Chapter 116: The Blood of Gods and the Breaking of Earth
Before it was called Earth, the planet had another name.
Gaia.
Not the only Gaia, of course. The Emperor, during the Age of Restoration, had named many planets across this sector after the concept of life and rebirth. Gaia, in his tongue, meant not just Earth but womb, seed, core of resurgence.
Each Gaia was a world shaped from fractured remnants of the Origin Plane, a gift to surviving races after the Great Battle. These Gaias were to become sanctuaries seed-worlds for new futures.
But this Gaia the one now called Earth was different.
It had accidentally received too much.
The Emperor hadn't known it at the time. When he crafted this Gaia, he had woven into its crust multiple laws of Origin not fragments, but foundational anchors: Law of Growth, Law of Transition, Law of Veil, Law of Embodiment, and worse, aspects of Fate.
The result?
A planet that could evolve faster than others. A place where mortals could one day rival gods. A planet that held the potential to birth new divinities, not from outside power, but from its own will.
That power called to many.
And the gods came.
They came not through conquest but cloaked in peace, promising blessings, offering guidance. They saw mortals as tools, faith as fuel. They hid their nature and embedded themselves into the new societies of man binding themselves through Fate to mortal worship.
It gave them rapid growth.
But also, dependence.
Over centuries, they rewrote Earth's story. They buried the name of the Emperor, erased memory of the Origin Plane, and cast doubt on anything that hinted at pre-divine history. Temples rose in their names. Wars were waged in their honor. Whole cultures grew under divine propaganda.
And Earth, for all its latent might, began to forget itself.
When the Emperor finally returned to Earth drawn by the growing instability in its mana layers he expected welcome, or at least recognition.
Instead, he found none.
Not a single mortal remembered him.
Worse, the divine territories normally suspended in higher dimensions were anchored directly into the planet's leyline system. Fate-threads laced every continent. The gods had locked themselves into Gaia to feed directly from its primal laws.
The Emperor's expression turned to steel.
He asked them to leave.
They refused.
He warned them.
They mocked him.
Then the slaughter began.
The battle was beyond comprehension.
The gods who had tied themselves to Gaia had no retreat their territories, their artifacts, even parts of their soul-bodies were rooted in the planet. To leave was to dissolve.
So they fought.
They called forth avatars made of sunlight and chaos, unleashed stars bound in cages, cracked mountains with spells forgotten by most realms. Cults rose in desperation, hurling mortal sacrifices to amplify divine power.
But the Emperor was not a being of balance.
He was Absolute.
Wielding his amour and sword, his presence alone unraveled false constructs. Reality warped in his steps. Entire pantheons fell in single strikes. Divine blood rained across the world golden, black, starlit, screaming with forbidden memories.
The Locus was locked, sealed to stop the damage from spilling into other Gaian worlds.
But Earth still shook.
The damage was irreversible.
At the height of the battle, the Emperor clashed with the Triad of Fates three gods who had woven the planet's destiny into themselves. Their final stand shattered the leyline lattice running beneath the central continent, Pangaea.
The planet cracked.
Not just physically, but metaphysically.
Mana surged uncontrollably, erupting into storms, void fissures, and awakenings across the surface.
Origin energy that had once flowed smoothly began to ripple like a wounded heartbeat.
The single landmass of Gaia fractured violently, becoming seven unstable landmasses what humans would eventually call the seven continents.
Volcanoes born from divine detonations reshaped oceans. The poles shifted. Even the stars' reflections in Earth's sky were tilted, echoing the broken fate web now dissolving.
Mortals called it the Great Flood, the End of the Gods, or The Time of Madness.
But the Emperor called it Justice.
In the aftermath, the Emperor could have rebuilt everything.
But Earth was too deeply wounded. The Laws of Origin had become unstable in this region of the universe. If he repaired it too soon, others would come again drawn by greed.
So, he made a choice.
He sealed the pyramids not to stop them, but to limit them. He encoded a curse into the planet:
> "Let Gaia drink from the blood of those who come in greed."