The battlefield lay in ruins, the earth still soaked with the remnants of slaughter. The soil was
scorched black, charred by searing divine flames and the aftermath of Thrust's rampage. The
once-proud bastions of the warlords were nothing more than fractured stone, their banners
reduced to ash. Crimson rivers cut through the cracked soil, flowing into pools that reflected
the darkened sky.
Amidst it all, Thrust stood—motionless, indifferent. His weapon, a sphere of boundless
darkness, pulsed softly, content in its feast. The air around him reeked of blood and
obliteration, but he remained still. Unfazed. Empty.
His work was done. He had no reason to stay.
But the world refused to let him leave.
The abyss itself stirred. A violent rupture sliced through the fabric of reality, splitting it apart
like brittle glass. The very concept of distance twisted, space itself shrieking in protest. From
this gaping wound, the monstrous host emerged—a legion of the abyss, heralds of a forgotten
dominion.
They were monolithic and jagged, towering figures armored in plates forged from the marrow
of dead stars. Their forms distorted as they moved, trailing threads of voidstuff, blacker than
existence itself.
At their center, the emissary of the abyss made his entrance.
His form was a walking paradox, shifting and unstable. He wore robes woven from the souls of
the condemned, their spectral faces frozen in eternal agony, silently screaming. Silver runes
flickered across his garment—symbols of ancient supremacy, now nearly lost to time.
His voice did not echo—it imposed itself upon existence.
"Your path leads to insignificance," he intoned, his voice dripping with quiet menace. "Our
lord extends his hand. Serve, and you shall rise beyond even this… trivial carnage."
The demons did not move. They did not need to. They were certain.
He would accept.
He did not.
Thrust did not reply. He did not look at them. He did not care.
Instead, he took a step.
And then—light descended.
A blinding radiance tore the heavens asunder, piercing the abyssal gloom. Golden brilliance
poured down like a divine flood, suffocating the battlefield in celestial luminance. But this was
not the light of salvation or justice—it was the radiance of conceited dominion.
The gods had arrived.
Not the supreme ones who ruled from the highest thrones, but the petty and covetous—the
jealous and vain. They descended with grandeur, their celestial robes embroidered with
insignias of dominion, their eyes brimming with divine arrogance.
"A beast wielding a weapon it does not deserve," one of them scoffed, his voice laced with
condescending amusement.
Another sneered, eyes narrowing as he stared at Thrust's weapon.
"You do not even understand what you hold. Hand it over. Now."
A third floated forward, his divine essence billowing around him like a storm. His voice was
rich with disdain, sickened by the very sight of Thrust's unbothered presence.
"You may have carved through the lesser. But we are gods." His voice rang with finality.
"Kneel—or be erased."
And then, for the first time, they felt it.
It was not an attack. It was not a threat.
It was simply him.
The very air thickened, suffused with an unshakable weight. The fabric of existence trembled
under the pressure of Thrust's presence. The golden light dimmed—not because it was snuffed
out, but because it dared not shine in his presence.
The gods staggered.
The lesser ones collapsed, their celestial forms trembling, choking on their own divinity. They
clutched at their throats, gasping for breath that would not come. Not because of magic. Not
because of a spell.
But because something like him was not supposed to exist.
The emissary of the abyss, once so composed, stiffened. The runes upon his robes fractured,
their ancient inscriptions cracking as he instinctively recoiled. The demons, once unwavering,
shifted uneasily. Their collective certainty crumbled.
For the first time, they felt fear.
And Thrust exhaled—not in anger, nor in satisfaction.
In irritation.
He was done with this.
So he walked.
Reality broke.
The ground beneath him did not shift—it shattered. Space-time folded inward, warping as
entire sections of the void collapsed into nothingness. The battlefield splintered, fractured by
the mere rhythm of his footsteps.
Time itself faltered, unable to process his departure.
The gods screamed as their celestial forms began to wither. Their divine essence flickered,
unstable and faint, like dying embers suffocated by an eternal wind. They clawed at reality,
desperate to remain tethered—
And found nothing.
They could not see him anymore.
They could not perceive him anymore.
Thrust was not gone.
He had never been there to begin with.
Only the devastation he left behind remained.
The sky cracked. Celestial fissures split the firmament, vomiting radiant light as the gods
struggled to stabilize their divine forms. The emissary of the abyss staggered backward, his
fractured robes flickering with unstable magic. His once-eloquent voice was now a broken
rasp.
"I-Impossible…" he croaked, clutching his chest as the runes binding his form crumbled into
ash.
But it was too late.
The realms felt it.
From the edges of existence, cosmic sovereigns stirred in their slumber. Primeval deities, long
banished into nonexistence, turned their gaze toward the rippling aftershock.
In the distant void, starborn horrors quaked—beings that had long fed on the terror of gods.
For the first time, they knew fear.
And in the farthest reaches of the abyss, where ancient lords of the void sat upon their lightless
thrones, they felt the tremor of his absence.
The void wept.
And somewhere, in the boundless emptiness of all creation, Thrust walked away.
Unseen. Unfathomable. Forgotten.
*THE CHAPTER ENDS*