Scene 1
"Since you entered the borders of the One, you knew the rules—lay low until you completed your law assimilation. Your pantheon is now at risk of being cast back into the Chaos Sea.
"Yet the Death Maiden has made a good point. The Tower of Stars needs subordinate Gods.
"So you and your three brothers shall join the Tower as Subordinate Gods. Do you agree?"
The court judge delivered it the way storms deliver thunder—like arguing would be a child's hobby.
They called it a deal.
A deal implied choice.
But unless The End personally stopped his Teacher from the Afterlife… there was only one option left.
Join the Tower.
Earn redemption under me.
I kept my face steady as the courtroom pressed in around us—not walls and ceiling, but something older. A function wearing architecture. Air so heavy it felt like it had rules. Light that didn't brighten anything, only revealed what you were.
All four of us moved together—knees bending, heads lowering—curtsying toward the two leaders seated on their thrones. Then we stepped forward and presented the Divine will drawn from our grotto hearts.
Not a speech.
Not a vow.
A condensed piece of intent—heavy and pure and undeniable—made physical for judgment.
The Lords of the Court accepted all four offerings without flinching.
No surprise.
No satisfaction.
Just cold, administrative finality—the kind that made gods feel like paperwork.
We curtsied again. Once to the judge. Once to the thrones.
Then we turned away.
Outside the hall, the Tower wasted no time pretending mercy was gentle.
Workers waited beyond the threshold—scribes with ink-stained hands, builders with silent eyes, wardens with patience that looked like cruelty. The ones who turned rulings into routines and redemption into labor.
The next phase began the moment our feet hit the corridor.
No fanfare.
Just motion.
Scene 2
"See?" Crystal muttered. "I told you she shouldn't run off by herself."
I glanced toward her—then back to Lily and the book in her hands.
We were watching new additions appear inside the Old Myths section like the library itself was deciding what deserved a name and what deserved a warning.
Four horsemen.
And one of the four had Lily huffing up a storm, like the pages had insulted her personally.
She was… half right earlier about the nature of that sickness God.
Now the text agreed with her in the worst way possible—written cleanly, confidently, as one of the four endings.
"Lily," I said, keeping my voice calm even as the air in the room sharpened, "have you ever heard of a Lovel… or a Cueljuris?"
Her eyes didn't leave the page at first. They tracked the letters like the ink might shift if she blinked.
"This is clearly the work of a researcher," I continued, "and not a sloppy one. Theology. History. Philosophy. Even basic science principles—human nature nested inside nature."
Lily shook her head slowly, like the book had teeth.
"No. Not within research circles." Her mouth tightened. "Cueljuris sounds familiar… but that's never a good thing. If I know someone's name off memory, it means they left a scar."
Her jaw clenched as she stared at the signatures.
The book didn't feel evil.
It felt exact.
And exactness was how dangerous things survived classification.
"We're forced to place this in investigation," I said, already moving. "This book and any copies. Verified and recorded as unsafe until proven otherwise."
Crystal nodded once, face already turning from irritation into procedure.
"Crystal," I said, "get a couple teams here. We're going over every note and book containing anything about myths and legends. Every reference. Every footnote. Every old translation."
Then I looked at Lily.
"Drop it. Right now. Not another page until we have more people looking through this."
She hesitated—just a heartbeat.
So I cut the hesitation off before it could become stubbornness.
"Actually… Lily, go aid Crow's team."
Her gaze snapped up.
"Simon is too busy to watch them these days," I added, pinching the bridge of my nose. "And I'm not letting you sit alone with something that writes endings like it's taking inventory."
The room didn't argue.
It just got quieter—like the library itself approved the containment.
Scene 3
"It was like a blanket of darkness covered my senses," he said, like he was describing bad weather. "Then I felt a tap on my temple. Lights out. Next thing I know, I'm waking up with the Society teams."
I stared at him—dumbfounded—while Crow frowned so hard it looked like he was trying to crush the thought with his face.
"You don't find it weird," I asked slowly, "that all it took was a finger?"
He crammed another banana down as if food was his natural enemy and he was forcing himself to negotiate peace.
"Huginn could drop all of us with just as much effort," he said with a shrug. "Maybe slightly more. Even I got put down in the most cost-effective method."
Then he lowered his voice like that made the theory less insane.
"Uncle Tasey said the bodies were burned away… so maybe it was Uncle Agni. He's the only one that doesn't report in to anyone or have a team."
My head turned toward Crow on instinct.
Shock isn't a thought.
It's a reflex.
Crow didn't deny it.
Which somehow made it worse.
