"They say I am the wisest of men. Yet all that I know is that I know nothing."
- Socrates.
Lupus and Talus were flying back to the portal from the Spirit Realm that led to Helios right past Flower and Fruit Mountain. The power they were feeling was nothing short of incredible.Their flight carved streaks of lightning through the clouds, the sky itself seeming to tremble beneath the pressure of their presence. Below them, the ancient peaks of Flower and Fruit Mountain swayed gently in the wind like slumbering titans, unaware that two gods had passed by. "I feel like I could crush a star with my bare hands," Talus muttered, flexing his fingers as golden light surged through his veins. Lupus grinned, feral and gleaming. "That's because we probably can. We've now ascended to the level of gods." The rift ahead shimmered—their gate back into Helios. It pulsed softly, like a heartbeat. As they neared it, something unexpected happened: the rift resisted them. They stopped mid-air. "What the hell is this?" Lupus growled. "This should open for us." Talus scanned it with narrowed eyes. "No. This isn't the same portal we left through. It's been tampered with." The rift twisted—and then spoke. "Only those anchored to the realm of mortals may enter. You have shed too much of your mortality. If you give up your power over precious metals, then you may enter." Lupus smiled and said sarcastically: "Is that all?" Without even thinking Talus and Lupus expunged their bodies of that power over precious metals and in an instant they entered the portal and we're back at Planet Helios with their new godlike powers.
Mark sat in the center of the hall, surrounded by scrolls, maps, and whispering tomes. The ceiling above rippled with starlight, constellations shifting in real-time. Hermes stood behind him, arms crossed, her aura calm but sharp like a drawn blade. "They're coming back," she said. Mark looked up. "Talus and Lupus?" She nodded. Mark closed a scroll and stood. "Good. I have a feeling we're going to need them." Hermes tilted her head. "You've been dreaming again." "Not dreams," Mark said, eyes haunted. "Warnings. From the old realm. The sky's cracking. Something is clawing through the seams of reality. And the name I keep hearing... is Belthasar." Hermes narrowed her eyes. "Then it's time." Mark turned to her. "Time for what?" She stepped forward, placing her hand over his heart. "To awaken the part of you that Ebisu sealed. The piece of arcane light meant for when the world stood at the edge." A pulse of golden-white energy radiated from her palm. Mark gasped, back arching as something deep within him—ancient, dormant—ignited. He dropped to one knee, eyes glowing. "I remember," he whispered. Hermes knelt beside him. "Then you understand what's coming." He looked up at her, the boy now gone—replaced by something older, something remembering. "Yeah. War."
The chamber was cold, dustless. Suspended in midair was a single hourglass, its sands flowing upward instead of down. Ungar stared at it, intently. "She sealed herself in here?" Narcis asked, brushing her fingers against the edges of a crystalline document sphere. "No," Ungar said. "She was the seal." From the far side of the room, the air bent—and then the Architect stepped out of it. Not walked. Stepped out of it. As if space were a curtain she could pull aside. Her eyes were blank white, her skin fractalized, like cracked marble overlaying circuitry. "Time's memory has been rewritten," she said flatly. "Belthasar is not what you think. He is not possessed. He is becoming the vessel and the will. The fire inside him is not parasitic. It is ancient. Forgotten." "Forgotten by who?" Narcis asked, already dreading the answer. The Architect looked at her. "By the gods themselves." Ungar tapped his finger slowly. "Then we need to find Ebisu. And fast." The Architect nodded. "He's already moving. And he's not alone anymore. The children of light are waking. The dead are rising in thought. The Balance... has begun to rot." Ungar turned, drawing his blade from the fold in his coat. "Then let's remind the world what happens when mortals rise.
