— The First Fracture in Heaven
Part 3 — The God Who Looked Away First
Silence.
That was all that followed after Vaen's final strike—silence so absolute that even the clouds seemed afraid to move.
The middle-level god's body had already dissolved into motes of divine dust, carried off by winds that refused to touch the boy who caused it. The other two gods, still alive but trembling, hovered far above the shattered plateau—too terrified to descend, too ashamed to flee.
Because fleeing would be an admission:
They feared a mortal.
Vaen didn't look up at them.
He didn't need to.
His presence alone pressed against their divine cores like a slow, merciless hand.
Crack… crack…
Their godhoods—eternal, indestructible—began to fracture.
The female god, Serenya of the Sky Echo, bit her lip until ichor trickled down her chin.
"H-He shouldn't have that aura… His existence isn't in any record—this is wrong. This is—"
The older god beside her grabbed her wrist.
"Do not speak. Do not even think. That thing hears thoughts."
The god's voice shook with the honesty he had avoided for tens of thousands of years.
But Vaen didn't rise.
Didn't fly.
Didn't project power.
He simply stood there, letting the wind pull his hair, his eyes half-lidded as if bored.
He whispered, almost lazily:
"One of you blinked first."
Both gods froze.
Only one had.
Only one had let fear override divine instinct.
Serenya swallowed, but her throat refused to move.
The older god, Thirran, god of Horizon Chains, pointed a shaking finger at her.
"S-She—she was the one. She lost focus—she blinked—"
Serenya's eyes widened in betrayal.
"You—how could you?!"
But Vaen had already chosen.
He didn't attack her.
He didn't move toward her.
He didn't even raise his voice.
He simply looked at her.
A mortal boy—
Looking at a god as if she was no more than a flickering candle.
Serenya screamed—
Not out of pain.
But out of memory.
A memory she should not have had.
A memory she knew the gods erased.
A memory sealed in the forbidden halls of primordial law.
A memory where she had once bowed to a being with those same eyes.
"Y-You… no… no. You were erased! You were ERASED!"
Thirran backed away, horrified.
"You remember…? How can you remember…?!"
Serenya couldn't hear him.
She fell through the sky, not from an attack—but because her divine body forgot how to hold its own shape.
She hit the ground.
Hard.
Her godhood shattered like glass.
Crack.
Crack.
CRASH.
The sound echoed across realms.
Vaen stepped toward her slowly, footsteps soft, deliberate, almost pitying—but without a trace of emotion.
Serenya clawed at the dirt, her voice cracking.
"Please… d-don't make me remember… Please…"
Vaen stopped beside her.
His shadow fell over her trembling form.
He crouched, voice colder than moonlight.
"If remembering breaks you… then you were not meant to stand before me."
Serenya's body dissolved—not from destruction, but from unbecoming.
She faded the way lies fade when truth is spoken too loudly.
In the heavens above, ancient bells rang.
The Realm of Sky Echo cried out.
Gods collapsed in their temples.
Because a single mortal boy had reduced a god not to dust—
But to nothingness.
Thirran watched from afar, shaking uncontrollably.
He didn't dare descend.
He didn't dare flee.
He didn't dare breathe.
Vaen looked up at him with those unchanging, indifferent eyes.
"You will be next."
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