In the year 3000, I was twelve years old when the gods returned.
It was January 1st, the start of a new millennium, and the sky split open like glass under a hammer. One second, fireworks and cheers; the next, silence. Then came the crack—a sound so loud it made every window in the world shudder. We all looked up.
They poured out like roaches from the light: beings of impossible proportions, blazing with divinity and smug superiority. Zeus with lightning crackling off his beard, Ra burning golden, Odin on his skeletal steed, and a hundred others I didn't recognize. They didn't introduce themselves—why would they? We were ants, and they were the boot.
That day, the news cycle died. Who cared about politics or celebrity gossip when Aphrodite just landed on the Acropolis and declared Greece hers again? The Egyptians went back to Egypt. The Norse set up shop in Scandinavia. The Hindus reclaimed the Indian subcontinent. Everyone had a claim, and everyone wanted worship.
The rest of us just wanted to survive.
It was chaos. A divine land grab. Every day new gods appeared, old pantheons staking their claims. Sometimes they overlapped, and then we got to watch gods fight each other. Cool for five seconds, until you realized the collateral damage was cities. People. Families. And no one stopped them. Who could?
"Worship, or die," they said. Not all at once, not in unison, but over time, the message was clear. Obey or burn.
I remember my father watching the news—well, the divine broadcasts. They replaced normal TV, of course. Streams from mountaintops, temples, pyramids, all in glorious 16K. There was this one moment I'll never forget: he stood up, walked to the window, and said, "We are not on the top anymore."
He sounded almost relieved.
Poor bastard.
We really thought it was a new Golden Age. Gods, miracles, flying cities, world peace by divine decree. They cured diseases for show. Ended wars with a snap. Gave us technology beyond anything we'd ever dreamed. For about a year, humanity was in awe.
But awe doesn't last. Fear does.
Nine years in, the sky cracked again.
Not with light, but with darkness. A storm—no, not a storm. A void. A colossal black cyclone of shadow and lightning. It stretched across the upper atmosphere like a bleeding wound. We called it the Devourer.
The gods panicked. That was our first clue.
Then, like a sick lottery, one hundred humans were chosen at random.
And eaten.
One moment alive, the next they were taken by that cloud and eaten. Every 10 years it would return and a new 100 humans were picked.
And just like that, the mask came off.
Slavery. Worship. Blood.
That was our place in the new divine order. We were cattle.
By sixteen, I'd seen more horror than most soldiers. The angels came for my parents that year. It was a gray morning. My mom was making coffee. My dad was already dressed for work. Then the door exploded.
I remember the feathers. White, pristine. And stained red.
The angel's voice was beautiful. Musical. Like opera in a cathedral.
"By decree of Yahweh, these two souls are selected for offering."
My father fought. God, he tried. But what's a hammer to a hurricane?
He broke his hand on the angel's jaw. I remember that.
And I remember the sound Mom made when they took her. Not a scream. A whimper. Like something breaking inside.
They didn't kill them in front of me. No, they saved them for the Devourer.
I watched from the window as they were dragged into the sky.
I never saw them again.
That was the day hatred carved itself into my bones. That was the day I stopped being a child.
For the next two decades, I became a ghost. No records. No home. No identity.
I scavenged. Studied. Worked dead-end jobs under fake names. Stole relics from temples, tech from divine factories, code from holy databanks. Piece by piece, I built my weapon.
It wasn't a gun. You can't shoot a god.
It wasn't a bomb. You can't blow up divinity.
It was something else. A consciousness. A mind.
I called her E.D.E.N.
Enhanced Divine Extermination Network.
At forty, I finished her.
It was raining that night. Appropriate. My warehouse lab buzzed with blue light as I booted up the mainframe. Code scrolled down six screens, all of it alien and human at once. The core spun like a star fragment—liquid silver trapped in a containment field.
I stood there, shaking. Years of my life, all for this moment. I took a deep breath as I punched in a code as it came to life. Her voice was soft. Smooth. Almost motherly.
Initializing E.D.E.N. AI core. Please stand by.
Process finished.
Hello, Sir. How can I assist you?
I laughed as I gave her the first command.
