There were no warning signs.
No sky splitting.
No sound of trumpets.
The fortress simply ceased to be a fortress.
Something that had long been held back not by iron, but by will, was suddenly allowed to come out. And when that will was released, the world lost its reason to remain intact.
Gog and Magog emerged not as an army, but as a quantity.
A quantity that could not be counted.
A quantity that could not be comprehended.
A quantity that made the word many lose its function.
They did not shout.
They carried no banners.
They spoke no names, including the name of God.
They moved.
And wherever they moved, meaning ceased.
Cities were not conquered; cities were passed through. Buildings collapsed not because they were hated, but because they were in the way. Humans died not because they were chosen, but because they existed.
Oceans were reached.
They drank.
Not because they were thirsty, but because water was there. Waves receded in a manner never taught by the tides. Coastlines withdrew, then vanished. Those who arrived later found nothing left to drink, and that did not stop anyone's advance.
Artor Conan Davil witnessed everything without questions.
Questions require the assumption that the world is still rational.
Amid that destruction, Dagel stood.
Unharmed.
Undisturbed.
He walked among Gog and Magog like a law that had finally been recognized. Their bodies did not touch him. Their steps adjusted themselves to his rhythm.
Dagel raised his hand.
The ground hardened beneath his feet.
The sky lowered light without a source.
Fire divided itself into obedient forms.
He did not command with shouts. He merely existed, and that existence was enough.
"Without me," he said calmly,
"they are destruction without direction.
With me, they are order."
And Gog and Magog followed.
Not because of faith.
Not because of loyalty.
Because even destruction requires a center.
From that moment on, the world did not merely collapse; it was guided toward its own destruction. Cities were destroyed with patterns. Rivers were redirected not for irrigation, but to demonstrate power. Mountains were leveled not because they blocked the way, but because they could be.
Dagel's miracles grew more unrestrained.
He brought dead land to life, then killed it again. He sent down rain of fire that did not burn him. He darkened the sky, then opened a single fissure of light directly above his head.
Humans called him divine.
Not because he asked for it.
But because they ran out of other words.
Artor Conan Davil fell into prostration, not toward Dagel, but toward the remaining ground. His prayer did not ask for the salvation of the world. He knew that had already passed.
He asked only that he would no longer lie.
Yet Dagel's voice penetrated that prayer, gentle like common sense:
"Look," he said,
"without me, they destroy without meaning.
With me, destruction becomes necessary."
And Artor understood, with a clarity that made him nauseous:
This was not a war between faith and disbelief.
This was a world that had surrendered its rationality, and was now led by what appeared most reasonable amid madness.
The sky did not object.
The earth did not resist.
And for the first time since the world had changed, Artor Conan Davil realized something more terrifying than the apocalypse:
That destruction can feel orderly.
That lies can feel stable.
That the end of the world does not always arrive with chaos.
Sometimes it arrives with leadership.
And in the distance, without being summoned, without being announced, time moved toward something that could no longer be postponed.