The Tribunal's inner chamber was a fortress of silence, older than language itself, but today it shook. The encrypted feed lit up with a single seal: SIRIUS TRANSMISSION – PRIORITY CODE BLACK. The voice that followed was not loud, yet it felt like it pressed against the bones of everyone who heard it. "You sent one man to kill me. But instead… you awakened me. Now… prepare for the consequences." The screen went black. No sound. No breath. Only the echo of a name they no longer dared speak. One of the Elders whispered, "We… miscalculated." Another dropped to his knees, trembling. "He wasn't supposed to survive." They had watched his fall. They had celebrated it. And now they had witnessed the impossible—his rise from death, from memory, from silence.
A deep vibration rolled through the chamber. The sealed doors at the far end groaned, cracks crawling across the ancient stone, dust falling like ash from forgotten stars. The Tribunal turned as one and bowed low. The door opened with a sound like centuries breaking apart. From the darkness stepped the one who had not spoken in five years—because he only awakened when reality itself began to bleed. Ten feet tall, eyes glowing with galaxies, skin etched with living constellations, The Old One moved forward and the weight of time seemed to press the room into submission. "You have broken the seal," one whispered. "Why now, master?"
His voice was slow, thunderous, final. "Because you fools… have awakened what was never meant to rise so soon." He walked to the center, his presence bending the air. "You thought he was born of lightning. You thought he was a mortal blessed with power." His eyes flared white. "Fools. He is not a god. He is the one who created gods." Silence fell like a collapsed star. "Before galaxies. Before light. Before the concept of 'before'… he existed."
"What you saw was only one percent of what sleeps within him," the Old One continued. "That blue flame, that light—it is not his full power. It is a guide, a fragment, a protector. His true essence is locked away, by his own will. He chose mortality. He chose rebirth. He chose to forget. And he left guardians behind to prepare for the day when the dark would rise again."
"The five you sent?" His voice sharpened. "Children playing with stolen fire. You didn't defeat him before—you triggered his awakening. And now the balance you swore to protect has shattered. He did not die. He chose silence… to kill his own fear. And now that fear is dead. There is nothing holding him back."
The Old One turned his gaze upward toward the great dome, where stars spun in the eternal dark. "I remember the day he created Earth. He did not make it as a weapon, but as a cradle. A place where he could walk again as man. He struck a woman with lightning—but that lightning… was him. And in that womb, the God of all gods became human once more. He erased his memory, but not his destiny."
He stepped back into the shadows. "Do not contact him. Do not provoke him. Do not whisper his name. Because the god you wounded… was the god who forgot. And now, he is beginning to remember."