CHAPTER 125 — THE WEIGHT THAT DOES NOT LIFT
The silence after sacrifice was the loudest sound Kratos had ever heard.
No wind stirred Vanaheim's ruins. No insects crawled through the broken undergrowth. Even the magic that once hummed beneath the realm lay still, as if stunned by what had been taken from it.
A region of the world was simply… gone.
Not destroyed.
Erased.
Kratos stood at the edge of the severed land, staring into the smooth, impossible void where forest, villages, and thousands of lives had existed only moments ago. The air there felt thinner, wrong—like breathing beside an open wound.
Atreus did not move.
He knelt where Kratos had caught him, hands trembling, head bowed, the fracture beneath his chest glowing faintly through his clothes like a buried ember struggling to breathe.
"I felt them," Atreus whispered.
"All of them."
Kratos turned sharply. "What do you mean?"
Atreus swallowed hard. "When the threads cut the region loose… I didn't just feel the realm disconnect. I felt the people realize it."
His voice cracked.
"They knew they were being left behind."
Tyr closed his eyes, pain etched deep into his face. Freyr remained on his knees, unmoving, his hands pressed into the earth as if trying to hold what no longer existed.
Elyon broke the silence with a slow, deliberate clap.
"Efficient," he said coldly.
"Brutal. But efficient."
Kratos turned on him, eyes blazing.
"You will not speak."
Elyon met his gaze without flinching. "You did exactly what we warned you would."
Atreus looked up sharply. "No—he did what you were too afraid to do yourselves!"
Elyon scoffed. "We would have done it sooner."
That was when Kratos moved.
Not with blades.
With presence.
He stepped so close to Elyon that the god's radiant wings flickered involuntarily.
"Say it again," Kratos said quietly.
"And you will learn the difference between necessity and cruelty."
For a moment, it looked like Elyon might attack.
Then he hesitated.
And that hesitation said everything.
The Endurance of Worlds drifted closer, its silver裂 dimmer than ever, fractured by the act it had helped enable.
"Containment succeeded," it said.
"But cost resonance is spreading."
Atreus' head snapped up. "What does that mean?"
The Endurance paused.
"The realms are reacting—not to the Hunger—but to you."
As if summoned by the words, the sky shuddered.
A pulse rippled outward across existence—not destructive, but communicative. A message carried through ley lines, dreams, prophecies, and whispers.
The sacrifice was known.
Kratos felt it immediately—an old sensation, bitter and familiar.
Judgment.
Far across the realms, gods stirred. Some in fear. Some in rage. Some in grim approval.
And many… in preparation.
Atreus staggered to his feet. "They're afraid of us now."
Kratos nodded. "They should be."
Tyr looked between them. "Fear cuts both ways. You didn't just teach the Hunger how to think."
He gestured toward the empty horizon.
"You taught the gods what you're willing to do."
Freyr finally spoke, voice hollow. "I wanted to save everyone."
Kratos did not soften his words. "Wanting is not enough."
Freyr looked up at him, eyes red. "Then what is?"
Kratos answered without hesitation. "Enduring the consequences."
Another tremor rolled through the realm—different from before. Not absence.
Approach.
Atreus felt it first.
"It's coming back," he said softly. "The Hunger. It's closer now."
The void shimmered faintly at the edge of perception—not forming fully, but pressing, like a predator testing the edge of a trap.
A voice echoed faintly through reality.
Calculation updated.
Variable confirmed.
Atreus shuddered. "It knows."
Kratos clenched his fists. "Then let it."
Elyon stepped back slowly. "You've proven your point, Ghost of War. The gods will respond accordingly."
"And how is that?" Kratos asked.
Elyon's eyes hardened. "Containment. Of you."
The words settled like poison.
Atreus' breath hitched. "You can't cage inevitability."
Elyon smiled thinly. "No. But we can delay it."
With that, he vanished in a flash of light.
The aftermath remained.
Tyr exhaled shakily. "They'll form a coalition."
Kratos nodded. "Let them."
Atreus looked at his father, eyes searching—hurt, fear, confusion all tangled together.
"You said we wouldn't choose who dies," Atreus said quietly.
Kratos knelt before him, placing both hands on his son's shoulders.
"I said we would not choose lightly."
Atreus' voice broke. "Does it get easier?"
Kratos answered truthfully.
"No."
The fracture pulsed—once, sharply—then steadied.
"I don't know if I can keep doing this," Atreus admitted. "Feeling everything. Carrying it."
Kratos met his gaze.
"You are not carrying it alone."
The Endurance of Worlds watched them closely.
"Bond strengthens resilience," it said.
"But it also deepens loss."
Kratos stood.
"Then loss will remember us."
The void at the horizon stirred again, more clearly now.
The First Hunger did not emerge.
It observed.
Patient.
Learning.
It had tasted sacrifice—not as food, but as method.
And it had understood something dangerous:
Kratos was willing to burn pieces of the world to save what remained.
Which meant—
He could be pushed.
As the realms trembled and gods gathered their forces, a new truth settled into existence:
This war was no longer about survival.
It was about who decides the cost.
And the next price would not be land.
It would be blood.