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A year and a half passed in the mortal world. The war was a raging fever that refused to break. The faith engine churned, but a new sickness now pulsed within it, a prophecy twisting in the gut of destiny.
Then, the revelation. It was Julian, the Keeper, who brought the news. His form, a shifting mass of secrets and angles, appeared in the Luminous Court. His whispers were not words, but concepts delivered directly into the Shaper's mind.
The Great Prophecy has surfaced. The Morai have seen it. The pantheons are in panic. It reads as it always has. A half blood of the eldest gods will reach sixteen. He will make a choice to preserve or raze Olympus.
Nicholas received the information with a silent nod. He had felt the seismic shift the moment the Fates finally perceived his forged doom. The disturbance in the threads was now public knowledge.
Olympus was thrown into chaos. This was their foundational nightmare. This was the script that caused their father's downfall. The fear was palpable, a psychic tremor that vibrated across the divine realms. They became desperate, their hunger for faith now eclipsed by a primal need for survival.
Nicholas received the information with a silent nod. He had felt the seismic shift the moment the Fates finally perceived his forged doom. The disturbance in the threads was now public knowledge.
Their first reaction was a frantic, collective order. Cease the war. Stop the bloodshed. Dismantle the very conflict they had engineered. The logic was clear, if hypocritical. The prophecy fed on strife and demigod involvement. Removing demigods from the battlefield might starve the destined curve.
But their children did not obey.
The demigods, particularly those on the front lines, had tasted real power. They had commanded armies, shaped history, and felt the intoxicating flow of destiny through their veins. They had become heroes, or monsters, in a grand, terrible story. An order to simply stand down felt like betrayal, like being denied the final act.
The most dramatic rebellion came from the underworld. Hades's son, now at the peak of his power in Germany, openly revolted. The cruelty he had been encouraged to wield, the atrocities that generated such potent, dark faith for his father, had done more than empower him.
They had magnified his fatal flaw, twisting it with every life he took. He was now half insane, a creature of rage and ambition who saw his father's sudden order as weakness.
He rallied other disgruntled demigods. He declared the gods cowardly, unfit to rule. The war, he screamed, was their true purpose.
Nicholas observed this development with genuine surprise. He had not anticipated the children could disobey so directly. The gods' control was clearly not absolute. Their creations had will that had become strong enough to resist their command, especially when that command asked them to abandon the very purpose for which they had been shaped.
And the gods were hamstrung. Bound by the same Ancient Laws they had just reaffirmed on the moon, they could not directly intervene. They could not smite their rebellious offspring from the sky.
They could only watch, frustrated and fearful, as the war they now desperately needed to stop continued to rage. Each explosion, each death, only fed the prophecy, making its promised future more certain.
In the quiet of the Atrium, Nicholas turned to Julian. His voice was calm, a contrast to the panic he knew was consuming Olympus. "What do you think their next move will be?"
The Keeper's form rippled, translucent tentacles searching his authority, processing infinite probabilities. "Their options are few. They could break their own laws. They could descend in their true forms and annihilate the rebellious demigods directly. This would be an admission of total failure to control even their own offspring. After what we did to them, it would be the final nail in the coffin for their reputation, but I think we both know that their egos would not allow for that."
Julian paused, the whispers of secret knowledge flowing. "Or, they will be forced to seek external aid. They need a power over Fate itself to unwind this. They need you, as you are the only god with the authority to potentially save them from their own prophecy. They will come to you. They will have no other choice."
Nicholas smiled. It was a small, cold expression. "That is probably correct."
He leaned back on his throne of woven destiny. The strings of his form pulsed with a slow, steady light. As he considered the Olympians' impending desperation, another layer of the opportunity presented itself. This chaos could serve a second, crucial purpose.
Athena's warning about Lucifer echoed in his mind. Satan was a hidden thorn, a deranged holder of a significant portion of Magic's authority. His irrational hatred was a persistent, unpredictable threat in the shadows. The coming divine crisis could provide the perfect cover and the necessary leverage to deal with him permanently.
If the pantheons came begging for his help to alter Fate, the price could be more than just political concessions. He could demand their collective, tacit assent, or even their active assistance, in a move against the Devil. A united front of the old gods, however reluctant, could help him isolate, confront, and rip that authority from Lucifer's twisted hands.
Achieving a majority share of Magic would be a transformative victory. It would grant him near absolute control over the fundamental force of creation and change. It would eliminate a deadly enemy in one stroke. Two problems, one elegant solution.
A plan began to crystallize in his mind, not as a full picture, but as a series of elegant, inevitable moves. He saw the fear of the Olympians. He saw the rebellion of their children. He saw the unyielding trajectory of the prophecy. All of it was chaos, but to a master of Fate, chaos was merely raw material.
A mysterious, knowing smile settled on his features. He did not share the details, not even with Julian. Firstly however Nicholas decided it was time to start implementing another plan he had been working on.
Nicholas focused his will, sending a clear directive through the divine channels that connected him to his attendants. He summoned Marcus, the Cupbearer, whose authority over vitality and essence made him the perfect overseer for the task.
"Organize the Ascended and those in their service," Nicholas instructed, his tone leaving no room for question. "Their strength is required for a certain task. They are to venture to the worst battlefields, the charnel pits of this war. Their mission is to gather the mortal remains. They must collect the fallen with discretion and speed."
He paused, ensuring Marcus grasped the full implication. "These bodies are not to be interred or burned. They are to be prepared for preservation and stored within the secured vaults of the Hall of the Ascendant. I will require them at a future time. This harvest is essential."
Marcus bowed his head, the vital flames around him dimming to a somber glow. He moved to enact the order. Across the world, Ascended agents received the new directive through in their dreams and from the very authorities they embodied.
They set aside their duties of containment and subterfuge, turning instead toward the poisoned fields of Europe. They moved under cover of night and magic, gathering the tragic harvest of the gods' ambition, an army of the dead being assembled for a purpose only the Architect of Fate could foresee.
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