Location: Inner Veins of Vireos - Open Rift Site | Time: 04:17 A.M.
The scream wasn't sound.
It was pressure ancient, sickening, primal. It collapsed thought, memory, even self.
Theo staggered. Blood leaked from his ears. Not mortal blood but something darker. Older.
Sera convulsed beside him, her body glowing with symbols trying to ignite. The divine inside her was waking too fast. Too violent. She wasn't ready.
The boy Theo's son, his weapon, his unfinished sin stood between them and the void.
"You shouldn't be here," the boy said, voice low, trembling.
The End-Tongue stepped forward. His robes dragged across the stone, but left no sound. His mouth, bound in runes, twitched. Even sealed, he was speaking through minds, through marrow, through memory.
Theo felt it crawl into him.
"I remember what you were, Thaeon. The hammer. The betrayer. The one who refused to kneel."
"No one should kneel," Theo growled, standing. "Not to you."
The End-Tongue raised one skeletal hand.
Reality cracked behind him. A fissure of void opened, wide enough to consume everything in this buried corridor.
Theo's son stepped forward, golden veins flaring.
"Don't," Theo barked. "You're not ready."
"I was made for this."
"You were made to end me."
"Then let me choose what I end."
The boy leapt.
For a moment, it was light versus nothing.
Gold collided with shadow. Flame erupted. The walls screamed. Stone turned to ash.
Theo dragged Sera behind a crumbling pillar as the boy and the End-Tongue clashed, their powers pulsing in waves that broke gravity itself.
"You made that?" Sera croaked. Her voice was barely her own. Myren was leaking through more with each word.
"I didn't finish making him," Theo muttered. "And now he's finishing himself."
Above them, the boy slammed both hands into the End-Tongue's chest forcing the god back.
But the ancient one grinned.
With a flick of its finger, it shattered the boy's shoulder.
He screamed.
Theo moved before the sound stopped.
He grabbed the blade of void from thin air, his own essence coalescing into the war-weapon that once cleaved gods in half and launched himself into the rift.
One slash.
Two.
The End-Tongue flinched. Not from pain but from recognition.
"You still remember the old war," Theo said, face inches away from the robed horror. "Then remember this."
He plunged the blade through the rune-sealed mouth.
The void howled.
The god didn't die. Gods didn't die easily.
But it recoiled its form crackling, burning from within. It hissed in forgotten tongues, the seal over its mouth breaking.
Theo didn't stop. He grabbed his son's shattered body, spun, and ran.
The tunnel behind them collapsed, reality folding inward like a dying star.
He barely made it past the fracture before the entire corridor imploded.
04:23 A.M.
Ruined checkpoint above the Veins
They emerged gasping, scorched, and shaking. Sera was conscious, barely. The boy was unconscious, barely alive.
Theo dropped to one knee. His divine blade vanished. So did the strength in his limbs.
But the war god in him was humming. Awake.
"You okay?" he asked Sera.
She shook her head. "No. But I remember now."
Theo froze.
"I remember the library of glass. I remember the oath we made. I remember what I tried to stop."
She looked at him.
"And I remember what you did to me."
Theo didn't speak. Not at first.
"I never meant to kill you."
"But you did."
"And I died for it."
She didn't answer.
Instead, she looked at the boy lying near them, body cracked but still glowing.
"Is he really yours?"
"Yes," Theo said. "Not born. Forged. When I was desperate. When I thought we had no future."
She nodded slowly. "He called you Father. But you didn't name him."
Theo glanced at the boy. "He never needed one. He was meant to be forgotten if I failed."
Sera looked back at Theo.
"Then maybe it's time you both remembered who you are."
Before he could reply, sirens sounded in the distance not mortal ones.
Divine signal.
"They're tracking you," Sera said.
"No," Theo corrected, standing. "They're tracking you."
From the rooftops, a divine sniper levels a relic-infused rifle.
Her target isn't Theo.
It's Sera.
A shot fires
…and time skips.
When Theo blinks, Sera is gone.
Location: Surface Ruins, Borderline Sector V - 04:25 A.M.
The sirens wailed like dying stars. Not mechanical. Divine.
They echoed through the broken spires of Sector V the place where Vireos buried its ancient sins beneath glass towers and neon lies. But something old had been triggered. Something sacred.
Theo's pulse thudded once just once as he recognized the pitch.
"Third Song," he muttered. "They activated a god-seeker."
Sera looked at him, dazed. "A what?"
"It's not tech," he said. "It's memory. Embedded in the leyline network. It looks for divine frequency, tracks anything with soul-saturation above a threshold."
"In English?"
"It's hunting you."
She stood fast. "Why me?"
"You've been waking up since you touched that scroll. Maybe longer."
She opened her mouth to argue
And that's when the shot rang out.
A flash of silver tore through the sky faster than sound. Theo's instincts screamed. His body reacted before his mind did.
He turned
Reached for Sera
Too late.
The air folded in a sudden snap of white light.
Time bent. The world blurred. The divine pressure vanished.
And Sera was gone.
"NO!" Theo roared, stumbling forward as if he could reach through the air itself.
But she wasn't there. No trace. No echo. Not even a shimmer of aura.
Whoever took her used divine displacement tech illegal, dangerous, and nearly impossible to track unless you were a god…
…or had built the code yourself.
He stared at the spot she'd vanished from.
His hand trembled.
A second shot rang out not at him, but near the unconscious boy.
Theo dove, shielding him just in time. The second impact vaporized a section of concrete.
He scanned the rooftops. Nothing visible until a shimmer flickered, and a figure stepped into view. Cloaked. Precise. Weapon humming with old power.
Theo's eyes narrowed.
"Kael," he whispered.
The figure tilted its head, as if amused to be recognized.
Then it spoke through a modulator that made the voice echo like thunder breaking bones.
"Still playing protector, Thaeon? After all this time?"
Theo stood, slowly. "You were dead."
"Everyone says that," Kael replied. "But here I am."
"What do you want?"
"Nothing from you," Kael said. "I already got what I came for."
The sniper's silhouette shimmered then blinked out entirely.
Gone.
Theo turned to the boy, his son who was barely conscious, golden blood pooling beneath him.
"I'll come back for you," Theo said, eyes scanning the skyline. "But I need her first."
He grabbed the shattered scroll from the ground and pressed two fingers to the boy's temple.
A flicker of divine code sealed his vitals. Just enough to keep him stable.
And then Theo vanished in a surge of shadow and flame.
Location: Unknown | Time: Skipped
Somewhere cold, white, and silent Sera woke up.
Metal restraints held her down. The walls pulsed like a living thing. A sigil burned above her her own name, but twisted.
A figure stood in the dark, watching.
"Welcome back," it said.
"I don't know you," she whispered.
"You will," the voice replied. "Because before you were Myren, you were something else."
Sera isn't just waking up
She's being rewritten.
And the person behind it?
Knows exactly how to unmake a god.