I had already sent the message to summon my reinforcements and stood at the pinnacle of my power, vibrating with absolute confidence; I wasn't worried about the upcoming struggle, but I didn't lower my guard because of it. My goal was to sabotage the ritual to its very foundations before the climax reached us.
The barrier protecting the summit of the zigurat was a formidable mystical structure, fueled by the residual divine power of the god they were attempting to resurrect. However, I spared no effort. I struck the complex defensive weave with bursts of pure magic until the protection gave way with a blast that shook the stone foundations.
Finally, I stood before the cult leaders. I didn't kill them immediately; they were too insignificant to be considered a real threat, but they still served a purpose: their minds. Unlike the low-ranking acolytes, whose brains were protected by self-destruct spells, these leaders, in their arrogance and stupidity, had not restricted their own thoughts.
Holding my own in combat against the six of them while using Legilimency was child's play. With every clash of wands, every dodge, and every counterattack, my mental fingers penetrated their memories, plucking out the missing pieces of this story's puzzle. Though there were some parts I had to deduce myself.
In the era of the fall of the gods, many resisted leaving Earth. However, as I already knew, the pantheons that had agreed upon the departure permitted no stragglers. No deity wanted someone staying behind to monopolize the faith of mortals; if anyone did, they would become a supreme and unbeatable enemy by the time the others decided to return. It was a pact of mutual exclusion.
Although all the living gods eventually departed, some left plans in motion. There were those who tried to hide in the shadows, those who faked their departure, and those who tried to anchor themselves to material reality through deception, but most failed under the watchful eyes of their peers.
Nevertheless, there were others with far more efficient and darker plans. Gods who didn't try to stay alive, but rather planned their own return from the afterlife, leaving seeds of devotion that would bloom centuries later in the hands of fanatics like those now falling before me.
This particular god had the cunning to trace a plan with some potential, though it was also quite risky.
At the time, following the departure of the gods, all divine beings sent final messages to their priesthoods to maintain faith until their return. That way, they could preserve their power despite their absence. However, even with those orders, many religions ended up vanishing. Mortals are ephemeral and, without something tangible to prove it, doubting what existed in previous generations is not unusual.
But there were gods who did not leave those instructions, but very different ones: they ordered their clerics to prepare a premature return to this world. In reality, quite a few thought of this; in fact, almost everyone did. Any god would want to return to Earth sooner to seize that advantage over their peers… but few had a viable way to achieve it, if they could achieve it at all.
This entity, however, devised a mechanism that was proving to be disturbingly effective. His strategy consisted of a partial sacrifice: he amputated a part of his own essence without actually dying, leaving his remains in the mortal realm. He wasn't alive, but he wasn't dead either; it was a state of divine latency.
That god left Earth greatly weakened, intending to recover slowly in the outer planes. But here, in the mortal world, his remains stayed. I don't know if they were symbolic or literal… in any case, a form of energy and divine essence remained, stored within those urns.
The plan was simple: prove to the other gods that he had left, but leave a path of return prepared. The mission of these cultists was to revive those remains. Of course, what would emerge here wouldn't be the true god. That one would still remain in the outer planes… if he hadn't died of weakness or some other trouble. But that didn't matter.
What they were summoning here was an avatar of that god… and that was enough.
A Divine Avatar.
While it didn't possess the omnipotence of a full deity, it was close enough that the difference was irrelevant to mortals. This avatar, once awakened, would become the only "god" on the face of the Earth, monopolizing the faith of an entire era to become unstoppable.
And the most brilliant part: when the time for the "Return of the Gods" arrived, this avatar would serve as the perfect vessel. If the original god had died in exile, the avatar would simply occupy his throne; if he were still alive, the two would merge, creating a being of power that would eclipse any other pantheon.
An impressive plan in many respects… but flawed in the end. If it had succeeded, there would be traces of this in my present. But there are none. And, in truth, this couldn't have been the only god who thought of something like this. However, at least until my future, none seem to have pulled it off.
Perhaps the other gods left some powerful curse as a safeguard. Perhaps it was simply fate. Maybe there is some cosmic law that prevents the existence of gods in this era of low energy, and the universe's own luck prevents them from emerging.
Anyway, that wasn't my problem. I had already learned everything I needed.
With a few simple movements, I hurled all the cult leaders from the top of the zigurat. Some died during the fall.
Then, with my two cursed wands, I prepared to break the last barrier. Although it was powerful, it wasn't impossible to pierce. Furthermore, the divine power it contained was nothing more than residual energy: reserves their god had left stored for emergencies, intended to help the cultists bring him back.
