If a soul has already sunk into the Death Realm, it drops like a stone into black water—no one can haul it back to shore.

So far, only Anna has done it, prying a crack in that sealed gate and yanking Sorek’s wife back like a hand through a storm.

Which means a soul like Nagash’s—weak but whole—can still be saved, even if the body’s ruined; a Great Divine Art like “Return, O Soul” lifts it like dawn, and a Divine Being’s touch is stronger still.

Light streamed off the Divine Being like spilled sunlight and draped over Nagash like a mantle.

“No—no, wait, I’m almost there—hold on!” His voice rattled like a loose blade.

By the book, you ignore a villain’s rant; you knock him cold and drag him off like muzzling a mad dog.

Maybe the Divine Being figured Nagash couldn’t flip the board anyway, so he let the man talk, like watching a candle burn out.

“If you want martyrdom to polish your virtue, spare us. We already see what you’re after,” the voice fell like rain on slate.

Divine Beings know too much; even when their tier drops, their wisdom towers like a mountain beyond mortals.

They read causes and effects like rings in old wood—yet because they’re too sharp, they rarely doubt their own choices, like a blade that refuses to bend.

Head once told me over tea that fools who don’t think and sages who think too much both become pieces on a Transcendent’s board, like black and white stones set for play.

Even Narrow, one of the Twelve Primordial Deities, isn’t immune to that wind.

“I didn’t want this… Divine Ones, you came too late—late till my life and mana ran dry, late till I can’t use the inversion I prepared for you,” Nagash spoke like ash on a breeze.

“What’s your point—stalling to accuse us of fear?” The reply snapped like ice.

“I’m only offering a view. How others take it…” Nagash side-eyed Stini like a fox flicking a glance. “That depends on their view.”

“Then surrender now and bind your hands—”

“Your Highness, World Saving Demon King, you’re here, aren’t you.” Nagash’s voice rang out like a bell under fog.

I never thought I’d hear that line, like lightning under a shroud.

By rights, the ‘Coffin Exile’ dragged my tier down; I’m just a mortal in a thin coat, and even a Divine Being shouldn’t see a seam.

Something’s slipped the rails, beyond plan and beyond my guess, like a river carving a new bed overnight.

Nagash faced the gods and called to the air; he didn’t look anywhere, and the Shadow’s feedback told me his eyes were on the void like a blind man addressing the sky.

How did he know I was here? Cold crept in like night; I felt the edge of a great board under my feet.

Someone—not Nagash’s side—yanked me, the bystander, into the mud like a boot pulled down by a swamp.

“I want a contract with you. After I die, I pay my soul as price, and I want only mana in return. Terms are as follows.”

He lifted a hand; a phantom page rose like a pale moth and floated in midair.

A contract is a spell, ink on ether; he’d written the clauses, cast them into shape, and if I sign, it seals like wax on a letter.

It hit too fast; everyone froze like statues. Even the gods hesitated for a heartbeat; sadly, their first move was to guard and scan for the Demon King’s shadow, not to bind Nagash like clamping a lid.

So I skimmed the contract in a blink and signed like a hawk snatching prey.

It read that even if his soul belongs to me after death, it will not harm the mortal realm, like a blade sheathed by vow. Clever, but fine—I need managers more than fighters; bodies aren’t required.

Granting him partial authority over the Shadow Realm takes only a word; my name stays buried like a seed in winter.

Shadow curled around Nagash’s mangled husk like dark silk, weaving flesh back together like a loom under moonlight.

[As you wish. Though you shouldn’t know I exist.]

I sent that through the Shadow Realm, a whisper under a lake. Nagash’s reply rippled back:

[I know only this—you won’t waste the finest Arcane Engineer’s soul in the mortal world.]

So he counted on me to swallow bait even knowing it’s a hook, like a fish that loves silver.

Watching him square up to the gods like a cliff against the surf, I knew he wouldn’t spill more. Fine. I can guess whose hand moves the pieces.

I was annoyed to be played like a flute, but a premium soul is profit like jade bought under market price. I let myself watch the show.

“Uncle Nagash, you can’t beat a Divine Being! Surrender, please!” Stini’s cry fluttered like a sparrow in wind.

“It’s all right, girl. I have confidence,” he answered, steady as a lantern cupped against a gale.

[Confident you’ll die?] I let the thought glide like a knife.

[Right. With that certainty, you can’t beat a god.] His answer struck like a nail.

Nagash drew mana in thick currents—gathering, compressing—like tides coiling into a whirlpool.

“Do you cast off light and throw yourself to shadow? Is that your choice?” the god’s voice fell like dusk over water.

“Divine Ones, you should have seen the contract—I ask only for mana,” Nagash said, dry as old parchment.

“Sophistry! In the end, you turn toward evil!” Sun, with the worst temper, flared like noon heat.

“Foolish—especially you, Sun. You save no one and kill no one; you play justice to please yourself, like a child with a toy sword.”

“You—!”

“Divine justice saves the many. Then I, Nagash, stand for the innocent cast aside by that justice, and I pour malice upon the gods like ink into clear water.”

