Chapter 60

  Ulthanox and the Plaguefather had shared an unusually close bond—or rather, they once had. Eons ago, in those chaotic days following the fall and rise of the first realms, their connection had been forged. Not out of necessity or political convenience, as was so often the case among gods, but from true, genuine kinship. Both were emissaries of the inevitable—of decay, of endings, of dissolution. Erebos stood for disease, rot, the slow wasting away; Ulthanox was death itself, in its purest form, the final punctuation of all things.

  They had laughed together as entire planets collapsed under plagues. Fought side by side when the celestial realms first marched against the Lower Realms. Back when legions of light turned against the shadows, they had each other’s backs. It had been a time of violence and frenzy, full of grandiose, reckless plans—but they had been young. Young for gods.

  Sometimes, when Ulthanox stood alone on a balcony of his obsidian citadel, gazing into the endless veil between life and death, he remembered. The laughter of Erebos when an archangel, driven to despair, drowned himself in a pit of pestilence. Their pranks on the heavenly archives, switching causes of death to “test the system.” The feeling of riding together across the burning sky.

  But eons change everything. Not just mortals. Gods, too.

  Ulthanox had... calmed. Perhaps even matured.

  He no longer saw his role as one of active interference. Unlike Erebos, who still stretched his venomous tendrils into the fabric of mortal life, Ulthanox had stepped back. He was no judge, no executioner, no killer. He was the keeper of the end.

  When someone died—no matter where, no matter when—it was Ulthanox’s duty to ensure the soul found its proper path. Whether to the light or to the shadows, to the Lower Realms—that was not his choice. His task was to uphold the rules.

  And those rules were clear: no interference.

  But accompanying mortals was not considered interference—he did so often. On quiet nights, Ulthanox would sit beside those who were dying. Not out of pity. Not out of mercy. But because the moment of passing was sacred. Sometimes he spoke to them. Sometimes he only listened. It was permitted. So long as he was not the cause of death, nor did he alter the course, his presence was not forbidden.

  Erebos, however…

  Erebos entered dreams, shaped thoughts, whispered advice. He sent visions, merged with bodies, steered decisions. And sometimes… like just a few weeks ago, he even stepped into the world himself.

  To Ulthanox, this was sacrilege. Not just because of the laws of the divine council. But because it was... personal.

  Erebos should have known there were boundaries. And yet he crossed them. Often.

  It wasn’t hatred that had formed between them. Nor anger. It was a rift—subtle, but deep.

  One that was beginning to shift their ancient friendship. Not destroy it, but change it.

  Ulthanox told himself he still understood Erebos. That they had simply... chosen different paths. One had become the shepherd of shadows. The other, the eternal watcher at the threshold.

  But if he was honest—truly honest—he knew: the Plaguefather was walking a dangerous path. And if he, or someone other, continued…

  Then Death itself would one day have to intervene.

  Not out of rage.

  But out of duty.

  But there was something else. Something that lay beyond old friendship. Something Ulthanox could neither ignore nor deny. It had nothing to do with the fracture of bygone times or the guilt of the Lower Realms. It concerned the present. And what Erebos—perhaps without even realizing it—was also putting at risk through his continued meddling.

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  Not the balance between good and evil. Not the fragile alliance between the realms. But something deeper. More fundamental. Something even the gods feared to speak aloud.

  Stability.

  “Because of everything,” Ulthanox whispered into the darkness of his citadel. His voice barely echoed. The room was too silent, too dense, as if even sound itself could die before it could spread.

  He sat upon his throne, a grotesque monument of fused skulls—not for decoration, but because they belonged there. Each of these skulls was an oath, a vow, a burden. This was not just where he rested, but where the memories of all those he had personally ushered into death over the eons resided. Countless hollow eyes stared in all directions, but the god’s gaze remained calm, unmoving. Only a faint tremble passed through the walls, as a new presence brushed the fabric of the world.

  A disturbance.

  Barely perceptible, a subtle ripple in the weave of reality. Like a single droplet falling onto the surface of a still lake. But Ulthanox felt it instantly. To him, it was a scream in the void.

  A significant mortal had died.

