Therefore, the existence that was born from the madness of three desperate people… was not merely a god.
It was a sin made flesh, and a corrupted prayer that had been answered.
A colossal god, who did not seem to understand the meaning of his own divinity, nor the reason for his existence, nor even why the earth trembled beneath his unsteady feet. His presence was not merely the presence of a body, but a presence that overwhelmed existence itself a weight that made the air heavier, the sky closer, and knees too weak to resist.
Even the great mages who created him, those whose names were known for cruelty and madness, whose names were forbidden to be spoken among slaves, bowed.
They bowed as wheat bends before an unseen storm.
And his brothers, who had long stood upright like swords, fell face-first into the dirt. It was not a voluntary fall… but a complete collapse before an unbearable greatness.
Even I, who once swore with my blood and my tears never to bow to anyone but my beloved Empire, found myself kneeling.
No, it was not kneeling.
It was the slow fall of a soul that had collapsed before the body did.
That being… with its single eye.
An eye that was not merely large, but deep, like a bottomless well. It looked at the arena, then beyond it, then at what the mind could never comprehend. It did not focus on anything specific, as if it were looking at everything at onceor at nothing at all.
There were no longer any corpses of those who had sacrificed themselves.
Not a bone remained, nor blood, nor even the mark of burning.
But they had not disappeared.
All their facesterrified, excited, crying, smilingwere fused into his massive body, imprinted upon his flesh as if carved into it. Some screamed in silence, some smiled in madness, and some looked as though they had realized the truth far too late.
They were not the ones who had offered their lives to the god.
They were the ones who had formed the god himself.
"Yes… yes… yes, my god!"
Horace screamed, his voice trembling between tears and ecstasy.
"We are your worshippers! We are the ones who brought you back to your land! We are the ones who did not abandon you when all the gods betrayed us!"
He could not contain his excitement. He could not endure waiting.
He stepped forward, stumbling in his steps, raising his hand like an offering.
And nothing happened… for a moment.
Then his hand tore apart.
It was not cut by a sword, nor crushed by any visible force.
It simply… separated.
As if the body had suddenly decided it no longer needed it.
The hand flew, and the drops of blood did not even touch the ground.
They surged forward, as if rejoicing in their fate, merging into the colossal body, where they formed… another small hand emerging from its shoulder, its fingers trembling with hysterical joy.
Horace did not scream.
He laughed.
He laughed as he fell to his knees, blood pouring from his severed arm.
"You are the one for whom we gave our lives!"
His voice was weaker now, but far more sincere.
"You are everything we desired! The gods abandoned us! They deserted our land! They forced us to live in a hell of monsters, and a darkness that devours minds, corrupts souls, and steals from man everything he holds dear! We could not live… without a god of our own!"
Arkanon stepped forward, his eyes red from sleeplessness and madness.
"We made you… with our blood, with our minds, with our bodies… so how could you not acknowledge us?"
But the one called a god… showed no interest.
He did not blink.
He did not breathe.
He showed neither displeasure nor gratitude.
Then his eye moved.
Toward the ground.
Toward… us.
We, who did not deserve the gaze of such a being.
We, who had been both witnesses and participants.
His eye fell upon us, as if the entire sky had collapsed at once.
And he moved his arm.
Not to touch us, nor to bless us, but… to determine our fate.
A coin appeared in his hand.
No one saw where it came from.
Perhaps it was forged from the gold that melted with the souls of those worshippers.
Perhaps it was the embodiment of a scale we could not comprehend.
It was small. Ordinary in size.
But in his grasp… it seemed sacred.
"Why can't I move?"
Elia thought, his mind screaming inside his skull.
"Why am I prostrating like this? Have I truly… gone mad?!"
He tried to raise his head, to break the bow, to prove to himself that he had not been broken.
But a smile would not leave his face.
A distorted smile, a mixture of ecstasy and terror.
He was conscious and enslaved at the same time.
In the sky, where the clouds were thick like the soot of furnaces, and the black sun wept dark shadows upon the earth, something small flashed.
The coin.
It rose, spun slowly, then fell.
We did not hear it strike, but we saw it settle upon his arm.
The engraving… was a face.
A face we did not recognize.
A face without expression.
We did not understand its meaning, nor what it symbolized.
But the being understood.
And the moment the coin settled, heads vanished.
They were not cut off.
They did not bleed.
They simply… were no longer there.
As if they had never existed.
A silence more dreadful than screaming spread.
"What…?" No one finished the sentence.
Three bodies fell headless, staggering for a moment before surrendering to the ground.
And finally, he spoke. His voice was not loud, yet it was everywhere.
It was not merely a sound to be heard, but a presence imposed upon us.
"O you who obeyed my desire…"
Each word weighed upon the air, making the lungs unable to fill.
"And you who committed an unforgivable evil… in the pursuit of pleasing me."
He paused.