“Most will choose self-sacrifice…” Narrow spoke once like a reed in wind, then stopped; she felt the wrongness, too.

Nagash fought in a ritual’s cadence, steps laid like stones in a shrine path.

Talk or silence—it was optional to the rite, like bells that may chime or not.

Persuasion didn’t matter. Ashes would settle the same way.

He needed only to state his logic and honor, and then die before Stini, die by a god’s hand; everything else was straw.

This trial was a farce, a staged play; from the gods’ descent to the Demon King’s intrusion, each beat was part of the script, like drums at a procession.

The Transcendent stayed silent like frost; Narrow slipped back a few paces like a shadow, a counterpoint to Sun, who stalked forward blazing with anger.

“Die, blasphemer!” Sun roared, a flare across the sky.

“Exactly—let an old man the era discarded cut the road for the new,” Nagash answered, a dry leaf ready to burn.

As expected, the enraged Sun summoned his scepter like a falling star and swung for Nagash’s skull like a hammer blow.

Space split behind Nagash like torn cloth; a monstrous greatsword lunged at Sun, an alien colossus—“Divinity Unhallowed”—thrust from a black seam.

As tales foretell, the Hero Stini broke the last arcane machinery’s bind like snapping vines, seized the Holy Sword, and sprinted toward Nagash like flame to tinder.

The Judgment Deity and Narrow flared with a thousand rays like a sunrise, peeling Shadow off Nagash—but their light felt like work without heart.

I had my own tilt to express, a current under the surface.

My strength had crept back enough; I lunged and caught Stini like a net scooping a swimmer.

One arm locked her chest from the ribs, the other seized her sword hand; I bit her ear hard like a wolf, iron-salt blood blooming on my tongue.

“Don’t move. Raise steel against a Divine Being, and you’ll die, Stini,” I breathed, a whisper riding cartilage to her inner ear.

She stopped dead, glaring across the field where men and gods clashed like thunder and stone.

I knew she didn’t mind her own wounds, but she minded me; she feared my frail state thrown into the storm and gone, and a Hero won’t abandon those who trust her, like a bridge that won’t break.

I knew I was using her sense of duty like a hand on a bridle.

She bit her lower lip till blood traced her mouth, then fell to the ground in red drops like rain.

“Divinity Unhallowed.” Not a demon blade, not a holy blade, not a ghostly blade. It was the highest work of the Truth Seekers Assembly, the final piece in the “Godslayer Weapons” series, a machine of negation like a theorem turned to steel.

Forty meters of greatsword not meant for a human grip; a drive behind it hurled the blade forward like a railgun, meant to pierce a sun.

Every Arcane Engineer who worked on it carved the obsession—“analyze Divine existence”—into every part like runes burned into bone.

It’s no magic sword, no sacred sword, no haunted sword; it’s a mortal artifact, each piece with a principle like gears in a clock, built to drag gods off their thrones.

Because it was too great to exist in the mortal world, they sealed it in subspace like a ship bottled in glass; when needed, they link that space and spring the blade out to strike.

The name means to deny “sacred” and “great,” to parse the “unspeakable” into physics like stars charted into coordinates. That’s why Nagash, no fighter, killed four Demon Kings.

First it lowers mystery like fog thinning; then it negates immortality like snuffing a lamp; then the greatsword lands a physical blow like a mountain falling. Against a Son of the Demon King—a high but still limited tier—this chain is lethal like winter to a weak flame.

In my last life, my dear sister Kadula, who held the Authority of “Value,” gave me that blade as payment for a trade, glittering like coin—though I never learned how she got it.

I studied it for a while out of curiosity, weighing its temper like a smith.

It can knock the weaker sons straight back to the Demon Realm with one hit; but for me and Anna, a step from true Demon King, it’s not enough—and for a true Demon King or a Divine Being, much less so.

So, with this sword alone, you won’t kill a god; it’s a spear for giants, not for heaven itself.

Then Life arrived in a flash like spring wind, just in time to see Sun’s projection and Nagash’s strike meet and vanish like two sparks snuffed together.

“…I’m still one step late?” Life’s face folded, aggrieved like a willow in rain.

“No. You were ‘on time,’” the reply came, even as the dust fell like ash.

“But didn’t Sun still kill Nagash?” she asked, voice thin as silk.

“Our leader will have to explain that,” Narrow said, her expression shifting like clouds. She glanced at me and Stini, then shook her head and went quiet like a closed book.

The three Divine Beings understood each other, folded their projections like lanterns, and rose as light to the Starry Sky Divine Kingdom.

Only Stini and I remained, two shadows on a hollowed field.

I loosened my hold; her knees gave like reeds, and she nearly fell. I caught her again like a hand under porcelain.

“Andor,” Stini rasped, her voice sand-dry, “tell me—were we wrong?” Her eyes were empty as a drained well, fixed on the cratered earth where Nagash died, bone to dust, no grave, no stone, only silence.

“Or, like Uncle Nagash said… are the gods wrong?” Her question hung like a lantern in a night with no road.