Chapter 71 – The Nine's Advance
The void did not return to silence after the emissary's retreat.
Instead, it began to breathe.
At first it was subtle—a slow, heavy inhale that rippled through the fractured horizon. The floating platforms trembled in response, hairline cracks spreading like veins across their surface. The distant glow of the Kingless Crown pulsed once… then again… brighter each time, as if responding to a heartbeat that was not their own.
Atreus felt it immediately.
The fracture beneath his skin stirred, a low hum rising from deep within him, vibrating through bone and thought alike. Unlike before, it was not chaotic. It was alert. Defensive. As if it too sensed that what was coming was not a test.
It was an invasion.
"They're not done," he said quietly.
Kratos tightened his grip on the Leviathan Axe. "No. They gather."
Xenara floated slightly higher off the stone, her staff lifting on its own accord, runes blooming along its surface like living sparks. "The Nine no longer hide their hand," she murmured. "They move as one now."
The darkness ahead folded in on itself.
Then it opened.
A裂A裂A裂
One by one, rifts tore open in the fabric of the Forgotten World. Not like wounds—but like doors being unlocked. From each, a figure stepped forward. Tall. Armored. Crowned.
Not one.
Not two.
Nine.
Each wore a crown forged from the same jagged, blackened gold. But each was different. Some stood tall and slender. Others were massive and immovable, hunched under the weight of their own presence. Some radiated cold. Others simmered with contained fury. One even seemed barely real, its body dissolving into drifting shadows.
They did not speak at first.
They simply stood there—forming a wide semicircle ahead of the broken path.
Judges.
Executioners.
Architects of ruin.
The void seemed to bow to them.
Atreus' jaw tightened. The Mark burned now, a disciplined flame instead of a wildfire. It recognized them. It hated them. And somehow… it knew them.
"The Nine…" he whispered.
"Their true forms," Xenara answered. "Or as close as this world will allow."
Kratos stepped forward, placing himself slightly in front of Atreus in a silent, protective instinct that had never left him. "Then let them come."
The tallest of the Nine moved.
Its crown split down the center, revealing a sliver of blinding, golden light beneath the black. Not a face. Not a skull. Only light.
"Bearer of the Mark," it spoke — and every other Nine echoed the words, layered and overlapping, reshaping the air itself.
"Bearer of the Axe."
"Keeper of What Was Lost."
"You stand in a world not meant to hold you."
The path beneath their feet cracked wider.
Atreus' voice was steady. "You brought us here."
"No," the Nine answered in harmony.
"The fracture did."
The void shifted again and visions bled into reality around them:
Frozen forests burning without flame.
Cities made of bone.
Worlds stitched together with chains.
A throne made of flowing gold and blood-red light.
At its center—
A figure that looked frighteningly like Atreus.
Older.
Cold.
A crown of living energy floating above his head.
The vision faded.
Atreus staggered slightly.
Kratos snapped his focus back. "Eyes on me, boy."
"But… that was…" Atreus struggled to form the words.
"One potential," Xenara said grimly. "One of many futures they are desperate to force into being."
The Nine took another synchronized step forward.
The platforms beneath them trembled violently now, pieces breaking off, falling endlessly into the dark. Time felt stretched thin, like a taut string ready to snap.
"You passed the Oath," the central figure continued.
"You resisted temptation.
You showed restraint."
A pause.
"Now we test your resolve."
Without warning the world SPLIT.
Not physically — but spiritually.
Atreus found himself suddenly standing alone on a familiar battlefield.
Midgard.
Snow falling gently around him. Ruined homes in the distance. Broken blades half-buried in ice.
"Father?" he called out.
No response.
Across the field, a figure stood with the Leviathan Axe planted into the ground.
Kratos.
But… wrong.
His eyes were hollow. His armor was cracked. His skin greyed, like stone drained of life.
"Is this what you want to become?" the false Kratos asked.
Atreus froze. "You're not real."
"Am I not?" it replied. "You walk this path. You draw power that devours worlds. You carry a mark that even the Nine fear. What do you think that makes you?"
The world flickered again.
Atreus now stood before Xenara, but her eyes glowed a harsh, accusing white.
"You will destroy everything I tried to protect," she said. "Even me."
Then—darkness swallowed them.
Another vision replaced it.
Kratos stood before nine floating crowns, kneeling, the Leviathan Axe shattered at his feet.
"You failed him," a whisper came from behind Atreus. "And in doing so… you created a king of ruin."
Atreus spun around. "Stop it!"
But he knew.
This was not illusion.
This was the Nine testing what lived inside him most deeply: fear.
His greatest fear had never been death.
It was becoming the reason other people wished for it.
The fracture pulsed violently.
No longer fighting him.
Begging him.
"Take them," it whispered inside his mind.
"They can't control you if they don't exist."
Gold light gathered in his palm.
Not wild. Controlled. Focused.
Not destruction—
Decision.
Back in the ruined void, the Nine watched carefully as energy gathered around the boy at the center of the bridge. Kratos' body tensed, ready to intervene if it spiraled out of control.
But he saw it in Atreus' face.
It wasn't rage.
It was clarity.
Atreus opened his eyes.
And instead of attacking the Nine—
He pointed the power downward at the fracture of the world itself.
Light surged into the broken path, knitting its cracks together, stabilizing the realm instead of tearing it apart.
The Nine stepped back for the first time.
Surprised.
"You do not strike," they said.
"No," Atreus replied, voice low and steady. "You want a ruler built on fear. I won't be that. If this power wants a master, it will follow my terms."
The golden light softened. The fractured world steadied.
The Nine did not advance again.
For the first time since their existence, they hesitated.
"You choose balance," one muttered.
"Restriction," another hissed.
"Defiance," a third growled…
The central one spoke last.
"You are not what was expected… but you are what is required."
The other eight began to dissolve, fading into the dark like smoke pulled by an unseen wind.
The tallest lingered.
"You have prevented collapse today," it said. "But understand this, Heir… balance demands opposition. And opposition is coming."
Its crown dimmed.
"You have earned… time."
Then it vanished.
Silence returned.
Real silence.
The threatening kind.
Kratos turned to Atreus, studying him carefully. "You chose not to strike."
"I chose not to become them."
A faint approval passed through Kratos' expression. "Good."
Xenara lowered her staff. "You just denied nine gods their desired ending. That… is not a small victory."
Atreus looked down at his glowing Mark as it slowly dimmed back to a soft, obedient hum.
"They'll be back."
"Yes," Kratos agreed. "Stronger. Smarter."
"Then so will I."
The Kingless Crown pulsed again in the distance.
This time… it felt almost like acknowledgment.
Or approval.
The path ahead opened wider, a new bridge forming where broken stone once drifted apart. It led straight toward the distant glow — toward truth, power, and the final reckoning that waited far beyond mortal understanding.
And together—
They stepped forward to meet it.