Scene 1 — Crow POV
I yanked my sword free from the body of another corrupt cultist and didn't bother admiring the cut.
I burned him from the inside.
Pinpointing was a luxury. Precision was a luxury.
Tonight was about one thing: making sure whatever was inside these people didn't get back up.
Thomas and I were holding the line the only way we could—strike, recover, strike again—each exchange forcing us to reinforce our understanding of astral energy like the world was grading us with a blade at our throat.
The leader stayed in the back.
Of course he did.
I caught his silhouette between bodies—calm, watching, letting two dozen cultists rot themselves into a wall between us and him. I met Thomas' eyes for half a second and gave him a small nod.
Long fight.
Thomas' gaze sharpened—then softened into that place he went when he stopped being "Thomas" and started being a weapon. He didn't fully understand the gravity of who we were dealing with.
Neither did I.
But I understood enough to know this: if Alexis ever connected the wrong dots—if she made the wrong mental channel—she'd get herself killed just by being smart.
A hardened black hand slammed toward my face.
Not skin. Not callus.
Something cured. Something dead that refused to admit it.
Rotten flesh split at the knuckles and leaked pus as it swung. I twisted and raised heat around my arm, melting the liquid midair so it splattered harmlessly instead of touching me.
Even breathing near them felt like a risk.
Unlike that muscle-brain who decided to throw on his gear for training the second we got back… me and Alexis? We were largely unprepared.
I brought my free hand up and launched a blue fireball. It struck a cultist's chest and I forced more energy into it, pushing until the flames chewed deeper.
Because the only thing that worked was burning them completely.
"Why do you fight your fate, Prince?"
The voice came from the back—too casual for a battlefield.
I ignored it.
A cultist moved behind Thomas, blade tucked low, trying to slip into the blind spot that only existed for a heartbeat.
I launched a lightning bolt without thinking. The strike snapped the cultist's legs out from under him.
And I paid for it immediately.
A heavy punch caught my side and launched me back hard enough to rattle my spine.
"Thomas—quit playing around!"
His aura answered before his mouth did.
A shield flashed into my direction, intercepting a follow-up strike that would've taken my head. I used the opening to form a crude earth sword out of astral energy—ugly, thick, dense.
Edge didn't matter. Not against bodies that didn't obey anatomy.
Density did.
Thomas' skin gained a green tint as his blessing activated—body-focused, not flashy. Perfect for a world where we couldn't afford S-tier attacks, where every big move risked tearing something open we couldn't close.
He surged forward like a battering ram.
The leader laughed—softly.
I felt my own energy snag, like my body remembered a name it hated.
No. Not tonight.
"I am no son of Death," I said, voice sharp enough to cut through screaming. "I am the Son of the Savior."
I stepped in, forcing the words into the air like a brand.
"Tyr. The King of Order. Use my correct title if you're going to use your disgusting mouth to speak to me."
Something released.
Not outside me—inside.
My energy felt lighter, cleaner, like the surrounding power stopped resisting my grip. I pulled it in the way I should've been able to from the beginning and formed a spear instead of relying on a chipped sword that hated my hand.
"What a good show the kids are putting on."
The world went still.
Not metaphorically. Actually—still.
I saw Huginn step onto the field in his covert ops gear… but layered with a tattered robe like he'd crawled out of a ruin.
My brain tried to accept it. Tried to make it make sense.
Thomas disproved that idea instantly.
He launched himself at Huginn with a killing intent that made my stomach drop.
Thomas would never attack a mentor.
Not the real one.
The figure didn't even flinch.
He calmly side-stepped Thomas, tapped two fingers to Thomas' temple—and Thomas turned into a rolling ball and slammed into a tree like he'd been thrown by a god.
My blood went cold.
"You too, kiddo," the figure said, looking directly at me. "This is adult business. Even if you're hiding your own little menace inside you."
My insides churned.
Azazel—whatever he was—wrapped himself in his own energy like something waking up and smiling in the dark.
I blinked—and the figure was in front of me.
Twin crimson orbs bored into my face through the mask of calm he wore.
A single finger tapped my forehead.
The world went black.
Scene 2 — Tenebris POV
"Take them away from here."
I didn't look back when I gave the order.
The maggot-filled idiot in front of me tried to speak anyway—tried to negotiate space he no longer owned.
"Hm. I can't allow you to take him aw—"
I was already past him.
My palm swallowed his entire face and I slammed him into the ground like a ball. Stone cracked. Earth shuddered.
When I lifted my hand, his stench clung to me.
