"You heard her—activate it!"
Within seconds, the reactor roared back to life—louder, fiercer—as every drop of its power surged toward the Monolith.
A deafening rumble shook the marble structure, flooding every groove and rune with blinding light. The red emergency lights flared in unison, burning with almost unbearable brightness.
Yet, because of the mortal materials they had used, the structure couldn't withstand the energy needed to make it work. The carved runes flickered violently, as if about to tear themselves apart.
She considered stepping in.
She could stabilize the structure with a mere fraction of her power. But...
'What fun would that be? The pleasure didn't lie in their success... but in the irony that it was His own creation that would harm Him.'
With no other choice, Nikola shouted, his mind racing faster than thought as he scrambled for a solution.
"It's not channeling all the energy! The excess is overloading it! We need a release valve before it blows!"
Robert didn't hesitate.
"Connect the dampers to the main circuit!"
His voice no longer carried the tone of a child—it was that of a leader delivering death sentences without trembling.
The engineers, sealed inside their protective suits, exchanged silent glances. They knew what following that order meant. With the Monolith already active, no suit could save them.
Even so... after one last glance at the monstrous shapes lurking in the shadows, they understood there would be no other chance.
They whispered, for the last time, the names of their families and loved ones before taking hold of the cables—each as thick as a man's head—connected to the massive charge diverters, and fastening them to the base of the Monolith.
Once fully active, the trapped energy surged violently through the cables before they could even step back.
Their bodies burned from the inside out; the flesh of their arms and chests ignited like dry tinder beneath their suits, turning to ash while they still stood upright.
Though their deaths were agonizingly swift, at least the Monolith remained overheated.
"Connect another damper," Robert ordered, his tone unflinching.
He kept repeating the same phrase in his mind as he sent more men to certain death: We fail, and we vanish… or…
Another engineer grabbed a new cable, linked it to a different damper, and attached it to the opposite side of the Monolith—sharing his comrade's fate.
One after another, more engineers offered up their lives until, at last, the energy flow stabilized.
The runes stopped flickering and began to glow with an electric light—steady, solid, unyielding.After a few motionless seconds, the Monolith released a frequency precisely opposite to that of the black monoliths.
The troughs of the wave converged at the upper edge of the block, creating a constructive interference that intensified the energy until it condensed into a single beam of light, that shot upward, striking the highest section of the vaulted ceiling…
And there, at the point of impact, space itself fractured.
Through the fissure… the Two Players—the two primordial entities—met once again, with the earth as their stage.
The abyss gaze through the crack.And on the other side…God gaze back.
From His domain, He saw the abominable white Monolith, and then His shifting "eyes" slid over those He had cast Forsaken.
His fury gave way to disbelief as He understood what we had done.
'How could this be possible? How had they created abobination like this?'
Then His gaze fell upon Her—and as though God Himself had borrowed Ockham's razor, His choral voice filled the chamber… yet beneath it, something deeper stirred.
"YOU… WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!!?"
"Me?"His sister replied, while every one of her creatures mirrored the same amused expression. —though in the strangest among them, those made of tentacles, tumors, and unspeakable shapes, it was hard to tell."I've done nothing… yet... all of this is the work of your own creation."
The words struck like a dagger.
God refused to believe it.
It was impossible.
Humans couldn't have done this on their own.
And yet… we had.
We were using His own seals —the runes HeHimself had forged to bring order to His essence.
What was hardest to believe was that they were… properly arranged, forming a sequence —a blasphemous command that worked seamlessly with one of the few inventions of His opposite: Her monoliths.
And the worst part was… it was working.
He had to remain aware of every ounce of His being, lest any fragment of it drift toward the rift that pulled at Him like a black hole.
For the first time in eons —since his rebellion— God felt uncertainty about what was to come.
His choral voice —once pure as light— faltered slightly as He asked:
"What... are you planning!?"
Though for him required no answer, the "young" Robert Oppenheimer —his face shadowed by the golden glow of his ever-shifting Creator, burdened by the hard choices and countless sacrifices— lifted his gaze and replied without fear:
"Whatever it takes: Even forsaken, we—"
His words were silenced when the remaining survivors completed them as one, with the same resolve as the soldiers who had given their lives to buy them one more second:
"ENDURE!"