It was the middle of the day in City 10-B, the sun was shining and the birds were chirping. The air had a calmness to it. It seemed as if nothing could break the piece. And then in a moment. The fire shot up from the middle of the city. Killing hundreds in an instant. An explosion went off on the eastern portion of the city causing much distress. From the ashes appeared Belthasar with his shirt off and the face of Doctor Volker on his stomach. In his wake, were other demons like Malik, Khadr and Krampus. "Well, well, well, you think we made a big enough splash?" said Malik. Volker nodded, "Yes, and they'll arrive soon enough. Once we destroy this Prophet we can acquire this world with the permission of the gods and then we can go further." Smoke coiled into the sky like serpents. The streets of City 10-B were rubble, screams echoing under the distant thunder of collapsing towers. Sirens wailed, but even they began to choke, swallowed by the surge of dark energy now bleeding into the atmosphere.
Belthasar stood in the wreckage like a living wound in the world. His red mane whipped in the heatwaves, and the twisted face of Doctor Volker on his abdomen leered out, gnashing its jagged teeth. From behind the burning husk of a building, civilians staggered and fled. Krampus strode past them with cruel disinterest, his hooves cracking asphalt. Khadir, ever silent, raised a single hand and the fire obeyed him, curling into controlled arcs to cut off any escape. Malik cracked his knuckles. "Where is this so-called Prophet, anyway?" he muttered. "Wasn't he supposed to be the world's ace in the hole?" "He'll be here," Volker's stomach-face rasped. "That's what makes it fun." Belthasar didn't flinch. But Belthasar's grin was calm. Too calm. "You think I'm the same man you once knew?" he asked. His voice was deeper. Woven with a second tone—lower, guttural, ancient. "I've tasted the core of the abyss. I've let gods into me. I've become one." Then Hermes arrived. She descended like a sword falling from the heavens, light coalescing around her. Her eyes were aglow with the same energy that had awakened Mark—and it pulsed with a resonance that even Belthasar hesitated to approach.
"You don't belong here," she said, staring at Volker's face. "You never did." Volker sneered. "I was made for here." "No," she said calmly. "You were exiled here. There's a difference." Behind her, Mark emerged from a transport spell, the last wisps of arcane dust clinging to his robes. His stance was different now. Older. Wiser. His hands no longer trembled. "You're not taking this world," Mark said. "Because you never understood it." Volker hissed. "You think your speeches will save you? You think light is going to stop what's coming?" "No," Mark replied. "But it'll start something." He raised a single hand. And across the world, vessels stirred. In a temple lost to time, a monk opened a sealed jar—and golden mist flowed into his chest. In the depths of the ocean, a statue cracked, and a glowing girl stepped out—eyes wide with rediscovered purpose. Above the realm, in the shifting clouds of the sky kingdom, thunder rolled unnaturally, and a voice long forgotten began to speak through the wind. Hermes turned to Belthasar. "You let something in, didn't you?" He nodded, lips parting in something like reverence. "I did. And it's awake now." The sky split open. A second sun appeared—blacker than void, burning cold. From it emerged a shape—immense, formless, eyes like collapsing stars. The gods watching from distant realms flinched. Kakia watched too, lounging from her perch on the moon. She sipped starlight from a glass and whispered, "Oh... now that's a guest worth dying for." And from the black sun came a voice that shattered minds. "I REMEMBER WHO I WAS."
