“Splitting up is dumb,” Crisper said casually, arms crossed like this was an obvious conclusion.

  Jamal looked over from where he was leaning against the wall. “How we supposed to move the elf?”

  “She’s got a name,” North said flatly.

  Jamal squinted. “Yo, blood, not gonna lie—you got one more time to get big with me.”

  North shrugged, already halfway to saying something stupid—

  —and Destiny shot both of them a look sharp enough to cut steel.

  “We need to get to the signal towers,” Destiny said, voice steady again. “I personally don’t have a god to speak to. Crisper doesn’t either.”

  Her gaze slid to Ozzy.

  “So why do we all need to go?”

  Ozzy didn’t smile this time.

  “Well,” he said evenly, “Jack apparently could be the traitor. And no offense—but if that kid’s gotten stronger… besides me, and possibly you and Tabia, I’m not sure anyone else survives a direct encounter.”

  North scoffed immediately. “I’m not what I used to be, sure—but I’m not letting some punk-ass kid beat me.”

  Ozzy lifted a finger, cutting him off without raising his voice. “It’s not about what you want. It’s about reality.”

  North clenched his jaw.

  “Reality is,” Ozzy continued, “until S?urtinaui wakes up, we need to be as cautious as possible.”

  North exhaled hard through his nose.

  He hated it.

  But Ozzy wasn’t wrong.

  Still—leaving her behind felt wrong. Every instinct in him pushed back against it.

  Before he could argue, Tabia stood up from the couch.

  “If me and the gamer Outlander—”

  “Name’s Crisper, damn,” Crisper muttered.

  Tabia didn’t even blink. “—fine. Me and Crisper can likely work together to make accommodations for her.”

  Crisper tilted her head. “We will?”

  “Yes,” Tabia said simply.

  She turned toward North, eyes burning with quiet resolve.

  “North must meet our goddess.”

  The words carried weight.

  “The losses we have suffered,” Tabia continued, voice low but unwavering, “were paid in blood for this meeting. Delaying it further would be a disgrace to the fallen.”

  The room went still.

  No one argued.

  Because they all felt it.

  The dead weren’t just memories.

  They were momentum.

  Ozzy nodded once. “Then it’s settled.”

  He looked around the room, blindfold turned toward each of them.

  “We move smart. We move together where it counts. And we don’t let grief make decisions for us.”

  North glanced back at S?urtinaui.

  “…Don’t die,” he muttered under his breath.

  Destiny stepped closer and placed a hand on his arm.

  “She won’t,” she said quietly.

  As Tabia and Crisper worked inside—quiet voices, soft Ryun light, the low hum of something being built to keep S?urtinaui mobile—North slipped out and sat on the step.

  The stone was cold.

  The sky was doing that Requiem thing where it looked too big, like it was waiting for something to break.

  Jamal came out a moment later and leaned against the railing. For a bit, neither of them spoke.

  Then Jamal exhaled.

  “I’ma keep it a buck, G.”

  North glanced sideways. “Yeah?”

  “I don’t want ya girl, bro.”

  North snorted, the tension easing just a fraction. “It’s cool. She’s not my girl anyway.”

  Jamal scoffed. “You say that, but you been grillin’ me since we got here. You wasn’t on this type time when we first met.”

  North didn’t answer right away.

  Jamal pushed off the railing and turned more fully toward him. “I got trust issues, blood. So I’m makin’ sure I can trust you. Or else imma have to backdoor yuh.”

  North met his eyes.

  “You don’t gotta like me or nothin’,” Jamal continued, voice steady, not hostile. “But I ain’t tryna get stabbed in the back. And I ain’t tryna keep mixin’ over goofy shit.”

  North sighed, rubbed a hand over his face. “Nah. That’s fair.”

  He leaned back.

  “It’s not you,” he admitted. “It’s more what you represent.”

  Jamal blinked. “A real ass motherfucker?”

  North laughed. “Bro—what? Nah.” He shook his head. “It’s more like… you just be you. And I’ve been struggling to be me.”

  “Right,” Jamal said. “’Cause you a jujubutt.”

  “Shut the hell up.”

  They both laughed, the sound cutting through the heaviness.

  North sobered a little. “But seriously. You’re just… real. Being around you makes me homesick. Earth and all that.” He stared out into the distance. “I had a friend named Marcus. You remind me of him. Just… way more hood.”

  Jamal grinned. “I’m one of a kind, blood. They couldn’t make a Juju of me if they wanted to.”

  “I hate you,” North laughed. “And it’s Jujisn.”

  “I know what I said,” Jamal shot back, then tilted his head. “But we straight? At least ‘til this is over.”

