Extra Chapter!! Thanks for the support! Please add more stones!!!!!
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The Shaper had no time to get used to his new form before several titanic bodies formed out of what looked like a blinding flash of light.
"Go! Exit the Sanctuary! I am tired of hiding like a sewer rat! Let's see what they can do to me now! Hahahahaha!" The Shaper choked out through gritted teeth his suppressed anger, finally having a place to vent.
He then dissolved his True Divine Body into a mass of string that disappeared into the ether, while his attendants also followed closely behind.
Nicholas reformed from the strings of fate in the sky of New York City, right above his sanctuary. The light of his True Body eclipsed even the Moon in the night sky; it lit up the entirety of New York City.
"Keeper, hide us, no mortals should see what is about to happen!" The Shaper ordered, and while the Keeper did no outward action, Nicholas could still sense that a gigantic layer of secrecy had been woven over the entire city; someone could explode a nuclear weapon, and no one would be any wiser.
The next thing was gigantic forms appearing in the sky: Athena, Zeus, Hecate, and even the Moraia, the three sister fates, all appeared in the sky.
Hecate's body was a three-faced, kilometer-high shape of pure moonlight, while the sister-fates looked less like three people and more like a giant made up of countless golden threads with three heads and six arms.
But those were far less important than the next addition, as before his very eyes, from the ground next to the city, a gigantic translucent Tree started growing.
The tree grew until it was 5 kilometers tall, and from within its form came Odin, the one-eyed. His form was not as abstract as the others; he looked like a giant formed out of ice and fire, with the other elements rotating around him like planets around the sun, with runes imprinted on every inch of his Divine Form.
Other figures also made themselves Solomon, a gigantic human with 6 angelic wings behind him and wearing a crown of pure light, Ares made out of blood and fire and emitting a feeling of rage, and the Archangel Michel, whose form was pure light with wings and eyes appearing and disappearing all around him.
However, they were of little consequence compared to the important figures painting the night sky.
The Shaper's colossal form, a two-kilometer-tall weave of cosmic strings, hovered above New York, his light painting the city in stark, ethereal shades.
His voice, a resonant hum that vibrated in the soul rather than the ear, broke the stunned silence. "How does it feel?" he boomed, the threads of his form pulsing with mocking light. "Being on the receiving end of the schemes? You didn't expect it, did you? That I grew right under your stagnant, decaying noses!"
The air itself seemed to recoil from the collective, divine fury his words provoked.
Zeus was the first to respond. His form, a titan of storm cloud and crackling lightning, swelled with incandescent rage. "INSECT! YOU DARE?! YOU USURP AUTHORITY THAT IS NOT YOURS! YOU WILL BE UNMADE! YOUR SOUL WILL FEED TARTARUS FOR EONS!" A bolt of lightning, capable of vaporizing a mountain, lanced from his Symbol of Power.
It crossed the space between them in an instant—and exploded against a shimmering, distorted wall of mirrored space that formed around the new pantheon.
The resounding boom shook the world, causing the air to transform into plasma and the sound to disperse the clouds for hundreds of kilometers.
This almost casual blocking caused Zeus to stop, and a shock washed over him.
"Your threats are empty, Thunderer," the Shaper's voice was calm, almost conversational. "You are a helpless relic; your hapless anger is amusing."
Athena's form, a giantess of grey, shifting mist, and polished armor, took a step forward. Her voice was colder than the void between stars, sharp with a betrayal that felt personal. "Traitor. My blood runs in your veins. I helped fuel your rise. And you steal my domain? You are a wretched, ungrateful serpent." The mist of her form coalesced into a thousand phantom spears in response to her emotions, shooting them out towards Nicholas before being intercepted by a thousand invisible strings and then redirected back towards Athena.
"The wisdom you gave me was your first, last, and greatest mistake, 'Mother'," Nicholas retorted, the word a venomous insult.
Hecate, her three faces, Maiden, Mother, Crone, all contorted in identical fury, shrieked. The sound was like breaking glass and dying stars. "You have torn the Tapestry! You have violated the primal order! The threads of Fate are not for mortal hands!"
The Morai, the three-headed entity of golden thread, did not speak. They simply stared, and the weight of their gaze was a pressure that sought to unravel Nicholas's very being. He felt it, a tugging at the strings of his form, trying to unravel it.
