The skies bled where Zeirion's blade had struck. Clouds parted not from wind but from will a ripple of authority so absolute that the heavens dared not reclaim the space he claimed as his own. The Herald, once a terror etched into celestial prophecy, writhed in stunned recoil. It had never been struck not truly. Not seen.
Until now.
Zeirion stood on nothing, cradling Aralya, his cloak billowing in slow arcs as if the laws of gravity had been rewritten to accommodate his wrath. His eyes burned not with fury, but with something colder: the clarity of inevitability.
And far above, beyond the visible constellations, the gods began to move.
In the upper firmaments, within the Twilight Conclave of Divinities, eleven thrones of dwindling light flared reluctantly to life. From each sat the last of the original pantheon withered, glorious, and afraid. They had once ruled over fate, over life and death, over time itself. But their dominion had faded, and their power diminished ever since the day Zeirion Althar shattered the boundaries between realms.
Now, they watched the sovereign they had once cast down.
He had returned.
And he was winning.
"He has drawn his blade," said Ios-Reth, the God of Bound Futures. His voice cracked, brittle as prophecy long abandoned.
"He is awakening the old oaths," said Muraleth, She Who Weeps In Light. "The Sovereign Flame still answers him."
The eldest among them, a being of writhing veils and pure concept once called Oun-Thera, the Thoughtmade King finally moved.
"Then we must do what we vowed never to do again," Oun Thera intoned.
They each raised a hand. Eleven gestures echoed across the firmament.
And a long-buried pact was awakened.
The Covenant of Dying Gods.
On the earth below, Zeirion felt it like a nail driven into the back of his mind.
He turned slowly, still holding Aralya.
"They stir," she whispered. "The ones who chose silence over justice."
"They stir," he said. "Because they smell their own extinction."
Across the battle-scarred sky, reality cracked once more.
But it was no Herald this time.
From the ether above, eleven lights descended comets that did not burn, but drained. Each one heralded a dying god, now incarnating in flesh once more. And where they landed, the world twisted. Forests withered. Oceans quieted. Mountains bent.
The gods returned not as saviors but as executioners.
Zeirion placed Aralya gently on the crumbling ridge. His cloak darkened to obsidian. His presence deepened into something that the gods themselves had once tried to erase from history.
Not a man.
Not a king.
A consequence.
He took a step forward and the eleven divine avatars landed, circling him in a ring of fading grandeur.
"Zeirion Althar," one of them spoke. "You were given peace. You chose war."
"No," he replied. "I chose truth. And now I choose justice."
The god raised a spear of blinding light.
Zeirion raised Eclipsion.
And the air screamed as the gods of the old era met the Sovereign of the new.