  North nodded. “Yeah. We good. And… my bad for standing by when you got thrown into the Story.”

  Jamal waved it off. “Blood, I’m past that. And I don’t know you like that forreal. That fell more on D.” He smirked. “And again—I ain’t tryna get with her. That’s sis vibes, you hear me.”

  “All good,” North said. “I doubt she’s even feelin’ me like that.”

  Jamal snorted. “Probably not. ‘Cause y’all fucked and her hair still neat.”

  North pointed at him. “Watch yourself.”

  “I’m just sayin’—when I pop, I put pain on em. Hair woulda looked like it was caught in a cyclone.”

  They went back and forth like that—laughing, bidding, trading stupid jabs—two guys sitting on a step at the edge of the end of the world, finding a little normal in the wreckage.

  They were just getting up to head back inside when the door creaked open and Ozzy stepped out, blindfold tilted upward like he was smiling at the whole ruined street.

  “Alright, crew,” he announced. “Good news.”

  Jamal squinted. “If this is another near-death lesson, I’m cool.”

  Ozzy laughed. “Nah. Better. Tabia and Crisper have constructed a make-shift floating healing cot of wonder.”

  “…A what?” North asked.

  Behind Ozzy, Tabia, Destiny and Crisper emerged together.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  The cot hovered a foot off the ground—woven coral lattice beneath, angular Ryun constructs above, stabilizers humming softly at the corners. S?urtinaui lay at its center, suspended in a gentle cradle of light, her breathing steady.

  Tabia gestured to it calmly. “In simple terms: it floats, it stabilizes her aura, it prevents further spiritual bleed, and it allows passive healing while in motion.”

  Crisper added, “And if something explodes nearby, it won’t tip over. Probably.”

  “Probably,” Jamal echoed.

  “I can only do so much…”

  Ozzy clapped his hands together. “With that settled—we’re off to the Towers.”

  No one argued.

  But Ozzy turned to North before they moved.

  “However,” he said lightly, “this time, I’d like you to do something on purpose.”

  North frowned. “I don’t like where this sentence is going.”

  Ozzy pointed down the ruined street, toward the horizon where broken silhouettes of fallen Towers still scarred the land. One remained.

  They moved into the open street. The cot hovered in the center of the group, Tabia walking beside it, hands occasionally lifting to adjust the Ryun flow.

  “Most of the Towers are gone,” Ozzy said. “But that one’s still accessible. If you bend space like you did when we went for Destiny, we should reach it without trouble.”

  North stared. “…You say that like I know how I did that.”

  “You’ll figure it out,” Ozzy replied cheerfully.

  North muttered something under his breath and stepped forward.

  He closed his eyes.

  Nothing happened.

  He opened one eye. “Okay, so—”

  The space in front of them folded inward for half a second, then snapped back with a thunderclap, knocking Jamal off balance.

  “Whoa—nah,” Jamal said. “Don’t do that again.”

  “—not that,” North said quickly. “My bad…”

  “Trial and error!” Ozzy encouraged.

  North exhaled, tried again. He focused on distance, not destination. On compression instead of force.

  The air shimmered.

  The street warped.

  Then collapsed inward like someone had folded reality the wrong way.

  He reappeared three feet to the left.

  Destiny blinked. “Progress?”

  “Shut up,” North muttered.

  He tried again.

  Crisper squinted. “You’re squeezing it. You gotta… coax it.”

  North opened one eye. “How the hell do you know that?”

  She shrugged. “Gamer intuition.”

  That made his heart flutter and a stupid smile tug at his lips.

  He tried again.

  This time slower. Feeling the tension, the pull, the invisible resistance between here and there. His sigils rotated faintly beneath his eyes.

  The world stretched.

  Snapped.

  They lurched forward—half a block.

  Jamal grinned. “Ay! That was clean.”

  Destiny and Tabia nodded.

  North didn’t smile, but his shoulders loosened. “Okay. Okay. I feel it now.”

  As he concentrated for the next attempt, Crisper glanced toward the horizon, her expression tightening.

  “By the way,” she said casually, “I think the being in black was The Lands Herald.”

  Destiny turned her head toward her instantly. “You sure?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. A being in black like that isn’t hard to forget.”

  Silence rippled through the group.

  North opened his eyes. “Define bad. This thing strong?”

  Ozzy's smile faltered.

  Destiny didn’t answer immediately.

  Crisper smiled—but it didn’t reach far. “Define ‘event-level problem that doesn’t stay dead.’”

  North rolled his neck once, then lifted his hand again.

  “Alright,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”

  The sigils in his eyes flared.

  Space folded—clean this time.

