The aftermath of the battle left a heavy silence over the canyon.
Ashen dust floated in the air, swirling around the broken altar. The Blood-Splinter creatures were gone, but the land still bled magic—sickly and wrong.
Alan stared at the cracked altar, the hilt of his katana still humming faintly with residual energy.
Something stirred beneath the surface.
A whisper.
A call.
Alan's hand tightened on his sword. His body was exhausted, but his soul was alert, sharpened like a blade about to clash with destiny itself.
Then the world around him shifted.
*****
He blinked—and found himself standing somewhere else.
A void stretched endlessly in every direction.
Above him, a shattered sky, black and broken, with veins of glowing silver running through the cracks.
Floating before him was a figure cloaked in ancient robes, face hidden beneath a hood stitched from stars themselves.
The First Oracle.
The voice that spoke was neither male nor female, but a chorus of countless souls.
"Child of the Thirteenth. You have broken one chain... but countless others remain."
Alan stood tall. "Who are you?"
The Oracle's hood tilted slightly.
"I am what remains of prophecy, after gods abandoned the world. I see what was... and what will be."
Alan said nothing.
He listened.
The Oracle stretched a hand outward. Images burst into existence:
A black sun rising over ruined cities.
Armies of the dead marching under banners stitched from human skin.
A throne of bones atop a mountain of corpses.
And a figure cloaked in violet fire, his face hidden, standing above them all.
Alan's breath caught when he realized—
The figure was him.
Or… could be.
"You walk a cursed path," the Oracle intoned. "One choice. One misstep. And you will become the doom you seek to prevent."
Alan's voice was steady. "And if I refuse the path?"
The Oracle's laughter was like a thousand candles snuffing out at once.
"There is no refusal. Only acceptance… or destruction."
The void trembled.
Alan felt the pressure of countless futures bearing down on him.
"Remember, Sovereign of the End..." the Oracle whispered. "The gods do not fear mortals. They fear you."
"For only you can slay them."
*****
Alan gasped as he snapped back to the real world, the vision burning behind his eyes.
Seris was at his side, shaking him lightly. "Alan? You disappeared for a second. What happened?"
Alan straightened, his gaze sharper than before.
"A warning," he said grimly. "And a promise."
Kraevok wiped blood from his chin. "Bad news?"
Alan looked toward the horizon, where a storm was already gathering, dark and vast.
"The gods are waking," Alan said. "And they're already afraid."
*****
The three of them stood in silence, the weight of the future pressing down on their shoulders.
But Alan welcomed it.
Because now he understood.
This wasn't just about thrones or seals.
This was a war for the fate of the heavens themselves.
And he—Alan Grey—would be the blade that shattered them.
One god at a time.