The same defiance burned in their eyes as they faced the shifting figure of their Creator.
That was the final drop.
Upon hearing our arrogance and defiance—after we had created something that escaped our trivial understanding and threatened not only ourselves but all of creation—God invoked His right as Creator to erase His work with a single thought.
But…
Nothing happened.
HeHimself had relinquished His right as Creator over humanity, and with it, all authority over us.
Even so, He remained a primordial being—virtually omnipotent.
Yielding to emotion, as He so rarely did, He feared what humankind might accomplish should they join forces with His opposite. Then He gathered enough divine energy—His own essence—to annihilate our world, and the entire universe, many times over.
That energy took form: a massive golden sun descending straight toward the rift, the very embodiment of divine smite.
Yet before it could strike, and without averting his gaze Robert calmly ordered:
"Shut down the dampers."
The command caught the rest of the staff off guard, still transfixed by their impending annihilation.
But as they do it, the monolith and the runes crackled—absorbing the surge of energy, which, this time, worked in our favor.
By increasing the frequency of the wave it emitted, it multiplied the effect of constructive interference. At last, it manifested as a blinding flash of golden light from the rift —a brilliance that only grew stronger.
Its resonance spread to the other side as well, forcing its "owner" to lose control of His own "body."The massive, compressed energy meant to destroy us was swallowed and absorbed by the rift instead of passing through it— like a sun being spaghettified as it crossed the event horizon of a black hole.
This metaphorical counterblow of humanity against its Creator… provoked utterly opposite reactions.
While God's choral voices cried out in agony—feeling a part of Himself torn away, as though an entire limb had been severed—
that same scream became, for Her, the sweetest fruit, the purest sap… an indescribable pleasure that achieved the impossible: it filled the Void.
So much so that, while Her "brother" howled in pain at the hands of His own creation, She laughed—wild, unrestrained laughter born of sheer delight.
She looked like a true lunatic as Her "bodies" burned, engulfed in golden flames— igniting under the sheer flood of divine energy that washed over the Earth like a 360-degree tsunami, without destroying it— acting instead as Her antithesis, turning the Void and its corruption to ash within seconds.
Within the vaulted chamber, the screams and laughter of the two primordial "players" merged into a sound that made the soul of any mortal quiver—like the flame of a candle in the heart of a storm.
The Monolith, unable to contain the vast energy coursing through it, began to fracture.Its runes, once radiant with golden light, now burned a searing crimson, as though the marble itself were about to melt.
Above them, the rift connecting to the divine plane began to close.The stream of golden energy stolen from God slowly dwindled, its celestial glow retreating until it vanished entirely.
And as it did—when the choral scream faded—She stopped laughing.
The laughter of the Void, once a cruel and omniscient melody, was snuffed out in an instant.
Only then did the humans present draw breath again, feeling their souls cease to tremble.
Through the last being left unturned to ash—the humanoid commander—the Void spoke.
"Though part of me can hardly wait…"
Her voice was soft and detached—yet a faint tremor lingered in it, as though she were savoring the taste left upon her own lips.
Indifferent to pain, or to the stench rising from Her "body," still burning beneath the golden motes now drifting across the Earth, she finished: "I will not devour you… not yet."
That single "yet" made several of the survivors hold their breath.
"Unlike Him, I find you… entertaining. And today, you've earned a favor from Me."
No one spoke. No one could.
For the first time, the thought of survival no longer seemed an impossible fantasy.
We had endured. We had achieved the unthinkable.
And now, that unfathomable entity—that thing which had kept them a whisper away from absolute annihilation—was offering them… a favor.
But then…
Her tone changed.
The amusement vanished.
What remained was cold.
"However… you will not be the ones to claim it."
Their hopes died before they ever had the chance to take flight.
"You've proven yourselves dangerous."
The commander slowly raised a charred hand.
"Especially… you."
