Edward stood in the hollow silence of the Temple of Time as Savage's body disintegrated into ash with the fame of Sun. His last words lingered like venom in the air:
"You will watch your precious cities burn."
Edward didn't waste another heartbeat. He summoned three perfect clones, each burning with a fragment of his essence, and sent them streaking across the sky like comets of silver and crimson. One toward New York. One toward London. One toward Játvarðr, the jewel of Vonarland.
If Savage had spoken true, and Edward's instincts told him he had, then three hydrogen bombs, impossibly advanced for this era, were already in descent. Weapons too monstrous even for the world a century later, falling now in 1943.
He teleported alongside his Játvarðr-bound clone, focusing first on his people, his devoted followers, those who had pledged their lives and faith to him. In his mind, he spoke directly to the elders through the binding spell that connected them:
"Launch the Gungnir now. Strike the warhead before it reaches the earth. Erect the barrier as I taught you. It will hold back the radiation. Do it immediately."
The elders, seated in the golden high hall beneath the carved runes of Vonarland, answered with no hesitation. "Your will is our command, Eternal One."
Edward felt the surge of power ripple through the city as Gungnir, Vonarland's legendary magical missile—crafted from ancient runes and bound with the magic of the nation's greatest mages roared to life. Like a spear hurled by Odin himself, it shot through the stratosphere, intercepting the descending warhead.
Crack!
The sky above Játvarðr split with fire. A thunderclap shook the earth as Gungnir struck true, detonating the warhead midair.
The magical barrier shimmered across the city, an iridescent dome of runes and light. The explosion's inferno rolled against it like waves crashing against stone. The people of Vonarland shielded their faces as daylight turned to blinding white, then faded into a lingering toxic haze.
Játvarðr was shaken, but intact. Alive.
But Edward had no time to breathe.
He turned his senses toward London and New York—where his other two clones had gone. His heart froze. He felt it. Too late.
Even as his clones reached upward, even as they extended hands of burning magic to seize the falling payloads, Savage's design revealed its cruelty. The warheads' propulsion systems activated in the final seconds, accelerating them beyond the margin of interception. And then—
Boom.
The world convulsed.
Two more suns were born on earth.
Over London, over New York, the heavens split apart. Firestorms bloomed into colossal mushroom clouds, climbing endlessly, turning day to night in a heartbeat. The shockwaves tore through the cities with the force of gods enraged.
The closest souls—men, women, children never even knew they died. They became shadows etched into walls, bodies reduced to nothing but outlines in white ash. In an instant, millions were gone.
For those farther from the center, death was not merciful. Flames consumed everything—streets, homes, monuments—until stone itself seemed to scream. Glass turned to liquid. Steel twisted like wax. Human flesh blistered and melted in grotesque waves.
In London, soldiers on patrol near Westminster were blinded by the flash, stumbling as skin sloughed from their bones. Mothers clutched children, trying to shield them, only to fuse together in death, their forms burned into grotesque statues of charcoal. Big Ben crumbled, its clock face vaporized, as the river Thames boiled beneath clouds of radioactive ash.
In New York, Times Square vanished in fire. Skyscrapers bent and folded, collapsing like sandcastles. People fled but there was no direction, no escape. Some staggered into the Hudson, only to find the water itself aflame, carrying the bodies of thousands adrift.
The Statue of Liberty, the symbol of hope was engulfed, her copper skin blistering and collapsing, her arm torn away in the storm.
The survivors wished they had died in the first flash. Edward's clone walked amidst the ruins, looking to see if anybody survived. Once he saw nobody was left to save, he vanished from the city that no longer existed.
Edward descended into the heart of London's ruins, his robes of red and silver trailing ash like blood upon snow. His heroic form remained, he hadn't the strength or mindset to drop it. His steps echoed across a silence broken only by the distant keening of flames. No birds, no cries of life. Just the death of a city.
As he walked, his boot struck against a half-melted radio. It still sputtered with static, somehow catching faint signals through the crackling air. Drawn by the sound, Edward knelt, brushing aside rubble.
His heart clenched.
There, beneath twisted steel beams, lay three blackened silhouettes on the ground—two larger, one small. Parents shielding their child.
They had wrapped their arms around her, protecting her even as fire swallowed them whole. What remained of the child's hand had fused with the radio she clutched. Her tiny fingers had melted into the dial, frozen in a desperate grip.
The radio sputtered one last piece of the famous song, broken and distorted through the static:
"Lo...don Bri...ge is fall...g down...
Fal...g dow...
Lond... Bri... is fa...ing dow...
My fai...r la..."
