The Obsidian Throne was not a city. It was a concept given form, the seat of divine power on Vornith, the place where the material world and the realm of the gods were closest together. It appeared differently to every viewer—as a mountain of glass, a floating castle, a vast machine of incomprehensible purpose. Its true nature was a wound in reality, a place where the Aethon had stabbed the world so deeply that it had never healed.
The Throne was guarded by the Godsworn, an army of ten thousand fanatics who had given their souls to the Aethon in exchange for power. They were immortal, unkillable by any means known to mortals, each one a match for a hundred normal soldiers. Their commander was the Godking, a mortal who had been elevated to near-divine status, who carried a fragment of the Aethon of War's own essence in his breast.
Malachar did not bring an army. He brought Grond.
The titan's assault was not subtle. He simply walked to the Obsidian Throne and began to climb, his stone hands finding purchase on surfaces that should not have existed, his massive body ignoring the defenses that had stopped every previous invader. The Godsworn attacked, and Grond killed them—thousands of them, crushing them with fists like falling mountains, throwing them into the void between realities, grinding them into paste with his stone teeth. They could not die, but they could be destroyed, scattered so thoroughly that reconstitution would take centuries.
While Grond held the army's attention, Malachar walked a different path. He found the secret ways, the cracks in the Throne's perfection, the places where the Aethon's touch had been too heavy and the world had scarred. He walked through dimensions that had no name, past guardians that had never been seen by mortal eyes, until he reached the Heart of the Throne.
The Godking was waiting.
He was beautiful. That was the first thing Malachar noticed. The Godking had been remade in the image of divine perfection, his body a symphony of proportion and power, his face radiating authority and compassion. He wore armor of solidified starlight and carried a sword that contained the concept of victory itself.
"You should not have come here," the Godking said. His voice was music. "This is holy ground. This is the place where the gods touch the world. You are profanity given form, and profanity cannot exist in the presence of the sacred."
Malachar smiled his terrible smile. "There is no sacred. There is only power, and the will to use it. Your gods told you this place was holy to make you fight harder to defend it. But I see it for what it is: a tumor. A place where the world's sickness has concentrated. And I am the surgeon."
They fought.
It was not a battle that could be described in normal terms. The Godking struck with the force of falling stars, his sword cutting through dimensions, through time, through the possibility of Malachar's existence. Malachar dodged, not by moving, but by being somewhere else, by editing his location in the narrative of reality. They shattered the Heart of the Throne around them, sending fragments of divine architecture cascading through a dozen worlds.
The Godking was stronger. He had the power of a god, after all, albeit a fragment. But Malachar was smarter, and more importantly, he was angrier . The Godking fought for duty, for faith, for the abstract concept of order. Malachar fought for revenge, for the memory of a mother he had never known, for the billions who would die in the Reshaping. Anger, Malachar had learned, was fuel more potent than divine grace.
He won by letting the Godking win. He allowed a blow to strike home, allowed the sword of victory to pierce his chest, to shatter the demonstone heart that powered his existence. The Godking laughed in triumph, raising his blade for the final strike.
And Malachar reformed around the sword.
The demonstone was not his heart. It was his seed, his core, but he had grown beyond it. By drinking the Godwells, he had become something more than demon, more than mortal, more than anything that had existed before. He was a living Godwell now, a wound in reality that walked and thought and hated. The sword that pierced him did not kill him. It simply gave him a conduit.
Malachar reached through the sword, through the connection it represented, and touched the fragment of divine power in the Godking's breast. He did not drink it—he had learned that drinking too much divine power risked becoming what he hated. Instead, he poisoned it, infected it with the demonstone's ancient rage against the gods.
The Godking screamed. It was the first time he had felt pain in a thousand years. He felt his immortality rot, his divine connection wither, his perfect body begin to decay. He fell to his knees, suddenly mortal, suddenly afraid.
"Tell them," Malachar whispered in his ear. "Tell your gods that their power is not absolute. Tell them that I can hurt them. Tell them that I am coming for each of them, one by one, until none remain."
He left the Godking alive, a broken thing crawling in the ruins of his own perfection. The Obsidian Throne fell, its connection to the divine realm severed, its reality collapsing into chaos. Grond survived, barely, his stone body cracked and weakened. They retreated to lick their wounds and plan the final phase.
The gods, finally, were unanimous. The Extinction would happen immediately. No more waiting. No more patience. Vornith would burn, and Malachar with it.
They began to sing the Song of Unmaking.