A massive serpent slithered through the thick mist of Aether in the stratosphere. It was hundreds of meters long and packed with thick, verdant-green scales that spanned several meters. The scales looked like well-polished gemstones, though they were as tough as divine steel. Viscous liquid oozed from the serpent’s massive body, corroding the land and lifeforms the car-sized droplets struck.

  The viscous liquid wreaked havoc. It killed the innocent, striking them suddenly and fiercely, corroding flesh, bones, and souls.

  The serpent enjoyed the bonds of Corruption as they formed from its actions, and it glanced down upon the Earthen Union as it covered the lands claimed by the End. Forces of the Origin clashed with the End, and the serpent intervened. It called upon the Laws of Thousand Poisons and transformed its body into the host of death. Words of Power escaped the serpent’s massive maw as dark-green liquids poured out of its body, and it was covered in corrosive fluid within seconds.

  The beast did not descend as it crossed the battlefield of Origin and End. Instead, it unleashed poison in a deadly spray. Green droplets poured onto the battlefield from high above like a cloud—a poisonous cloud that sought chaos and corruption.

  The screams of pain and struggle never reached the serpent as it never stopped moving, but it sensed the dying fluctuations and the short-lived bonds of Corruption through the Weave. Thousands upon thousands of creatures, be they lifeforms of the Origin or abominations of the End, died to Poisonous Cloud, and it filled the serpent with excitement. Or was this just a remnant of what excitement once felt?

  The serpent didn’t know. However, what it knew was that the enemy was neither the Origin nor the End. It didn’t care about the Voidlings, the Titans, Old Ones, or the Ancient Gods. All Zephyr cared about was power.

  He may be a young Beast God, but he knew the meaning of true power better than anyone, and he would have acquired the strength needed to advance and claim the very power everyone feared if it hadn’t been for the Healer.

  First, the fool interrupts my plans, then someone who should have never survived the Integration killed my toys. He snarled but then shook his head. The death of his offspring mattered little. Watching the deaths caused by William was as blissful as always. It filled him with more power than he’d carved out of his Divinity to form William’s Divinity Fragment, but that was not enough. Zephyr wanted more, and he should not have had any issues acquiring that power—all of it!

  If it hadn’t been for the Healer, Zephyr would have consumed William. He would have claimed the specks of the Arcanas of dozens of gods, and he would have made them all his. A deep growl escaped his maw as he thought about the Healer. However, as much as he disliked the very existence of the man who should never have survived the Integration, Zephyr was equally happy that he survived.

  The Healer survived the Naughtrealm, he claimed the Perfect Divine Seed of Fallen Keros, and he successfully created a vessel to contain and produce the power the Origin feared the most. As long as he found the Healer, the Poisonous Beast God could make up for his losses. As long as he consumed the Healer, he could become a being feared by both the Origin and the End.

  A tear in the Weave caught Zephyr’s attention. He paid it little notice at first, but then he recognized a familiar set of movements in the Weave from the left. His massive head flicked that way, and he analyzed the strain. It was severe and impacted the Weave in ways that could have only been caused by an Overlord, and the misuse of a god’s Divinity.

  But something about the Weave was wrong. It was strained, yet the weight of an Overlord’s presence, whether dead or alive, did not linger. That could mean many things; however, Zephyr could only think about one—the Overlord was dead, its corpse no more. But that was impossible. Godfather was no longer among them, and he was one of the few Titans with the power to remove the taint of the Void Overlords.

  The Poisonous Beast God would have sensed the descent of a Titan. The Weave would have informed all those strong enough to glimpse into it, yet nothing like that happened. On the contrary, the Weave was silent. So silent, it was hard to imagine a Void Overlord had been killed in the last… few hours? Zephyr’s large, reptilian eyes bulged first, then narrowed to tiny slits.

  Might surged out of him, forming illusions of tiny, yet rapidly moving, snakes all around him. They surged outward and latched onto the Weave, forcefully extracting information in exchange for a hefty price.

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  “I found you!” he hissed, a trace of what could only be ecstasy filling him. “Wait for me, little Healer. I am coming for you!”

  The Healer’s Perfect Seed was as good as his. So was the End’s power!

  His body turned and power rattled through his scales as he shot toward his target. He descended slowly from the stratosphere, ignoring all those creatures he could have Corrupted. Something akin to excitement, rooted deep in his heart, filled him for the first time in a long while, and he lowered his body to join the chaos down below.

