The blade did not sleep.
Even buried, Ọkụ-ala screamed—low, hungry, patient.
Chukwudi heard it in his dreams.
It called his name with a voice made of cracking bones and dying prayers. Each time he woke, his hands were buried in the soil, fingers bleeding, as though he had tried to dig it out in his sleep.
"You must not touch it yet," the Snake Mother warned, coiled beside him beneath the broken sky. "That weapon is a wound made solid."
"But it knows me," Chukwudi whispered.
"Yes," she said. "That is why it is dangerous."
---
The cursed lands did not remain quiet.
Word of the slaughter spread, twisted by fear and faith. Stories grew teeth. Villages whispered of a boy-god who commanded graves. Mothers spat when his name was spoken. Priests rang bells through the night to keep the earth from listening.
And in the south, something went wrong.
Very wrong.
---
It began with Obinna, the boy whose reflection aged instead of him.
He had been sitting by a pool, watching his mirrored self wrinkle and rot, when the screams started. He felt the covenant pull tight—pain flaring through Chukwudi's chest like fire through roots.
Obinna's body convulsed.
His reflection climbed out of the water.
Skin grey. Eyes hollow. Smiling with borrowed teeth.
"I am tired of carrying your years," it whispered.
The thing lunged.
When Chukwudi arrived, the forest was screaming.
Trees were twisted into knots. Blood steamed on leaves. Obinna lay in pieces, his reflection standing over him, wearing his face like a mask.
The cursed children cried out.
The Snake Mother froze.
"That is not one of ours anymore," she said.
The thing turned.
And bowed to Chukwudi.
---
"I am free," it said.
Then it attacked.
The earth tried to swallow it.
Failed.
The covenant burned.
Chukwudi screamed as the bond strained, threatening to snap and take the others with it.
He saw it then—clear, unavoidable.
Mercy would kill them all.
---
Chukwudi went to the blade.
The ground resisted as he dug, soil clinging like pleading hands. When he grasped Ọkụ-ala, it drank his blood greedily, screaming in ecstasy.
Pain tore through him.
The Snake Mother roared.
"STOP—"
Too late.
The blade settled.
Quiet.
Satisfied.
---
The thing that wore Obinna's face laughed.
Then the blade fell.
It did not cut flesh.
It erased.
The creature vanished mid-scream, leaving behind only ripples in reality—like a memory removed from the world.
Silence.
Chukwudi dropped the blade, shaking violently.
The cursed children stared.
Fear had replaced awe.
The Snake Mother closed her eyes.
"You have crossed the second line," she said.
"What was the first?" Chukwudi asked hoarsely.
"Birth," she replied.
---
The blade had changed him.
Where he walked, spirits recoiled. The earth obeyed—but hesitated, as though afraid of what he might ask.
Far away, humans celebrated.
They felt the god-killing blade awaken.
They felt hope.
And they prepared an army.
---
That night, Idemili Ọbara appeared again.
She applauded slowly.
"Well done, Heaven's mistake," she purred. "You are becoming useful."
"I will kill you," Chukwudi said.
She laughed, delighted.
"Perhaps," she said. "But not before you finish my work."
She leaned close.
"They are marching," she whispered. "With weapons that sing like yours. With faith sharpened into steel."
Her eyes gleamed.
"Tell me, child-god… when humans and gods both deserve extinction—"
She smiled wider.
"—who will you save?"
Chukwudi woke screaming.
The blade lay beside him.
Quiet.
Waiting.