Chapter 75 – The Vein Wars Begin
The void did not echo with victory.
It echoed with warning.
Even as the Nine receded into the shadows of the unknown, the darkness they left behind clung to the air, like an unseen residue that refused to release its hold. The platforms around Atreus, Kratos, and Xenara remained suspended in unnatural stillness, each stone fragment trembling faintly as if remembering the presence that had touched it.
Atreus rose slowly to his feet.
The fracture burned low inside him now — not raging, not sleeping, but watching… listening to something far beyond sight.
"They're not done," he said under his breath.
"They have only begun to move," Xenara replied.
Her eyes were fixed on the distance, on a place where nothing could be seen. Yet she stared as though armies were marching there, invisible to all but her.
Kratos stepped up beside them. His grip on the Leviathan Axe tightened.
"Then they will be met with war."
He turned to Atreus. "But their first strike will not be upon us."
Atreus looked at him sharply. "You feel it too?"
Kratos nodded once.
"They will attack what cannot defend itself."
For a brief moment, the void around them shimmered… and then shattered into visions.
Realms unfolding all at once — Midgard, Alfheim, Vanaheim, realms at peace only moments before. Then, shadows poured across the skies like living storms. The dark constructs seen in the void now descended onto cities, forests, temples. Panic rippled through every plane of existence.
The Vein Wars had begun.
"They are using the fracture's echo as a beacon," Xenara said, horror creeping into her voice. "Not to destroy worlds… but to drain them. To feed the great wound between realms."
"And to bait me," Atreus whispered.
The fracture pulsed sharply in agreement.
It could feel the Nine's plan. They were not just trying to conquer or destroy — they were trying to force his hand, to pressure him into using the power he barely controlled. Every fallen realm, every collapsing sky was another test.
Another temptation.
Kratos placed a firm hand on his shoulder. The grounding weight of it steadied him.
"You are not their weapon, boy. And you will not become it for them."
Atreus nodded, though the storm in his chest refused to calm.
A low tremor moved through the platform beneath them as new energy surged. Multiple rifts tore into existence around them, like broken mirrors hanging in the air. Within each rift, a battlefield could be seen.
Thousands fleeing.
Temples shaking.
Skies cracking.
Shadows devouring light.
"They are weakening the lines between realms," Xenara said. "If all lines break at once, the Nine will arise beyond limitation. Not bound by realms… not bound by form."
Atreus stepped forward, looking into one rift where a forest he recognized from Midgard twisted under a blackened sky. Dark figures stalked between the trees — not walking like living things, but gliding, warping. Each step they took left the air fractured behind them.
"They can't all be saved," she added quietly. "Not without something being given in return."
Atreus's hands clenched.
"What do I give?"
Xenara hesitated. "You… don't yet understand the cost."
Kratos's voice grew like thunder. "Then she will not be the one who decides it."
At that moment, a shockwave split through the void, knocking them back several steps. The floating platforms crashed into one another, reforming into a massive bridge that stretched forward, as if summoned.
At the far end of the bridge stood a gate forged from living shadow.
Not built — grown.
Its surface twisted, faces and forms appearing and dissolving. It pulsed with the same energy as the fracture inside Atreus but inverted… twisted… corrupted.
Xenara gasped. "The Vein Gate."
"What is it?" Atreus demanded.
"A door that should never exist. It connects the wounded parts of reality — the scars. If the Nine open it fully… they will rule through the wound between existence."
Kratos started across the bridge without hesitation.
"Then we close it."
They advanced together. With each step, the air grew colder. The pressure of the realm increased, like invisible hands pressing in from every direction. Whispers began to form at the edges of Atreus's hearing — soft, familiar, dangerous.
Use it…
End them…
You were made for this…
He pushed the voices away, focusing only on the present, on Kratos' steady stride ahead of him.
But the gate sensed him.
It reacted.
As they neared, the surface split, and a figure emerged.
It was not one of the Nine.
It was something worse.
It looked like Atreus.
Not exactly — older. Darker. Fractured. Eyes glowing with the same inner light as the Mark inside him. Cracks of energy traced across its skin like damage frozen in time.
"You have finally come to see what you will become," the thing said in Atreus' own voice.
Kratos raised his axe at once.
"Atreus. Do not listen."
But Atreus was frozen, staring at the distorted reflection of himself.
"What are you?" he demanded.
"I am the path where you fail," it answered calmly. "Where you give in. Where you save everything… and lose yourself in the process."
The air vibrated violently as the fracture pulsed in resonance with the creature.
"Every realm you see burning… every life fading… could be restored. All you need to do is accept what already lives inside you."
"No," Atreus whispered.
"Yes," it insisted, stepping closer. "You were never meant for chains. Or gods. Or fathers who fear your strength. You were meant to break the cycle by becoming what the Nine cannot control."
Kratos stepped between them.
"You will not manipulate him."
The doppelgänger smiled.
"And yet… the fracture listens to me. Because I am the future written in its heart."
The gate behind it began opening wider, reality ripping along its edges. From within, silhouettes of the Nine could be seen — watching, waiting, calculating.
"They are waiting for your choice," the thing said to Atreus. "Accept what you are… and this war ends now."
Atreus closed his eyes.
He could feel the truth of it. The raw, overwhelming power it promised. The ability to force the shadows back, to rebuild what was breaking.
But he also felt something else…
A presence behind him.
Steady. Unmoving.
Kratos.
"You taught me once," Atreus said quietly. "That strength without control is just another kind of weakness."
He opened his eyes.
"And I refuse to become a weakness wearing my face."
The doppelgänger's smile faded.
Atreus lifted a trembling hand and focused — not on destruction, but severance. Not a blast, not a wave, but a precise slicing thread of energy forged through will alone.
A controlled fracture.
The thread struck the double — and it split, soundlessly, dissolving into ashless shadow.
At the same moment, the gate howled.
The bridge beneath them cracked as the Nine lunged forward from within the rift, furious, shocked that he had rejected the offer.
"You deny ascension!" they roared as one.
"I deny corruption," Atreus responded.
He turned to Xenara. "Seal it!"
She slammed her staff onto the platform. Ancient runes erupted around the gate, spiraling upward, weaving barriers of impossibility around the rift. The Nine pressed against it, screaming in silent fury as the void resisted their retreat.
Kratos hurled the Leviathan Axe, embedding it into the center of the gate, freezing it in a moment of suspended existence.
The fracture in Atreus' chest flared again — but this time he guided it, feeding power not into the gate, but into the bonds holding it shut.
Light clashed with shadow. Reality groaned.
Then—
The gate imploded, collapsing into a single point of darkness…
And vanished.
Silence rushed in to replace it.
Atreus dropped to one knee, exhausted, breath ragged, heart pounding like a war drum.
Kratos knelt beside him, placing a hand against his back.
"You chose restraint. That is not weakness."
Xenara looked at the empty space where the gate had been, fear and relief mingling in her eyes.
"The Vein Wars have begun… but you have disrupted their heart."
"But it's not over," Atreus said quietly.
"No," she agreed. "It has simply changed. The Nine will not try to break you again."
Kratos looked up into the dark.
"They will try to destroy what you love instead."
Far off in the distance, beyond the worlds and the void, a low pulse echoed — not from the fracture…
But from something even older.
Something that had awakened.
Something the Nine feared.
And something that now knew Atreus' name.