I purified it with white flame until even the memory of him burned away.
He staggered up. Brave. Stupid.
Behind him, his underlings lit up in black fire—my manipulation of the surrounding energy taking their bodies like offerings.
No heat. No mercy. Just removal.
"So what was your Outsider God again?" I asked mildly. "Something sickness of my domain?"
I stepped closer, and the night leaned away from me.
"Would you like to repeat that in front of its current owner… as the King?"
My voice hardened.
"You too."
I clawed at the sky and seized the chain tethered to this bastard's existence. I yanked.
The avatar came with it—dragged forward like a hooked beast, a seed trying to root itself into a world that wasn't soil.
I took one step. Pulled them both with me.
No one else would step foot here until chaos was rooted out completely. Loki had given outsiders more chances than he gave astral gods.
I would not.
I closed the reality fracture behind me and dragged them to court without ceremony.
Outsiders who breached the game didn't get trials.
They got endings.
Scene 3 — Tasey POV
"Azazel."
The boy carrying Thomas paused like he'd been waiting for me to say his name. He grinned over his shoulder—too pleased, too calm—then walked back inside without a word.
Grim was with me. A team from the Academy too—mostly teachers, but the kind of veterans who could school a majority of my organization in a straight fight.
Simon stepped in as I nodded.
"Here. Take Crow back," I said. "Me and Grim are going to handle anything left out there."
Grim pulled his pistol and moved behind me, covering the rear like he was born to do it.
Alexis' description of the attackers matched the cult from Huginn's report too cleanly to ignore.
I raised my phone.
"Huginn, this is Tasey. Azazel showed up, so whatever's left is most likely a bloodbath."
"I figured," Huginn answered, voice flat. "I've already hunted a couple teams around the area. Derek crushed two as well. Focus on locating the remaining group."
We pushed deeper.
The Underworld was mobilizing—full offense. Not waiting for Baldur's approval. Uprooting groups. Dragging survivors to stabilization. Therapists moving in an assembly line like medics. Even retired non-astral doctors brought in to keep people from breaking permanently.
We were ending this. Sooner rather than later.
Then I saw it.
"Yup," I muttered. "Just found them."
I stopped so hard Grim almost bumped into me.
"So, Huginn… how do you want to hear about this one?"
I stared down at the ground.
Letters burned into soil like a message carved by a dying hand—
Morbus Mortis.
Only it wasn't staying written.
Black flames were crawling over the words, crossing them out one letter at a time, slow and deliberate, like reality itself was correcting a mistake.
I didn't blink.
Because something in my bones told me the rule:
If nobody watches it happen, nobody gets to report it.
I didn't even speak to Grim. I didn't even look at the bodies burning nearby—burning like offerings to whatever was erasing that name.
I just watched the letters die.
Scene 4 — Lily POV
"I'll buy you whatever you want," Crystal said, pushing Huginn's report at me like it was a bomb. "But we need to focus. This is important, Lily. Who could be out here fighting gods?"
I looked up at Crystal and Nicole—and immediately regretted it, because their faces were the exact kind of serious that meant they'd already dumped three headaches on me and were about to dump a fourth.
They'd pulled me away from my own work to sift through Odin's diaries and stitch links together. Links the rest of the research envied. Links I originally wanted too—until I realized wanting them didn't mean surviving them.
"What gods?" I asked, already scanning the report.
Nicole's hand slammed my table.
"What!"
"My bad," I said automatically, eyes catching the section about Crow at the same time. "Just read that Crow is involved—"
Nicole looked like she was about to launch across the desk.
"But the point still stands," I continued, forcing my brain to stay ahead of their emotions. "These weren't gods."
I tapped the page.
"The hornless one is an avatar entity. Associated with other identities, but he can't sustain himself by himself. Not a self-sustaining god."
I flipped to the next section.
"Most likely the cultists were fighting the Hornless One for his title. Wouldn't be the first time a cult tried to make a 'god' subservient."
Crystal's eyes narrowed.
"And the sickness?"
"He's an outsider," I said, like the conclusion had been sitting there the whole time. "Odin speaks lightly on death—he associates it with Hades from the Fallen—"
The rest of the sentence exploded into alignment in my head.
"Get out of the way," I blurted, already standing. "I just did it."
I took off running toward the library.
Behind me, Nicole's voice chased me down the hall like a curse.
"You still owe me food!!!!!"
I didn't stop.
Because if I was right—
Then what happened at Camp 4 wasn't an attack.
It was a test.
And someone was already rewriting the proof.