  Wastelands unraveled around him, along with patches of flourishing land that had somehow survived the encirclement of the End, until, only hours into his straightforward journey, he arrived near a large isolated region surrounded by towering mountains. The Weave surrounding the region ahead bore signs of the End’s ravaging powers, yet the wastelands had vanished, and the torn and damaged sections were slowly mending themselves.

  The Overlord had died hundreds of kilometers to the east, but nobody cared about the Voidling. The Poisonous Beast God didn’t care about the Minor God of Fire, the Fiery Ascendants, or the Divinities further away. All he cared about was the Healer, and…maybe the golden letters that manifested before his eyes. He slowed, eyes narrowed, and stared at the pairs of brilliant wings as they formed around the golden letters.

  I know you do not care about the Primal Laws, but you are not to fight in David’s territory.

  I protect the domain of Kamia.

  If you do not heed this warning, I, Goddess of the Union, Founder of the Pantheon, will not sit idle.

  You shall—

  “Silence!” Zephyr roared and lunged at the golden letters. His fangs, coated in liquid death, snapped shut around the letters, swallowing and disintegrating them long before they could fully form.

  The Healer would suffer, and nobody would stop Zephyr from consuming him. The Founders were troublesome, but so be it. Zephyr swore to himself to devour him. Either the Healer followed him elsewhere, or Zephyr would drown the entire region in the Law of Thousand Poisons. The Poisonous Beast God couldn’t care less.

  The End was bleak. It was a vast expanse that stretched farther than most galaxies, yet it contained less life than most solar systems. No stars twinkled in the distance. Instead, nothingness could be found everywhere. Where planets, once habitable or not, had stood proudly before, fragments were all that prevailed.

  Nothing survived long in the heart of the End, especially those foolish enough to step into the void wielding power from other galaxies. Those tightly intertwined with the power of their galaxies were usually the tastiest. They were also the easiest to consume, regardless of their strength.

  Gods, Celestials, Rulers, Supremos—whatever they were called in their galaxies—fell victim to the void. After all, the void was where all things ended up at some point. At the end of their lives, all that waited for them was the End.

  But a light shimmering in a distant galaxy interrupted the End. It disturbed the tranquility that had been established eons ago, and it cast aside the all-consuming darkness that encapsulated all.

  A disturbance had been detected. A variable unlike the old, primal creatures of the Otherside. Something that resembled the spark that appeared in the dungeon of the insignificant ‘god,’ who had experimented with their power. The creature failed to claim that power, fell victim to the End’s vastness, and was transformed into a tool used against the galaxy that had escaped the End one too many times. The dungeon fell, and so did their tool, and it took the spark with them. Or so it should have been. Clearly, something went wrong. The spark survived, and it grew strong enough to disturb the schemes of the End.

  The spark had become an enemy—a being with the means to control the Power. Something so loosely intertwined with the structure that connected the Otherside…it could step into the End unharmed if it wanted. Yet, it was close enough to harness the Otherside’s Power as well.

  It claimed two Powers, and it used them to consume one of the End’s Overlords to grow both. That had to be stopped immediately, and so the Power of the End stirred.

  The Fissure on the Origin’s side stirred. It let out a sound only Voidlings could hear, and that they did. They stopped in their tracks, their heads flicking toward the Fissure as the sound shifted. It grew louder, changed in tune, and informed the Voidlings of everything they needed to know.

  As the sounds ceased, the Voidlings released deafening roars from the bottom of their hearts. Tens of thousands of Voidlings were killed in the spur of the moment as their enemies took advantage of the situation, but they did not seem to mind. Only as the roars of Overlords resounded did the Saplings and Fragments regain their senses, and the slaughter resumed.

  The Overlords, however, never returned to the battlefield. Those looming in the void of space and the shadows of those too powerful to ignore charged toward the Earthen Union, while the rest emerged from the wastelands. They moved fast and deliberate, and they all headed in the same direction: the ocean separating the continents.

  Even the gods lurking near the Earthen Union stirred. They stepped forward, their Divine Forms unraveling, and attacked the Overlords, stalling time when most did not have the means to eliminate them. But they could not stop everyone. Some Overlords fell victim to impatience and foolishness, but others bypassed divine defenses and tore through those trying to stop their advances.

  Death was ever-present, and chaos ruled supreme.

  Times were changing, and victory was drawing close…but for whom?

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