Scene 1
"A Kunlun?"
I watched as the whale swimming beside me suddenly devoured a leviathan whole before blasting out of the Sea in a violent eruption of foam and spray.
"Sweet. Neres, record it as my Divine Beast. How one got here is a mystery, but it's my Divine Beast now."
Maintaining my long dragon form of inky black scales, I lunged at the Mid Minor God-ranked beast before it could properly understand what I was. It still treated me like another water-based predator, and that was exactly the mistake I needed. I wrapped my body around its massive frame and forced it into a brutal wrestle, using the surprise to crush its resistance before it could bring its full strength to bear.
The sea around us churned from the struggle.
Waves burst upward in walls of white as the Kunlun thrashed, its immense tail smashing across the surface hard enough to split water from water. But I kept tightening, pressing my weight and divinity through it until the beast's resistance began to break.
In Poseidon's Court, this would still be seen as legitimate.
If one possessed the strength to force a beast of this level into submission—especially one capable of being treated as a natural disaster in living form—then ownership was a matter of power, not debate.
"So how long will you keep it as a mount?" Neres asked, not a trace of emotion in his voice. "Oceanus will be upset if he finds out one of his divine beasts has been taken."
His warning explained enough.
That was why the creature had never been sighted openly before.
"As long as I want," I replied. "I don't mind trading a factor to Nyx to secure my hunts. Thankfully, I decided to journey into Poseidon's territory to test his reaction. If he wants something in return, I'll gift him apples."
Dragging the beast down onto a lone island jutting from the sea, I forced my divinity through its body.
The Kunlun screamed.
Not aloud.
In soul.
I felt the old brand hidden deep within it, Oceanus's ownership etched into its being like a buried command. My flames surged through the mark and burned it away piece by piece, erasing the old claim before I seared my own into its soul.
A Black Sun.
My motif settled into it with finality.
The beast convulsed once more, then slumped beneath me, trembling from the shock-and-awe method I had used to crush its will fast enough to avoid a prolonged battle.
"We're almost in the western region," Neres said as he watched the branding finish. "Once we arrive, we'll be by ourselves without any eyes watching over us."
I nodded and released my dragon form, returning to a mortal body as sea wind swept across the island.
The Kunlun's breathing slowed.
I forced it into sleep so it could recover from the process.
Then I looked west.
Toward the waters where observation would thin.
Toward the region where even old eyes preferred distance.
Scene 2
"Yes, we come from Lord Poseidon's Court," I said smoothly. "The owner of the world you live in. The Sea you breathe. The King of Sea Beasts and Merfolk."
I glanced toward Neres and caught the faintest smile tugging at his face.
Good.
Even he found some amusement in this.
Before us, an entire tribe of merfolk stood gathered beneath a coral rise shaped like a natural throne room. Their homes were worked into reef and stone, lit by pale underwater lanterns and drifting schools of fish that flashed silver whenever they turned. The water here was warmer than the routes farther west, carrying the smell of salt, shell, and packed seaweed from their storage pits.
Another tribe fooled.
Another community convinced that Poseidon had sent an emissary to verify the loyalty of mortals.
"If our Lord demands fruits every year," the elderly merman said, bowing low, "then we will strive to be loyal subjects. With your five laws of worship, we will never again be unloyal servants incapable of answering his request for anything."
I nodded solemnly as five men stepped forward carrying golden tablets.
Tablets I had been seeding throughout the sea.
Each one bore CuelJuris's name as the Divine Recorder of the End, marked clearly as the creator. The writing etched into them was simple enough for mortals to carry, repeat, and organize themselves around. That was the point.
"Good," I said, keeping my face arranged in the same composed manner Juris would use. "From each hunt or gathering, set aside one piece. Accumulate storage for the days of no food. And more importantly, learn to worship your lord properly. Even a growing storage is a better tribute than an empty one."
The elders bowed deeper.
Around them, younger merfolk nodded with the fervor of mortals who had finally been handed structure simple enough to believe in and practical enough to survive by.
That was why this worked.
The five laws were not burdensome.
They were useful.
Useful things became sacred much faster than empty mystery ever could.
I maintained CuelJuris's attitude carefully so I wouldn't ruin his image. Calm. Recorder-like. Slightly distant, yet always sounding as though there were systems beneath every instruction.
All the while, I could feel the watchers.
Every eye above Titan level.
Watching me spread these tablets.
Watching tribes organize around a framework none of them had bothered to provide themselves.
And none of them stopped it.
That mattered more than if they had.
Because it meant they had all retrieved copies for themselves already.
Meaning they were reading them.
Studying them.
And still choosing observation over interference.
I almost smiled.
The sea was becoming more interesting by the century.
Scene 3
"So there's another one of you brats."
I glanced up as I finally stabilized the Crown of Hell, my eyes settling on the blue-haired man with an equally vibrant beard standing nearby with a trident in hand.
Poseidon.
"Yes, Uncle Poseidon," I said. "There are two of us born from the union of Hades and Persephone. Just like you nudged the birth of the Four Satans."
My attention drifted back to the snake among the incubating Devils.
