Initial Contact: Binyai (via Mike)
Request Audience with King Maymun
Primary Objective: Establish a path outside the pantheons.
As he finished writing, the flame in the hearth flared.
A tongue of golden fire licked across the stone.
It twisted once, flickered, and then formed into a sigil: a spiral flame, etched with a crown.
The mark of the Djinn King.
A summons.
Mr. Johns closed the ledger, his wrinkled mouth curling into something between a frown and a grin.
"Well then," he muttered, adjusting his collar. "Let's see if we can salvage this mess."