— The Mad God Returns —
BOOM—
The sound did not resemble thunder.
It felt older—rawer—like something tearing free from the bones of the world.
At the headwaters of the Blackwater River, the ancient mountain that had slumbered since before recorded memory lurched violently, as if something deep within it had finally drawn breath.
Cracks spread across its surface in jagged webs.
Stone split with a shriek that scraped the nerves.
Boulders the size of houses sheared loose, dragging centuries-old trees with them as they plunged into the river below.
The Blackwater roared in protest.
Waves surged upstream, smashing against the banks as if the current itself were trying to flee.
The ground convulsed.
Villagers were thrown from their feet as homes collapsed inward, beams snapping, tiles exploding into dust. The air filled with grit and splinters, blotting out the sun beneath a rolling curtain of debris.
"An... earthquake?" someone shouted hoarsely.
No one answered.
The ground was still screaming.
Then the impossible happened.
The mountain rose.
Not slid.
Not collapsed.
It was wrenched free.
Bedrock tore open with a wet, grinding sound as the entire peak—thousands of feet of stone—was ripped bodily from the earth.
A figure stood beneath it.
Silver hair streamed wildly in the gale created by his ascent. One hand was raised, fingers spread, and the mountain rested there as if it weighed nothing at all. Around him, dense shadow coiled and writhed, clinging to his body like living smoke, radiating an aura so violent it distorted the air.
Laughter erupted—high, manic, unrestrained.
"Seven thousand years," the voice thundered, cracking across the sky.
"Seven thousand years sealed beneath stone and filth..."
The figure tilted his head back, laughter sharpening into something almost ecstatic.
"...and now I breathe again."
Eren felt the chill before he understood it.
This presence carried none of the calm vastness spoken of in scripture. There was no mercy in it—no balance. Only pressure, madness, and an appetite sharpened by eternity.
The shadow that had gnawed at Aarav's soul suddenly made sense.
"Hmph."
The man's crimson eyes swept the horizon, unfocused, feral.
"They called me a calamity. A curse. So they buried me."
His fingers closed.
"Break."
The mountain detonated.
Stone shattered mid-air, the peak disintegrating into countless colossal fragments that rained down like a meteor storm. Each impact sent shockwaves rippling across the land, turning forests into splinters and riverbanks into craters.
A mountain—reduced to rubble—by a single hand.
Every Vigil-Wyrm felt it at once.
The tightening in the chest.
The sudden clarity.
This was not a god to be worshipped.
It was destruction given form.
The figure hovered amid the falling debris, shadow swirling lazily as his gaze drifted downward. To him, the people below were scarcely more than movement—flickers of life clinging to the dirt.
"Insects," he said idly.
"Why are you still standing?"
The air thickened.
It pressed down like an unseen weight, crushing breath from lungs, bending spines, forcing knees toward the ground. Bones groaned. Muscles screamed.
Eren staggered as the pressure slammed into him. Pain flared through his chest, sharp and suffocating, but the light within him surged instinctively—faint, strained, yet stubborn. It wrapped his body in a trembling glow as he forced himself upright, vertebra by vertebra.
His vision blurred. His teeth ground together.
Still, he looked up.
The silver-haired figure loomed above, vast and distant, yet close enough to feel the madness pouring off him.
Eren's voice cut through the crushing air—raw, hoarse, but unbroken.
"A god who demands kneeling protects nothing," he said, each word dragged from his chest.
"What you carry isn't divinity."
His gaze burned as he met those crimson eyes.
"It's slaughter."
---
— Standing Against Destruction —
"An insect,"
the Tidelord said softly, almost curiously.
"You presume to weigh me?"
A flicker of blood-red light ignited in his pupils—not rage, but intent. Pure, unfiltered killing intent, stripped of emotion.
One finger lifted.
The void screamed.
FZZT—
A needle-thin beam of black light tore through space itself, its surface collapsing inward as if reality could not endure its density. Wherever it passed, color drained away, leaving only absence. Its trajectory was precise, merciless—aimed straight between Eren's brows.
"Eren—move!"
Cael's shout cracked, raw with panic.
Eren did not move.
The pressure locked onto him like a vice. The god's aura pinned his body, crushed his instincts, erased all paths of retreat. There was nowhere to dodge—no angle, no margin.
So the last thing left ignited.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears as something feral clawed its way up from his chest. God or demon—labels meant nothing now. Kneeling would not save him. Silence would not spare him.
If this was the end, it would not be quiet.
"Then come."
He hurled his right hand forward.
Ten silver threads burst from his palm, slicing through the air like falling stars. They twisted, intersected, and collided head-on with the beam of annihilation.
BOOM—
The black light shattered.
Not dispersed—shattered, fracturing like brittle glass struck by a hammer. Shards of corrupted energy burst outward, dissolving mid-air into dead sparks that vanished before they could touch the ground.
Silence crashed down.
For a heartbeat, the battlefield forgot to breathe.
Eyes widened. Mouths hung open. Even the sky seemed to pause.
High above, the Tidelord's expression shifted—just slightly. A ripple of something unfamiliar crossed his features.
Surprise.
The crushing pressure bearing down on the crowd loosened, if only by a hair.
"Now—attack!"
The shout tore through the stunned stillness.
The Vigil-Wyrms moved as one.
What restraint remained shattered completely. Multicolored torrents of energy erupted upward—fire, frost, lightning, compressed force—howling through the sky in a chaotic storm aimed at the figure above.
"You dare,"
the Tidelord hissed, the last trace of amusement burned away.
"Insects defiling divinity."
His right hand turned.
The gesture was lazy.
The response was not.
HUMM—
The sky darkened as a colossal blood-red palm manifested overhead, its edges rippling as if sculpted from congealed gore. The stench hit first—thick, metallic, suffocating—followed by a wave of despair so heavy it crushed thought itself.
The palm descended.
Inevitable.
THUD—!
The pressure slammed down before it even touched the ground. Bodies were driven flat. Bones screamed. Blood sprayed across cracked earth as people were smashed into submission, unable to crawl, unable to scream.
All except one.
Eren remained standing.
His knees trembled violently. His spine bent, then locked. Bone cracked—audible, sickening. Blood streamed from his eyes, nose, ears, streaking down his face until it no longer resembled a man's.
Still, he did not fall.
He stood there like a banner planted in ruin, shoulders shaking, breath tearing through his chest in ragged bursts.
His roar ripped upward, hoarse and shredded:
"You can crush flesh,"
he spat blood as he spoke,
"but you don't decide what breaks!"
The Tidelord looked down at him.
Nothing stirred behind those crimson eyes.
"Pathetic."
The blood palm accelerated, mass folding inward, ready to erase everything beneath it.
Then—
FWOOSH—!
BOOM!
A razor-straight beam of white light split the horizon, sharp and absolute, cleaving through the gloom like dawn tearing open night. It struck the center of the descending palm with surgical precision.
The impact detonated in a blinding storm of sparks. Blood-red energy recoiled violently, the massive construct shuddering as cracks of pure white spread across its surface.
Eren's vision swam.
That light—
recognition slammed into him even through the pain.
The same sword-light.
The same presence.
The one that had intervened before.
And then, carried on the disrupted air—
The unmistakable bite of alcohol.
Sharp. Familiar.
Out of place on a battlefield facing a mad god.
Yet unmistakably real.