24 – Banned Names and Broken Hearts
Nicole (Artemis) POV – Olympus Interrogation Room
Entering the interrogation room of Olympus after being requested by Erebus himself, I had to remind myself to breathe.
When the highest authority concerning chaos calls, you come. Even I had to put my personal issues with this boy Charles to the side.
He sat across the table, unrestrained. No one saw a reason to chain him. His astral core was shattered, his presence thin as smoke. He'd already been subjected to Athena's infusion of pure astral energy to flush out any remnants of chaos.
Nothing.
And yet chaos—the common enemy that once united even the most stubborn, war-hungry Explorers—had reared its head again while the world slid toward more wars. Charles' actions alone had risked destabilizing Europe.
"Hello, Charles." I pulled my chair out and sat, fingers steepled. "My name is Nicole. Or you know me as Artemis, Crow's mother."
His eyes twitched at that. Good. At least he understood who he was dealing with.
"I'm not going to waste time asking you to recount useless details," I said. "My only concern is chaos. Your actions were still yours. Chaos influenced you, but that doesn't erase what you did. You barely escaped the full weight of guilt. You still have sins to atone for."
He nodded, slow and stiff. He'd already heard that part from everyone.
"So," I continued, "because your father moved with haste to shatter your core after Grim told him about the chaos energy about to morph it, you're alive. My people saved your life. Even if you had transformed into an astral horror, you still would've been secondary."
I let that hang there for a heartbeat.
"Secondary to what you would've provoked in Crow."
His jaw tightened at my son's name. Confusion. Shame. No idea how close he'd come to starting something he couldn't survive.
"For now, I'll accept that old hag Athena bullying you in the name of 'training'," I said, lips twitching. "So let's get to the harsh part."
I leaned forward, elbows on the table.
"Which person in your circle isn't accounted for? The only ones I bothered to check personally were Apollo and Kia—the girl you decided to turn into a poster child using my name."
Fear flashed instantly in his eyes. I let him see the edge of my amusement.
"Relax." I waved a hand. "You're kids. Our rule for your generation when it comes to titles and names is simple: we beat you. If you don't learn after that, don't complain when a Traveler wants your name."
A broken sound slipped out of him. Half laugh, half choke. Some of the tension bled from his shoulders.
"But," I said, voice cooling again, "I still need an answer. Which one of your friends is missing?"
He blinked. That finally threw him.
Clearly no one had asked him that before. No one else would think chaos could operate through a proxy the way patron gods operated through their chosen. Where gods used avatars with restraint and rules…
Chaos moved with full, unrestrained will.
Most Travelers never thought beyond the basics: fire makes me stronger, wind makes me faster. They didn't stop to ask why the same element twisted differently in each person. Why one man's flame burned clean gold while another's crawled black-red across the ground.
That gap in understanding was where concepts lived.
Chaos loved that gap.
"Bac—" He cut himself off, frowning. "No, that's not right. He was at the party when the fighting started. But my team shouldn't have lost so easily if he was supporting like normal."
His eyes lifted to mine, uneasy now.
"Did you have any records of… Bacchus?" he asked.
The name slid across my mind like a blade dipped in ice.
Familiar. Wrong. Heavy.
The door slammed open before I could respond.
Erebus stepped in, shadows pooling around his feet. He didn't flare his aura. He didn't need to. The pressure in the room simply dropped, like we'd sunk to the bottom of an ocean.
"You let someone use a banned name, boy?" he asked quietly.
I kept my mouth shut and folded my hands. The best tactic with boys like this was to let their own fathers devour them. Even Odin shut up when Erebus took that tone.
"Bacchus isn't a ba—"
I raised my hand, cutting Charles off.
"Bacchus is the Romanized version of Dionysus," I said, eyes on Charles. "A banned name on par with Loki due to its chaotic origins."
His face went pale.
"A party god," I continued. "And parties are just another way human madness dresses itself up as fun."
His lips parted, but no sound came out. He hadn't made the connection. Not once.
"And you," Erebus said, taking a slow step closer, "went into battle with a boy wearing a name we burned out of the registries centuries ago."
Silence settled over the room, heavier than chains.
"Start from the beginning," I said. "This time, don't leave Bacchus out of it."
Scene 2 – New York Retrieval
Johnathon POV
"Come on, Teresa. We need to meet with the head of New York's top guild."
I hitched my gear bag higher on my shoulder and kept walking, eyes moving over the broken skyline. Once, this city had been a shrine to mortal greed and ambition. Now it was just another battlefield in the quiet war: government versus Travelers.
We'd been sent on a retrieval mission. Simple in the report. Messy in reality.
Some parts of the country had already devolved into open hostility. This place had been a problem since day one. Their current mayor genuinely believed the Society would sit around and let him strong-arm Travelers into handing over resources while he turned them into disposable public tools.
Baldur had already reassigned the Explorer who used to manage the Travelers and guilds here. Took his entire inner circle with him. No one with sense stayed behind when a city tried to bully S-ranks into service.
Dungeons were the real currency now. Cores, monster materials, raw astral resources. Paper money only still existed because someone needed numbers to print on contracts.
Crystal had forced a unified currency through by smashing every objection with her Alliance connections. She rarely involved herself in daily operations, so if even she was stepping in…
I suspected Artemis' latest stunt—opening the Astral Studies Department—had pushed everything over the edge.