The melody fractured, then died into silence.
Edward's knees gave way. He fell onto the scorched street, staring at the remnants before him. His long white hair hung in disarray, ash clinging to it like ghosts. His throat was tight, his chest hollow.
He whispered, more to himself than to anyone, "It's like no matter what I do… we always come to the same conclusion. No matter the world, they will be their own undoing."
In his mind, the memories surged. His first world's end. It started with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then, jearly a century later, nuclear fire spreading across continents, humanity's hubris consuming all. And now here, in this altered timeline, the same cruelty repeated.
No matter how hard he fought, no matter what he sacrificed, humanity always seemed to find a way to destroy itself. Edward had nothing to say, neither did the heroes who were watching.
In the distance, tremors shook the air again. Edward's head turned instinctively toward Berlin. Then Tokyo. Two smaller flashes ignited the horizon. Retaliation. America's response, swift and merciless. Savage had not lied—if he couldn't claim the world, he would drag it into hell.
Edward's body trembled, but not from fear. From despair. His clones had long since dissipated, useless now. He had failed. Failed London. Failed New York. Failed the countless innocents now screaming beneath tons of rubble and fire.
He walked aimlessly through the ruins, passing corpses fused into the street, faces contorted in agony. Once-grand taverns and churches were reduced to skeletal remains.
He stopped at the shattered shell of one old pub, the White Horse—where he had first met Death centuries ago. Where Morpheus struck a deal with Hob Gadling and William Shakespeare. Now it was nothing but cinders and silence.
For the first time in countless centuries, Edward did not know what to do. His power was immeasurable, his wisdom vast, but against humanity's hatred, its endless thirst for blood, he was as powerless as the child who had melted into the radio.
So he stood there, in the ruins of London, as ash fell like snow around him. Silent. Motionless. Watching the folly of mankind replay itself yet again.
*******
The ruins of London and New York smoldered behind him as Edward vanished from the shattered street of the White Horse Tavern. His form flickered like a dying flame, reappearing hundreds of miles away, yet the weight of failure clung to him. No distance could sever it.
He landed in silence outside the forests of occupied Poland, where dark whispers he had long ignored—had taken root. If Savage's nuclear fire had stolen millions in seconds, Edward had to face the other truth: there were already places where despair had been cultivated slowly, deliberately, methodically.
Places where men and women were turned into cattle.
His boots sank into mud as he approached the destroyed iron gates of Auschwitz. It was lifeless now. He used his Clairvoyance to see the past. The abandoned camp moved again. Edward walked among the phantoms as he entered inside.
The camp stretched outward like a scar across the earth. barbed wire fences, guard towers, barracks of rotting wood, smoke stacks belching grey ash that blotted the sky.
Soldiers marched along the perimeter, rifles slung casually, laughter mixing with barks of orders in German. Beyond the gates, rows of skeletal figures shuffled forward, heads down, their striped uniforms hanging like rags over bones.
Edward stopped. His hands trembled at his sides. He had seen kingdoms rise and fall, plagues sweep continents, wars bleed civilizations dry. But this was different. It was not merely death. It was humiliation crafted into policy. It was hatred industrialized into routine.
A voice whispered inside him—Solomon's, quiet but heavy.
[You knew of this. Yet only now, after fire has consumed your cities, you come to see? Shouldn't you save them with a smile like you always do?]
Edward swallowed hard. "I wanted to believe humanity wouldn't sink like this after all I have done. I am not God. I am just another human. I cannot erase all bad things from world. Nor can I be there for every one."
[And yet here we are. I know what you were thinking. You just chose not to look, knowing the vile acts they will commit in future. You thought that two acts of cruelty would balance it, while you live happily ever after.]
He sighed. " You have Clairvoyance, Solomon. You can see it all. Does getting hurt once justify for the future atrocities? If everyone just used an mistake from the past as justification for veangence, humanity would not even make it till the medieval era. "
Solomon was silent for a while. [ It's true. That's why I once thought they needed a clean slate, a chance to start anew. But now I see. There is no salvation for them. Their fate is to end themselves.
He stepped forward, unseen by mortal eyes. His presence, cloaked in divine light, moved like a phantom among the prisoners. Or rather, they were the phantoms as they all perished.
A boy, no older than twelve, sat on the dirt near the barracks, his knees drawn to his chest. His face was gaunt, eyes sunken but still alive, flickering with a spark of something that refused to die. In his hands he clutched a tiny wooden toy horse, its legs broken.
Edward knelt beside him, unseen. The boy whispered to the horse as if it could still run.
