CHAPTER 261: CHAPTER 257 – WHEN THE GODS DESCEND

The air stopped pulsing

Not from the cold but because the world itself seemed to hold its breath.

Thick smoke slowly drifted away, leaving behind the metallic scent of scorched iron and the bitter ash of magic, sharp enough to sting the lungs with every breath.

Sylvia stood at the center of a vast crater, the remains of the valley now melted and charred.

The stone around her had turned to molten glass, proof of the sheer destruction caused by the Nether Flame she had unleashed.

A dim violet glow clung to her body, while the black chains in the air drifted slowly, almost as if they were observing the aftermath.

No sound, No life.

Only the silence of a broken world.

Six burnt corpses lay not far from her armor melted, swords shattered, faces unrecognizable.

Sylvia inhaled deeply, her shoulders dropping.

"...It’s over," she whispered softly.

But before that fragile relief could settle

The ground began to shake.

Dum!

Dum!!

DUUUUUMMM!!!

The sound was heavy like a colossal heartbeat echoing from beneath the earth.

From each of the six scorched bodies, blinding white light burst forth, piercing through their burned flesh and stabbing toward the heavens.

Sylvia frozen.

"No..."

The light grew brighter, swallowing the world’s colors red, black, everything drowned in blinding white.

The web of chains around Sylvia trembled, their stability breaking apart.

From within the pillars of light came ancient whispers gentle, yet powerful enough to shake the fabric of the world.

"Behold the world drenched in sin. We descend not with mercy, but to restore balance."

Sylvia took a step back, her hand lifting defensively.

The presence emanating from the light... was no longer human.

It was primordial divinity, a weight that pressed down on the soul itself.

The charred bodies began to move.

Their cracked skin shone, reforming into glowing flesh.

Armor of divine light reshaped around them, and their once-empty eyes blazed with a will far beyond mortal comprehension.

Sylvia understood immediately.

They were no longer paladins.

They were the gods themselves.

Velgrath, the Eternal Night, spoke through Darian’s body. His hair stretched like flowing mist, his black eyes devoid of pupils.

"So this is the so-called Queen of Death? An immortal soul within a mortal shell. Intriguing."

Korthan, the Flame of War, ignited the air around Thalion.

"You think you can burn us with fire? Our fire is the origin of all battles."

Nerys, the Endless Sea, took form within Eryndor, dark waters dripping from his skin like stars in the abyss.

"Queen of Death... even the ocean remembers your name."

Xynareth, the Goddess of the Void, spoke through Lysera, her voice echoing in Sylvia’s mind in a thousand layers.

"The void cannot be slain; you only widen its reach."

Olmerath, the Keeper of Boundaries, gazed coldly.

"You crossed the line between life and death. I am here to close it."

And lastly, Zha’gor, the End and the Beginning, spoke through Kaelthas.

"Every story ends, Sylvia Hortensia. And your end... shall be the dawn of a new world."

The chains surrounding Sylvia rose, forming a defensive barrier.

"So you descended yourselves to the mortal plane... just to stop me?"

Velgrath chuckled softly.

"To erase you."

Then

BOOOOMMM!

The earth split apart. Sylvia was thrown backward, smashing through stone. Her chains shattered, blood black and heavy dripped from her lips.

"Their speed..." she muttered through gritted teeth.

She summoned the Abyssal Chains, but Korthan was already in front of her

One punch.

BOOM!

Sylvia caught herself with her chains, but the holy flames seared her skin and tore her clothes. She gave a breathless laugh.

"So this is what it feels like to fight the one who created fire..."

Nerys’s black tide surged toward her. Sylvia unleashed Death Aura, but the water absorbed it turning into liquid hands that clawed toward her body.

She teleported behind Zha’gor and pierced through his chest with her Eclipse Piercing Blade but what spilled wasn’t blood.

It was light, and it healed itself instantly.

"They... can’t die."

Velgrath’s voice cut through the chaos.

"You are an anomaly, a fragment of a foreign world. You don’t belong here."

Sylvia’s tone was sharp and cold.

"And you are no gods. Just parasites feeding on human prayers."

The divine resonance shook the air. The magic around her twisted, bending the very space she stood on and for the first time, Sylvia lost balance.

Her chains dropped to the ground, their glow dimming.

"No... I can’t die here," she murmured.