  He remembered the feeling instead of the action. The tug. The alignment. Like grabbing the corner of a map and pulling two points together until they overlapped.

  The world shuddered.

  The ruined town vanished.

  And the Tower rushed toward them.

  Destiny blinked as the space-warp settled.

  North glanced sideways at her. “What?”

  She shook her head slowly. “Nothing. Just… makes your movements make a lot more sense.”

  He smirked, that cocky, dangerous glint slipping into his eyes.

  She rolled hers. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  Ozzy stepped forward, attention fully captured by the structure before them.

  The Signal Tower loomed out of the scorched stone of Delark like a fossilized claw torn from some dead god. Pale-gold veins pulsed along its surface, swirling in patterns that never repeated, equations too old and too wrong for mortal logic. The material wasn’t stone—not really. It looked grown, not built. Each twisted segment floated half-detached from the next, like a spine pulled apart and stitched back together by something that didn’t care about gravity.

  The Tower sang.

  Softly.

  A sound that slid between perception and thought.

  No one could follow the tune.

  No one—

  Except North.

  The moment he stepped closer, the air vibrated and a voice slammed into existence, not spoken but declared, carved straight into reality.

  |—————————-|

  | BOW BEFORE THE KING — BOW BEFORE THE KING |

  Destiny stiffened.

  The ground trembled.

  Then the Tower reacted.

  A deep, resonant gong echoed outward, the structure shuddering as its geometry shifted. Segments realigned, angles softened, the song changing key—as if the Tower itself had reconsidered its audience.

  The proclamation rewrote itself.

  |—————————-|

  | KNEEL BEFORE THE PRINCE OF BLOOD — KNEEL BEFORE THE PRINCE OF BLOOD |

  Destiny turned slowly toward North. “What did you do?”

  North shrugged, almost apologetic. “I just exist.”

  He looked at Ozzy. “Your goddess in there?”

  Ozzy scratched his chin. “Yessir. Towers make you talk. Part of the mission was always getting you inside one.”

  “Shit, blood, I’m going too,” Jamal said immediately.

  Tabia started, “Mi’Lentra isn’t interested—”

  “Relax,” Jamal cut in, holding up a hand. “I ain’t askin’ for her. Askin’ for anyone else. Don’t get your panties in a twist. We need all the help we can get.”

  Tabia’s glare could’ve cut diamond.

  “I’m not bailing on y’all. I wanna see where this goes… and I got nowhere else to go.”

  Ozzy, meanwhile, was smiling like this was exactly the chaos he’d signed up for. “Well then. Go on, you crazy kids. Time can’t be wasted.”

  North and Jamal exchanged a look.

  They turned together and walked toward the Tower.

  The Signal Tower’s song deepened, veins of gold flaring brighter as the Blood Prince approached—The door to the tower didn’t open.

  It folded.

  Space buckled inward like a sheet being creased by an invisible hand, reality peeling back on itself until a passage existed where none should have been.

  Jamal stared at it.

  “…This shit weird, blood.”

  North exhaled slowly. “Who you tellin.”

  They stepped through.

  Inside, the Signal Tower abandoned even the pretense of normalcy. The structure was narrow and endless at the same time—walls stretching away while somehow pressing close. Angles bled into one another. Lines curved where lines had no right to curve. Gravity itself felt undecided, tugging sideways, upward, then letting go entirely.

  At the center of the space floated a single obsidian disc, wide as a carriage wheel, suspended in nothing.

  They turned—

  —and the other was gone.

  No flash.

  No distortion.

  Just absence.

  North didn’t react. Neither did Jamal.

  Both walked forward without hesitation and stepped onto the disc.

  It accepted their weight with a deep, resonant hum—felt more in the bones than heard. Then the disc rose, lifting them upward into the tower’s spiraling abyss.

  The ascent was smooth. Endless.

  Then it stopped.

  Silence swallowed everything.

  They emerged into a vast white expanse—limitless, clean, oppressive in its emptiness. There was no ground beneath them, yet they stood. No air around them, yet they breathed. Above, in a sky that wasn’t a sky, black stars shimmered like spilled ink on a blank page.

  No system prompt appeared.

  No divine voice welcomed them.

  No herald announced judgment.

  But the presence was undeniable.

  Then the space itself spoke—not aloud, but into them.

  Call out for your patron.

  The words echoed once.

  ————

  North stood alone.

  The white stretched endlessly around him, the black stars pulsing faintly overhead. The tower’s hum was gone. Even his own breath sounded distant, like it belonged to someone else.

  He clenched his jaw.

  “…Figures.”

  Somewhere beyond sight, something shifted. Not hostile. Not welcoming.

