I close my third eye for just a moment—one moment—and the silence turn wrong, utterly wrong.
Space splits like rotten fruit.
"Aetherion."
The voice is a thousand dead stars grinding together. I know it instantly: Vorthanos the Hollow Crown, Emperor of the Void Abyss. His name is a curse even gods whisper.
I ignite my divine form, golden sigils screaming to life—but his sword is already moving. A blade forged from the first world's death, the blade moves before the thought to dodge can even form.
Almost.
If I'd reacted one second sooner, I'd have vanished. Instead, black steel kisses my ribs—
not just flesh, something deeper, the core of all divinity....
Pain.
My power shatters. Seven fragments, seven directions. The largest flees toward a blue planet. Earth. Toward… him.
Vorthanos laughs, his crown of collapsed universes dripping void-blood. "Son of god himself, yet to runs to a mortal human, disappointing" He flicks his sword—severing my voice from eternity, no more voice, nor presence.
I fall through dimensions, clutching one last shard of my light.
Four years.
Four years to find Samuel.
Four years before Vorthanos lets us both watch the world end.