To my misfortune, just as the barrier began to crack, I felt the power of the entire area shift… and a flash of fear surged from my instinct.
The entire magical world was rapidly consumed. If I could have seen it from the outside, I would have watched everything vanish, transforming into particles of light flying toward the zigurat. The place where we appeared, the jungle, the Maledictus zone, the empty jaguar village… everything vanished as if it had never existed, leaving only an absolute void around the protective dome where we stood.
The massive amount of energy entered the great temple, which seemed to glow with intensity, followed by an earthquake that shook the entire region.
This separate world no longer existed. The temple, like a floating island, descended to the earth, joining it as if it had always belonged there.
Hannah nearly fell, losing her balance due to the violence of the quake. The surviving cultists, far from being frightened, let out a frenzied cry of joy—a collective ecstasy bordering on madness. For them, this was the climax of their lives; for us, it was the roar of something that should not wake.
The energy flowed around me with the force of a hurricane, concentrating into a blinding vortex atop the zigurat. I couldn't afford to delay.
In one last effort, I struck the barrier with all my will. The protection exploded, but the resulting shockwave was a gale of divine force that even I couldn't resist. I was blown through the air.
However, in that final moment, while I was still suspended in the air, I aimed my wands and fired a spell of pure destructive power. The projectile flew with pinpoint accuracy toward the altar, squarely impacting one of the four urns that were beginning to glow and vibrate...
The vessel shattered into a thousand pieces.
I was thrown violently, ironically in the same way I had thrown the cult leaders. But my tension had relaxed significantly.
Not only did I feel the air pressure drop slightly, but I saw with my own eyes how, as the urn broke, a kind of reddish smoke dispersed into the atmosphere. And that instinctive fear I had felt… was reduced.
I had done it. I had weakened the resurgence of that god in an irreversible way.
Rituals can achieve impressive things, but they are also fragile. An error in a fundamental element can vastly reduce their effectiveness… or even trigger a completely different result.
Hannah ran toward where I fell, worried. But it wasn't necessary. Although I couldn't stop my expulsion, that didn't mean I couldn't control my fall. I suffered no damage.
Now, silence reigned once more, broken only by the crackle of residual magic. Hannah, the few remaining cultists, and I held our breath, our eyes fixed on the tip of the temple, witnessing the resurgence of a god.
The urns vibrated to the limit of their endurance. The runes carved in stone and the animal features sculpted on the lids flashed with a violent crimson, until suddenly, their lids were blown off.
From the vessels erupted a dense, orderly smoke that rose toward the firmament, colliding in a chromatic spiral that devoured the sunlight.
All the energy plundered from this world was sucked into the vortex, distorting reality in its wake. The ground and the air groaned under unbearable pressure; the aura emanating from the temple was a poison seeking to stifle every heartbeat of life. Hannah fell to her knees, hand clutched to her chest, feeling as though her heart would burst and her eyes would succumb to the pressure... until the torment ceased abruptly.
My aura wrapped around her like a shield, but it wasn't alone.
She didn't know at what point they appeared, but when she managed to stand, Elise and Helena were at her sides: two heavyweights of the Fief. A semi-divine avatar and a legendary-level ghost. The auras of the three of us protected her from that overwhelming power… but others were not so lucky.
The weaker cultists literally exploded, turned into a mist of flesh under the gravitational pressure; the stronger ones were in agony, bleeding from every pore until they collapsed. Only a few seemed capable of remaining conscious, though they were on the brink of collapse.
Meanwhile, the rivers of blood and the tides of bones accumulated on the zigurat began to boil, moving in profane currents that danced around the temple to the beat of an inaudible melody.
Suddenly, the spiral in the sky finished its energetic feast. There was a deathly silence, an absolute void in the sound of the world... and then, the energy imploded.
The uncontrolled aura from before vanished, replaced by another no less deadly, but much more stable.
The sun disappeared, buried by a firmament that turned the color of dried blood.
Above the temple, the clouds began to swirl, condensing to form a perfect sphere of air and vapor. It was an absolute structure, adorned by wisps of clouds orbiting its surface in a perpetual dance of deceptive speed.
"I have come upon the Earth... and with my return taken possession!"
The voice was not a sound, but a vibration in an archaic tongue that was etched directly into the soul. It possessed that divine quality that allowed any living being to understand its meaning. The message was not limited to these remnants of a dying kingdom; it resonated through the Amazon jungle, vibrated even to our house, and shook the foundations of the earth.
The verdict was clear: a god walked among mortals once again.