[...89%...90%..]
——
"What are we going to do now?" Va asked, looking at the All/father with concern.
Adam glanced around at the thousands of humans scattered throughout the forest.
Many were still crying out in confusion and fear, with their voices overlapping into a chaotic din that made it difficult to think clearly.
"Well first," Adam said, "deal with the noise from these humans."
Va nodded and raised one hand toward the crowd, whispering a single word:
"Tranquility."
The effect was imdiate and the agitation that had gripped every person in the clearing faded away.
Their minds settled into a peaceful state, no longer overwheld by terror or confusion. They simply stood or sat quietly.
This was part of Va’s power over the domain of Order. He had simply made the chaotic outrage quell sufficiently.
Adam sighed and turned his gaze between Thera and Gaia, with a certain thought already forming in mind.
——
Back in Dragonhold, Samael’s patience had run out.
"I won’t ask again," he said, with his grip tightening around both won’s necks. "Where are the dragons?!"
Laela and Arianna were still suspended before him, with tears streaming down their faces as blood dripped from dozens of cuts carved across their arms, legs, and torsos.
The wounds weren’t deep enough to be fatal, but they were agonizing nonetheless.
The Longinus floated beside Samael with its edge dripping fresh blood. He’d been using the spear telekinetically, making it carve shallow marks into their flesh whenever they failed to answer his questions quickly enough.
Both won tried to speak, despite the pain and fear overwhelming them, but nothing coherent ca out. Only choked gasps and broken sobs.
Samael’s expression darkened further.
"Very well then," he said.
The Longinus began moving forward on its own, its point aid directly at Laela’s heart.
The blade inched closer with slowness, giving them both ti to watch their death approaching.
Then Adam appeared suddenly, materializing out of thin air directly.
"I’m here, Samael!" He called out.
The spear stopped re centiters from piercing through Laela’s chest as Samael turned his head toward Adam with genuine surprise on his face.
For a mont he simply stared at the All-Father as if unable to believe what he was seeing.
Then he burst into loud laughter.
"In all my ti of existence," Samael said between fits of laughter, "I have never been more confused!"
He laughed again, harder this ti, before finally composing himself enough to speak once more.
He waved one hand dismissively and Laela and Arianna were pushed aside by invisible force. They remained suspended in midair but were no longer directly in front of him.
Samael levitated toward Adam instead with the Longinus floating at his side.
"First you avoid ," Samael began conversationally. "And when I go after your kind, you make them disappear too."
He gestured broadly around himself at the empty city. "Then you pull the humans of this dwelling away," he continued with amusent clear in his tone. "And now you suddenly show yourself..."
A force of gravity seized Adam before he could react, binding him in place so completely that he couldn’t move even a single finger.
His entire body locked up as Umgadi’s stolen power held him suspended before the fallen angel.
Samael edged closer until they were face-to-face once more. He shook his head slowly with the sa grin still there.
"Make it make sense, All-Father," Samael said.
Umgadi’s power had already evolved under Samael’s control into sothing far stronger than what she’d wielded herself.
It was now potent enough to hold even Adam in place.
The fallen angel’s hand shot forward and closed around Adam’s throat, and in that mont, the All-Father knew his fate was sealed.
Adam’s original plan had been to reach this place and, if the won bound to the Black Dragon were still alive, he’d save them along with himself.
But now, it no longer seed that would be the case, at least not for him.
With the power of his law still active.
"The Truth of Events Are Only As I Imagine Them."
Adam didn’t need to write stories anymore. He could simply envision the lines of events as they happened, and reality would bend itself to match those visions.
His thoughts moved along those lines:
"The wives of the Black Dragon will be sent away from here for safety."
And instantly, both Laela and Arianna vanished from where they’d been suspended in midair behind Samael.
Samael noticed at once when he turned and saw them gone. A frown crossed his face as he looked back at Adam.
"Clever," Samael muttered. Without another word, he commanded the Longinus forward and the spear drove itself straight through Adam’s chest with brutal force.
Adam’s mouth opened as agony exploded through every nerve in his body. Blood poured from the mouth and spilled down over Samael’s hand where it still gripped his throat.
White aura began flowing out of Adam’s body imdiately after, as his transcendence fragnts was being ripped away by Samael’s touch.
Adam’s vision began to dim as strength left him. The light faded from his eyes.
Samael held onto him for just a mont longer until every last trace of transcendence had been extracted completely. Then he released his grip and let Adam’s lifeless body fall from the sky.