The battle began with Mark pulling out his hand for a punch knocking Volker directly in the face. Volker flew back but caught himself on his own heels spinning around and landing a devastating punch to the gut on Mark, Mark coughed up saliva and small amounts of blood before flipping backwards and getting in a crouching stance. Volker stood with his arms crossed, "You're out of your league boy, and I don't think anything can bring out anything greater in you." After this the battle between Volker and Mark continued for over 10 minutes until Mark was beaten to a bloody pulp. "Such a shame, but I guess I'll put you all out of your misery now." Giant flesh tendrils came from the ground and nearly impaled Mark but in an instant Volker was kicked back into the side of a building. It was Lupus beaming with golden energy, with a big shit-eating grin on his face, licking his chops and clearly ready for battle. Lupus knocked the dust off his shoulder and said, "Well, well, is goon the one giving you all this trouble? He should bow down to me now. I deserve the proper respect owed to a god." Volker climbed to his feet and dusted off himself as well. Scott Greer in the distance turned to Gordo and said: "Lupus seems different, the energy beaming off of him is unreal. He has a new aura and confidence." Gordo gulped: "You can say that again. He really is terrifying with that aura." Scott replied again: "I'll tell you one thing. I wouldn't want to fight Lupus. And I don't envy anyone who has to." Volker stood up again, knocking off some pebbles from his shin. "You surely are the spunky type. Tell me, do you have any idea who you just struck?" Lupus scoffed: "Like it matters in the slightest. As you can see I'm a cut above all other creation." This statement intrigued Volker: "What do you mean by that? What is your goal in all this?" Lupus began to laugh: "My goal is universal conquest. And when I'm done with you lot I'm going to retake my empire in the western quadrant and then I'm going to take out the gods themselves. Soon I'll sit on Apollo's throne. This is my destiny and my birthright." Volker looked into Lupus' eyes, he thought to himself: "In this being is a dark soul, maybe I can use him to our benefit." As he was lost in thought Lupus began to unleash a volley of attacks this completely threw off Volker. Lupus began to absolutely brutalize Volker, and Volker knew now that he was completely outclassed.
Volker's body crashed through five buildings before skipping across the pavement like a stone on water. Blood leaked from his mouth and the face on his abdomen shrieked in frustration. Lupus landed casually beside the crater where Volker lay, cracking his knuckles. "Not so smug now, huh?" he taunted. Volker groaned, half rising. "You… you're not just power. You're wrath incarnate. But unchecked wrath burns out." Lupus smirked. "Then I'll burn out the world." Hermes landed softly nearby, folding her arms. "He's not lying," she said, not taking her eyes off Lupus. "He's dangerous. Too dangerous." Mark coughed, barely able to stand, but he looked between Hermes and Lupus and muttered, "He is dangerous but he's on our side… for now." In the sky above, the second sun—the Black Sun—throbbed again. The shape that had emerged from it was descending. A ripple of gravity warped the horizon, bending light like water. The creature from beyond the void was coming. Krampus, Khadir, and Malik retreated instinctively, unease in their monstrous hearts. "This wasn't the plan," Krampus growled. "We were supposed to soften the world. Not invite annihilation." Volker wiped blood from his jaw. "This is the plan now. That thing… it's not coming to destroy us. It's coming to complete us." Hermes' eyes flared. "You're delusional. That isn't a god. It's what gods fear." Lupus turned his gaze upward, eyes glowing, face lit by the flickering doom overhead. "Then let me meet it."
The sky slowly began to open until it was clear whatever was coming would be there soon. Lupus looked straightforward at Volker. "You know Volker I'm not the only one here with this level of power. You see that man standing behind me." Volker looked off and saw Talus. Lupus laughed: "It pains me to say it but that little imp is almost as strong as I am." After these words had left his mouth Volker began to shake in fear. Talus stepped forward from the smoke, golden light rippling off his frame like heat from a forge. His gaze was fixed on Volker, unblinking, emotionless. The air around him shimmered, warping space with each measured step. When he finally stood beside Lupus, the two looked like avatars of divine retribution. Volker stumbled to his feet, more shaken by the quiet presence of Talus than by Lupus' brutal assault. "Two of you…" he rasped, his grotesque stomach-face twisting in panic. "This isn't how it was supposed to go…" Talus spoke, and his voice was calm but final. "No. It's worse." Suddenly, the ground beneath them cracked—no attack, no spell. Just pressure. Reality itself was straining under what now stood on it. The world felt smaller in their presence. Hermes stepped in between them and Volker, hand raised. "Enough. If we fight amongst ourselves, we lose. That thing in the sky—it's not waiting. It's descending." They all looked up and from the portal descended Qora: the Goddess of Warfare. She floated before them with her long turquoise hair and her shimmering sword. Lupus giggled: "A new powerful opponent. What a joy." Qora's feet never touched the ground. Her presence alone cleared the smoke, stilled the wind, and silenced the chaos. Her sword pulsed in her hand like a living thing, and her voice was edged with steel when she finally spoke. "Lupus. Talus. Stand down." Lupus tilted his head. "You want to order me? Cute." He cracked his neck and grinned wider. "What if I say no?" Qora didn't blink. "Then I'll remove you."