As if the entire world held its breath.
"You were mistaken."
"I am not a being of absolute power, like those who dwell in the heights. I am not the creator of the sky, nor the ruler of the stars."
His voice grew deeper.
"But my dominion… and my authority… are real."
The earth trembled beneath us.
"They reign over this land. This place you have defiled with your ignorance. And for the errors of you three… forgiveness was not written."
I felt like a leaf before a boulder.
Like a particle in a storm.
As if my entire existence was worth nothing before his presence.
Fear was not merely a feeling.
It was a physical reality.
It was a weight upon the bones, a headache within the soul, and an urgent desire to disappear.
And his single eye showed neither mercy nor hatred, but only judgment.
"And you…"
The void trembled with the word, as if it had not been spoken but imposed upon existence itself.
"You who came and fell from paradise into hell…"
I felt my name being stripped from me, and my story laid bare before everyone without its details being spoken. He did not need to say who I was. He knew. He knew more than I knew about myself.
"You who came from a distant world…"
My limbs stiffened, and I did not dare raise my head.
"Your life will be decided by my hand. For you are no less than them. And every mistake… must be punished."
There was no anger in his voice.
There was not even a threat.
It was a pure judgment, cold and inevitable.
Then he threw the coin again.
A small piece of metal…
Everything my life possessed in weight and fate did not exceed its turning in the air.
It rose with unnatural slowness, as if time itself had slowed out of respect for it. It spun… and the darkness of the weeping sun reflected upon it, so that for a moment it seemed like another disc in the sky.
My life…
Reduced to the flip of a coin.
"Absolute luck…" I whispered inside myself, not knowing whether the sound escaped or remained trapped in my chest.
If I could say it… this was nothing but sacred absurdity.
I did not understand.
Why would a being whose power overwhelms the air itself, whose presence crushes souls, decide our fate with a piece of metal?
Why not erase whoever he wished with a clear will?
Then I realized my ignorance.
What concern do humans have with the logic of gods?
We try to understand the universe with simple minds.
Finally… it fell.
I did not hear the sound of its impact, but I felt as though my heart was the one that struck the ground.
Silence.
A thick silence, so much that even my breathing seemed like a crime.
"You… your fate has been decided, one who came from afar."
I closed my eyes.
I prepared for nothingness.
For my head to be erased as their heads were erased.
For my body to be taken, and my face added to that sacred, distorted flesh.
I prepared for pain…
Or for something worse than pain.
A moment passed.
Then another.
Then… nothing but… silence.
And his voice echoed like a resonance within the cavities of my bones.
"Today… you have been granted another chance to live."
His words were not a blessing.
They were a burden.
"A miracle has occurred. And your mistakes have not been forgiven… you have merely been granted a chance to atone for them."
I felt a coldness spread through my back.
Not forgiveness.
Not mercy.
But a reprieve.
"From this eye of mine… depart."
It was not a request.
It was not advice.
It was an order.
An order that must be carried out with my entire life, or it would be taken from me without hesitation.
At that moment, I did not decide to flee.
My body decided.
My knees jolted, and my heart exploded in my chest like a war drum. I did not turn back. I did not even dare think of turning back. All I knew was that if that eye that single eye were to settle upon me again, I would be finished.
I ran.
I ran like I had never run in my life.
Not fleeing from death… but fleeing from a postponed judgment.
Those bastards had succeeded.
They had truly succeeded.
They sacrificed everything their bodies, their minds, their souls and they made a god.
They left the world with one witness.
Me.
A witness to their success… and to their deaths.
A witness to the birth of a being who does not understand his divinity, yet understands his authority.
And all I must do now is run.
The escape I had always longed for.
Escape from the arenas, from struggle, from slavery, from the faces that watch you while you are crushed.
And today… it was granted to me.
Not by my will.
Nor by my courage.
But by the command of a being greater than my existence.
…..
When I burst out of the arena, I realized the world itself had changed.
The walls built of flesh had fallen.
They did not collapse with noise; they melted, as if they were no longer necessary after what they had been made for was born.
The sea of blood had dried.
Nothing remained but a dark crust, cracking beneath my feet.
The temple that twisted structure which had embraced rituals, screams, and madness cracked and collapsed, as if it had fulfilled its final purpose.
With the rising of the god… everything else fell.
I stepped out into the world.
It was the same…
Yet not the same.
The sky was still clouded.
The black sun still wept its shadow.
But the air was different. I was no longer a prisoner, nor was I free. I was a survivor… under a postponed judgment.
I may not know what awaits me.
Monsters?
Ruin?
Cities empty of their gods?
But what I endured in those arenas taught me one thing: the world that its gods have abandoned is nothing but a flame left to fight the wind alone.
Some flames go out.
Some burn with madness.
And some… burn everything that comes near them.
And me?
I am merely a spark whose fate has not yet been decidedwhether it will go out.