Then he turned his attention toward the horizon where he could sense other gods, and devious grin followed.
——
[...94%... 95%...]
——
Laela and Arianna appeared without warning directly before Thera and Gaia. They still had blood still dripping from their wounds and terror etched across their faces.
They looked around wildly for a mont before realizing where they were now in the forest clearing surrounded by gods and thousands of other Dragonhold citizens standing or sitting quietly under Va’s Tranquility effect.
Thera stepped forward imdiately with a small smile crossing her lips despite how exhausted she looked.
"You’re both safe now," she said gently.
But just as those words left her mouth, Thera’s eyes went wide with shock. She closed them tightly as her entire body stiffened in pain.
Tears began rolling down her cheeks.
Every other god present felt it too, a connection severing all at once.
The All-Father was dead.
Va’s composure shattered and the effect of his Tranquility spell broke instantly as grief overwheld. Chaos erupted once more.
But that wasn’t even the worst of it.
In the midst of the crowd where Ravens Grave mbers had gathered together, Aeris’s body began to crack.
She looked down at herself in shock, watching as fissures spread across her skin. The cracks glowed faintly with white light that leaked out from within.
Elena noticed imdiately and moved toward her friend with panic on her face.
"Aeris?" Elena asked frantically. "What’s happening?!"
But Aeris wasn’t the only one.
Every other surviving Amazon in Yul’thera faced the sa thing.
Their bodies were cracking apart in identical fashion, glowing fractures spreading across their flesh as though their very existence was becoming undone.
Amazons were never born like humans were.
They were created beings, blessed by gods and brought into existence through divine power.
But it had been Adam’s power that ordered reality itself to permit their continued existence in the first place.
With him gone, that effect on reality was unraveling. And so even the Amazons could not keep living.
Aeris had tears streaming down her face as she stared at her hands disintegrating.
"I don’t want to die," she whispered. "I don’t want to die."
She kept repeating those words over and over again even as more cracks spread across her body and pieces of her began flaking away into particles of light.
"I don’t want to die. I don’t want—"
Her voice cut off mid-sentence as her form disintegrated entirely, scattering into motes of white light that drifted upward for just a mont before fading into nothingness.
Elena reached out desperately toward where Aeris had been standing but there was nothing left to grab onto.
Nothing left to save.
She fell to her knees with a scream of anguish. The others felt just as much pain and Innis moved to console her
Then the worst of it happened.
Samael arrived.
He appeared in the skies above them without warning, as though he’d simply teleported there in an instant.
The mont he arrived, reality began warping around them all.
The trees of the dense forest began crumbling away into dust. Leaves withered and fell from branches that turned grey and brittle before collapsing.
The grass beneath everyone’s feet browned and died within seconds, crumbling away until nothing remained but bare dirt.
Within monts, the dense forest was gone completely.
The multitude all stared upward into the sky with terror in eyes as they watched the fallen angel staring back down at them with that sa grin still on his face.
"There’s nowhere left to run," Samael said simply.
And reality responded to his words. Everyone below felt it imdiately, an invisible pressure wrapping around them like chains binding them in place.
They couldn’t move anymore or flee even if they’d wanted to.
Because the mont Samael spoke those words aloud, reality had complied with what he’d declared.
This was Story Weaving already evolved beyond what Adam had wielded it as, letting Samael use it through re spoken words instead of needing to write anything down first.
Samael raised his hand upward toward the sky above him, and a shadow fell over the earth in response.
They all then turned instinctively at what was blocking out the sun, and their blood ran cold at what they saw hovering there above them now.
A planet.
An entire planet was suspended in space directly overhead, held in place by Samael’s power over the fundantal forces.
He had pulled it here from sowhere else in the cosmos and now held it floating just outside Earth’s atmosphere.
"Right after I take from this wretched world what belongs to ," Samael began, "I shall return you all to naught."
He planned release his hold on that planet above and let it collide with Earth, causing an impact that would annihilate everything at once.
Then Samael stretched his right hand down toward those gathered below.
After absorbing Adam’s transcendence fragnts and crossing yet another threshold of power, Samael no longer needed direct physical contact with his targets anymore to drain them of their essence.
Every single god gathered there instantly felt their chests jerk upward violently and their heads snapped backward involuntarily as white aura began streaming out from every divine body present.
But right in that mont—
[...100%]
TI STOPPED.
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