Chapter 684 - Shattered World

Reality cracked.

The world splintered into infinite pieces. 

And at the center of it all stood a single man.  A primordial whose power knew no bounds.  In that split second between life and non-existence, Mak’tar fled. 

As if he could outrun judgement itself. 

For his part, Zeke stared ahead unseeing.  But his awareness stretched out to caress Mak’tar’s terror.  His incredulity.  His panic.  It was a glorious thing, to strike fear into the heart of a greater god, and Mak’tar had often reveled in just such a sensation.  But he never expected to be on the other side of that relationship. 

He was a god, dammit.  He would not flee before some upstart.  It was a simple retreat.  Not cowardice.

Like a snake, his power lay not in the durability of his body, mind, or soul.  Rather, he was an ambush predator that relied on cunning and trickery to mask his deadly strikes.  However, in the face of such a tidal wave of true might, he had no defense. 

But he was still a god, albeit the weakest of his ilk.  That was why Oberon had sent Zeke to his realm, after all.  Strong enough to ward off the others of his kind, but still not powerful enough to sense everything within his domain.  It was a grim reality for Mak’tar, but a limitation he had accepted.  Because his path was not finished.  He would rise.  He would grow.  And one day, he would be the best among his peers.

Not yet, though.

Even so, his status put him on a pedestal.  It meant that in the entire Ethereal Realm, which was ruled by gods, greater and lesser alike, only seven stood above him. 

On the most basic level, Zeke was his lesser.  A nascent primordial was a step below a greater god, after all.  However, even among primordials – if any others had existed – he was abnormal.  For his path stunk of destruction, and it had lost none of that flavor. 

A single name flashed into Mak’tar’s mind.  [Primordial Wrath]. 

He had only an instant to perceive the skill before white light suffused everything, and a massive, black orb appeared in the sky.  For a split second, it all ceased to exist.  There was no sand beneath Zeke’s feet.  No sun in the sky.  And no fleeing god. 

Then, it all slammed back into reality, though not without shattering.  Jagged cracks, suspended in mid-air, ripped across the world for hundreds of miles in every direction, destroying everything in their path. 

Mak’tar tried to dodge.  He slipped aside, narrowly avoiding one, but the next consumed half his body.  What was left of him flopped to the ground, and by some miracle, he managed to avoid the thousands of other cracks extending in every direction. 

Then, everything imploded.

Earth and air, water and monsters – it all rushed inward, collapsing into the sphere until nothing else could fit.  Mak’tar managed to resist through dint of a vast expenditure of divine energy.  That left him hanging in open space without air to breathe or reality to which he could cling. 

Yet, he persisted.

Then, just when the sphere reached critical mass, everything exploded. 

His body disappeared, destroyed down to the last atom, but his spirit persisted.  He clung to life as even his soul was buffeted by the most destructive force he had ever experienced. 

When the dust settled, he could only barely perceive the damage that had been done.  Most of his world was gone.  His only solace was that the idiot who’d destroyed so much could never have survived his own skill.

Then he caught the scent of swirling divine energy.  As a spirit, he could not see.  Yet he knew what it was, and his horror only continued to mount as the primordial reconstituted himself. 

                          *

“Fuck, that was unpleasant,” Zeke muttered to himself as his body reformed.  He’d been ripped apart so often that he’d begun to think of it in mundane terms.  That was obviously an issue in and of itself, but it wasn’t one he intended to soon address.  However, the backlash of his own skill had been uniquely painful.  It was as if his entire being had been unmade, and if he hadn’t bound it all together via [Hand of Creation], he was certain that he would have been obliterated.

Just like Mak’tar.

“Oh, he isn’t dead.  Don’t you feel that?” asked Eveline, indicating for him to turn toward a flutter of divine energy in the distance.  “You’d better go get him now, or you’ll never be rid of him.”

Zeke glanced toward the whisper of energy.  Was that really all that was left of the proud god?  If so, then [Primordial Wrath] was far more powerful than he could have anticipated. 

He leaped forward, scarcely noticing the devastated land as he soared through the air.  He saw it, of course.  How could he miss the remnants of a planet that had been broken into innumerable pieces.  His skill had only gone a few hundred miles, but it had started a chain reaction which the planet could never have survived. 

There was no surviving what happened next.  Zeke didn’t feel any of it, as his body had been unmade by his own skill.  However, the aftermath was undeniable.  The planet was destroyed, and it had been reduced to nothing but rubble floating in an expanse of nothingness.

One skill, and everyone was dead.

All of Mak’tar’s worshippers and soon, the god himself. 

Zeke closed on his position, landing only a few feet away.  The spirit of the god tried to flee, but it was weak.  It could scarcely move, much less escape.  Zeke embraced [Primordial Mind], and he saw the pitiful thing – barely a wisp of life held together by a thin net of divine energy – floating nearby.

He flexed his own power, and divine energy encased his hand.  He snapped out his hand, grabbing the spirit.  Upon contact, he was burned, but it was nothing [Hand of Creation] couldn’t mend. 