"They took Mama yesterday. Said she was too weak. Papa's gone. But I will take you with me. We'll get out. You'll see."
Edward's throat closed. He reached out, though his hand could never touch him.
Moments later, a soldier barked an order. The boy was shoved into line with others. Edward followed, powerless to interfere. They were marched toward the showers. The boy held the toy tight.
The doors closed. The locks clanged. A hiss filled the chamber. The screams began.
Edward staggered back, one hand gripping his chest. He could not breathe. The cries of the dying echoed in his skull, each one piercing him deeper than Savage's blade ever had.
[This is worse than the bombs,] Solomon murmured, voice grave. [At least the bombs were swift. This… this is cruelty turned into art.]
Edward's voice was hoarse. "I thought… I thought if I fought the great wars, if I stopped the tyrants at their peak, I could spare humanity from this. But it was already happening."
He chuckled bitterly. "I knew, deep in my heart, that someday I would have to face this. That I would face utter disappointment from their acts. It touched... some rather unsavory memories. Now I understand what Saber felt. But....I won't give up until the very end."
He stumbled deeper into the camp, past lines of starving men forced to carry corpses to pits, past women clutching infants who would never see daylight again. Every corner was despair. Every step was rot.
In one barracks, he found a group huddled together, whispering prayers in Hebrew. An old rabbi, skin stretched taut over bone, spoke softly to those around him:
"Do not let them take your soul. They may burn us, beat us, starve us, but our God still counts us as His. They cannot erase us from His memory."
A woman sobbed quietly, holding her child. Another man stared blankly, his mind already gone. But the rabbi's voice was steady, unbroken.
Edward lingered. His faith in humanity, faith in progress, felt somewhat broken. Yet this man, in chains, facing certain death, still clung to his belief.
It tore at him.
He stepped outside, tilting his face upward. The smoke from the crematorium blurred the sky, carrying ash that fell like snow. He extended his hand and caught a flake upon his palm. It dissolved into nothing, leaving only a smear of grey.
He whispered to no one, "Children's bones, drifting as snow. Is this what the world has become?"
His mind turned again to Savage's words. "You will watch your cities burn."
But Savage had not mentioned this. He hadn't needed to. Humanity had done this all on its own. No bombs. No gods. Just hatred.
Edward felt the weight of centuries pressing down. He thought of Death, his eternal companion. Her warnings, her love, her cold promises to shield him. What would she say if she stood here now, in this place where love had been strangled, where hope was burned into ash?
For the first time in eons, Edward had tears in his eyes.
The tears cut trails through the soot on his face, falling silently onto the mud. He had faced armies, demons, gods themselves, yet here he felt powerless. He could obliterate this camp with a wave, but it would not erase the millions already gone. It would not heal the children already turned to dust.
Solomon spoke again, his tone softer now.
[You are not weak for grieving. You are human, no matter how divine you pretend to be. But know this: if you falter, if you turn away, then their deaths become truly meaningless. The only way forward is to bear witness, and act.]
Edward closed his eyes, forcing the tears to stop. His grief hardened, forged into resolve. He could not undo this. He could not save the boy with the wooden horse, nor the rabbi, nor the millions already swallowed.
But he could ensure their memory was never erased. He could strike at those who built these horrors, rip out the roots of their empire. He could deny Savage, Hitler, all of them, their victory.
He turned from Auschwitz, his steps slow but firm. The ash still clung to him, a mantle he would never shed.
Above him, the world trembled. Nuclear fire had already erased London and New York. Retaliation burned Berlin and Tokyo. Humanity stood on the precipice of annihilation. And in the shadows of camps like this, cruelty festered unchecked.
Edward whispered to the wind, to the dead, to the countless souls rising into the smoke.
"I swear… I will not let you all be forgotten. If I can save the world , I will. If I must carry your pain for eternity, I will. This ends, here, with me."
The air stirred, carrying the faint echo of a child's voice—the boy with the horse, perhaps, or just Edward's grief conjuring ghosts.
"We'll get out. You'll see."
Edward lowered his head. His fists clenched.
He disappeared into the smoke, leaving Auschwitz behind, but the screams would never leave him.
*****
The smoke of Auschwitz still clung to Edward's cloak when he vanished from that scarred land and reappeared on the scorched soil of Japan. He landed just beyond the outskirts of Tokyo, his boots sinking into earth that was still trembling from the firestorm above.
The night sky was a burning canvas—black clouds streaked with fire, red embers falling like rain. Tokyo was no longer a city but a pyre, its wooden houses consumed in a sea of flames. The air was thick, suffocating, alive with screams that echoed through the crackling of collapsing buildings.