The tension snapped like a cable under strain. In a flash, Lupus launched forward, fist cocked back with godlike momentum—but his strike never landed. Qora's sword intercepted it mid-air, the impact sending out a shockwave that split the ground beneath them and blew out every window in a three-mile radius. Lupus staggered back, blinking. Not because of the hit. But because he had been stopped. Talus didn't move. He was watching. Calculating. Hermes flinched at the energy spike. "That was a warning," she said. "You all feel it now, don't you? The weight in the air. That thing's no longer descending. It's here." Above them, the sky collapsed inward, as if space had just taken a breath. And then—it stepped through. Not a god. Not a monster. A concept, given form. A walking contradiction. Its limbs twisted in ways the eye couldn't follow. Its presence broadcast thoughts none of them understood, only felt—like memories of lives they never lived. The shape had a name, but speaking it would be like swallowing fire.
Volker fell to one knee, eyes wide, muttering something in a tongue no one recognized. The face on his abdomen screamed uncontrollably. Lupus laughed. But it was hollow now. "Well, shit." Qora planted her sword in the ground and took a stance no one had seen in eons—Varkil's Posture, the stance of the first war between gods. "This is it," she said. Talus finally looked at her. "If we fight it… what are our odds?" "None," Qora answered. "And if we kneel?" he asked. "Worse." Mark, bloody but upright, stepped beside Hermes. "Then we rewrite the odds. Together." Qora nodded once. The unity was brief, fragile—but it held. For now. The being—known in whispers as The Unmaker—raised one of its impossible arms. Everyone split up in different directions Ungar put his hand out and began to fire beams of energy.
The beams struck The Unmaker—but passed through it, like light through warped glass. Ungar's eyes narrowed. "No substance," he growled. "No form. It's not bound by matter." Hermes moved fast, flanking its side and hurling a volley of spectral javelins. They hit—but like pebbles vanishing into a still pond, they left no mark. The Unmaker simply turned its head—or what they thought was its head—toward her. And she froze. Mid-air. Mid-breath. As if time forgot she existed. "Get her out of there!" Mark shouted. Talus moved. He didn't run—he stepped, and in that step, the space between him and Hermes folded. He grabbed her and yanked her out of stasis just as the air behind her shattered like glass under pressure. Whatever the Unmaker had done, it wasn't an attack. It was an edit. It had tried to erase her. Lupus, still grinning but with a slight twitch now in his cheek, turned to Mark. "So… plan?" Mark's eyes flicked upward, reading arcane lines in the sky that no one else could see. "We don't kill it. We anchor it." "Anchor it?" Talus echoed, shielding Hermes. "You mean to bind it to this plane?" Mark nodded. "Exactly. While it's tethered, it's vulnerable." Qora's sword pulsed. "What kind of tether are we talking about?" Mark's mouth curled into something between a smile and a grimace. "The kind that costs." From behind the group, Gordo stepped forward, holding something wrapped in cloth. "Then you'll need this." He unraveled the fabric to reveal the Null Brand—a spear forged from the last piece of a dead timeline. No magic flowed through it. It rejected the arcane. It was pure negation. Qora's eyes widened. "That thing can pierce even a concept."
"And it'll kill whoever uses it," Gordo added. Lupus snatched it from him anyway. "Guess that makes it my kind of toy." "No," Talus said, stepping in front of him. "Let me take it." Lupus laughed. "You? You're not the sacrificial type." "No," Talus said, his voice dead calm. "But I'm the one who can make the shot." Everyone was silent. Even The Unmaker paused, watching. Volker, now crawling away, whispered hoarsely, "You fools… You don't bind chaos. You don't stab entropy…" Mark raised his voice over him. "No. But we trick it. Just long enough." Hermes recovered and joined Talus, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Then we buy you that moment. No matter what." The makeshift pantheon turned toward the Unmaker, united. Talus held the Null Brand tightly and whispered a final word. "For everything." Then they moved—like a storm, like a symphony of fury and hope. But just as they started the creature began to be dragged away by some invisible force. The creature looked as if it was being ripped away when it was all said and done the creature was gone and the light of the heavens began to shine down again.