“You thought to tell me what I can and can’t do,” Zeke muttered, pulling the being close.  “You believed yourself above me.  You are nothing more than an insect.  A pitiful pest who must be scoured from existence.”

It couldn’t speak, but it writhed in an attempt to escape. 

Zeke used [Eye of Judgement], burning a hole in reality where it had once existed.  The second the spirit was destroyed, he felt a rush of power unlike anything he’d ever experienced.  His entire body flooded with divine energy until he burst from the sheer magnitude of it.

For the second time that day, his body was obliterated. 

But just as he had the first time, he held everything together through copious use of [Hand of Creation].  That also gave him some control over the massive amount of energy coursing through him.  He harnessed it, squeezing it so tight that nothing could escape.  It scorched its way through his spirit, and every time he attempted to reconstitute his body, it was destroyed down to the last atom.

Yet, he persisted.

Time lost meaning as he squeezed and embraced the energy until, at last, it began to seep into his core.  At first, it was only a trickle, but soon enough, it became a torrent that didn’t stop until he had absorbed every last drop of divine energy once contained within the god’s spirit.

Only then was he allowed to reform his body.

He dropped to the ground, naked and in agonizing pain.  He acclimated to it, taking one deep breath after another until it finally faded to a dull ache.  That too disappeared after a few more hours. 

That’s when he pushed himself to his feet, only to see a figure looming above him. 

He glared at her image, knowing good and well that she was not truly there.  “What do you want?” he asked, his entire body straining with the effort of containing the divine energy.

“You killed him,” Shar Maelaine stated evenly.  “How long have you been out of the pit?”

“Long enough.”

“You are a danger to our entire existence.  You know I can’t let you live,” she said, her very attention weighing down on him. 

“I am, and I do.  But that was true regardless of what happened today,” Zeke responded, shrugging it off.  “You would have killed me long ago if you were capable.  And I’m more than ready for you to try.  Right here, right now.  I just absorbed one god’s power.  I can take another.”

“You what?” she demanded with no small degree of alarm.

“Oh, you didn’t sense that, did you?” Zeke asked without wavering.  He rolled his shoulders.  “Poor, little Mak’tar.”  He patted his stomach. “Left a little to be desired in the taste department, but a filling meal nonetheless.”

Her beautiful, elven face paled.

Then, without warning, she fled, her image disappearing with scarcely a flicker.  Zeke knew it had only been a projection – he had felt that much at least – but her soul was weighty.

Finally, Zeke let himself relax.  To just about anyone else, the divine energy roiling through him would have been debilitating.  However, after everything he’d been through, after all the pain he’d been forced to endure, it was merely uncomfortable. 

“I guess you can get used to anything,” he said to himself, looking around.  His voice was muffled, which was surprising.

“Because there’s no air, idiot,” Eveline stated.

“Why the tone?”

“I told you this would happen.”

“What?  You thought I’d break a world?  You didn’t say that.”

“Obviously that’s not what I meant.  I told you not to attack those lake monsters,” she explained irritably.  “I knew something bad would happen.  And now look at what you did.”

“Don’t pretend like you’re upset that all those demons died.”

“I’m not!”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“Do you truly believe that only demons lived on this world?” she asked.  Before he could answer, she went on, “At the very least, we know that Oberon’s embassy existed here.  Those people living in that inn are gone now. You killed them.  But it gets worse, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You just waved a flag for every god telling them you’re here and you’re a threat,” she said.  “And don’t think for a second they didn’t feel that.  Shar Maelaine did.  And you can bet that Oda and Eta and all the rest did as well.  Even Oberon might not be willing to protect you now.”

Zeke looked around at the floating wasteland of rocks.  They’d all been scoured of any life, so they appeared to him like an asteroid field in space.  Of course, he knew that such asteroid fields looked nothing like that in real life, but the image remained in his mind nonetheless.

“Do you think I need protection?  Look what I just did.”

“You got lucky.”

“I don’t –”

“Mak’tar was the weakest among the major gods,” she said.  “If you think Shar Maelaine would go down that easily, you’re mistaken.  And I know for a fact that Oda is ancient beyond measure.  If you go up against him right now, you will die.  He’ll take a hit like that and just…I don’t know.  I never expected to be dealing with gods.  But it won’t be good, Ezekiel.”

“I hear you.”

“And then there’s the other thing.”

“What?” he asked.

“You destroyed the planet, right?”

“Seems that way, yeah.”

“Then how do you intend to find your way to the ways?  I can’t believe that map is going to do you much good now.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?  That’s all you have to say?”

“Not sure what else I can say.”

She gave him a mental roll of her eyes.  “Idiot.”

“Primordial idiot,” he corrected her. 

“Yeah. Sure.  We’d better start looking for the entrance to the ways before we get any more unwanted attention.”

“Probably for the best,” he agreed.  Then, without any more conversation, he set out across his current rock, still unsure how he was going to find the way forward.