CHAPTER 139: THE RIFT BENEATH THE THRONE

The blade slipped through Caelum’s chest with a sound like thunder cracking through the sky.

But it wasn’t blood that poured from the wound.

It was light—twisting, screaming, impossibly old light. A torrent of divine energy unfurled from the gash, not gold or white or shadow, but something deeper. Something wrong. Like the silence before the world was born. Like the howl of stars dying.

"No," Caelum whispered, eyes wide. Not in pain. In horror.

And then—he smiled.

Too late.

Athena tried to pull the blade free, but the handle seared against her palm. The weapon pulsed, alive, veins of ancient language crawling up the steel. The divine symbols she’d forged herself now unraveled, burning with knowledge no god should ever possess.

The earth cracked. The realm trembled.

And then the throne room split open—vertically, like the world itself had been ripped down the spine.

A rift yawned wide behind Caelum’s body, swallowing him whole. Not with death. With return.

She staggered back, blade in hand, now cold and lifeless.

Out of the darkness, something slithered.

It wasn’t physical. It had no shape she could define, no name she could pronounce. But she felt it—felt the presence of something older than the gods. Something that had been locked away for a reason.

Whispers clawed through the air.

"You opened it..."

"She’s the key..."

"Ours..."

Athena’s knees buckled as the pressure crushed her chest. She dropped the blade. Her divine fire surged up to meet the force—but was smothered like a candle in a hurricane.

From within the rift, forms began to take shape.

Not gods. Not demons.

Primordials.

Creatures from before creation. Beings the pantheon had locked away at the dawn of time, not destroyed—because they couldn’t be.

And now... Athena had freed them.

The rift widened further. One by one, they stepped through—immense, radiant in their horror. One had no face, only mirrors that showed Athena a hundred versions of herself: failing, breaking, dying. Another bled ash with every step. A third didn’t move at all, but its presence bent reality around it.

Her divine instincts screamed to flee—but her feet wouldn’t obey. Not out of fear.

Out of guilt.

She had thought slaying Caelum would end it.

Instead, it had begun something far worse.

"You," said the faceless one, voice like a chorus of memories. "You are the fracture."

"I didn’t mean to open it," Athena whispered.

"Yet you did. You severed soul from self. Light from shadow. In doing so, you unbound the lock."

The shadows flared around her, coiling like serpents at her feet. The divine power she’d inherited rose to her defense, but it wasn’t enough.

Because something else inside her had awakened.

The shadow Caelum had once weaponized had become part of her—fused to her divinity. And now it... recognized them.

So did they.

"She is ours," hissed the ash-bleeder.

Athena summoned her wings—those radiant arcs of silvery flame—but they flickered against the storm. She turned to retreat, to close the rift, but the crack was pulsing. Alive.

A massive hand reached through—black and boned and crowned with stars. The creature attached to it hadn’t yet passed through. And thank the heavens—it couldn’t. Not fully. Not yet.

Athena gritted her teeth and pushed forward, toward the epicenter.

The throne behind her exploded. Pillars shattered.

But she didn’t stop.

She couldn’t stop.

If she let this finish, the gods wouldn’t just fall—the realms would.

She dove into the heart of the rift.

The world turned inside out.

Time did not exist here. Nor form. Nor thought.

Yet Athena was aware.

She stood in a liminal space between life and oblivion, surrounded by a storm of endless screaming winds. Voices begged for escape. Hands clawed from nothingness.

"Athena..."

A single whisper cut through the storm. Familiar. Male.

Lucas?

She turned—but the form that approached wasn’t him.

It was her shadow.

A perfect mirror, cloaked in darkness, wearing her face but eyes of deepest void.

"You were always the key," the shadow said. "To fix this... you must become what you fear."

Athena clenched her fists. "You mean you."

"No," it said, stepping closer. "I mean us."

The rift shuddered again. Behind her, the Primordials stirred, clawing toward the world. One had begun to breach the barrier into the realm of mortals. She could sense the ripple—wolves crying out in confusion. Stars dimming.

She had one chance.

Only one.

Athena reached out and took the shadow’s hand.

It burned like acid.

It soothed like honey.

It shattered what was left of her mortality.

The sky above the divine realm exploded as she emerged from the rift again—not as goddess or girl—but as something else.

