A month had passed since the battle in the Divine Realm, and the world, chaotic and uncertain as it had been in the immediate aftermath, finally showed the first genuine signs of settling into something resembling stability.
The Order of the Church had quietly recalled every fighting force it maintained across the various battlefronts, a decision that came almost immediately after the demons themselves had inexplicably stopped pushing forward with their invasion.
It wasn't difficult to guess why the Church had chosen caution over continued aggression. With their connection to the Divine Realm severed entirely and no explanation forthcoming from the silence on the other end, their priorities had shifted from waging war to simply understanding what had happened before committing to any further action. Sending soldiers to die on a battlefield made little sense when the very gods they fought in the name of had gone completely dark.
While the rest of the world scrambled to make sense of the sudden shift, Arthur had spent that same month pursuing something considerably more personal. He had taken Judas far from Thyrandel's influence, beyond the reach of the World Consciousness entirely, and ended his life permanently there, making certain there would be no revival waiting for him on the other side of death.
The remaining three Minor Gods responsible for the deaths of his friends received a different fate. He hadn't killed them outright, choosing instead to let them suffer through pain as a punishment, though in the end he stopped short of true death for them. It wasn't kindness exactly, though some part of him understood it as leaving a door open, just in case.
The rest of the month hadn't gone to waste either. He had spent long, methodical hours studying the nine bodies he'd sealed away after the battle, dissecting every layer of their physiology in search of some concrete understanding of how exactly the Godkings of Thyrandel managed their eventual revival after death.
Body after body, experiment after experiment, the results kept circling back to the same frustrating dead end, until he finally accepted the conclusion staring him in the face. Whatever mechanism governed their return had almost nothing to do with the body itself. It was the soul that mattered, some deeper anchor tied to their divine essence that persisted independent of physical form entirely.
The realization closed off one avenue of research, but it opened another that proved considerably more valuable. Through the process, he had gained a genuinely thorough understanding of how divinity itself functioned at a fundamental level, knowledge that would likely prove invaluable whenever Selene and the rest of his friends eventually pursued godhood of their own. With nothing left to learn from the bodies themselves, he burned them down entirely, leaving nothing behind for anyone to recover or misuse.
Beyond his own research, the broader signs pointed toward an approaching storm. The restrictions sealing off Thyrandel from outside interference had continued loosening steadily throughout the month, and Arthur could feel, with growing certainty, that the barrier keeping full Godkings from descending was drawing closer to collapsing entirely. The demons, sensing that same shift, would likely commit to a full-scale assault the moment that door swung open, and he intended to be ready for exactly that when it came.
…
For Adam, the past month had unfolded with a persistent, nagging unease that refused to fully settle no matter how much he tried to rationalize it away. He had grown accustomed, over the months, to a particular sensation whenever he entered a new city, the faint but unmistakable prickle of being watched, the Church's silent surveillance following him wherever he went despite his status as an outcast.
It had become such a constant presence in his life that its sudden absence felt almost more unsettling than the watching itself ever had. For an entire month now, that familiar prickle simply hadn't returned, no matter where he traveled or how carefully he paid attention, and the change left him turning the same handful of questions over and over in his mind without ever landing on a satisfying answer.
He shook his head, forcing the thought aside for the moment, and returned his attention to the crepe cooling on the plate in front of him, the sweet scent of caramelized fruit rising faintly from its folded layers. It had been nearly two months since he first arrived in Avalon, and even now, the sheer strangeness of the place hadn't fully worn off.
He still remembered the disbelief that had gripped him during those first few days, wandering streets lined with technology that felt lifted straight out of some impossible future, utterly out of place within a world otherwise defined by swords, spellwork, and medieval castles.
He had never imagined a city like this could exist anywhere in this world, yet everything he had witnessed since arriving had steadily reshaped his understanding of what was actually possible here. Somewhere in the middle of that adjustment, he had quietly decided to stay in Avalon for the long term, drawn in by both its strangeness and the genuine sense of safety it offered him.
