That single sound was enough to quiet the god of war, the loudest drunk in the city, and the ever-working mind of the god of knowledge. All three froze where they sat, pulling their hands away from anything they could throw. Noah, as always, was the calmest, still in the same position with his arms on the table — yet even he had shifted slightly, a small tilt in his shoulders betraying tension.
Another stair creaked. The silence filled the space between each echo, stretching it thin until the sound itself felt alive. Then another step. And another. Each one slower, heavier, until the last landed on the rug beside the staircase, just behind Noah.
No one moved. James's eyes stayed locked on the table's edge. Jasper's grin had faded, his usual smugness buried under the weight pressing down from above. Even Noah — usually unreadable — didn't speak. Something stood behind him, close enough to be felt. Whether it was Evodil or something else entirely, none of them could tell. The aura in the air was too heavy, too sharp to name.
Ethan finally let out the breath he'd been holding. In the presence of his father, the air shifted, less crushing, more familiar. He cleared his throat and managed a faint smile — this time genuine, not forced through nerves. Lifting his hand toward the shadowed figure by the stairs, he spoke with quiet relief.
"You don't have to wait any longer. He's here."
The footsteps were heavy. Not the kind of sound Evodil's polished shoes made — his were the old, shining leather type, the kind that belonged in a forgotten television broadcast more than in motion. These steps carried weight. The muffled rhythm alone was enough for all three gods to realize something had changed.
He came to a stop at the far end of the table. Only then did they raise their heads, and the first thing that met them was not familiarity, but confusion.
Evodil didn't look like himself. The tailored suit, the leather cape, the silver details that marked his presence — gone. What stood before them was closer to what Ethan had once told Jasper: rugged, stripped down, human in a way that didn't suit him. His hair, once dyed white, was now black — the same shade as Noah's and James's. The fur-collared cape he'd worn for as long as they'd known him was replaced by a plain black scarf wrapped high around his neck, covering nearly everything up to his mouth.
The cloak he wore hid most of his form, leaving only his gloved hands visible. Where the fabric parted near his chest, they saw gray metal plates layered like scales. One covered part of his chest, another his stomach, leaving a narrow gap between them that revealed a faded gray tunic underneath.
The blindfold across his eyes had changed too. Once black, now pale white, it almost disappeared against his skin. Tiny cuts marked his face — thin, uneven lines, some shallow, others deep enough that they should have bled. Yet not a drop of his strange "blood" escaped. Despite the state he was in, his face was clean-shaven, unnervingly meticulous.
His black hair hung unevenly, brushing the scarf around his neck and falling messily across his shoulders. A tied ponytail reached down behind him, held by a band so dark it vanished into the strands. A few loose locks framed his face, one long strand falling over the center, covering part of his nose.
He sat down at the opposite end of the table from Noah, folding his arms as he exhaled slowly. No greeting. No word. Just the quiet rasp of breath through the scarf and the creak of the chair beneath him.
Jasper broke the silence first. He leaned forward, hand against the table, trying to bring some air back into the room.
"Finally got that dye out, huh?" he said with a faint, crooked grin. "Looks like an actual man again."
No one laughed. The silence was so absolute that Ethan could hear the faint thud of a book falling in the library above.
Jasper's smirk faltered as the air grew colder. Before he could pull back, something lashed from Evodil's back — a shadow, fast and deliberate. It coiled around Jasper's neck, tightening in a single motion.
Chairs scraped. James was on his feet before the second heartbeat, his warhammer igniting into molten light.
"Put him down, Evodil!" he barked, the weapon aimed straight at Ethan instead. The air in the room cracked with heat and panic.
Noah finally lifted his head, straightening his back as the situation settled into something far worse than argument. Ethan and Jasper were the youngest in the room, and both were seconds away from real danger. He didn't move yet, only thought to himself, Could they even try to fight him like this? They had an army stationed in the Citadel if things escalated, but this was Evodil — and with the way he looked now, there was no doubt he had more than a few surprises hidden under that cloak.
No one made another move. The room stayed frozen, the only sounds the crackling heat of James' warhammer and Jasper's strained breaths as they grew thinner and sharper. Then the tendril loosened. It slid back into the Manor's shadows and vanished. Jasper collapsed forward onto the table, hands gripping his throat, his whole frame shaking as he dragged in air, his body still catching up to what happened.
Evodil didn't apologize. He barely glanced their way.
"Old habits die hard," he muttered, exhaling through the scarf as he stared down at it, his tone flat and unimpressed.
Everyone stared at him. Everyone except Ethan, who still had James' warhammer pointed directly at his chest.
James snapped, shifting the weapon's aim away from Ethan and toward Evodil.
"What the hell do you mean by that?" he shouted. "Since when is choking my son a habit? In what world does that even make sense?"
Ethan let out a quiet chuckle. Noah shot him a look, eyebrow raised, though tension already pushed it nearly to his hairline. He didn't speak.
Ethan shrugged slightly.
"It's just… that's almost exactly what he said were your last words before you fell off the cliff into lava. In his stories."