Volker took a deep breath in and then cracked his neck and moved his limbs flexibly. "I think that's enough for today, I guess we'll do this again some other time." Lupus laughed: "You're only giving up because you've realized the gap in power between you and me. So you've decided to turn tail." Volker shrugged his shoulders as he began to walk away, "I make no excuse the chasm between my power and yours is like the ocean. You could destroy me in an instant if you wished to." Lupus nodded: "Yes, at least you know the reality of the situation, old man." Mark stepped in: "Look, others are coming." It was Mozi the purple antennaed and pointy-eared alien and Guan-Fu the Slug man. Mozi landed "what just happened I felt an incredible energy and now its gone." Zaiyal explained the entire situation to the newcomer. "So we have no idea what just happened," said Guan Fu. Zaiyal nodded: "It just keeps getting better and better what the fuck is happening to this universe." Lupus scoffed and began to taunt Zaiyal: "What's wrong, scared. I'll take out any opponent anytime, I'm not a soft weakling like you. But if you'd prefer, why not just run on home while the real men take care of any and all possible threats… hehehe," said Lupus.
Zaiyal didn't rise to the bait. Zaiyal narrowed his eyes, the rings around his irises tightening. "You mistake restraint for weakness, brute," he said evenly. "I don't fight to prove myself. I fight when it matters." Lupus rolled his neck again, clearly itching for another brawl. "That's a convenient excuse for being irrelevant. If you think I'm wrong why not challenge me to a fight, if you think you can take me." Before the tension could flare, Qora stepped between them. Her voice was low but sharp enough to silence stone. "Enough. The threat has passed, but the damage is real. Cities are in ruins. Worlds are destabilized. If you two want to measure egos, do it somewhere that isn't smoldering." Lupus grinned, but backed down—for now. Talus stood silently behind her, the Null Brand still in his hand. It hadn't been used. And that fact hung in the air like an unsolved equation. Mark looked up at the sky. The Black Sun was gone, the sky no longer bending. But the memory of the thing—the Unmaker—was burned into every mind that stood there. "It didn't leave," he said quietly. "It was pulled." Hermes frowned. "By what?" "I don't know," Mark admitted. "But something stronger than us. Or smarter. Or both." Gordo folded his arms. "That's not comforting." "Tell me about it, pretty eerie if you ask me," said Scott Greer. "It's not supposed to be," Talus said. "We're not done. We've just been noticed." Mozi, scanning the area with his sensory threads, suddenly twitched. "Mark. I'm picking up residual echoes. Not from the Unmaker… from the place beyond it. Something else watched all of this. Something… alien…"
Volker, halfway down the broken road, stopped. His back still turned to the group. "You're not wrong. There are watchers older than time, waiting for the day entropy fails. The Unmaker was a probe. A test." He looked over his shoulder, his mouth and his abdomen both speaking at once. "We passed. Or we failed. Depends on who was watching." "Why the hell are you still talking like you're part of this?" snapped Guan-Fu. Volker smiled with both mouths. "Because I am. I always am." Lupus stepped forward, muscles tensing. "Say the word and I'll end him." Qora held up a hand. "No. Not yet. He's more useful breathing than dead. For now at least, all of the demons are. Why Father Apollo decided to allie with them in the first place is beyond me though." Talus finally let the Null Brand lower. "Then what's our next move?" Mark turned to the group, his face grim but focused. "We prepare. The Unmaker won't be the last. Whatever dragged it back—they're watching. Waiting. We just told the universe we exist." Zaiyal exhaled through gritted teeth. "So what now? We form a council? A defense pact? A war machine?" Hermes looked out over the fractured city. "We form something. Because next time, we might not get a second chance." Lupus cracked his knuckles again. "Let them come. I'm tired of waiting." Talus looked at him. "Next time, we won't fight for pride. We fight for survival." And from the edge of space, unseen, another eye blinked open. Watching.