That sense of safety had wavered, if only briefly, the day he sensed several powerful presences appear near the island, presences he immediately recognized as belonging to gods. His first instinct had been fear, a cold, immediate certainty that they had somehow come looking for him specifically.
What unsettled him even more, once that initial panic passed, was the realization that the lord of this island, the man everyone simply referred to as Avalon's ruler, radiated a presence that outmatched even those visiting Minor Gods without any apparent effort.
He knew the Minor Gods in question were somehow connected to the deaths of people close to the island's lord, people tied to the Church itself. It didn't take much further thought to connect that to the Church's mysteriously vanished agents. If the island's lord held that kind of power, and if he held some personal grievance against the Church, then their sudden absence from his life made sense.
Even with that uncertainty lingering in the back of his mind, Adam never once considered leaving. Avalon still felt safer than anywhere else he had lived in this world, and beyond that safety, the island offered him something he hadn't had consistent access to before, genuine opportunities to grow stronger.
The sheer number of skilled experts residing here, willing to share knowledge with anyone motivated enough to seek it out, meant he spent nearly every free hour training under one mentor or another, steadily chipping away at his own limitations. That, more than anything else, had become the rhythm defining his days in Avalon.
…
A few days later, Arthur sat hunched over a table scattered with notes and diagrams, putting the finishing touches on the cultivation technique he had been carefully constructing for Selene and the rest of his close friends, when a faint spatial anomaly rippled through his senses from somewhere within Velmora.
He straightened immediately, already suspecting exactly what that disturbance meant. The demons had finally begun their arrival into Thyrandel proper. Without wasting another moment, he rose from his seat and teleported directly to the outskirts of the former Demi-human continent, ready to confront whatever awaited him there.
The past month had not only brought changes to Thyrandel's divine restrictions. The very environment of the planet itself had shifted, growing noticeably harsher and more resistant than before. Attacks that could once level entire mountains now struggled to crack a modest hill under the same force, a deliberate safeguard the World Consciousness had apparently woven into the world itself, ensuring that any future clash between Godkings wouldn't reduce the entire planet to rubble in the process.
He found the change almost impressive in its own right, a subtle but unmistakable reminder of just how carefully this world's underlying systems worked to preserve themselves.
He waited at the continent's edge for several long minutes, senses stretched wide in search of any incoming threat, but no demons approached him. Rather than continuing to wait indefinitely, he scattered a handful of rune enhanced probes across the surrounding territory, devices designed to alert him the moment anything crossed into the area, before teleporting back toward Avalon.
Whatever satisfaction he might have found in personally confronting the demons the instant they arrived, it didn't outweigh his concern for Avalon's safety. The barrier protecting the island, however carefully reinforced, still wasn't strong enough to withstand a coordinated assault from multiple Godking level demons without his direct presence backing it.
The possibility of being lured away and trapped somewhere while Avalon remained vulnerable was a risk he had no intention of taking, not when the stakes were this high. When the moment finally came to face the demons head on, he would do so without hesitation, but until then, he preferred to let Thyrandel's own Godkings take the first steps in confronting that threat.
When he returned to his room in Avalon, Selene was already waiting for him, and the moment she caught sight of the unusually serious expression settled across his face, she asked quietly, "Is it finally time?"
Arthur nodded, watching the tension immediately tighten across her shoulders. Selene certainly hadn't spent the past month idle. With his guidance and the resources he had made available to her, she had successfully broken through to the Demigod Rank, a milestone that opened the door for her to reach godhood.
And now that the cultivation technique he had spent so much of the past month refining specifically for her and the others was complete she could begin practicing it. Once she started training under that system properly, her strength would grow in tandem with the broader power structures native to Thyrandel itself, rather than remaining confined to whatever limitations her previous path had imposed.
There was also the Golden Adamant Apple waiting in reserve, a resource capable of dramatically accelerating both her raw strength, defence and her overall lifeforce whenever the timing felt right to use it.
"We'll wait for the Godkings to act first," Arthur said, his tone steady, "before we take any action of our own."
Selene nodded, understanding settling into her expression alongside the tension, and together the two of them made their way toward Steve's quarters, ready to prepare for whatever the coming days would bring.
***
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