James went still. The fire around the warhammer sputtered out completely, leaving only the molten rock frame glowing dimly. His grip tightened as he stared at Evodil, searching his face for something familiar. For the first time since entering the Manor, he saw it — the mannerisms, the posture, the silence. This was Evodil. Their Evodil.
But the words stayed with him.
"What stories?" James asked, voice lower now. "What did he tell the boy? What is he talking about?"
He stepped closer.
"And why," he growled, "are you staying so damn silent when you're usually the loudest one in the room?"
As they all stared at him — Jasper's shaking breath, James's distrust sharpening by the second, Noah's exhausted mind running faster than his pulse — Evodil finally moved. He leaned forward, his folded hands still resting on the table, meeting their eyes one by one. A quiet chuckle slipped out from under the scarf. He'd seen every mistake they made before, every detail they repeated, every pattern they fell into. And now, standing here again, nothing had changed.
Awareness didn't help him if he was alone. He knew that better than any of them. Even knowing everything meant nothing without someone on the outside to pull the right thread.
He leaned back in his chair, raising his hands in a light mock defense before sliding them into the pockets of his cloak. A small smirk formed as they kept staring at him, waiting, tense, ready to snap.
James didn't last.
"What's so funny to you? Why aren't you saying anything? Why—"
Noah cut him off with a single raised hand, adjusting his glasses with the other. He let out a tired sigh.
"Enough. I'm sure he has something to say. And we should calm down before jumping at him again. He did try to choke Jasper, yes, but if there's a reason — a 'story' — we listen first. Then decide what to do."
James clicked his tongue but dropped back into his seat. The warhammer dissolved into ash in an instant, leaving only the faint warmth it had carved into the air. Ethan finally took a full breath and stepped closer to Evodil, staying beside his chair with a small, hesitant smile, trying to seem open rather than intimidated.
Evodil placed his hands back on the table. The smirk faded. His voice, when it finally came, cut through the silence like a clean slice of metal.
"You're not just all stuck in some trap I made."
Everyone went still. Even Jasper stopped coughing.
"You've been stuck in it for the last two trillion, four hundred seventy-one billion, six hundred million years."
His blindfolded head tilted slightly, as if listening to something none of them could hear.
"Because this isn't a simple trap," he said, fingers curling against the wood. "You're in a time loop. One controlled by a freak with… issues. Issues related to me."
For a second, for a single moment, the room went silent again. No coughing from Jasper, no chuckle from Ethan, no anger from James. Every gaze locked on the same source of the impossible claim — Evodil.
But the quiet didn't last. It shattered almost instantly. Jasper broke first, half-laughing, half-coughing, slamming his right arm on the table while his other hand clutched his sore throat.
"A–a time loop—? Yeah, right—" he choked out between breaths, too amused to stop even as his voice cracked.
James tried to keep a straight face, covering his mouth with his hand, but the corner of his lips betrayed him. His shoulders trembled slightly as he fought back a laugh. He didn't believe a single word of it either.
Noah and Ethan remained still.
Ethan didn't react because none of this was new to him. He already knew the story of the loops. He believed it. What confused him was why Evodil told him first instead of the others, but he didn't ask. If Evodil had a plan, he wasn't about to question it.
Noah… didn't laugh. Didn't smirk. Didn't blink much either. It was far from the craziest thing Evodil had said this month. And considering they hadn't spoken since the moment Noah dragged his unconscious body out of the Citadel, he couldn't dismiss it outright. Assuming Evodil had lost his mind would be careless. Dangerous.
He needed something solid.
So he raised his hand again. The gesture alone was enough to settle James and Jasper back into their seats as the echoes of their brief amusement died out.
"Prove it," Noah said, eyes fixed on Evodil.
Evodil didn't react to Noah's demand at first. He only shifted forward, folding his arms on the table, the scarf rising slightly with the slow drag of his breath.
"You want proof," he said. "Alright."
He turned his head toward Jasper.
"You remember that street. The one with the soldier aiming a Glock between your eyes."
Jasper's shoulders went stiff.
"You tried talking your way out of it. Told him he didn't have to pull the trigger. Told him he was pissed, bleeding, and that you may have tried to chew on his friend's fingers."
His voice didn't waver.
"You stepped to the side. Said you weren't important. Not a god. Not immortal. 'Just the intern.' Your words. You told him your job was to clean up after chaos, not be it."
Jasper froze. His eyes widened, no grin left to hide behind. No one else had been there.
Evodil's attention moved to Noah next.
"And you. Down in the underground district, near the roots of that tree."
Noah's fingers curled slightly.
"You found green fabric caught under one of them. Same shade she always wore. Handmade. You recognized it before you even crouched down. The roots weren't wrapped around anything. They'd shaped themselves into a body."
Noah's throat tightened. He didn't blink. Not once.
Then Evodil turned to James.
"And you," he said. "On that floating rock above the city. When you took out a cigarette and lit it with your ring finger."
James didn't move.
"You stood at the edge and stared down at the lights below you. Then you thought back to that other floating stone — the one where the three of us stood before anything here had a name. Noah messing with that human device he stole. You trying to decide what laws this place would have. Me looking into the horizon and saying the word Menystria like it already belonged to us."
