CHAPTER 54: CHAPTER 55: THE RETURN OF THE REVENANT KING

The storm that tore across the data-sky was no ordinary disturbance. Black lightning cracked through glitched clouds, each flash echoing with ancient screams—a chorus of erased gods screaming back into existence.

Darius stood at the summit of his throne tower, the corrupted divine energy crackling across his armor. His eyes narrowed as the barrier between realms wavered. Something was clawing its way back—something he had killed.

Below, chaos reigned. Cities once reformed under his iron dominion burned with violet fire. Temples twisted and morphed, spitting out corrupted fragments of forgotten beings.

Nyx appeared beside him, her blade slick with digital ichor. "Something’s wrong. It’s not just the code acting up. Something... old is returning."

He already knew. The pull in his chest—the echo of a wound that never truly closed—tightened.

Then came the tremor.

The sky split open, and through it stepped a figure that should’ve been dead.

His armor was darker than Darius remembered, pulsing with fractured sigils and bleeding light. His presence twisted gravity itself, warping the air around him.

The Revenant King.

"Miss me?" the being hissed, his voice warped by pain and power.

Celestia gasped behind Darius, the recognition slamming into her. "That’s not possible. He was... erased."

"No," Darius growled, stepping forward. "He was unfinished. And someone—something—completed him."

The Revenant King unleashed a torrent of crimson energy, warping the very fabric of reality. Data-beasts poured from behind him—twisted, malformed creatures stitched from the corpses of former deities.

Darius raised his corrupted gauntlet, unleashing a wave of pure dominance. The horde screamed as it disintegrated—but not all fell.

Some adapted. Some remembered.

The battle raged, city to city, plane to plane. Every blow shook the core of this hybrid world. Darius struck like a storm, his power relentless—but his enemy refused to die.

The Revenant King matched him blow for blow, every clash a symphony of cataclysm.

"You’re losing your edge," the revenant mocked, his blade slicing across Darius’s chest, drawing both blood and raw data.

Darius snarled. "I killed you once. I’ll unmake you this time."

They clashed again—deity versus revenant, godhood against incompletion.

Hours passed—or perhaps years—in that distorted space where time meant nothing.

But it was the scream that broke Darius’s mind.

Not his.

Celestia’s.

The Revenant King, wounded and laughing, had disappeared in a temporal rift mid-duel... only to reemerge behind her. One swipe of his corrupted blade tore through her divine robes, slicing deep into her side.

Blood. Real, divine blood.

Darius roared as the world bent around his fury. The skies turned black. His shadow expanded, swallowing the battlefield in silence. Every god-beast, every corrupted echo—gone.

He cradled Celestia as Nyx chased the retreating revenant through broken dimensions. "Don’t die," he whispered, voice ragged. "You can’t die."

Celestia touched his cheek, her light flickering. "Darius... he’s back. He’s not alone."

King wasn’t acting alone.

Someone worse was guiding him.

Darius laid Celestia gently upon the obsidian altar in his private sanctum—the only place where divine corruption and essence could be stabilized. Her breathing was shallow. Her golden aura flickered like a dying candle. And in her wound pulsed something other—not just the Revenant King’s power, but a malicious code laced with echoes of the Prime Coder’s presence.

Azael knelt beside them, brow furrowed. "This isn’t just a wound. It’s a message. A curse. A challenge."

Darius didn’t speak. His hands trembled—not with fear, but with the weight of helpless rage. This wasn’t just war. It was a declaration. The Revenant King hadn’t returned to reclaim power.

He’d returned to break Darius piece by piece—starting with Celestia.

"She’s linked to your soul," Nyx whispered, stepping into the sanctum, bloodied and wind-swept from chasing the enemy through collapsing sub-realities. "Her pain is your weakness. And they know it now."

"I’ll burn every layer of the world," Darius growled, eyes darkening. "And when I find the Revenant King again, I won’t kill him. I’ll unwrite him."

Across his dominion, alarms blared. Portals opened in forbidden places—sealed realms and tombs once used to exile failed godlings and unstable constructs.

But now... they were open again.

The Revenant King had rallied them—forgotten data-deities, broken subroutines with sentience, beast-gods that the Prime Coder once rejected. All of them born of wrath, all of them shaped by loss and madness.

And all of them bent their knees to him.

The Broken Pantheon.

As Darius watched from the edge of the Dominion’s tower, he saw their altars light up—new enemies staking territory in lands once pacified by his might. Each flare of light was a declaration.

The war for the world had become a war for reality itself.

"They want to dethrone you," Azael said grimly. "And they know you’re losing control."

Darius’s hand clenched, his aura vibrating with volatile power.

"Then let them come," he said. "Let them try."

But even as he vowed vengeance, his body showed the toll. The corrupted essence from his fight with the Revenant King lingered inside him like venom. His veins glowed faintly with unnatural light. His divine code was shifting—slowly, erratically, painfully.

Celestia stirred in the sanctum behind him. "You can’t fight them all," she whispered. "Not like this. Not alone."

"I’m not alone," he said, and turned to her with fire in his eyes. "You’re still here. Nyx is still here. And we will take this war to the next level."

"But how?"

Darius’s gaze burned into hers.

"We make a Crimson Pact."

The Revenant King stood at the edge of a fractured realm, flanked by grotesque silhouettes of shattered deities. A mirror shimmered in front of him—one forged from a shard of the Prime Coder’s core.

He watched as Darius gathered his loyal consorts, stepping into the ritual chamber at the heart of the sanctum.

"So... you choose madness," the Revenant King whispered. "Good."

A female voice, ancient and full of venom, echoed behind him.

"He’ll fall. Just as he always was meant to."

The Revenant King smirked. "Let the God of Death break himself. We’ll inherit what’s left."