The gods were gone.
Not hidden.
Not reborn.
Erased.
For the first time since the stars bled into the void, the earth was free. No celestial scripts guiding fate. No thrones in the sky. No whispers from divine mouths controlling mortal hearts.
Only Rael remained.
He stood atop the shattered mountain of Elysara, once the highest seat of the gods. Now it was rubble and dust, stained by the golden blood of immortals.
The wind howled softly, brushing through his dark hair like the hands of a memory.
> "It's over," Rael murmured.
But the silence that followed didn't answer.
He turned, gazing out over the world that stretched below. Forests, rivers, cities once bowed to gods… now waiting.
Not cheering.
Not mourning.
Waiting.
> "You wanted a world where she could live…" Rael whispered to himself. "But how do you build life from the ashes of heaven?"
Behind him, Nullfire pulsed—faintly. The blade that had consumed stars… now dim, like a dream fading at dawn.
Rael dropped to one knee, fingers grazing the cracked earth. His reflection shimmered faintly in a pool of divine ichor—a face marked by power, pain, and purpose.
And yet… in his eyes was no triumph.
Only an echo.
> "A world where she exists."
The phrase haunted him. Not just as a promise, but as a puzzle.
Could he truly bring her back?
Not with magic. Not with force.
But with creation.
Suddenly, a faint vibration hummed through the air. The ground below trembled—not from battle, but something deeper. Ancient.
A pulse. A signal.
Rael's eyes narrowed.
> "What is that…?"
Then he heard it.
A voice—not divine.
Not human.
Something older.
> "You severed heaven… but the roots remain."
The voice came from beneath the world. From the bones of the cosmos itself.
A warning… or a beginning?
Rael stood slowly.
Eyes burning. Mind sharpening.
He had defeated the gods.
Now came the harder task—
Remaking the world.
Rael descended from the ruined summit of Elysara.
Each step felt heavier than any battle he'd fought. It wasn't exhaustion. It was the weight of purpose—the burden of being the last force shaping a broken world.
The divine corpses were gone, absorbed into the void. Only fragments remained—cracks in the sky, drifting feathers of celestial beings, ruins echoing with divine screams.
But beneath all this… something pulsed.
A rhythm.
A whisper.
Rael reached the valley below. The soil, still warm with celestial energy, had twisted. Trees with silver veins. Rivers that shimmered with blue fire. Creatures that watched him—not with fear, but reverence.
Then he saw it.
A scar in the earth—too perfect to be natural. A spiral-shaped canyon descending into blackness, humming with ancient energy.
> "You severed heaven… but the roots remain."
Rael approached the edge. The air thickened. Not with magic—but memory.
Suddenly—he staggered.
A vision stabbed into his mind like a dagger.
Flashes.
A time before gods.
A throne beneath the earth.
A figure—wrapped in shadows, not divine… but something older. Forgotten.
> "Who are you?" Rael gritted his teeth.
> "The First."
"The Root."
"The One even gods feared."
Rael's breath caught.
This wasn't just the aftermath of war. It was a door he had unknowingly opened. A prison beneath the divine realm—something even the gods had built their empire to bury.
A Primordial.
And now that the gods were gone… it was waking.
The vision faded.
Rael dropped to one knee, gripping Nullfire for support.
> "Of course… nothing dies without consequence."
He stood, eyes burning with new resolve.
He had killed gods to bring freedom. To build a world for her.
But now… something older than gods threatened to devour it all.
Rael looked into the spiral canyon.
> "Then I go deeper."
Because to rebuild the world…
He must first confront what the gods had buried.
Rael stood at the edge of the spiral chasm. Its walls pulsed with a soft, red glow—veins of ancient power carved into the bones of the world.
He took one last glance at the war-torn skies above.
No gods.
No angels.
No heroes.
Just him—the villain who killed them all.
With a breath that echoed like thunder in the silence, Rael stepped into the spiral and began his descent.
Each step downward stripped the world above further from him. The light faded. The divine traces vanished. What remained was raw, untouched reality—a time before laws, before fate.
> "The gods must have feared what was buried here."
The walls whispered to him, though no mouths moved.
He heard languages no being should speak, voices braided from shadow and time.
A memory surfaced.
> Her voice—gentle, soft.
"You always protect the ones you love… even if it means burning the sky."
He clenched his jaw.
> "I promised you a world. I won't let it be consumed… not now."
Hours passed. Or maybe centuries. Time bent around the spiral.
Then—Rael stopped.
The path opened into a vast underground chamber. It wasn't stone. It wasn't flesh.
It was alive.
A pulse echoed through the ground. Above, the ceiling mimicked a starlit sky—but each star blinked with an eye.