She pointed at the founders of the Ordo who stood among them: Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Alan Turing, Georges Lemaître, and the "young" Otto Hahn, Fritz Strassmann, and Robert Oppenheimer.
All believed She was about to annihilate them.
Her stance, Her presence—everything suggested She would.
But then, the Void's eyes turned toward the dying Monolith.
Cracks pulsed across its surface, glowing with a searing red— as if the structure itself were on the verge of imploding. It made her pause… and consider.
'Perhaps that's a more fitting fate… besides, in a way—it rhymes.'
And then, as if time itself resumed its flow after that brief consideration—
The Monolith exploded.
The blast ripped through the chamber, tearing down walls and consuming everything—everyone—in its path. The nearest scientists were vaporized in an instant; the rest followed soon after.
Stone, fire, and shards of molten marble erupted in every direction as the structure collapsed upon them.
Amid the chaos, the humanoid commander remained motionless. She neither shielded or moved. The explosions and debris passed through her as though he were not entirely there— as if her very being slipped between realities.
When the devastation finally ceased, She stood as the only one left.
With a single motion of her commander scorched hand, she opened a rift behind him.
But before stepping through it…
She stopped.
Beneath the flames and the ruin, something made a faint smile cross her charred face.
'This too is destiny…'She thought— eager to see what our next move would be.
And with that, she vanished.
All that remained was the commander—who, at last, became aware of himself again.
His mind was blank.
He didn't know what had happened; he only felt the pain searing through his burned body.
The world around him had changed.
It was saturated with golden particles—remnants of his old creator— the same that had scorched his flesh… and the hollow that passed for his soul.
Without thinking, he leapt into the fissure closing behind him.
But as he escaped… he felt something beyond pain.
A silent, corrosive poison.
Envy.
The humans—it seemed they hadn't been abandoned entirely.
Not like the rest of his creator's older works, those who had been denied a second chance.
That injustice festered into a deep hatred for our kind— a hatred shared by the six condemned creations that came before him.
A hatred which, ironically, He shared with his creator.
-
In His Kingdom…
God was still recovering.
From the pain, the shock, the shame of being wounded by His own creations.
From the humiliation brought by the manic laughter—almost ecstatic—of the being He refused to acknowledge as His… sister.
But that was not the worst of it.
We had stolen a part of Himself— something He could now feel only as a phantom pain.
A muted roar echoed through the boundless expanse of His dominion.
His resentment swelled, spreading until it became absolute.
And not His alone.
All aroundhundreds of thousands of angels beat their wings in fury, their radiance trembling with the thirst for vengeance— against the sinful creation that had dared to steal from its maker,casting Him down upon the very ground of His own Kingdom.
-
Meanwhile, on Earth.
Thanks to that "second chance"…
The corruption that had devoured the continents was purged—burned to ash, down to the roots from which it once grew.The fissures—gateways to horrors older than Hell itself—were sealed.
But as a constant reminder, the Monoliths remained standing.
Silently adapting… slowly filtering their energy, to counter His.
Yet they were not the only ones.
The living beings that managed to survive also had to adapt—or perhaps, simply unlocked the limits that had been imposed upon them since the dawn of creation.
As in the days of Eden, life became tougher, longer-lived, more fertile.
Thus, as children of a Second Genesis, while the Monoliths slumbered,we repopulated what was left of the world and rebuilt our civilization with one purpose alone:
To endure.At any cost.
Even if that cost was irony itself—a carefully woven lie, a twisted caricature of what we once were.
We rewrote religions.Forged temples, machines, and dogmas around them.
We called it a gift. We called it faith, a present, hope... Just to wield the divinity we had stolen—as a weapon.
All so that, in 1960— when forty years had passed, and the fragile balance between the two primal energies finally broke, and the fissures opened once more— We would no longer be the prey we once were.
We had learned to gaze into the Void without losing our minds.
For more than a century, humanity endured—fighting.
Through countless sacrifices, we walked the narrow twilight between the light we had stolenand the darkness that never truly faded.
Our history was not written in ink to preserve our glory,
but as a single, beautiful lie—inscribed in the blood of countless men and women,
in faith toward a Creator who had not only abandoned us…
but despised us...
