Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System!

Olympus - Moments After the Severing...

The silence in the throne room was deafening.

Zeus stood frozen, one hand extended toward where his golden pathway to Earth had existed just moments before. The cosmic highway that had connected Olympus to the mortal realm for millennia was simply... gone. Not destroyed, not blocked—absent, as if it had never existed.

When he tried to summon it back, to force divine will through sheer authority, the universe itself rejected the attempt. Not with resistance, but with complete indifference, as if the very concept of gods reaching Earth was now meaningless.

"Impossible," he whispered, his voice cracking with the weight of disbelief.

Hera was frantically gesturing, trying to access the divine communication networks that linked pantheons across realities. Her face went pale as marble when she found nothing but void. "The connections... all of them. Every pathway, every bridge, every thread of divine influence—severed."

Athena, goddess of wisdom and strategic warfare, stood before her war table where cosmic maps had displayed the mortal realm just moments ago. Now the space where Earth should have been showed only empty coordinates, as if the planet had been edited out of existence itself.

"He didn't just block us," she said, her voice hollow with understanding. "He rewrote the fundamental laws governing divine-mortal interaction. We're not locked out—we're cosmically irrelevant."

Apollo's radiant form flickered uncertainly as he tried to send his light to Earth, only to watch it dissipate into nothingness. "My light... it has nowhere to go. The mortal realm doesn't exist in our reality anymore."

Ares, god of war, slammed his fist into a marble pillar hard enough to crack it. "This is impossible! No single being has the authority to—"

"To rewrite cosmic law?" Poseidon's voice carried the deep rumble of ocean trenches. "Apparently, one does."

The assembled gods from other pantheons were experiencing similar revelations. Odin's ravens, Huginn and Muninn, had returned from their cosmic flight with empty eyes—not because they'd found nothing, but because there was nothing to find. Earth simply no longer existed in their navigational reality.

"The World Tree," Odin said slowly, his single eye wide with disbelief. "Yggdrasil's branches that led to Midgard... they're gone. Not severed—they never existed."

Amaterasu's solar radiance dimmed as her light found no mortal realm to illuminate. "My connection to human worship, to the prayers that have sustained us for eons... it's not blocked. It's nonexistent."

Ra's solar crown flickered with uncharacteristic uncertainty. "The spiritual bonds between divine and mortal realms—bonds forged at the moment of creation itself—have been... edited."

Thoth consulted scrolls that were rewriting themselves in real-time, his wisdom struggling to process what had occurred. "The mathematics are... unprecedented. He didn't violate any cosmic laws because he rewrote them. Retroactively. We were never connected to Earth—that connection has been removed from causality itself."

The weight of that realization settled over the assembled deities like a cosmic shroud.

"But the worship," Apollo said desperately. "The faith, the prayers, the spiritual energy that flows from mortal devotion—"

"Gone," Hera finished, her regal composure cracking. "Not interrupted. Gone. As if it never existed."

Zeus turned from his futile attempts to reach Earth, his ancient face showing an emotion he hadn't felt in millennia: helplessness. "He made us... obsolete."

"No," Ares snarled, divine pride refusing to accept the impossible. "We are gods! We don't become obsolete! We'll find another way, we'll—"

"You'll what?" The voice that cut through his bravado was soft, measured, and carried the authority of cosmic law itself.

Every god in the assembly turned to see a figure materializing in the center of the throne room. Not corporeal—more like a projection of pure concept given form. The Speaker of the Cosmic Council, whose very presence made divine beings feel small.

"Council Speaker," Zeus said, his voice carefully neutral despite the panic clawing at his chest.

"Zeus. Assembled pantheons." The Speaker's form shifted like liquid starlight, neither male nor female, neither young nor old, but carrying weight that made reality itself defer. "We felt the cosmic shift. A fundamental rewriting of universal law on a scale that requires... investigation."

The silence stretched like a held breath.

"What occurred here?" the Speaker asked, though their tone suggested they already knew.

Odin spoke first, his voice carrying the weight of ultimate honesty. "The Prince of Existence severed all divine connection to the mortal realm designated Earth. Permanently. Retroactively. Absolutely."

"And this was in response to...?"

The assembled gods exchanged glances. How did you explain to the Cosmic Council that you'd been planning to attack a being because you were afraid of losing worshippers?

Athena, ever strategic, spoke carefully. "We had... concerns about the Genesis Energy being released on Earth. The potential for uncontrolled human evolution posed risks to cosmic stability."

The Speaker's form pulsed with what might have been amusement. "Risks to cosmic stability? Or risks to divine relevance?"

The silence that followed was answer enough.

"The Council is aware of your... activities regarding the mortal realm," the Speaker continued. "The manipulation of human champions, the corruption of divine blessings, the planned direct intervention. All in service of maintaining your influence over beings who were beginning to outgrow the need for gods."

Zeus's jaw tightened. "The natural order—"

"Has been maintained," the Speaker interrupted. "The Prince of Existence acted within his cosmic authority as protector of his assigned realm. He violated no laws, harmed no beings, and solved a problem you created through your own fear." Bullshit, lying in his teeth!

Ra's solar crown flared with indignation. "You're saying we have no recourse? That a single being can simply... dismiss entire pantheons?"

The Speaker's form shifted, and for a moment, every god in the assembly felt the weight of truly cosmic authority—power that made their divine might seem like candle flames before a supernova.

"You mistake your situation," the Speaker said with gentle finality. "You were not dismissed. You were never meant to control that realm in the first place. The Prince of Existence simply... corrected an oversight."

The implications hit like cosmic lightning. And somehow the gods believed this bullshit.

"The Earth realm was 'assigned' to him from the beginning," Thoth whispered, his scrolls confirming what his wisdom was beginning to understand. "We were... squatters."

"Temporary custodians," the Speaker corrected. "Until the appointed protector was ready to assume his role. That time has come."

Zeus felt something he hadn't experienced since the Titanomachy: complete, absolute defeat. "Then we... we have no claim to Earth at all."

"None," the Speaker confirmed. "Your worship, your influence, your connection to that realm—all of it was borrowed time. The Prince of Existence has simply... called in the loan."

"Adapt to irrelevance, or find new purposes. But do not mistake this for injustice. This is simply... correction."

As the Speaker says that, the assembled gods were left with the crushing reality of their new existence. No Earth. No human worship. No mortal realm to influence or control.

They were still gods.

But gods of what?

The Age of Divine Relevance was over.

And somewhere in a palace on a world they could no longer reach, a being they'd tried to destroy was casually drinking coffee while planning to attend a wedding.

The irony was as bitter as it was absolute.