James's hand twitched. The disbelief draining out of him looked almost painful.
Evodil leaned back again, hands slipping into his pockets.
"And if you're wondering how I know any of that… it's simple."
His voice lowered.
"I was there every time it happened. Every repeat. Every failure. Every version of you."
Silence swallowed the room.
"You've lived all of that more times than you can count," he said. "And I've watched it repeat for longer than this world has existed."
Jasper huffed, leaning back in his chair as he rubbed the side of his throat.
"Yeah, sure. Maybe that's the case," he muttered. "Maybe for once you're not completely insane. But are we really supposed to take that risk? You could've just been watching us from the shadows like you always do. You made the damn curse. For all we know, you're thinking of new ways to kill us right now and this is just stalling before some… shadow thing jumps out."
James nodded once, slow and tense. He kept his face turned toward Noah, but his eyes stayed on Evodil.
"Even if he's telling the truth, it means this moment right here could've already happened. And with all his supposed 'awareness' of the loops, he might not even remember the outcome."
Ethan let out a long breath, leaning closer to Evodil with a tired look.
"They're not wrong. The chances of them believing it enough to help you make a real plan… it's low. Way lower than ten percent." He paused, glancing toward Noah. "But if Noah actually tries to think it through, we might have a chance of standing together against that thing. Instead of you doing it alone again."
A quiet settled over the room — heavy, but calmer than before. Noah straightened his posture, adjusting his glasses as he finally spoke.
"So tell me," he said. "Is it real? Do you actually think we're trapped in a loop with no escape? Do you know it?"
Evodil smirked, leaning back into his chair with a soft creak.
"The only escape is killing the one who made it," he said. "Asking it to let us go? Not happening. We'd be dead before the words even formed. It's suicide to let it know we're aware."
Noah didn't flinch, but the air around him shifted — like something inside him clicked and started running hotter, harder, faster.
Then he asked the question none of them wanted to ask first.
"Do you have a plan?"
Evodil stayed quiet for a moment, thinking. The room waited with him, the tension shifting again, enough to make Ethan pinch the bridge of his nose and slide back against the wall. He stared ahead with a blank, sharpened expression — no humor left, no nerves, just the frustration of being dragged through more emotional whiplash than anyone should ever endure before sunrise.
Evodil finally exhaled and stood. The chair pushed itself back into place without being touched. He stepped past Jasper, and Jasper stiffened like someone had pressed a knife to his spine, only relaxing once Evodil walked by without another tendril lashing out. He muttered a shaky "thank god" under his breath.
Evodil stopped in front of Noah. He raised one hand, the other hanging loose inside the folds of his cloak. A faint smirk formed, the kind that carried exhaustion more than confidence.
"I have a plan," he said. "A big one. And I'll need help. But I can't tell you yet. Not here. Not while something could be listening. Even the air."
Noah looked at the offered hand before letting out a slow sigh. He placed his own hand in Evodil's, the grip firm but cautious. Evodil pulled him up from the chair, and both of them shared the smallest trace of a smirk. James huffed loudly from his seat, arms crossed.
Noah met Evodil's eyes — or where they would've been behind the blindfold.
"We'll help you," he said. "We'll avoid the war, avoid… whatever happened before. At least until we're free. We trust your word, and you'll trust ours, because we don't have anything else left."
His tone hardened.
"But when this is over… you're going to explain why you cursed the world. And why my lover is dead."
Evodil blinked. A full second of stillness. He hadn't heard Noah use that word in any loop. Not once. It caught him off guard enough to dull the smirk on his face for a moment. But he didn't question it. Not now.
He smiled instead, small and sharp.
"It's a deal."
With a sigh, Evodil let go of Noah's hand and patted his shoulder once before stepping away. Jasper and James were already getting up from their seats.
James brushed off his jacket, giving a short nod.
"Well… this wasn't as much of a waste of time as I expected," he admitted. "Still not convinced this whole 'time loop' thing is real."
Jasper shrugged.
"Worth a shot. At least we're not fighting. That's what we wanted from the start," he said, rubbing at the red mark on his neck. "Kinda funny, though. I became the pretty face of that stupid revolution, and now it's useless if we're actually up against something that loops time and probably killed us a couple times already."
Noah sighed softly.
"Then we get ready for the real battle. Even if it's four of us—" he glanced at Ethan, "—technically five… it's still going to be close."
Ethan perked up at that, shaking his head fast and forming an X with his arms.
"I'm not fighting anyone," he said. "Even if it's some terrifying creature. I don't want to hurt anyone. I could hurt one of you by accident, and that's the last thing I'd ever want to do to my… family."
Evodil smirked at him, just slightly.
"That way of thinking'll get you far in this world," he said. "And don't worry. You're safe with us, even if you're a… pacifist."
He turned away toward the archway leading back into the entrance hall. Noah called after him.
"Where are you going?"
Evodil stretched his arms over his head as he walked.
"Out," he said. "I need to rethink the plan. See if we need anything else. I'll be back before you start worrying."