-
Year 2111
Regnum of the United Christian Kingdoms
Mountainous coasts of the Duchy of Cantabria, Kingdom of Hispania.
"Wake up…" said an old yet steady voice, like the creaking of seasoned wood under the weight of years.
The boy—barely past adolescence—was asleep against the trunk, resting on a thick redwood branch, his rifle held in his arms as one would hold a lover.He didn't wake from his master's words, but from the sharp kick that struck his boots.
The blow tore him from a restless dream: darkness, a distant laugh, a touch, a proposal… and a refusal.
Then—nothing. Until his eyes opened inside his armet closed helmet*, a sealed visor filled with cables and soft humming connections around him.
Before him, beyond the horizon: the sun sinking into the sea, and across the mountainous sky, two flares tracing a silent dance.
An 'orange one—'the miners,' he thought.A green one—'the lumbermen,' he confirmed.
Without changing the drowsy expression the helmet barely concealed, the young man turned toward the stooped back of his master, awaiting orders.
Despite his frail appearance and aged voice, he knew the man was as dangerous as he was old.
"It's time to work… Ashliath." The words sounded more like a lament than an order.
Ashliath didn't move. He sensed the old man wasn't finished.
And he was right. The elder sighed, watching the flares rise into a sky painted in violet and orange—caught between the end of day and the beginning of night.
"They've grown too used to our presence… and it's making them greedy."
The boy said nothing, not fully understanding. 'Wasn't it our duty to protect them?' he thought.
As if reading his mind, the old man murmured, "We won't always be here to do so…"
He ended the matter there. "I'll take the lumbermen. You handle the miners."
Ashliath nodded, exhaling slowly.
He straightened up on the branch, stretching his arms. The cool breeze slipped through the narrow slit of his helmet, carrying the scent of resin and damp earth.
But along with the perfume of the forest came other sounds— cracking wood, and hungry growls rising from the thickening dark.
With an automatic motion, he slung his dark-wood anti-tank rifle across his back, next to the Montante* that hung from his short green wool mantle.
With a sharp tilt of his head, the heavy rectangle of raw, functional tech screeched as it slid down across the front of his helmet, locking into place with a faint click over the narrow visor slit.
Darkness swallowed him for an instant—until the internal display flickered to life with a pale green glow.
The electric hum of the cables within his helmet bled into the whine of hard drives and the low vibration of cooling fans along his back, exhaling the warm breath of processors through the armored layers as the embedded computer in his vest came online.
Using the miniature mechanical keyboard built embedded in his right forearm plate, and the mouse grafted to his gauntlet, he typed the boot command across the visor screen:
>BOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED_
The chassis rumbled against the back of his spine. The hum of the compressor blended with the metallic gasp of the valves as they opened.
Inside the monitor visor, a line of text appeared:
>ÆTHER-03 SYSTEM ACTIVE. COMBUSTION STABLE_
Ready, Ashliath turned to his master.
"Remember…" the old man murmured, voice low—almost a prayer. "Never stop; survive… no matter what happens."
The young man nodded, resolute, and the master answered by hurling himself into the void from more than twenty meters above.
For a moment, his fall was silent. Then, the engine strapped to his back —a fusion of burnished steel and reinforced leather— vented its pressure in a mechanical roar that tore through the dark forest.
The thrusters mounted along his sides exhaled violet flames, halting his descent and driving him toward the next redwood.
The old man barely brushed a branch before leaping again with effortless grace, keeping every ounce of speed and momentum his propulsion could offer.
Ashliath watched him vanish among the trunks and violet trails before stepping into the void himself.
As he fell, he drew his arms beneath the cloak, aligned his body for the thrust, and activated the Æther system with the left click of the mouse built into his glove.
The motor at his hip roared to life, and the thrusters spat violent tongues of flame that bathed the foliage in the same color as the first corrupted gleam of moonlight filtering through the canopy.
Propelled toward the next redwood, he rose through the air.
Beneath the shadow of his hood, the single lens over his visor came alive with a cold emerald glow— like a predator awakening.