Qora walked up to Ungar, "I shouldn't be telling you this but on a side note you need to stop Zed and X, I mean Daniel and your former-master Ebisu." Ungar grunted: "What are you talking about?" Qora replied: "It's only a rumor but Ebisu is planning to go back in time using old magic to kill himself and eliminate his existence shortly after he killed the demon king as a young man thousands of years ago." Ungar was shocked: "You're kidding." Ungar shook with anger: "Of course it makes sense if he were to succeed in doing such a thing he would eliminate the existence of himself, Daniel, Mark and Hermes in one fell swoop. But are you sure, do you have proof of such a plot in the first place?" Qora shook her head, "I only have heard rumors and I honestly I only told you to prove that I can be trusted. I'm sure we'll be able to destroy Hermes in due time without time travel so if I have no scruples in you foiling this possible plot." Ungar laughed: "For a mere moment I nearly forgot you were the enemy." Qora replied: "Be that as it may these watchers are the more immediate threat so I'm willing to throw one of our more radical compatriots under the bus in order to strengthen our temporary alliance."
Ungar's eyes narrowed. He didn't trust her—never had. But she wasn't lying. Not this time. "Fine," he muttered. "I'll look into it. If Ebisu really is planning a paradox loop, I'll make sure it stays fiction." Qora gave a short nod and turned to leave, but paused. "Just remember, Ungar… when the time comes, I won't hesitate." Ungar laughed. "Wouldn't expect you to." As she disappeared into the shadows, Ungar turned back to the others, who were starting to regroup. The fractured team stood in a wide semi-circle amid craters and ruined skyline. Talus still hadn't let go of the Null Brand. Hermes stood at his side, visibly shaken but steady. Mark approached. "You okay?" Ungar exhaled. "Define okay." "We might be heading into a war that spans timelines and abstract metaphysics," Mark said. "So, relatively speaking." Ungar shrugged. "Then yeah, I'm okay."
Mozi twitched again. "I'm still getting readings. The signature is unstable but growing stronger. Like… something real is trying to cross over. It will take some time though maybe 6 months to a year in this planet's time." "Another Unmaker?" Guan-Fu asked. "No. Something different. Something… aware." Before anyone could respond, the wind reversed. Leaves, dust, debris—all pulled toward a single point in the sky where the fabric of space rippled like disturbed water. And then—something spoke. Not in words. In intent. It was felt, not heard. A pressure on the skull, like being underwater too long. "You survived the trial. Now comes the judgment." Volker's face drained of color. "That's not a probe. That's a herald." A blinding light erupted overhead. Shapes—half-glimpsed, fractal, impossible—descended. They had no form, but their shadows stretched across realities. Lupus cracked his knuckles, already stepping forward. "Perfect. Another round." Talus held up the Null Brand. "No. This isn't a fight we start. We see what it wants." One of the figures hovered lower, flickering between dimensions. It coalesced into a vaguely humanoid form, cloaked in cascading layers of geometry. No face. Just a void where understanding went to die. "Designation: Mortal Architects. Status: Incomplete. Evaluation: Premature Contact. Resolution: Conditional Continuance." Mark whispered, "It's… deciding if we're allowed to keep existing." Hermes whispered, "So we passed one test and now we're on probation."
The figure raised one limb, and a cube—perfect, glowing, vibrating with compressed potential—descended into Mark's hands. "Forge what must be forged. Protect what must be protected. Or cease." Then they vanished—no sound, no flash. Just gone. And the cube remained, humming like a sleeping god. Everyone stood silent. Even Lupus didn't have a comeback. Finally, Mark looked down at the cube, then to the others. "We've just been handed the keys to something… massive." Gordo crossed his arms. "Or a bomb." "Or both," said Zaiyal. Talus looked at each of them in turn. "Then we build something better. Because now, the universe is watching." And somewhere far beyond the veil of known space, a council of impossible beings observed in silence. The game had begun. The players had moved.
And the real war hadn't even started.