They came at dawn.
Not with drums.
Not with chants.
Not even with fear.
They came with confidence.
Chukwudi sensed them before he saw them—not through the earth, which still refused him, but through absence. A hollow moving across the land, like something important had been scraped away and left behind.
Idemili stood at the edge of the camp, her river-form rippling uneasily.
"These ones do not pray," she said. "They calculate."
They called themselves The Continuum.
Men and women clothed in layered hides and metal-threaded robes, their faces uncovered, eyes sharp and disturbingly calm. No charms. No idols. No offerings tied to their belts.
Only tools.
Behind them rolled iron constructs pulled by beasts stitched with runes. Inside the constructs, something breathed—slow, deep, patient.
A tall man stepped forward.
"Chukwudi," he said, pronouncing the name perfectly. "Son of the Snake Woman. Breaker of divine anchors."
The cursed children hissed.
Obinna clenched his fists.
"You killed Ọbara," the man continued. "You revealed that gods can die. For that, we thank you."
Chukwudi felt cold.
"You're welcome," he replied. "Now leave."
The man smiled.
"We cannot."
They opened one of the constructs.
Inside was a god.
Or what remained of one.
Stripped of name. Bound in iron scripture. Its essence siphoned through tubes etched with human mathematics and blood-logic. The creature twitched, its divinity leaking into glass vessels that glowed softly.
A harvested alụsị.
Adaeze staggered backward, gagging.
"They're farming them," she whispered.
The man nodded proudly. "Yes. We no longer worship. We extract."
Idemili snarled, her river boiling. "You will unmake the world."
The man tilted his head. "The world is already unmade. We are simply choosing what replaces it."
The ground trembled.
Not answering Chukwudi.
Answering something else.
The Correction stirred beneath the soil, drawn by the scent of efficiency, of belief replaced by function.
Chukwudi felt panic twist in his chest.
"You don't understand what you're feeding," he said.
"Oh, we do," the man replied calmly. "It is the future. A force without superstition. Without sentiment."
He raised a hand.
Behind him, the hunters aimed weapons—not at Chukwudi.
At the cursed children.
The first shot erased sound.
The shadow-girl screamed as her body flattened into ink and was sucked into a containment sigil. One of the twins burst into roots trying to shield the others—and was severed piece by piece by precision blades.
Chukwudi moved.
Too late.
Always too late.
He reached for the earth—
Nothing.
So he reached for what the earth had lost.
The absence screamed.
The memory of Ọbara's death surged through him—not the god's power, but the moment divinity failed. Chukwudi pressed that moment outward.
Reality stuttered.
Weapons misfired. Runes cracked. One hunter simply fell apart, his body unable to decide what laws it followed anymore.
The Continuum did not retreat.
They adapted.
"Fascinating," the man murmured, scribbling notes as blood splashed his feet. "You are not divine. You are a transitional phenomenon."
He looked up, eyes bright.
"We want you alive."
Adaeze roared.
Her body finally broke its last restraint.
She became the Snake Mother's shadow fully—vast, burning, coiled around memory itself. The ground blackened beneath her weight.
The hunters screamed.
The Correction surged upward in response.
Two nightmares met.
Godless hunger.
Primordial divinity.
The sky darkened as if embarrassed to watch.
Chukwudi stood between them.
If the Snake Mother fought the Correction, the land would die.
If the Continuum succeeded, the world would become machinery.
If he chose neither—
He felt it then.
A third path.
Terrible.
Lonely.
Necessary.
Chukwudi turned to the cursed children who remained.
"Run," he said.
Obinna shook his head. "We won't—"
"RUN."
They obeyed.
Chukwudi stepped forward and offered himself.
Not as a god.
Not as a sacrifice.
As a boundary.
The Correction paused.
The Continuum froze.
Adaeze screamed his name.
Chukwudi felt himself tear—not physically, but conceptually. He anchored himself between belief and abandonment, between god and machine.
The world held its breath.
Somewhere deep beneath reality, something ancient smiled.