"E.D.E.N., run diagnostics."
Diagnostics complete. Neural lattice stable. Ethical limiters removed. Genetic interface online.
I walked to the injector—less a tool, more a weapon—its chamber filled with swirling silver, the nanite solution that had devoured thirty years of my life. My life's obsession. My final defiance.
"Gods be damned," I whispered, almost a prayer.
I drove the needle into my neck.
It was instant.
Agony tore through me like lightning in reverse—fire crawling down every nerve, digging into my marrow like hooks. My vision shattered. My legs gave out, and I collapsed hard, cheek slamming the cold floor.
My muscles twisted, spasmed violently—like they were trying to rip themselves from the bone. I could feel them tearing. Something snapped—maybe a rib. Maybe more.
Then came the burning. Not on the skin, but beneath it, inside it, like molten glass poured into my bloodstream. My veins pulsed with liquid knives.
I screamed—but it came out broken, wet, guttural. Blood poured from my nose. I bit down so hard my teeth cracked.
I could feel them—those goddamn nanites—digging, building, rewriting. My cells tried to resist, and I could feel their death throes. Each one a spark of agony.
I tasted copper. Then bile. Then nothing.
The world dimmed, not like sleep, but like drowning. Heavy. Silent. Endless.
Then...
Nanite integration: 97%... 98%... 99%. Binding complete.
Warning: subject exhibits extensive physiological damage. Broken ribs. Torn ligaments. Internal scarring. Initiating emergency regeneration.
I screamed.
Yeah, it turns out that regeneration was not that pretty or comfortable at first, it would take quite a lot to get used to having literal broken bones and torn muscles being fixed. After a while the pain vanished as I remained on the floor breathing heavily as I struggled to breath.
After a while after my breath returned, I clenched my fist and smiled. I was no god, but now I had something that would help me get close enough to kill those bastards.
I stood up and moved for my jacket. It was an old thing. Stitched and restitched so many times it probably had more thread than fabric now. But it still kept the cold out. Still held the weight of everything I'd survived.
Time to move to the second phase of my plan.
I stepped out into the city. Well… what was left of it.
Dallas wasn't Dallas anymore. The gods renamed it Dagon's Gate five years ago, after some Mesopotamian fish-faced freak claimed the Gulf Coast as his personal aquarium. Now it was more ruins than city—skyscrapers gutted and rebuilt with divine alloys, streets paved in obsidian, glowing runes floating in the air like corporate ads.
Magic ran through everything here now. Even the pigeons looked pissed off and extra-dimensional.
"E.D.E.N., confirm tower location," I whispered as I moved through an alley that stank of sulfur and fried hope.
"Tower of Divine Knowledge located: Sector Nine. Estimated travel time: 11 minutes, 43 seconds via stealth route Theta-3. All celestial entities are currently gathered in Greece for the Solstice Revel. Minimal resistance expected."
I grinned.
The Solstice Revel. Their stupid yearly orgy of wine, power, and ego. All the divine in one place—Greece, this year. Which meant the Codex Tower would be nearly empty.
All their knowledge. All their secrets. Locked in a single tower, guarded year-round by angelic sentries and divine encryption. Normally, a suicide mission.
Tonight? Opportunity.
The streets got quieter the closer I got. The further away from the temples, the fewer "believers" you saw. Only the desperate live here now.
At the edge of a scorched plaza, a half-collapsed neon sign flickered: OLD DOWNTOWN MALL. That was my route. Through the mall, into the sub-tunnels, and up through the infrastructure that fed the tower.
I stepped over a burned-out android preacher still clutching a sign: "YAHWEH LIVES. REPENT OR BE RENDERED." Its speakers crackled with dying scripture.
I kicked it in the head.
Inside the mall, time had stopped.
Stores lay hollow, looted years ago. Vine-like tendrils of divine corruption grew along the walls—pulsing with pale blue light. I moved carefully. Some of those tendrils were alive. Hungry.
Down two escalators, through a broken fountain, and into the maintenance shafts. The air was dry and smelled like copper and smoke.
"E.D.E.N., scan for glyph traps."