Edward stood still, his face pale, the shadows of grief from London and Auschwitz etched deeper into his features. He did not need to see more. But he forced himself to.
He lifted a hand to his temple and whispered . "Show me their final moments. Let me… let me feel what they felt."
There was hesitation in Solomon's voice. [Edward, this will break you.]
Edward's eyes narrowed, already glassy with unshed tears. "Then let it break me."
The world around him shuddered, and his vision split open.
Suddenly, he was everywhere.
A little girl crouched in the ruins of a burning house, clutching her baby brother to her chest. Her lips were cracked, her body bruised, but she whispered to him softly, forcing her voice to be gentle despite the chaos around them.
"Don't cry. Don't cry, little one. We'll find Mama. We'll find food."
The baby whimpered weakly, his breath rattling. The girl tried to smile, but her eyes darted to the flames crawling closer. The roof cracked and groaned above them.
She didn't run. She only pulled her brother tighter, humming a lullaby their mother used to sing.
Edward felt her arms around the child, felt the trembling of her small frame, the desperate resolve to be strong. And then—heat, weight, crushing fire. Her song was silenced in an instant.
Edward gasped and staggered. He wanted to tear away from the vision, but Clairvoyance bound him. More voices, more lives poured into him.
A boy, maybe no older then twelve, ran barefoot through the streets, his clothes singed, his skin blistering from the firebombs that had rained down.
He carried a tin can in one hand, clutched to his chest like a treasure. His breath was ragged, his eyes wild, but there was no fear in him. Only determination.
Inside the can, rice rattled faintly. It was all he had left, all that remained of his family's rations. He tripped once, fell to his knees, but he rose again. "I'll feed her," he whispered hoarsely. "I promised I'd feed Setsuko."
He reached the riverbank, where his younger sister lay weak and starving. He fell beside her, fumbling with the can, but his burned hands couldn't open it. His fingers bled against the metal. His sister's hand twitched, reaching for him. He tried to smile, tried to keep his promise.
And then the firestorm swept down the river, a roaring wave of flame and smoke. The boy shielded his sister with his body, clutching the rice can to his chest as if it mattered still. They both vanished into the fire.
Edward collapsed to his knees. His shoulders shook violently. He clutched his chest as though trying to hold himself together, but the weight of their voices, their last moments, was ripping him apart.
He saw more.
A mother searching desperately through rubble, calling her children's names until her voice broke.
A soldier crawling across the dirt, his legs gone, whispering an apology to a photograph in his hand.
A group of children sitting in a field outside the city, watching the red glow of Tokyo, too stunned to cry. One boy murmured, "It looks like the stars falling."
Each life sank into Edward's soul like a knife. Their dreams, their fears, their stubborn will to survive, their reluctant acceptance of death—they all became his. He bore their pain, their despair, and their fleeting sparks of hope.
He could not breathe.
The visions released him at last, and he crumpled onto the blackened soil. His white hair spilled across the ash, his regal robes stained by soot. He trembled as sobs tore through him, raw and unrestrained.
He had faced gods and monsters. He had slain tyrants. He had seen civilizations rise and fall. But nothing broke him as this did. To feel their final thoughts, their desperate love, their unfinished promises… it was unbearable.
He pounded his fists into the ground, each strike sending tremors through the earth. "Why?! Why must it always end like this?! I tried so hard, I try to change it, and still, this!"
The air shimmered. Solomon's voice was steady. [Edward. This is humanity. Their cruelty, their resilience, their beauty, their horror. You cannot erase one without erasing the other.]
Edward lifted his head slowly, his eyes red with grief. "Then I will undo this mistake. I will give them hope. I cannot let this stand. Not this time."
He rose shakily to his feet, staring out at the inferno consuming Japan. The mushroom cloud loomed on the horizon like a wound in the sky, a scar carved into creation itself.
He clenched his fists, his voice low and heavy with resolve.
"If god will not undo this… then I will. If fate resists me… then I will break fate itself."
The air around him crackled, as if reality itself feared the weight of his vow.
******
From this week. There will be 6 chapters. Bonus requirement is same as last time. 1000 stones per bonus chapter.
We have more than thousand top fans , even a single vote per person should easily reach those requirements. But yes, if you feel - nah, I'd rather vote for the brainrots, that's your freedom.
Then it's also not fair to expect me to write over double the length of words and quality every day than the other story you support.
Don't be surprised if one day writers like me who try to make something good vanish completely from here , and all that'll remain are translations, brainrots and hentai stuff.
Although some might prefer the last kind of stuff. 🤷