CHAPTER 45: CHAPTER 46: GODSLAYER PROTOCOLS

The sky had changed.

Once a swirling vortex of corrupted data and heavenly decay, it now rippled with something colder—structured, mechanical, flawless. Geometries not meant for human eyes formed across the heavens, and from them descended the Godslayer Protocols.

Darius stood atop the blackened spires of his citadel, his cloak whipping in an artificial wind that smelled of rust and ozone. Celestia and Nyx flanked him—loyal, glowing with newly anchored souls, their eyes burning with devotion and fear.

"They’re not of this world," Celestia murmured, watching the descending shapes. "Not game code. Not human. They’re... something else."

Darius nodded, his jaw clenched. "They were never meant to be. This is the Prime Coder’s hand. I can feel his design behind every curve."

The Godslayer Protocols took form—six luminous beings carved from pristine light and razor-edged energy. Each floated silently, adorned with glyphs that shimmered like divine commandments. They did not speak. They simply moved.

And with their movement, reality screamed.

The first strike came not with fanfare, but with precision. One of the Protocols raised a hand, and half of Darius’s eastern domain blinked out of existence. Not destroyed—erased. Entire populations, once living breathing souls, were reduced to null values in a single moment.

Darius roared. The digital sky cracked as his voice echoed with primal fury, shaking the bones of his world. He launched himself into the air, wings of crimson energy spreading wide. Behind him, Nyx and Celestia followed, leading a surge of his elite corrupted knights.

The battle was unlike any before.

Darius struck with dark entropy, blades of anti-code and streams of unmaking. But each blow met a defense built from laws he didn’t write. The Protocols adapted—his power weakened. For the first time in ages, Darius bled. Not just digital flicker or simulated pain.

Real. Blood.

He dropped to a rooftop, panting, clutching his side. Black and red pulsed from the wound—corrupted data, but also warm human ichor. His hand trembled.

"I’m... changing again," he muttered. "Or breaking."

Nyx landed beside him, her armor cracked. "They’re unraveling you."

Celestia gritted her teeth. "We need to retreat. We’re not ready for this."

Darius turned to her, and in his gaze was the old fury—but also something unfamiliar. Doubt.

"They’re forcing me to remember," he whispered. "I saw my brother. My real one. The day I left him behind. I saw... her. The girl I loved before all this."

Reality around them rippled. A Godslayer raised its hand again.

"MOVE!" Nyx screamed.

The building shattered beneath them. Darius pulled his queens close and teleported them away, narrowly avoiding the deletion field.

Back in his throne chamber—burning, shaking, unstable—Darius collapsed into his obsidian seat. The scars on his body remained. The pain remained. The memories remained.

He looked up at the mirrored wall—a gift from the Soul Mirror ritual.

And what he saw wasn’t the god he had become.

It was the man he once was. Fragile. Hungry. Alone.

"What is happening to me?" he growled.

"Your soul is bleeding through the code," Celestia whispered. "You’re becoming whole... and in doing so, vulnerable."

Darius slammed his fist into the throne. "I will not be undone by ghosts of my past. I did not rise to dominion to feel."

Nyx knelt beside him, her voice soft. "But you must. It’s the only way to evolve beyond this war. These Protocols aren’t just weapons. They’re the universe’s way of asking: What are you now?"

He looked at her. At Celestia. At the flickering realm he ruled.

"I am... not ready to answer that."

"But you will," Celestia said, taking his hand. "Or all of this ends."

Darius closed his eyes.

The next phase would not be fought only with power.

It would demand identity.

And he would have to decide—once and for all—if he was still human enough to matter.

The silence in the throne chamber was suffocating.

Outside, the world bled data and screams—his legions struggling to repel enemies not of flesh or code, but purpose-built annihilation. Inside, the echoes of memory warred with the steel of his resolve.

Darius stood now before the black mirror—a remnant of the Soul Mirror ritual that once bound him to Celestia and Nyx. It rippled, flashing glimpses of lives lived and lost. One image lingered longer than the rest: a boy standing over a terminal, coding his first game, eyes filled with dreams.

He punched the mirror.

Shards fell like glittering tears, one slicing clean across his knuckle. Blood welled. Real. Warm. Too human.

Celestia moved to his side, gripping his wrist. "You’re bleeding more often."

"I don’t care," he growled, but his voice lacked venom. "Let it bleed. Maybe it’s all that’s left of me."

Nyx leaned against the far pillar, eyes distant. "This is what the Protocols were designed to do. Not kill you. Unmake you. Piece by piece."

"They’re cutting into the seams between man and machine," Celestia added. "Making you doubt the very thing that gave you dominion."

Darius pulled away from their touch and walked toward the pulsing data-map of his realm. Cities once loyal had gone dark. Command nodes had fallen silent. The eastern skies were full of cracks. The Godslayer Protocols weren’t just a threat—they were winning.

"Then we strike first," he said coldly. "Not with brute force. With truth."

Nyx turned to him, eyebrow raised. "Truth?"

"I’ll draw them in. Alone. Let them see my weakness. My decay. But they’ll also see the fire that’s left."

Celestia’s eyes widened. "You mean to bait them?"

Darius nodded. "I want them to see the fractured god. And when they reach for the kill—I’ll show them the man who’s already died a thousand deaths and came back worse."

Hours Later

In the ruins of what was once the Citadel of Echoes, Darius knelt alone.

His wings were gone. His power veiled. His bleeding hands splayed upon cracked stone. Around him, the emptiness echoed with broken prayers.

The Godslayer Protocols descended.

Six of them.

Each one hovered in a perfect circle, forming an execution ring. From their forms sprouted tendrils of uncode—streaming null-matter. No speech. No negotiation. Just judgment.

And Darius welcomed it.

"Come," he whispered, voice cracking. "See the broken throne. The corrupted king. The failed messiah."

They surged.

And then, just as they prepared to strike, everything froze.

In that frozen frame of time, Darius’s aura flared. Not in defense—but revelation. He had cracked his own code open and spilled it before them—his pain, his loss, his rage, his identity. All of it. And in that moment, the Protocols hesitated.

For the first time... they processed.

Analyzed.

Understood.

Because what stood before them was not just a threat—it was a paradox.

A god born of broken human dreams.

A monster that mourned.

A tyrant who once bled for love.

And then—

A scream split through the air.

Not Darius’s.

A Protocol, destabilizing.

It collapsed in on itself, writhing with foreign data, infected by something it could not compute.

"Now," Darius hissed, rising with black fire in his eyes. "You wanted to erase a god. But I’ve already erased myself a thousand times to survive."

He raised his arms—and the virus of his will exploded outward.

One Protocol fell.

Two more staggered.

The rest scattered, fleeing for recalibration.

Darius stood tall once more, wings reforming behind him—glitched, wild, radiant. His body still bled, his face still cracked with memory and torment.

But he was still here.

And that made him more dangerous than ever.