The Infinite Witches were older than the Five Cosmic Entities themselves.
Whenever a cosmic god perished, their power, authority, and conceptual domain did not simply vanish. Everything flowed into the Cetery of Gods, where it was stored in the deepest reaches of the Gods' Quarry.
The Infinite Witches served as the eternal custodians of that inheritance.
Bound by rules established by the original Beyonder, they could never leave the Cetery of Gods.
That limitation, however, had never prevented them from influencing the wider universe through indirect ans.
Drex already knew that, in another tiline, both Thanos and his son Thane had found their way here.
"You may call us the Infinite Witches."
"We are the keepers of the Cetery of Gods."
"When a cosmic deity dies, its energy, authority, and conceptual essence are entrusted to us for eternal preservation."
The three witches spoke one after another, their voices flowing together as though they shared a single mind.
Below them, the quarry pulsed with endless primordial energy.
"Our ultimate goal is to gather enough of this essence."
"To reshape the concepts that govern reality."
"To explore higher forms of universal existence."
Then all three pairs of ancient eyes fixed upon Drex.
"And for that..."
"We need you."
"Co with us."
Drex remained silent for a mont.
He had no intention of stepping into the quarry itself.
The place triggered every instinct he possessed.
Its dangers were real.
Perhaps greater than anything he had faced before.
Still, there was no harm in learning what the witches wanted.
So he followed.
The Infinite Witches led him deeper into the castle.
Soon they arrived at a brightly illuminated hall lined with countless frad portraits.
The witches smiled.
The expression looked deeply unsettling on their weathered faces.
"These," one of them said proudly, "are the gods we have hunted."
Drex's eyes narrowed.
He stepped closer.
The portraits were rendered in stark black and white, highly stylized and almost abstract.
Each fra bore a small plaque.
The inscriptions described the entities depicted within.
The Embodint of Shared Emotion across the Resonance Universe.
The Embodint of Inspiration and Revelation across the Manifestation Universe.
The Embodint of Praise and Reverence across the Hymnal Universe.
Drex frowned.
Sothing didn't add up.
"That doesn't make sense."
He turned toward the witches.
"If the embodints of concepts like Resonance, Inspiration, and Praise are dead, shouldn't those concepts have disappeared from their respective universes?"
Clearly, they hadn't.
If the God of Praise had truly been erased, then admiration, worship, and appreciation should have vanished long ago.
One of the witches gave a dry chuckle.
"We reclaid their power."
"We reclaid their authority."
"But we allowed their concepts to continue existing."
Another witch continued.
"Removing a concept entirely can destabilize a universe."
"And in so cases, destroy it."
The third finished the explanation.
"That outco does not serve our purposes."
"So we preserve the concepts."
"For now."
"Once all the appropriate gods have been eliminated, the concepts themselves can be removed together."
Drex nodded.
That explanation was reasonable enough.
Concepts like praise or resonance weren't fundantal pillars of existence.
Removing them would drastically alter life, but reality itself could continue functioning.
The group continued deeper into the hall.
Soon they reached a second section.
The portraits here were noticeably larger.
The witches gestured toward them.
"These are morials to higher-order gods."
Drex examined the plaques.
His expression gradually beca more serious.
Destiny: The embodint of all predetermined outcos within its universe.
Reversal: The embodint of all unpredictable change and deviation.
Concealnt: The embodint of all states that could not be perceived, detected, or discovered.
There were nearly a hundred such portraits.
Drex inhaled slowly.
These entities possessed far greater authority than those displayed in the previous hall.
Their domains were powerful.
Their abilities should have been formidable.
Yet all of them were dead.
Killed by the sches of three seemingly frail old witches.
He turned back toward them.
"Can you leave the Cetery of Gods?"
The witches shook their heads.
"Can you project your power beyond it?"
Again, they shook their heads.
Drex narrowed his eyes.
"Then how did you kill them?"
The witches smiled.
Rows of unnaturally white teeth appeared beneath their wrinkled lips.
One spoke.
"We cultivate hunters."
Another continued.
"Hunters who specialize in killing gods."
The third finished.
"They are individuals who survived the Gods' Quarry and obtained its power."
Then all three stared directly at him.
"Drex Valen."
"Would you like to join them?"
Understanding dawned imdiately.
So that was their goal.
They had their eyes on him.
From their perspective, he was probably the most promising candidate they had ever encountered.
Possibly the ideal god-hunter.
Drex folded his arms.
"Who are the others?"
The witches exchanged glances.
"Hunting gods is dangerous."
"Accidents happen."
"Frequently."
"We are always recruiting new blood."
One witch raised four fingers.
"There are currently four god-hunters."
Another smiled.
"Though if you joined..."
The third completed the sentence.
"There would be five."
Only four?
Drex found that surprisingly low.
Given the scale of the witches' ambitions, he had expected a much larger force.
Then again, the more he considered it, the more obvious the answer beca.
Their plan was still in its infancy.
The strongest gods displayed in the morial hall were roughly comparable to Galacta.
Powerful.
Dangerous.
But nowhere near the level of the Five Cosmic Entities.
Certainly not enough to challenge beings beyond that tier.
The witches' hunters clearly weren't ready for such targets.
"Who are the four?" Drex asked again.
The Infinite Witches rely shook their heads.
"Drex."
"Your role will be different."
"You do not need to know."
The answer was polite.
But it was also a reminder.
The witches trusted him only so far.
Then their tone changed.
"Drex."
"We have a very strong feeling about you."
One of the witches reached out.
Her dry, skeletal hand pressed against his chest.
Another joined her.
Then the third.
All three slowly ran their hands across his pectoral muscles as though inspecting a rare artifact.
Drex's eye twitched.
The witches seed completely oblivious to how bizarre the situation was.
"Your body can withstand extraordinary power."
"You will beco our strongest god-hunter."
"The first god-hunter capable of slaying a Creator."
That was enough.
Drex imdiately stepped backward.
"Let's keep this professional."
The witches paused.
Then continued as if nothing unusual had happened.
Apparently, they saw no issue with their behavior.
Turning away, they resud walking.
Drex followed.
The group left the morial hall and exited the castle.
They traveled along a winding path for what felt like a very long ti.
Eventually, another imnse crater ca into view.
This one dwarfed everything around it.
Its diater exceeded thirty kiloters.
The interior was barren.
Nothing existed within except stone, dust, and jagged earth.
The crater plunged downward beyond sight.
Drex's vision could penetrate roughly a hundred kiloters into its depths before a vast sea of white mist obscured everything below.
The mist wasn't ordinary fog.
It was condensed universal source energy.
So dense that it had beco almost tangible.
This...
Was the true Gods' Quarry.
Its terrifying nature had little to do with its size.
The real horror lay elsewhere.
Drex looked toward the sheer rock walls surrounding the abyss.
Countless petrified figures were embedded within them.
An endless gallery of failure.
Silent witnesses to every soul that had challenged fate and lost.
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