The sky bled gold.
Above the distant western horizon, clouds churned with light — not sunlight, but divinity. Radiant and cruel. Cities below fell silent, their people staring upward, unable to understand what they saw.
In the citadel-temples of the Sunbound Pantheon, bells rang for the first time in an age.
The gods had stirred.
Vaeren Tenebris stood still.
On a cliff of black glass, overlooking a forest warped by time and old battle, he watched the heavens shift. Winds howled around him, heavy with pressure. Even the earth groaned.
Behind him, Lyssara clutched her cloak tighter.
"…What is that?" she asked, though her voice was barely a whisper.
He didn't answer at first. His eyes, hollow white, reflected the divine radiance, but there was no awe in them. Only recognition.
"An old lie," he said finally. "Coming to remind the world it still breathes."
She took a slow step closer.
"Is it… a god?"
"A coward," he replied. "One of the seven who sealed me."
In the far distance, something descended — a lance of golden flame, trailing divine thunder. Trees turned to ash as it neared. Rivers boiled. The forest bent beneath its arrival like it feared being crushed by presence alone.
And then it stood there — miles away, but impossibly visible.
A being cloaked in shifting gold and flame. No face. No voice. Only will.
"Vaeren Tenebris," it said, and its voice echoed across mountains.
"You should not exist."
Vaeren's cloak rippled in the wind, but he did not move.
"You say that as though you have the right to decide."
"You were condemned," the god-thing boomed. "By seven. By judgment. By time itself."
"And yet," Vaeren said softly, "here I am."
He raised his hand.
The shadows behind him screamed.
Lyssara stumbled backward as the temperature dropped — not just cold, but absence. Light dimmed. Color bled from the trees. She saw the outline of something vast rise behind Vaeren — wings? No, something worse. The shape of what should not be.
And then the air exploded.
The god attacked — a flash of light so bright it tore the land. Divine spears rained down like meteors.
And Vaeren moved.
Not fast. Not panicked.
He simply stepped forward.
And everything froze.
The light faltered. The sky cracked.
The god — one of the seven — staggered.
"You… you were diminished!" it roared.
"I was sealed," Vaeren said. "Not broken."
He walked forward slowly, the earth rising to meet his feet.
"Tell your brothers," he said coldly. "If they want to stop me—"
"—they must come themselves."
The god screamed and vanished, its form unraveling into fire and silence.
The forest was gone. Only ash remained.
Lyssara stared at him, horror in her breath. She'd seen destruction before. But not this. Not the dismantling of divinity with a few words and a raised hand.
Vaeren turned to her.
"Now you understand," he said.
She didn't speak.
"This world," he murmured, "is not mine yet. But it remembers me."