But his own, newly claimed authority over Fate held firm. He was not a thread in their tapestry; he was a rival weaver.
It was then that Odin, his single eye burning with the cold fire of a neutron star, spoke. His voice was a glacier's grind, full of ancient, calculating power. "This is an act of war, child. You have not just challenged a pantheon. You have declared war on every God whose authority you stole."
"War?" The Shaper laughed, the strings of his form shifting colors like a rainbow, his voice a sound like a million scissors snipping at once. "You think I am afraid of war? Look at you! Squabbling over this single, muddy rock while infinity stretches around you! You are like ants fighting over a crumb!"
He spread his vast, string-like arms, encompassing the world below. "Do it if you dare! Let's bury this planet together! I have formed a pantheon here that would allow me to create another world, to seed it with life, to form an entire civilization to worship me before my reservoir of faith runs dry! We have the authorities required! I can weave life itself from the cosmic dust! We can all start over! What do you say?"
The audacity of the proposition, the sheer, terrifying scale of it, sent a visible ripple through the assembled gods. Ares, a being of pure, screaming bloodlust, seemed almost intrigued by the prospect of total annihilation. But two figures hesitated.
The Archangel Michael, a being of terrifying, pure light, faltered. His countless wings were stilled. His myriad eyes blinked. The faith that sustained him was one of order, of protection, not of pointless, cosmic genocide.
Solomon, the crowned king, also seemed to withdraw, his brilliant form dimming slightly. Nicholas noted their hesitation with a strategist's cold eye. Their psyches are impacted, their filters imperfect. They are not purely rational. Interesting.
It was the Keeper, Julian's new form, a terrifying, shifting mass of arcane geometry and secrets, who spoke next, his voice a chorus of whispers from the void. "You speak of rules and order? Your order is a lie! A system built on the slavery of souls and the shackling of potential! We are not your subjects. We are your successors."
"You will be nothing!" Zeus roared, his lightning flashing impotently against the Warden's defenses. "We will smother your souls and scatter them across the stars!"
"You can try," the Shaper said, his tone dripping with condescension. "But you will not succeed before I destroy the Underworld and this planet which feeds you! How long will you last then before withering into nothingness?!"
The standoff was absolute. They could not destroy him without a cataclysm that would shatter their own power base. He held them in a divine checkmate.
After a long, tense silence that stretched the fabric of reality, Odin spoke again, his voice weary but firm. "This achieves nothing. A true conflict here would unmake everything. There must be… parley."
Athena's misty form was seething. "You would negotiate with this traitor?"
"We have no choice, Goddess of Wisdom," Odin replied, his single eye fixed on Nicholas. "He has forced our hand; we have no recourse that doesn't end with more lost than gained."
The Shaper gave a slow, deliberate nod. "Finally, a glimmer of sense. If you want me to play by your little rulebook, there will be a new one. I require concessions. A new agreement, drawn up to reflect the new balance of power."
"Your impudence knows no bounds," Hecate spat, her form twisting and her once silver colored form started getting a red tint, as if blood colored the pure moonlight, causing millions of mortals around the world to get lost, just from her anger unconsciously affecting her authority.
"My power does not either," Nicholas countered flatly. "You will meet me. All of you. On the winter solstice. A neutral ground."
"The moon," Odin stated. It was not a question.
"Yes, the moon would work," Nicholas confirmed. "There, we will discuss the distribution of this world and the next. Fail to appear, and I will assume you have chosen the path of mutual destruction. And I promise you, I am the better strategist."
With a final, collective glare of pure, helpless hatred, the forms of the old gods began to dissolve. Zeus's storm faded, Athena's mist dissipated, and Odin's tree sank back into the earth. The immediate threat was over, replaced by a cold, diplomatic war.
As the last of their presences vanished, the Cupbearer's whispering voice echoed in the sudden quiet. "They will try to betray us."
"Of course they will," the Shaper replied, his form beginning to shrink, condensing back into a more manageable size. "It is all they know. But now, they have to play a game whose rules I helped write. Let them seethe. Let them plot. The winter solstice will be the true birth of our new era."
Above the sleeping city, hidden by layers of arcane secrecy, the new pantheon stood united. The old order had issued its threats, and the new had answered with a promise of cosmic revolution. The battle for reality had not ended; it had simply found a new, colder battlefield, waiting in the silent, airless void of the moon.
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