"It's so frustrating," I snapped, voice rising before I could leash it, "that I'm the only one without a freaking patron. I'm surrounded by freaks. Both of you idiots got protection before the S rank. I'm stuck waiting and hoping I attract a suitable Angel."
They nodded like I'd just summarized the weather.
Serious.
Sympathetic.
Infuriating.
"At least you understand my plight, Amber."
I turned toward the only other girl at our café table.
Amber scratched her cheek softly, eyes sliding away from mine like she wanted the conversation to evaporate.
My stare hardened the longer her silence lasted.
"You too???" My voice cracked. "What the fuck kind of fate did I get—out with it! Who's your patron god!"
I grabbed her shoulder like I could physically shake the truth loose.
Amber flinched—but she didn't pull away.
"I don't know if it's a good or bad thing," she said carefully, "but he doesn't give me anything. Just… talks. All day. About how he's in different worlds each time we talk."
I went still.
"He calls himself the Twilight Hare."
Something in my brain clicked—
Then refused to keep running.
Tears started falling, not from sadness, but from the pure disappointment of realizing I had no allies left.
Not one.
Not in a world where even Amber had something whispering through the cracks.
Scene 4
"We offer the eyes of the Beast King we sle—"
My eyes snapped open.
The short illusion fell away like a curtain being yanked down, and the world refocused on the now-human form of the three-eyed tiger.
And the pain.
Struck through the heart—my only vulnerability as a Lax'sa of Darkness.
The wound was hot and wrong, like something foreign had been lodged inside my rhythm.
I didn't have time to mourn it.
I used my upper arms to lock that rat in place and began to hammer his sides with my lower arms—two pairs moving in brutal sequence, more coordination than I'd ever needed before.
He tried to breathe.
I didn't allow it.
I spat blood into his face to block his vision for half a second.
Half a second was enough.
My right hand released. Fingers sharpened into a spear hand.
I drove it for his head—
He used that split instant to break my hold.
Momentum turned him into a wheel. He spun and brought a back fist aimed at my right eye.
My spear hand caught his fist.
A kick slammed into my gut, trying to split us apart.
I grinned through blood and grabbed his legs.
Vulnerability was only vulnerability if you let go.
I didn't.
All four arms found his ankles.
I slammed him once.
Twice.
The ground ate the sound.
On the fourth slam, he twisted the leverage—shifted my gravity like the world had a hinge and he'd found it.
His third eye opened wider.
A smaller laser than his full-sized form could produce—condensed, controlled—
Yet my senses screamed like it was a guillotine.
I barely dodged on pure instinct.
In that same breath, I commanded my bident to appear and drove a follow-up punch upward—opening him, setting the angle—then slashed.
Near law-threshold darkness kissed his skin.
It didn't cut like steel.
It ate.
My darkness crawled into him, slow and patient, while he forced himself to keep the mask of being at peak strength.
We were both Demi-Gods.
But his upbringing had been curated.
A true monster if given time to master his abilities—overwhelming strength he barely used, choosing instead to rely on that third eye that drained more energy than it was worth.
His own biggest weakness was his inexperience.
"You pathetic gob—"
"Hobogoblin." I didn't raise my voice. I didn't need to. "If you're going to use my people's name, then speak it correctly with that dirty mouth."
His tail snapped again—spiked end whipping for my balance.
I caught it.
Two hands closed.
I pulled.
It separated with a wet, hateful sound.
His scream didn't earn sympathy.
It earned an uppercut.
I forced more astral energy into my heart to burn the wound closed—pain flaring as the flesh remembered what it meant to be fragile.
In that moment of focus, he kicked me away.
"I'll slaughter you and that entire tribe!"
Venom drilled out of him. Red blood ran from his eyes.
Even the third eye on his forehead—open wide—bled as he began to speak softly.
Building.
Preparing.
Trying to turn rage into ritual.
I'd learned this lesson too many times to pretend mercy was wisdom.
Giving an enemy a chance to prepare rarely ends well.
So I used his inexperience against him one last time.
The commanded bident bypassed me like a thought skipping the mouth.
It struck him directly in the third eye.
Aura-building snapped.
Spell-casting choked.
His body shuddered, and the human mask couldn't hold—fur bleeding back through skin, bone shifting, the tiger returning in ugly increments.
He was missing his tail.
I still held it.
I'd lost a lot of my potential from his one sword strike—felt it like something torn out of my future.
But when I spread my senses across the battlefield, I saw what mattered.
My tribe was ganging up on the less experienced fighters. Their entire group—overpower abilities, raw brutality—dominating the goblins who would join me after this was all over.
And for the first time since the wound to my heart—
The world felt like it was leaning in my direction.