CHAPTER 127 — WHEN GODS TAKE HOSTAGES
Fear did not arrive screaming.
It arrived organized.
The first city fell without fire.
No armies marched. No skies split. No monsters roared from the horizon. Dawn came as it always did—pale, cold, indifferent. Fishermen walked the docks. Merchants opened their stalls. Children ran through narrow streets carrying bread and laughter.
Then the bells rang.
Not alarm bells.
Ceremonial bells.
Deep. Slow. Measured.
Each toll vibrated through bone and thought alike, pressing unease into every chest that heard it.
Atreus felt it from miles away.
He stopped walking mid-step, breath hitching, hand tightening around the strap of his quiver.
"That's not normal," he said.
Kratos was already still, eyes narrowed toward the distant valley. "No."
The Endurance of Worlds裂 flickered violently, symbols flashing in rapid sequence.
"Civilian density detected."
"Probability convergence: eighty-seven percent."
"God-intervention pattern confirmed."
Tyr's voice was tight. "They're not attacking us."
Freyr swallowed. "They're anchoring."
Atreus' chest burned.
"No," he whispered. "They said they would aim for what we love."
The bells stopped.
The silence afterward was worse.
Then the sky above the city folded—not tearing, not cracking—but aligning, as if reality itself had been straightened by unseen hands.
Figures descended.
Not warriors.
Wardens.
Tall, armored in white-gold law sigils, weapons lowered but glowing faintly with restrained force. They landed throughout the city in precise intervals, forming a perimeter that closed like a tightening circle.
The people froze.
Aurelion appeared last.
He did not hover.
He walked.
Each step echoed across the city, stone bowing slightly beneath his boots. He stopped at the central square, gaze sweeping over the crowd like a surveyor measuring land.
No fear in his expression.
No hatred.
Only evaluation.
"Citizens of Virehold," his voice boomed, calm and impossibly loud.
"You are under Covenant Protection."
A murmur rippled through the crowd.
Protection.
The word tasted wrong.
Atreus clenched his fists. "He's lying."
Kratos' jaw tightened. "He is choosing his words carefully."
Aurelion raised his hand.
The murmurs died instantly.
"You have been identified as relational anchors to a destabilizing entity," he continued.
"Remain calm. Remain compliant. Harm will not be necessary."
A woman cried out. "What does that mean?"
Aurelion looked at her.
Just looked.
The air thickened.
She collapsed to her knees, gasping—not injured, not struck—simply overwhelmed by the pressure of divine attention.
"It means," Aurelion said evenly,
"that your existence now influences the survival of your realm."
Atreus felt sick.
"They're using people as variables."
The Hunger stirred faintly at the edge of perception, curious.
Kratos stepped forward instinctively.
Atreus grabbed his arm. "Father—wait."
Kratos did not pull away, but his voice was iron. "They will not touch them."
Tyr shook his head slowly. "They already have."
In the city, one of the wardens raised a staff. A lattice of glowing runes expanded outward, enclosing the entire square in a dome of restrained divinity.
No one could leave.
No one could scream loud enough to matter.
Aurelion turned his gaze skyward.
He knew where they were.
"Atreus," he called—not loudly, not softly.
"This is a demonstration."
The fracture in Atreus' chest flared violently.
Kratos roared, "You will not speak his name!"
Aurelion ignored him.
"Your continued resistance produces unacceptable casualty projections," Aurelion said.
"This city represents restraint."
He gestured.
A projection bloomed in the air above the square—images of other settlements, other towns, other lives.
"Escalation will not."
Atreus' breathing grew ragged.
"They're threatening annihilation without doing it."
Freyr whispered, "This is worse than war."
Aurelion's gaze hardened.
"Surrender yourself, anomaly," he said.
"Submit to containment."
"And these lives will be released."
Kratos stepped forward fully now.
"No."
The word thundered.
"I will not allow it."
Aurelion finally looked at him.
"You do not have authority."
Kratos' eyes burned. "I have experience."
Atreus felt the threads again.
Decision-lines. Possibilities. Outcomes branching like veins of light.
If he surrendered: the city lived. He was caged. The Hunger adapted.
If he fought: the city died. Quickly. Efficiently.
If he rewrote—
Pain exploded through his chest.
Blood ran freely now.
"Boy," Kratos said urgently. "Do not—"
"I can't let them die," Atreus gasped.
Aurelion watched with interest.
"Observe," he said softly.
"The moral compression point."
Atreus screamed—not in rage, but in effort.
The fracture ignited brighter than ever before.
Reality trembled.
The dome around the city flickered.
Aurelion's eyes widened slightly.
"He's destabilizing the anchor—"
Atreus reached deeper than before—not binding, not shielding.
Reassignment.
The anchor shifted.
The runes snapped inward, collapsing—not onto the people—
But onto Aurelion himself.
The god staggered half a step.
Gasps rippled through the crowd as the pressure lifted.
Aurelion stared at the glowing lattice now coiling around his own form.
"What have you done?"
Atreus dropped to one knee, shaking violently.
"I moved the weight."
Kratos lunged forward, Blades roaring to life.
"NOW!"
Chaos erupted.
Tyr shattered two wardens with a blast of runic force. Freyr summoned living roots that tore through the stone, binding divine constructs mid-motion.
Kratos reached Aurelion in seconds.
Steel met law.
The impact split the square.
Aurelion raised his arm just in time, deflecting a killing blow—but the lattice around him disrupted his balance.
Atreus screamed as the fracture burned like molten iron.
The Hunger stirred more violently now.
Adaptive curiosity increasing.
Aurelion snarled for the first time.
"You have crossed a threshold."
Kratos drove a blade into the god's shoulder—not killing, but wounding.
Divine blood hissed as it touched the ground.
The wardens froze.
Aurelion shoved Kratos back with a wave of force and tore free of the lattice, armor cracked, authority shaken.
He looked at Atreus—not as an anomaly now—
But as a threat.
"Evacuate," he ordered sharply.
The wardens obeyed instantly, grabbing civilians and vanishing in bursts of light.
"No!" Atreus cried.
Too late.
The square emptied.
Silence fell.
Aurelion stepped back toward the forming rift.
"This city survives," he said.
"Others will not."
Kratos snarled. "Coward."
Aurelion's voice echoed coldly as he vanished.
"This is governance."
The sky sealed.
Atreus collapsed fully.
Kratos caught him, holding him tightly.
"You did not fail," Kratos said fiercely.
Atreus shook, tears mixing with blood. "I didn't save them all."
Kratos' voice softened. "You saved enough."
Tyr approached grimly. "They've changed strategy."
Freyr nodded. "Every place we touch becomes leverage."
The Endurance of Worlds裂 pulsed ominously.
"Containment failure acknowledged."
"System escalation inevitable."
Atreus looked up, eyes burning with pain and resolve.
"Then we stop running."
Kratos met his gaze.
"Yes."
Far beyond sight, the First Hunger observed the exchange.
And smiled.
Not because it had won.
But because the rules were breaking.