Names flashed in her mind Celes, Aurellia, Alicia, Stacia, Sofia all still fighting and still waiting.

"I can’t stop yet."

But the gods’ light grew blinding. Korthan raised his holy blade; Velgrath summoned a vortex of darkness. They moved to strike as one.

Sylvia’s breathing turned heavy. She prepared to use Void Steps, her final teleportation

Then, a soft voice cut through the storm.

A gentle laugh is warm, but enough to shake reality itself.

"Leave this to me... my daughter."

Time stopped. The divine light froze in place.

Sylvia turned and from behind the violet mist, a woman emerged.

Pale as moonlight, with long black hair and eyes like shining obsidian.

Every step she took made black flowers bloom on the scorched earth.

The Goddess Persephone.

The Goddess of Life and Death from Sylvia’s original world.

Sylvia stood frozen.

"...Lady Persephone?!"

A tender smile curved upon the goddess’s lips.

"I told you... I always hear the cries of my children."

Her voice was gentle yet it shattered the air like both a blessing and a curse.

The gods of this world recoiled. Their lights trembled, the symbols in the heavens began to crack.

Velgrath’s composure broke.

"You... you cannot cross worlds!"

Persephone tilted her head slightly, still smiling.

"Oh, Velgrath... borders are mere agreements between gods.

And I don’t recall ever agreeing to any of yours."

The sky shook.

The divine light split and dimmed one after another.

Sylvia stared wordlessly, trembling but for the first time, not out of fear.

Persephone stepped forward.

Dark, soft light flowed from her fingertips, swallowing the surrounding holy glow.

"Now," she said calmly, "kneel... or return to your heavens before I tear your roots out one by one."

The heavens groaned.

The chains around Sylvia trembled in harmony with that overwhelming divine force.

She looked up at the goddess the one even other gods feared. And for the first time, amid all ruin, Sylvia felt safe.

Before Persephone, the six gods the beings even Sylvia couldn’t kill finally showed something she had never seen from them before:

Fear.

...

The sky cracked.

Not physically, but conceptually.

Lines of white light split the crimson heavens, then turned black like ink bleeding into water.

Persephone gazed at the six gods, each standing in their circles of divine light.

Her face remained gentle, but the air trembled with her mere presence.

Black flowers bloomed around her feet then withered in seconds, leaving behind a sweet scent of death.

Sylvia could only watch, frozen.

Her broken body, torn skin, and fading magic no longer mattered. Because this was no longer a battle this was a meeting of two realities.

Persephone’s footsteps were nearly silent, yet every one made the world quake. A faint chime of metal rang with each step. Every sound, every motion spells unto itself.

The gods did not move.

Their light flickered like candles struggling in a storm of shadow.

"How curious," Persephone murmured softly. "Mortal vessels for divine descent... A desperate gamble, even for gods."

She turned slightly toward Sylvia, her smile unchanged.

"They feared you so much, my child, that they broke heaven’s laws to stop you... and to delay me."

The words stirred something deep within Sylvia, a mixture of disbelief and relief.

"Lady Persephone..." Her voice cracked. "You shouldn’t be here..."

Persephone raised her hand, tracing a glowing sigil in the air soft violet light spreading like petals.

"I shouldn’t," she admitted gently. "But you are a part of me, Sylvia. When you evolved, you built a bridge between my realm and this one. And that bridge... called me here."

Sylvia stared in silence, emotion welling inside her chest a warmth she had long forgotten.

Velgrath bowed his head slightly, his black hair fluttering under the pressure.

"Foreign goddess... you trespass upon divine dominion. This world is not yours."

Persephone’s tone never changed, but the atmosphere had a pressure not born of anger, but of absolute superiority.

"This world is not mine, true," she said softly.

"But death..." a stream of black light coiled from her fingertip

"...belongs to me, wherever it takes root."

The sky darkened completely.

The light of the gods went out snuffed like candles in the wind.

Korthan growled, his fiery aura flaring as he struggled against her power.

"Don’t mock us, foreign goddess! This is not your domain!"

Persephone looked at him as if he were dust.

"I’m not mocking you, Korthan. I am simply real."

She waved her hand gracefully and from the scorched earth, thousands of blackened hands emerged from freshly bloomed flowers of decay.

Those hands reached up, grasping the divine flames of Korthan, and slowly extinguished them like water smothering embers.