Her hair was no longer silver, but woven through with strands of shadow. Her wings were torn through with violet flame. Her eyes burned gold—but behind the gold, black suns churned.

She raised a hand.

And the rift obeyed.

The Primordials howled as the breach began to close.

"No!" screamed the one of mirrors. "You were ours!"

"I was never yours," Athena said. "I am mine. I am the lock. I am the blade. I am the fire."

They fought back.

A hundred tendrils of pre-creation shot toward her—but she stood unmoving, arms outstretched, a circle of fire and shadow spinning around her. The air bent. Light screamed. Time fractured.

The rift began to stitch itself closed.

One of the gods inside screamed her true name—and she felt it vibrate in her bones.

But still, she did not stop.

She closed her fist.

And with a sound like the universe exhaling, the rift snapped shut.

Silence followed.

She fell to her knees.

The divine realm was in ruins—temples flattened, skies scorched. Gods cowered in corners. None dared approach her.

Except one.

Lucas emerged from the ruined archway, dust on his coat, sword still in hand.

"You’re alive," he said, voice raw.

Athena rose slowly, fire flickering behind her eyes. "Am I?"

He stepped forward cautiously. "You stopped them."

"I unleashed them," she said. "Now I’ve only bought us time."

"Time is enough," he said. "We’ll figure it out."

She looked at him—really looked—and something in her eyes flickered.

Recognition. Faint. Faded. But there.

"Lucas," she whispered, like a name remembered from a dream.

He nodded, emotion choking him. "Yes."

But even as he reached for her...

She turned away.

Because across the shattered realm, the stars were weeping.

The gods had taken shelter.

And on the horizon, something else was stirring.

Not a Primordial.

Something older.

Something that had called her name long before even the gods knew language.

Athena, newly reborn, stood amidst the wreckage of victory.

And knew it was only the beginning.

The silence didn’t last.

It never does—not in a realm where gods tremble and stars bleed.

The wind stirred first, faint and icy, whispering across the scorched stones like a forgotten hymn. Then came the scent—iron and thunder and something deeper. Memory. Not hers. The world’s.

Lucas stood still as Athena turned her gaze to the horizon.

The weeping stars began to drift—one by one, flickering like dying candles. The sky, once a canvas of divine light, now split again—not with a wound, but with a symbol.

A mark.

Etched across the heavens like a scar: three interlocking circles, burning black.

Lucas whispered, "What is that?"

Athena didn’t answer.

She couldn’t.

Because something inside her recognized it—not as a threat, not as a mystery.

As a summons.

"I know that symbol," she murmured, voice brittle. "But it’s not mine. It’s older than my soul."

Behind her, gods slowly rose from the ruins. The twin goddess of wind limped toward her, wings tattered, blood trickling from her nose. Her voice shook as she spoke.

"That mark hasn’t been seen since the Dawnfall."

Athena’s brows furrowed. "The what?"

"The moment before time," whispered another god—a hunched figure of dust and vines. "Before even the Primordials crawled into being. There was a Will behind the veil. We never gave it a name, because to name it would awaken it."

The mark pulsed again in the sky.

And the earth answered.

A sound began to rise from deep beneath the divine realm—a low, groaning hum, like a cathedral built from bones beginning to breathe.

Lucas stepped protectively in front of Athena, but she gently moved past him.

"I have to go to it," she said.

He grabbed her wrist. "Athena, no. We just survived the impossible. You don’t even know what you are now."

"I know enough," she said, not harshly, but with a weight in her voice that made even the gods hush. "I know that blade wasn’t meant to kill Caelum. It was meant to unlock something. I know the rift wasn’t the true door—just the handle. And I know whatever’s calling me now... it’s not finished."

Her voice faltered.

"Neither am I."

She pulled away.

A path opened beneath her feet—not created, but revealed—stones older than the realm itself rising to form a stair into the chasm where the throne had once stood.

Lucas started after her. "Then I’m coming with you."

"No," she said, turning. "Not this time."

He froze.

Athena’s expression softened. She reached out, fingers brushing the edge of his sleeve. "If I don’t return... find the mortal realms. Protect them. I don’t know if what’s waking can be fought. But it can be delayed."