Five years passed.
Not peacefully.
Quietly.
Mars did not scream again.
It healed in silence.
Under Mother Telsa's invisibility spell, the wounded half of the planet adapted.
Cities rebuilt smaller.
People learned to breathe softer.
Life returned—
not as before,
but enough to survive.
To the universe, Mars looked normal.
To Neptune—
Mars no longer existed.
And that terrified King Kansa.
THE FLOW OF DATA
Deep inside Neptune's Core Observatory, data never stopped flowing.
Asteroid readings.
Gravitational echoes.
Residual frequencies leaking from a place that should have been dead.
Kansa stood alone in the central chamber.
Holograms rotated around him—
red lines slicing through blue models of space.
Mars.
The asteroid.
And the child.
Every new calculation contradicted the last.
Every answer created more questions.
"This isn't physics," Kansa murmured.
A new file opened on its own.
He frowned.
"I didn't authorize—"
The data began rewriting itself.
Symbols he had never programmed formed patterns.
Equations bent into spirals.
The screen pulsed once.
And something passed through it.
Not energy.
Intent.
Kansa inhaled sharply.
His vision darkened for a heartbeat.
Then—
clarity.
THE CHANGE
His heartbeat slowed.
The room felt… smaller.
Not because it shrank.
Because his mind expanded.
Ideas connected instantly.
Concepts he once needed years to calculate now aligned in seconds.
His fingers twitched.
Veins along his hand darkened briefly—
then vanished.
Kansa touched his face.
His reflection in the glass was unchanged.
Yet something inside him had shifted.
Not possession.
Alignment.
A whisper brushed the edge of his thoughts.
Not words.
Direction.
Kansa smiled slowly.
"So that's what you are," he said.
THE REALIZATION
He replayed the data—
but now he understood it.
The asteroid wasn't just matter.
It was a remnant of something older than gods.
A fragment of a system that existed before divine law.
A power that didn't ask permission.
Kansa's breathing deepened.
"If gods can be born…" he whispered,
"they can be ended."
The motivation inside him ignited—
not ambition—
certainty.
This was not conquest.
This was correction.
THE LAB BELOW
Far beneath the observatory, the laboratory lights flickered back on.
The child—
older now—
lay restrained inside the containment cradle.
Scars had faded.
The tattoos had not.
They pulsed softly, like something asleep but listening.
"Begin sequence," a voice ordered.
Kzarian stood at the console.
Five years.
Five years of pressing the same button.
Five years of screams.
His hair had gone grey.
His hands shook more each time.
He looked at the child.
And saw his son.
The same age.
The same helpless expression.
The same way his son had cried during his final illness—
before Neptune's medicine failed him.
"I'm sorry," Kzarian whispered.
The machine hummed.
He pressed the button.
The child screamed.
Kzarian flinched violently.
Tears rolled down his face.
Inside his chest, something broke again.
"I know this pain," he thought.
"I know this fear."
The child's eyes met his.
Not angry.
Not accusing.
Aware.
THE ORDER
The machine shut down automatically.
Again.
Scientists exchanged glances.
"We should stop," someone whispered.
"No," came Kansa's voice.
He stood at the doorway.
Unannounced.
Unnoticed.
"How long was he stable?" Kansa asked calmly.
"Thirty-two hours, Majesty," a scientist replied.
"Good," Kansa said.
He stepped closer to the glass.
The child's tattoos brightened faintly.
Kansa tilted his head.
"You're resting," he observed.
"Learning."
He turned to the room.
"Resume testing."
Kzarian's hand froze.
"My lord," he said, voice breaking,
"please—he's not a weapon."
Kansa looked at him.
For a moment—
something cold passed through his eyes.
"Everything becomes a weapon," Kansa replied,
"when gods decide who deserves to exist."
He leaned closer to the glass.
"And you," he whispered to the child,
"will end their rule."
The machine powered up again.
Kzarian closed his eyes.
Pressed the button.
And somewhere—
far beyond Neptune—
something ancient stirred.
TO BE CONTINUED