  Not a world ruler. Not a king of the heavens. But someone with influence. Someone whose death would not go unnoticed. The kind of death that sparked conversations. Ignited schemes. Tore holes.

  He opened his eyes behind his mask. Then he rose slowly. His movements were fluid, almost human, yet they cast long, sluggish shadows across the chamber—shadows that seemed to live.

  He stepped down from his throne. The skulls seemed to whisper briefly as his steps passed over them. Voices of the dead, bound to this place, to him.

  He rolled his shoulders, and a soft crack echoed through the room—as if ancient chains were breaking, though none could be seen. His scythe, a mere shadow upon the wall moments before, slid silently into his hand. No gleam, no metallic shine. Only the pure absence of light.

  “After this, I really must get rid of that ugly thing,” he muttered, casting a glance back at the throne. “But for now… it’s time for a little talk.”

  Then he vanished into the shadows.

  -

  Reyn’s plan… was becoming complicated. Not in a way that meant immediate danger — not yet. But in a way that could become dangerous.

  The connection to Luken — that delicate thread of emotion, trust, and unspoken belief that Reyn had so carefully spun — had begun to flicker. Like a torch in the wind.

  It wasn’t a complete break. But a fraying, a resistance that shouldn’t have been there. Not now. Not when Luken stood on the threshold of darkness, on his way into the ancient cave system beneath the northern mountains.

  Reyn felt the flicker in his mind like a needle prick beneath the skin — deep, unpleasant, pulsing. His features twisted into a silent grimace, his fingers clenched into fists. He opened his eyes — not the ones on his face, but those that existed only on the mental plane — and saw it instantly: the thread had thinned. The control had weakened.

  He wasn’t in his usual chamber in the city, not in the command center of his operations. He stood in one of the oldest rooms of the facility — deep underground, in a sector even his closest advisors didn’t know existed. The chamber was round, empty, completely surrounded by Silence Ore. Five layers of the mineral formed perfect acoustic isolation. No sound entered. No thought escaped.

  The air was dry. Too dry. Dusty, as if even time itself had held its breath.

  Here, there was absolute silence.

  The Voidroom

  No humming machinery from the facility, no murmuring spirits from the ritual halls, not even the rush of blood in one’s ears. Only void.

  A room for meditation. For withdrawal. For focused, pure magic.

  Now: a room for emergency.

  Reyn stood at the center, on a faintly glowing platform of Tharnite, his cloak draped in heavy folds behind him. On a stone table before him lay maps, shards of soulstone, smoke-catchers, ritual daggers, and a half-decayed finger bone — said to be an artifact from the Old South. All of it belonged to the divination ritual he used only in the most extreme situations. Like this one.

  He had to restore the connection. The mental bridge. The stream of thoughts, of subtle persuasion, of carefully shaped doubts that had slowly pulled Luken in his direction.

  But the caves… disrupted the weave. Something lay there that cut through the old lines. Or someone. And that was an unexpected complication.

  Reyn breathed shallowly, angrily.

  Not now, echoed through his core. Not after all these years. Not after all the sacrifices. Not after building this perfect order, this delicate balance between control and chaos…

  He had enslaved beings, manipulated a people, wooed and discarded personalities for the necessary resources to reach this point.

  He had shaped a city, forged a realm of peace, nurtured a movement that would soon celebrate him as more than a ruler. And now this final step was at risk?

  Then: a voice.

  Soft. Tender. Yet a thunderstorm of power. It pierced the silence like a golden dagger. Not through the air — but directly into his mind.

  “Calm yourself, my chosen.”

  Reyn’s body flinched slightly, but immediately relaxed. That was the voice of his patron.

  “The paladin will be occupied long enough.”

  Reyn exhaled and lowered his gaze.

  “Truly long enough, until the plan is complete?” he asked, a trace of uncertainty in his voice. Just a trace — but it was there.

  “Truly,” the voice whispered.

  “But if the paladin… or the rebels… were to cause trouble…”

  Now the tone sounded almost cheerful, ironic — like someone making a joke with a deadly punchline.

  “…then it will already be too late.”

  Reyn’s mouth curled into a smile. Not the false smile he wore before the people. A real one.

  Cold. Certain. Resolute.

  “And then no one will be able to stop us,” he whispered.