The Chamber Beyond the Veil was darker now.
Where once stars hung suspended in its domed heights, only a few glimmered—faint and trembling, like dying embers. The veil itself was sickened, its shimmer marred by the violent rending that had opened above Giza just hours before. The room, vast and hollow as a cathedral of gods, was deathly silent until the ripple of power came.
Odin's seat stood empty. The ashwood throne, once so proud and tall, was scorched black.
They had all watched the detonation felt the tremor in their bones, in their essence.
And now, judgment hovered.
Michael rose first.
He was radiant and terrible, his armor still gleaming with light that had no source. Wings spread behind him, furled but bristling. His voice rang like a temple bell.
"This was foolishness. Odin charged in, and now his name is ashes. How many more of us will die because we let wrath lead strategy?"
Across the obsidian table, the demon known as Marazhul, a Duke of the Deep Flame, let out a gravel-edged laugh. His horns curled like scorched iron. A cloak of smoke and teeth coiled around his shoulders.
"Oh, please. Odin was a butcher. You were all so quick to give him a leash then shocked when he snapped it. Don't look to us, angel. He died by his own arrogance."
Michael's hand closed around the hilt of the sword at his back.
"And yet it was your kind who pushed for a frontal assault. We lost hundreds of your demons in the breach if you can even count them as soldiers."
Marazhul bared rows of jagged teeth.
"We gave bodies while you gave sermons. My legions tore open the veil so your gods could march. If they die, it's because they walked through a door we opened."
The table groaned beneath the pressure of their power. Flame licked along its edge. Holy light bled from Michael's armor in streaks. Another second, and they would clash.
But they didn't.
Because the sky cracked inside the chamber.
A bolt of lightning ripped down from above, blinding and immediate. The table split in two with a thunderclap, and every being present flinched. When the light faded, Zeus stood, his arm still raised, his throne now a storm in itself.
His voice was the sound of mountains splitting.
"Enough."
Silence.
Lightning danced across his brow. His fists clenched and opened at his sides, every muscle trembling with ancient rage.
"This is what they want," he growled, voice grinding like stone. "To tear us apart. To divide us. And we are walking willingly into their trap."
He pointed a crackling finger toward Odin's throne.
"Do you think the mortals feared Odin? No. They used him. They baited him. And now he is gone, and we do nothing but turn on each other like dogs."
Marazhul sneered. "I don't care about your lost kin. He was a fool, and fools die."
Michael stepped forward. "And yet we have done nothing but lose. We lost Loki. Now Odin. Half the Einherjar. The Second Anchor. And still we are no closer to unraveling the Veil's cage."
"Because we fight alone," Zeus said, his voice quieter now, but no less furious. "Because we think ourselves sovereign even in war. And because they—" he motioned toward the scrying bowl in the center of the ruined table, still flickering with the final image of the explosion "are no longer children. They fight like gods."
A pause.
From the shadows, Athena finally spoke. Her eyes were heavy with calculation.
"They knew what they were doing. The anchor didn't just explode. It was transformed. It was timed. They tricked Odin into striking at shadows. This wasn't desperation. This was strategy." Her words hung like a knife in the chamber.
Zeus returned to his throne, but the storm remained in his eyes.
"Then we change our strategy. No more rash assaults. No more vanity. We strike with precision and we take the next anchor before they can vanish it into smoke."
He glared at both Michael and Marazhul in turn.
"I will not preside over a pantheon too blind to see its enemy. The mortals are fractured but if we keep turning on each other, they will win. And if they win… the Veil will fall forever."
No one spoke.
In the cracked mirror of the scrying bowl, the crater still smoked. Odin's scream, swallowed by light, echoed faintly replayed, again and again.
***
The war room lay beneath a hidden fortress in the Atlas Mountains. Walls of sandstone thrummed with fresh enchantments, but the air inside was weary worn by smoke, blood, and grief. The circular table was crowded with leaders and tacticians: witches and wizards in ash-streaked robes, centaur scouts with bandaged limbs, goblins in armor etched with age-old runes.
Above them, an illusion of the battlefield flickered showing the broken remains of the pyramid, the veil breach, and the blinding detonation that swallowed Odin.
Dumbledore stood at the head of the table, his robes soot-darkened, his hand steady only with effort.
"We begin," he said, voice hoarse but commanding.
Kora, the Shield-Mare, spoke first. Her mane was braided in the mourning style of the Deep Vale. "The wards failed. Not from being too weak but because they weren't made for them. They didn't cast spells or hurl fire. Their bodies themselves were… wrong."
She tapped the side of her head, her voice sharp. "Our seers collapsed the moment the gods crossed the veil. Not from pain but from contact. The air around them was magic. Living magic. It was neigh impossible to get a read on them, I wonder how Morpheus can."
A witch from the northern covens added softly, "It was like the some of the wards unraveled just by proximity. As if they were… feeding on the enchantments themselves."
The room stilled.
Ragnok stepped forward, armored in darksteel, his cloak scorched along one edge. His voice was rough, but clear.
"They weren't just surrounded by magic. They are magic. Their bodies drink it pull it in like breath. That's why our barriers failed. They walked into our spells and unspooled them like thread. Morpheus has mentioned it before."
Kora looked toward him. "So they'll unravel anything we try to build?"
"No," Ragnok replied. "Not everything. Think carefully what kind of magic do they avoid? What do they deflect, not absorb? And most of our wards still stood and even worked, there must be a limit."
There was a pause.
Then a wounded auror at the table muttered, "Curses."
Ragnok nodded. "Curses are twisted. They're unstable, impure. Magic bent out of harmony. The kind of magic that corrodes. If we use dark magic malignant enchantments, hexes, slow poisons they won't absorb them. They might even burn from it."
A hush fell across the table.
Dumbledore said nothing, but others shifted uneasily. One older wizard near the far end frowned. "You're suggesting we lean into dark arts. That we start using the very things we've spent generations outlawing."
"Better that," said Kora, "than to die with clean hands."
Another voice spoke up young, tired, but resolute. A French enchanter with burn scars along one cheek.
"We should speak to Herpo. He knows how dark spells behave against spiritual constructs. If anyone can find a way to make this work, it's him."
That name made more than one person go still.
A Scottish witch muttered, "We're trusting Herpo now? What's next summoning inferi?"
Ragnok scowled. "This is war. The enemy brought gods through the sky. We don't win this with schoolbook ethics. And he has been fighting on the front lines using curses he knows they are effective! It's time we join him."
Another nodded grimly. "Herpo may be dangerous but he's brilliant. And he hasn't betrayed us yet. If we want to survive the next breach, we need to speak with him."
Dumbledore raised a hand, quieting the room.
"Yes, both Morpheus and Herpo have reportedly told us these creatures if made of magic and curses and solid objects are the best at killing them. So far we have doubted, and pushed some of there methods to the side. I am guilty of this very act, but I think it's time to reconsider."
"I used curses." A voice spoke up and everyone turned to the man, he was a solider that much was apparent
"Commander Veriz," Dumbledore smiled, "Tell us more."
"I and my men employed the use of curses, we have been told they were effective and they were. We were able to hold our positions throughout the battle of the pyramid. I noticed the angels were far more hurt by them than the demons. Let's not all act innocent, everyone in this room knows how to cast a dark magic. I for one will continue to do so, best start being open about it."
A/N:
Might seem redundant but remember these people don't know the demons/ angels like Morpheus and Herpo do. They still don't trust either of them so they are drawing their own conclusions from the war.