Creation Of All Things

Celestial Realm

The light here didn't shine.

It declared.

Adam stepped through the tear, the others behind him, and instantly the air thickened—like walking into the weight of judgment itself.

Columns rose on all sides, not built from stone but from concepts—Time, Law, Order, Death, even Silence. They pulsed faintly with god-forged energy, a testament to how long this place had existed.

And how long it had been watching.

Adam's boots clicked against the floor—an endless stretch of mirrored marble that didn't reflect them, but the versions of themselves they could've become.

Joshua scanned the hall with a frown. "This place is wrong."

Aurora was quiet, her hand brushing against her earring crystal, eyes sharp. "It's not reacting to me either."

Aria walked closer to the center, murmuring. "I can't feel time here… I can't even feel myself."

And then they saw them.

Figures.

Dozens.

No… hundreds.

Stacked on every step of the spiraling dais ahead. Sitting. Standing. Kneeling. All motionless.

Replacements.

Eyes lifeless. Skin pale like paper. Every one of them a copy—of someone. Some looked like Adam. Some like Aurora. Joshua. Alice. Even Aria.

False lives frozen mid-thought.

And above them all—

Two thrones.

One sat empty. The other—occupied.

Mael.

Clad in robes that shimmered like they were woven from decrees, with a calm smile like everything was already over. He sat with his fingers steepled, eyes half-lidded. His god-form radiated control—not power, command.

Beside him, standing as still as a statue—Thea. Her silver eyes dim.

Adam didn't slow. He didn't need to.

"Mael," he said flatly.

The name dropped like an execution bell.

Mael smiled wider. "You finally made it."

Joshua stepped up beside Adam, fists clenched. "What is this? What are all those things?"

"Ah," Mael breathed. "Perfection."

Aurora narrowed her eyes. "You call that perfection?"

Mael rose slowly, every motion smooth—practiced. Like this was a play and he'd memorized every act.

"They are balance," he said. "Consistency. A world that doesn't break because a handful of humans think they're above gods."

Adam didn't respond. His eyes swept the room. Every one of the copies was breathing. Dreaming. Waiting.

Mael continued, stepping forward. "You, Adam, broke too many rules. You became a force of anomaly. Of deviation. The more you exist, the more reality bends."

He gestured around.

"I simply removed the chaos. I took your family because you no longer deserved them. I made replacements. Ones that obey. Ones that fit."

"You stole them," Adam said, voice low.

Mael chuckled. "I saved them from what you would've become."

Vael peeked his head out from behind Alice, eyes wide. "Okay, uh—just to confirm—I did not sign up for this when I came to cook a post-war meal."

Aurora ignored him. "Where are they, Mael?"

Thea stirred now, her voice soft. "Still alive… for now. But hidden. Caged in folds of law even Adam can't see. Yet."

Mael stepped off the dais.

His eyes finally opened fully.

They burned.

Not with heat. Not with power.

With intent.

"You all talk of freedom," he said, voice echoing through the hall. "But you don't understand what freedom is. It's disorder. It's destruction. It's you, Adam. You are a walking fracture. A sovereign mistake."

He stopped a few paces from them.

"I don't hate you. I respect what you achieved. But there comes a time when a god must intervene before a parasite destroys the system."

Joshua's eyes flared. "Parasite?"

Vael whispered, "Oof. That's gonna get someone hit."

Adam didn't blink. He didn't raise his voice.

He just said—

"You talk too much."

Mael smiled. "And you act too fast."

The entire ceiling cracked.

No—shifted.

The air tore open above them as the sky rearranged.

Mael lifted a hand—

And thousands of golden threads dropped down from the air.

Each one connected to a replacement.

And each one began to move.

"Shall we see," Mael said, "whose story ends first?"

Adam raised his hand—

And the floor glowed.

Flames flickered.

The portal behind them pulsed once—

And Alfred stepped through.

Blade slung over his back.

Eyes already lit.

"Hope I'm not late."

Adam didn't look back.

He smiled.

"You're right on time."

The battle for the Celestial Throne had begun.

Elsewhere — Between Realms

The sky here didn't end. It looped.

A place where even gods walked carefully—where time bent like a whisper and power bled through the cracks in existence.

A voice echoed through the stillness, low and amused.

"That bastard Mael is agitated recently," it said, like someone commenting on the weather. "I think it's time we paid him a visit."

A pulse of golden-red energy rolled across the horizon.

A figure stepped forward from the shadow of a broken star—tall, regal, barefoot, his cloak trailing threads of reality behind him like drifting galaxies.

Oron, the God of Echelon.

Master of Hierarchy.

Keeper of Divine Order.

He cracked his neck lazily. "He's been too quiet for too long. And now he's loud at the wrong time. That's never a good sign."

Another voice followed, this one layered in ripples—like a river made of language.

"Mael never liked sharing power. Now he's building thrones."

From a split in the sky stepped Selira, Goddess of Flow and Knowledge, her eyes made of ink, hair shifting with runes that never repeated.

She looked at Oron. "Do you think he's scared?"

"I think he's cornered," Oron replied.

Another portal opened—this one icy and slow, cracking like a glacier breaking through the stars.

Out came a woman wreathed in snowfire and stormlight. Irivelle, Goddess of Stillness. She said nothing. She didn't need to. The temperature dropped just by her standing there.

A moment passed. Then—

Rouk, the Beast-God of Hunger, landed like a meteor beside them, licking blood off his knuckles. "Mael's shaking cages again? About time. I was getting bored."

More figures appeared—gods without names to mortals, forces older than understanding. Not all allies. Not all enemies.

But they were all moving.

Because something had shifted.

Something real.

Mael had broken a rule that even gods didn't speak out loud:

He moved against his own.

And now?

Even the ones who didn't like each other…

Were moving.

Selira narrowed her eyes, her tone quiet.

"If he thinks this ends with one throne, he's wrong."

Oron turned toward the rising gateway to the Celestial Plane.

He took a single step—

And the sky split.

All of them followed.

The gods were coming.

Not to save Adam.