The Black Door — Allocation of Fate
The projection sharpened.
Five landing sites hovered beneath the thrones, rotating slowly like pieces on a divine board.
Wednesday studied them in silence.
---
First Landing Site — Adbur
A border village. Mud roads. Mixed bloodlines.
Pressed tightly against the radiant borders of the Holy Elven Kingdom of Syrite.
Faith, prejudice, patrols, and quiet disappearances.
A place where belief was law—
and outsiders were sins waiting to be erased.
---
Second Landing Site — Noble Academy Library
Stone towers. Arcane wards.
Thousands of forbidden texts buried beneath "approved knowledge."
A battlefield of intellects, politics, and ambition.
Where secrets killed faster than blades.
---
Third Landing Site — Qin Empire
Within the lands of the Chu Clan, a mid-tier noble family.
Martial heritage. Bloodline pride. Internal betrayal simmering beneath silk robes.
Power already existed here—
it only needed direction.
---
Fourth Landing Site — Forest Shrine
Ancient. Forgotten.
No banners. No borders.
Only whispers, old gods, and a land that remembered blood long after it dried.
A seedbed for cult, faith, or extinction.
---
Fifth Landing Site — River Fishing Town
Wooden houses on stilts.
Trade routes disguised as poverty.
Information flowed faster than the river itself.
A place that looked harmless—
and therefore never was.
---
Wednesday finally moved.
Without ceremony, he stepped toward the second projection.
The noble academy library.
Knowledge layered upon knowledge.
Influence gained not through fear—but dependency.
"I will take the library," he said.
The system did not argue.
The projection dimmed, locking to him.
---
Hel scoffed softly.
Her eyes lingered on Adbur, then drifted to the Qin Empire, then finally settled on the borderlands again.
"Borders bleed," she muttered.
"Where borders exist, war follows."
Her hand tightened unconsciously.
She chose Adbur.
---
Bragi leaned forward, intrigued by the river town.
Stories passed there.
Rumors became truth.
Truth became legend.
"A song only matters if it spreads," he said with a grin.
The fishing town became his.
---
Forseti studied the Chu Clan.
Law. Hierarchy. Internal order.
A place where contracts already ruled lives.
"Justice requires structure," he said quietly.
The Qin Empire accepted him.
---
That left the forest shrine.
Frigg rose without a word.
She did not smile.
She did not hesitate.
"Faith is the strongest chain," she said.
"And the hardest to see."
The shrine pulsed—then stilled.
---
The board finalized.
The world accepted the division.
Then—
The system chimed again.
> BLACK DOOR SYSTEM NOTICE
CHOOSE INITIAL INFLUENCE ITEM
RARITY SCALES WITH RISK ACCEPTANCE
Silence fell heavier than before.
---
Wednesday stepped forward first.
He did not look at weapons.
He did not glance at armor.
He chose a single item.
A book.
Old. Unmarked.
Its pages blank—until opened by one who knew how to ask questions.
Knowledge was not written.
It was extracted.
---
Hel laughed.
Her choice was immediate.
A sword.
Not ornate.
Not holy.
Its edge drank light instead of reflecting it.
"Where I walk," she said, voice cold,
"peace is a lie."
---
The system sealed their selections.
The chairs trembled.
The world below began to pull.
Wednesday closed his eye.
"Remember," he said as gravity claimed them,
"we are not here to conquer quickly."
A pause.
"We are here to make resistance meaningless."
The thrones shattered into light.
And five calamities descended—
each into a different corner of the same doomed world.
The World Stirs
As the five descended, the sky flinched.
Not thunder.
Not light.
Something far older—
a will that had been sleeping beneath continents, oceans, and forgotten eras.
The World Consciousness awakened.
It did not speak.
It hissed.
A sound like continents grinding together, like fate being rewritten with claws instead of ink.
---
High above ley lines and deep beneath divine thrones, the world recognized the intruders.
Not as heroes.
Not as calamities.
But as foreign authorities.
Parasites with thrones of their own.
---
A single finger—
vast as a mountain range—
rose within the unseen realm of laws.
Snap.
The sound echoed everywhere and nowhere.
---
Divine Mandate Issued
Across the world, in temples, shrines, sealed realms, and blood-soaked heavens—
Eyes opened.
---
In the Holy Elven Kingdom of Syrite,
an ancient tree-god bled golden sap as its roots tightened.
> MISSION RECEIVED
Purge the False Thrones.
---
Within the Qin Empire,
ancestral tablets cracked.
Martial spirits stirred, furious at the disturbance of lineage.
> TARGET DESIGNATION: FOREIGN SOVEREIGNS
---
Deep beneath the sea,
a forgotten god of tides turned in its sleep, waves rising without wind.
---
In the forest shrine Frigg descended toward,
statues wept ash as sealed deities screamed warnings to no one.
---
Even in places where gods were thought dead—
they remembered how to kill.
---
Heaven's Hunt Begins
Each divine entity received the same command.
No negotiation.
No explanation.
> WORLD WILL DIRECTIVE
Find them. Kill them. Erase their influence.
Failure is extinction.
---
Back in the falling void between realms—
Wednesday opened his eye.
He smiled.
Not wide.
Not cruel.
Satisfied.
"Good," he murmured as divine hostility rippled across the world.
"The board resists."
Below him, cities, forests, empires, and rivers braced unknowingly.
Five intruders fell like meteors—
And above them all,
the gods sharpened their claws.
The hunt had begun.
The World's Fury
The Will of the World roared.
Not in sound—
but in law.
Mountains trembled.
Seas recoiled.
Fate-lines twisted like wounded serpents.
It searched.
It failed.
---
The intruders were not merely hidden.
They were outside its calculation.
Foreign thrones carried foreign logic—
authorities that did not register within this world's rules.
No coordinates.
No destiny-thread.
No karmic anchor.
Only absence.
---
The World Will raged.
A pressure like a collapsing sky bore down on reality itself.
If it could not see them—
Then it would use everything else.
---
A Crude but Absolute Command
Across divine realms, hell domains, spirit planes, and mortal empires—
A universal decree descended.
Not words.
Instinct.
---
Every god felt it in their core.
Every demon tasted it like blood on the tongue.
Every ancient beast lifted its head and sniffed the air.
> FOREIGN AUTHORITY DETECTED
LOCATION UNKNOWN
METHOD: HUNT THROUGH PROXY
---
The World Will could not point.
So it ordered them to listen.
To disturbances in mana flow.
To impossible growth.
To knowledge gained too fast.
To mortals who did not fear the divine.
---
Heaven and Hell Mobilize
In the heavens, war councils formed.
In hell, contracts were torn open.
In forgotten ruins, sealed beings laughed and stretched their limbs.
> "So the world is afraid."
"Then the prey must be worth the hunt."
---
Prophecies rewrote themselves mid-sentence.
Oracles bled from the eyes.
Chosen heroes across the world felt a new directive overwrite their destinies.
> Kill the one who does not belong.
---
Far Above It All
Between falling realms and layered realities—
Wednesday watched.
His chair had already landed.
His influence already spread.
"A blind god is the most dangerous kind," he mused.
"It swings at shadows and calls it justice."
His fingers tapped the armrest of his throne.
"Good," he said again.
"Let them hunt."
Below, gods, demons, and kings moved like pieces on a board they did not realize was no longer theirs.
And somewhere in the world—
The intruders smiled.
Because chaos was not a consequence.
It was the plan.