In the center of the chamber stood a blackened throne, cracked and sealed with godly sigils. But those seals now flickered, weakened by the fall of their creators.
A figure sat on the throne.
Tall.
Silent.
Wrapped in chains made of divine bones.
One golden eye opened.
> "At last," it said, voice slow and ancient. "The gods have fallen… and the door returns."
Rael drew Nullfire. It didn't glow. It trembled.
The being on the throne didn't rise. It only smiled.
> "You are the one who dared slay the sky… But do you know what you've unchained?"
Rael raised his blade.
> "I don't care what you are. If you threaten the world I swore to create… I'll bury you deeper than the gods ever dared."
The Primordial chuckled.
> "Then come, Tyrant of Heaven. Let us decide whose will shall shape the age to come."
The chamber seemed to breathe.
Rael's boots pressed into the pulsing ground, every heartbeat syncing with the rhythm of the throne room. The Primordial sat unmoved, yet its presence twisted reality around it—space distorted, gravity bent, and time stuttered.
Nullfire—the blade that devoured divinity—shivered in Rael's grip.
> "What are you?" he asked, voice steady.
The Primordial's golden eye narrowed.
> "I am the silence before the first word. The breath before the gods inhaled."
> "They called me Vorthym. The Root. The Unnamed Law."
Chains rattled—divine bones groaned as if resisting.
> "When gods were born, they feared what they couldn't control. So they bound me here… built their heaven above me to bury their shame."
Rael's brows furrowed.
> "You're not just a being… You're a force."
Vorthym grinned, ancient and cruel.
> "And you… are my liberator."
He raised a single finger. The sigils binding him—those crafted by fallen gods—cracked. Dust fell like ash.
> "You unbalanced the cycle. You ended the divine contract. You thought you were building a world—but you broke the lock."
Suddenly—the chains shattered.
A wave of pure, pre-divine energy blasted outward.
Rael was thrown back, skidding against the living floor, Nullfire slicing the air to steady himself.
Vorthym rose.
Towering.
His body was made of the night before creation—a writhing mass of shadows, stars, and memories never written.
> "You have a blade that kills gods. Let us see if it can kill what birthed them."
Rael stood, aura burning.
His cloak of ashes swirled behind him.
> "This blade killed Fate. It killed Time. You think you're beyond that?"
Vorthym raised his hand—and the entire chamber began to collapse into anti-form. Reality twisted, revealing layers of forgotten worlds underneath.
Rael charged.
Nullfire ignited, howling in defiance.
He struck—the first clash echoed like thunder through a thousand timelines.
Vorthym didn't dodge—he absorbed.
And in that instant, Rael saw flashes:
The gods in their birth cradles.
A mortal civilization erased from memory.
The truth—that the gods had stolen their power from Vorthym himself.
> "They feared what I gave freely."
Rael gritted his teeth, forcing the visions back.
> "Then I'll show you what fear truly is."
He plunged Nullfire deeper—this time, Vorthym winced.
> "You... are not just a tyrant," Vorthym muttered.
> "You're a reminder."
Rael's eye narrowed.
> "No. I'm the end."
The ground beneath them fractured—not into rubble, but into concepts.
Time broke. Space bled. Memories reversed.
The spiral chamber was no longer a place—it was a question being asked by the universe, and only Rael had the answer.
Nullfire sank deeper into Vorthym's chest, searing into the heart of a being older than gods. But the Primordial didn't fall. Instead, his form cracked, revealing something impossible beneath the shadow.
Not flesh.
Not energy.
But origin—the raw intent of existence.
> "You should not have come here," Vorthym said, a tremble finally in his voice. "To strike me is to strike the root of all things. You will unravel not just gods, but meaning itself."
Rael's cloak fluttered like a storm. His eyes glowed—not with divinity, but with something stronger:
Conviction.
> "Then let it all fall apart," he whispered, pushing the blade deeper. "I'm not saving their world… I'm making mine."
With a final thrust, Nullfire released a silent scream, and light exploded in reverse—black to white, end to beginning.
The blast swallowed everything.
The gods' bones.
The divine seals.
The spiral chamber.
Even Vorthym's voice.
Only Rael remained, floating in the empty space between realities.
Breathing. Bleeding.
Becoming.
He touched the air—no longer bound by form—and whispered her name.
> "Liora…"
A single flame sparked at his fingertips.
In that void, Rael did not rebuild heaven.
He did not summon kings or carve monuments.
He created a single room.
A warm breeze.
A wooden door.
A field of golden flowers.
And her silhouette, waiting beneath a twilight sky.
But the story didn't reveal her.
Not yet.
Only Rael's voice echoed in the dark:
> "When she died, I promised myself…
I would make a world where she exists."