Right now every political scheme had the same goal: control who taught the next generation.
Even this conflict, this mayor trying to use Zerg tactics on an Explorer—throwing wave after wave of low-tier guilds at problems, chewing through bodies—would fail. It would just burn any goodwill a few on our side still cared about.
"Remember while we're here," I said, voice low as we turned into a side street, "keep all that superhero stuff tucked away. You'll only drag more issues onto us."
Teresa's lips pressed together. Her gaze drifted toward a cluster of civilians watching us from behind shattered storefront glass.
"Hey, you can't just ignore people," she muttered. "If they need—"
"That," I cut in, "is exactly how these guilds got taken over."
She stopped for half a second, thrown.
"This mayor weaponized that mindset," I said. "'Heroes never turn their backs.' 'Travelers are responsible for everyone.' Sounds noble, right?" I gestured at the surveillance cameras, the armed patrols, the faded 'TRAVELERS' SUPPORT TAX' posters peeling off the walls. "Now even the A-rank Travelers here think it's a great idea to sacrifice themselves for people who could never help them. Who wouldn't even try if roles reversed."
I let that sink in before I added:
"Baldur already said that if you screw up, we leave you if it jeopardizes my team."
Her expression went from offended to stunned.
"If you want to play hero by doing what we tell you not to do, be my guest," I continued. "But my men won't be here to save you. Our mission is to pull out the only guild that still answers to the Society. If you can't understand that the lines are already drawn, I'll recommend a full ban on your field missions."
Her jaw clenched.
"That last stunt of attacking Tyr," I said, dropping my voice, "could've easily ended in all our deaths. I heard about that meeting you had with Rick. Chasing answers that stare back is the easiest way to go mad."
The rebuttal in her eyes died down. She wasn't stupid. Just still clinging to the idea that wanting to help was enough.
This wasn't Olympus grounds. This was a city that would cheer while you bled and then ask for one more dungeon clear.
Teresa's shoulders slumped. She nodded, staring at the cracked pavement.
"Good," I said, letting my tone soften slightly. "You keep your cool, complete this mission, and Baldur has to take you seriously when you talk about leading a squad. Screw up here, and you're back to drills and classroom simulations."
She grimaced but didn't argue.
Ahead, the warehouse district loomed. Steel frames, rusted shutters, astral wards woven into the walls. Our team was waiting inside one of those warehouses, keeping their distance while we locked in the departure date with the only guild master still willing to answer to the Society.
I glanced back once at the city rotting under imported problems and bad leadership.
We weren't here to save people who didn't want to be saved.
We were here to get our people out.
Scene 3 – The Tower of Broken Heart
Lord of Endings POV
The darkness felt like home.
Each step I took stirred it, but the void never pushed back. It simply folded around me, quiet and patient. Above, a single moon hung alone—cold, distant, stubborn.
Not empty, this place. Just full of things that had already ended.
Dead stars. Burned-out timelines. Memories discarded by gods who thought they could outrun consequences.
Today, I walked through it for one soul.
I let my steps carry weight. Not the weight of planets or laws, but the weight of stories reaching their last page. That was the only weight that mattered to me.
Far ahead, the pale light of the moon brightened.
I opened my hand.
Golden embers flickered into existence around me, small at first, then swelling as they drank in what remained of my sun. I let them bloom into shapes—Golden Crows unfolding their wings, firebirds trailing burning feathers, serpents and dragons and every beast capable of living in my light.
They spiraled ahead, forming a river of flame in the void.
The moon caught that light and reflected it back, shaping it into a bridge. A glowing path leading up to the tower that pierced its surface.
The tower of Chang'e.
Chang'e, wife of Hou Yi. Widow of a dead sun-shooter from my master's court.
"My lord, you've returned!"
The voice came first. Then the shape.
A white hare sprinted out onto the burning path, paws barely disturbing the light. A medical bag bounced at its side. At first it towered over me, then its body shrank as it ran, folding itself down until we stood at the same height.
It skidded to a stop before me, ears high, eyes bright.
"Yes," I said. "It's taken many cycles to finish your master's wish, but it's finally in place. All that's left is for you to handle the balance I'll need."
I raised my hand like I had countless times before.
White fire coated my fingers. Not warm. Not cold. Simply final.
I pressed my palm to the hare's forehead. Our bond flared back to life, the old contract of equals slotting back into place.
A divine beast and the End.
The last survivor of three Forgotten who had tangled themselves in this small tragedy. Most would never call the hare a god, but their labels didn't matter.
Divine beasts at this level stood among gods. Paired with the right partner, their laws could fuse and become something new. Hou Yi and Chang'e had proved that.
Sun and moon. Arrow and vow.
Their twilight astral energy had driven Emperor Gods and lesser Elder Gods into a frenzy when they first touched it.
"The Divine Lady is awaiting your return," the hare said, bowing its head. "She has finally agreed to join the Death Court under you."
I looked toward the tower rising from the moonlit bridge. Its silhouette was cracked, jagged. A structure built out of stubbornness and grief.
"Good," I murmured. "Then it's time we end this properly."
We walked together along the glowing path toward the tower of broken heart.
Soon, Chang'e would stop being just a widow chained to the past.
She would become something new.
And in doing so, she would help me end this era and shape the next.