  Expectant.

  North lifted his gaze.

  “Alright,” he muttered, voice steady despite the weight pressing against his chest. “You’ve been watching the whole damn time.”

  The sigils in his eyes stirred faintly.

  “So don’t act shy now.”

  He straightened.

  “Mi’Lentra… I forgot the rest of it,” he said clearly.

  “Occulted Moon. Goddess of umm not sure but I’m here.”

  The space trembled—just slightly.

  “And Jafar,” North added under his breath, not backing down.

  “I know you’re listening too… don’t pretend you’re done with me.”

  The stars pulsed.

  ————

  Elsewhere—

  Jamal floated alone in the same white infinity, hands tucked into his pockets like he was waiting for a bus instead of standing in a god’s antechamber.

  He clicked his tongue.

  “Man… y’all dramatic as hell.”

  The silence didn’t respond.

  Jamal looked up at the ink-black stars, jaw tightening—not scared, but focused.

  “Aight,” he said. “You want a name?”

  He rolled his shoulders, grounding himself.

  “Whatever been watching me. Whatever thought it was funny to throw me into this story bullshit. Whatever let me die and still wake up swinging.”

  His fingers flexed.

  “I ain’t asking for power. Ain’t asking for forgiveness neither.”

  He paused, then added, quieter—

  “But I am asking what the hell you want from me?!”

  The white expanse rippled.

  Somewhere far beyond sight, something smiled.

  ———-

  Across the ruined and soiled landscape, another pair had approached a Signal Tower.

  Bodies still burned around its base—blackened silhouettes frozen mid-scream—while Cawren sat atop a jagged stone, crimson eyes narrowed, posture relaxed but ready.

  Ria walked ahead.

  “Hm,” she murmured.

  Cawren glanced up. “What?”

  She smiled, slow and knowing, long strands of black-and-violet hair drifting in the heated wind. Her body had changed again—every step carried a confidence that bordered on arrogance. Every curve seemed deliberate now, sculpted by something beyond mortal design. She was no longer merely enchanting; she was commanding.

  “The tower,” she said softly. “It’s… singing… about a King.”

  Cawren’s eyes narrowed further. “You can understand it?”

  “I think I can,” she replied, tilting her head. “If I’m saying that right.”

  “Don’t be smart.”

  She fluttered her lashes in mock offense and turned away, already moving toward the entrance.

  The moment she crossed the threshold, the world changed.

  Her path became a long, straight hallway bathed entirely in red—like she was walking through the artery of a god. The air was thick, heavy, and oddly aware. Her dress shimmered as she moved, the fabric Cawren had given her catching light that had no source.

  She couldn’t explain the pull.

  Only that a prompt had appeared in her mind.

  Come see me.

  She had lied to Cawren. Told him she was simply curious which god might answer. He, obsessed with killing gods, had chosen not to follow. That suited her just fine.

  At the end of the hallway, pressure built.

  Not resistance.

  Not force.

  Hunger.

  It pressed against her skin, slid through her breath, curled around her thoughts. It wasn’t violent. It was patient. Confident. Like something that knew it didn’t need to rush.

  Feeling more invincible than she should have, Ria stepped forward anyway.

  The red hallway opened into a chamber that could only be described as artful damnation.

  The walls twisted like living murals—inked figures frozen in worship, agony, ecstasy, and despair, all layered atop one another as if hell itself had been painted by an obsessed hand. Chains hung where pillars should have been, not restraining anything, simply present. The floor shimmered like polished obsidian soaked in wine.

  And at the center of it all—

  A couch.

  Soft. Almost obscene in how comfortable it looked.

  Reclining upon it was a man.

  Or something shaped like one.

  His skin glowed crimson, faintly luminous, etched with meaning. A black star spread across his chest like a brand. Runes wrapped around his throat, like a collar carved from scripture. An All-Seeing Eye stared from his open palm, unblinking.

  White hair spilled wildly across his forehead, framing two dark horns that curved upward like rotted branches. Between them, a third golden vertical eye—blinked slowly, independently of the others.

  His smile was too wide. Too pleased.

  Fangs glinted faintly as he shifted, piercings along his ears, lip, and fingers catching nonexistent light. Rings chimed softly when he moved, like laughter in metal form.

  He was sin given charm. Ruin wearing confidence. A god who enjoyed being noticed.

  When he spoke, the air didn’t echo.

  It stuttered.

  “He–he–hello there,” he said, voice breaking and folding over itself like reality struggling to keep up.

  “So, so, so glad… glad you came.”

  Ria didn’t step back.

  She smiled.

  And somewhere, far beyond the tower, something primordial began to pay attention.