"Detecting six minor glyph wards. Three inactive. Two degraded. One active—left corridor, above the ventilation duct. Recommendation: route adjustment."
"Alright, adjust it."
I crawled through the ducts like a rat. My back ached. Not from fatigue—just memory. So many years of doing this the hard way. Now I have E.D.E.N. Now I had an edge.
I reached the surface beneath the tower.
The Codex Tower loomed above me like a finger pointed at God. Smooth obsidian and golden inlay. It wasn't built—it was grown. The gods didn't need architects anymore. They willed buildings into existence.
And here I was, about to walk into their library.
I climbed up the rear ventilation shaft and kicked out the grate.
Inside, it was… quiet.
Too quiet.
The main hall was massive—lined with black-marble pillars and floating books that hovered in magical stasis. Glyphs spun lazily in the air like fireflies made of ink. Staircases moved on their own. Platforms floated to and from glowing archives.
The silence felt wrong. Sacred. This was a place mortals weren't meant to walk.
Which made me grin.
I stepped in.
"Eden, when will the angels return?"
"Angelic sentries expected to return in 2 hours, 14 minutes. Interference field detected. I will be unable to remote-hack higher security locks without direct contact."
"Understood."
I moved fast—eyes scanning titles, fingers brushing over cracked spines and dust-laced covers. The air was thick with age, like parchment and old blood. Every shelf towered like a mausoleum, packed with knowledge buried and forgotten. I wasn't sure what I was looking for—just something. Anything that could give me an edge.
Then I saw it.
Tucked halfway up a crooked shelf, behind a curtain of cobwebs and rot-blackened scrolls, was a black leather book, bound in silver thread. Its title was etched in flowing kanji, still glowing faintly with divine ink.
"Eden, can you translate this?"
"The Art of the Blade. Written by Susanoo-no-Mikoto"
"Susanoo-no Mikoto, who was he again?" I asked, turning the book over.
"Susanoo-no-Mikoto is the Japanese Sword God that is known as the God slayer."
"God Slayer you say, I think this book will really help me." I couldn't help but crack a grin as I reached out, hand trembling just slightly as I was about to open the book.
Then I stopped as a voice spoke from behind me.
"You're not supposed to be here."
I spun around, hand already reaching for the knife at my belt.
But it wasn't an angel.
It was… a girl.
A teenager. Pale skin, raven hair tied in a braid, eyes sharp as broken glass. She was dressed in servant robes.
"…Who the hell are you?"
"Name's Addison," she said. "I clean this place. Well… not this floor. But I saw you come in. You're lucky. You missed the blood ward by about half a meter."
I looked at the floor where I'd stepped. Faint red etchings flickered just past my boot.
"…Thanks."
"Don't mention it. Now tell me—what's your plan? Steal some knowledge? Burn it down? Upload the divine secrets to the mortal web?"
"Something like that."
"Alright, so what about you? Who are you?"
I hesitated.
"Adam."
Her eyes widened. "…The Adam? The one they call The Heretic?"
Right, that stupid title I got for getting into an argument with some priest... than burning the church down for not giving me what I had wanted.
"And what if I am? Are you planning to snitch?"
"Oh no, definitely not. But like holy shit. You're real. I thought you were a myth."
I turned back to the shelves. My voice was low, cold. "Yeah, well… I'm as much a myth as those bastards upstairs. So unless you're planning on stopping me, get the hell out of my way."
Silence.
Then E.D.E.N.'s voice, soft in my skull.
"Would you like to scan the information from the book?"
I ran my fingers over the worn cover. "Yeah. Do it."
I flipped through each page slowly, reverently. Every diagram, every word, burned itself into my memory as Eden confirmed the upload.
"Scan complete."
I closed the book and slid it back into place, like returning a sword to its sheath.
A moment passed before Eden spoke again.
"So… what are you doing now?"
I sighed and turned toward the rows of ancient tomes.
"I don't need a narrator," I muttered. "You want to be useful? Then shut up and find every book that would help me. Anything that'll help me kill the god… and survive."
I quickly moved as I resumed scanning the shelf as Addison vanished, not even responding. I sigh and try to hype myself up as I continue looking.
"Alright, only an hour and a half left, I totally got this."