The thing shifted inside its forming space, while the other presences around it remained only half-real, still caught between concept and becoming. More importantly, I could see the four marks from different God-Kings branded into the forming Satans.
Those brands were collapsing the more the four grew.
Their plans were all failing.
Ruined by Zeus refusing to yield the Earth Crown.
"To say Hades has produced the highest level of miracles," Poseidon said, "would be disrespectful to what he sacrificed to produce them. Wouldn't you say so, nephew?"
I nodded once.
Because the truth was worse than most beings were willing to imagine.
It was frightening enough to witness the results.
To truly consider the path my father had taken to create them was something else entirely.
"Yet you are also the least Divine out of our bloodline," Poseidon continued. "Quite the interesting duo. One who appears mortal yet is steeped in madness from that Book… while the other breaks everyone's mind with actions akin to madness."
I stayed quiet as he pieced together his opinion.
The walls of Hell pulsed faintly around us, still unstable in places, the forming realm groaning with heat and dark-red light beneath its own birth pains. The cries of the Satans echoed through the distance, warped by stone, flame, and incubation chambers not yet ready to release their contents.
Poseidon summoned a throne beside me and took his seat as if he had every right to sit inside a realm still forming under another branch of the family.
Which, given who he was, he practically did.
"Let us discuss the truths of the Sea, my mad nephew."
I nodded and turned the pages in my book, recording the conversation as naturally as breathing.
"Let us talk then, my distant uncle."
The cries of the Satans continued in the background.
Neither of us acknowledged them further.
Some conversations mattered too much to be interrupted by future disasters still trapped in gestation.
Scene 4
"Asteria, send out Hecate to retrieve Neres. You'll be in charge of training him in the usage of Stellar Laws, since they follow a different concept from Earth Laws."
I watched the conversation between Juris and Poseidon continue while I gave the order.
The room around me remained calm, but never still. My Court was always in motion even when silent—gods, titans, and higher powers shifting into place the instant purpose appeared. In the distance, the Dark Sun pulsed with a low heavy warmth, the pseudo-realms inside it still waiting for their fuller architecture.
No doubt Mother's recent centuries of journeying were influencing this.
She had been moving quietly through the aftermath of Chronos's last war, aiding the losers, nudging key moments where Fate cracked just enough to let something else through. Using me. Using my sons. Using the broken places others overlooked.
"She will depart and watch over the Young Lord," Asteria said. "Only he can travel into Hyperion's vault as a Sun. Hecate will bring him back after ensuring the Young Lord's success."
I nodded and pulled out the StellarHeart.
The relic glowed with a contained celestial brilliance, its interior swirling with laws too fine to be mistaken for anything Earth-born. I split it cleanly, passing one half to Asteria while sending the other to Aeon.
"Study the Laws inside them," I said. "Once the World Seed is planted, we will begin construction of the pseudo Four Realms in the Dark Sun."
Both the God and Titan nodded.
Around them, my Big Four were already beginning to move, each one supporting a realm while Eris held the entire unstable structure together through my Seal of Darkness that Juris had sent back.
That part pleased me most.
Not because it was complete.
But because it was becoming.
Closing my eyes, I felt the increased amount of Faith being funneled toward me from the Sea.
So I shifted its alignment.
Pushing that gathered devotion back toward my brother instead.
Letting it flow into him as stabilizing force, as healing pressure, as the kind of support he would never ask for but would still benefit from.
Just as I had.
Scene 5
"Thanatos, Morpheus, and even Fatí."
I glanced around the newly regrowing grotto before focusing on the fact that I had been locked into a triangle by three of Hades's Big Four.
The place had changed since I last touched it.
Life was creeping back in where ruin had once pooled uninterrupted. Moss had begun reclaiming stone. Thin roots worked along the edges of the grotto walls. Even the air smelled cleaner, though the deeper residue of what had once been born here still lingered beneath it all.
"Prometheus," Thanatos said. "Do I need to say anything, or do you get the message?"
His tone made it clear the statement was not really a question.
I focused briefly on Fatí.
"If he's moving you," I said, "then Fate is really upset at something… or someone."
I raised my hands slowly.
Thanatos's crow shifted at once, its body stretching and hardening until it became a spear resting at my neck. The cold point dug just deep enough into the skin to remind me that these were not the sort of beings one tested for pride.
"Relax," I said. "Me and Zeus are on the outs since Chronos fell… or played his role in Fate."
That distinction mattered.
More than I liked.
"I'll leave. But answer me this, Angel of Death—"
I paused and glanced at Thanatos again.
"No. It would be better to call your domain the End now, wouldn't it?"
The spear pressed a little deeper.
I sighed.
Not because I feared the wound.
Because I had already lost the greater prize.
The chance to retrieve four End-class beings with mortal souls injected from Uranus before the board shifted further out of reach.
That stung more than the spear.
I turned away first.
Because all of us knew the same truth.
None of us would dare start the war yet.
Not the one we were all waiting for.
So I left the grotto to them.
And behind me, Hades's Big Four remained exactly where they had stood—silent, final, and patient in the way only those certain of future endings ever could be.