They came with hymns.
That was the cruelest part.
---
The earth felt them long before Chukwudi saw them.
A slow, deliberate march—boots grinding bone into dust, iron biting into soil already tired of blood. The land groaned beneath their weight, not in rage, but in exhaustion. This was not a raid. Not a hunt.
This was extermination.
Chukwudi stood atop a blackened ridge, the god-killing blade wrapped in cloth at his side. The wind carried sound to him—voices raised in worship, not fear.
"Holy, holy, holy—"
He shuddered.
"They're singing," Adaeze whispered behind him, ash leaking from her eyes like tears she could not stop.
Below them, the army stretched farther than sight.
Men in white-stained armor. Women with rifles carved in scripture. Children carrying bells and censers, their mouths stitched shut so doubt could not escape.
At their center rolled wagons of iron.
Inside them—things that howled.
---
The Snake Mother rose from the ground beside Chukwudi, her coils etched with fresh scars from earlier battles. She stared at the army with something close to grief.
"They have learned how to bind alụsị," she said. "And how to break them."
The ground trembled as one of the wagons opened.
What emerged was not a god.
It was what remained after a god had been unmade.
A spirit flayed of form, nailed into a cage of bone and steel. Its mouth opened in a soundless scream as runes burned along its spine, forcing it to bleed power into waiting weapons.
Chukwudi gagged.
"They're using gods as fuel," he whispered.
"Yes," the Snake Mother replied. "And they believe themselves righteous for it."
---
The covenant pulled tight.
The cursed children cried out as pain rippled through them—fear, rage, hunger, despair—emotions magnified until bones ached.
The twins whispered frantically.
"They are chanting his name."
"Not yours."
"Their god."
A bell rang.
Once.
Twice.
The army stopped.
At the front stepped a man in blackened robes, face hidden behind a mask carved into a weeping saint.
"Chukwudi," he called calmly.
The sound of the name made the earth flinch.
"We come to cleanse," the man continued. "Lay down the blade. Step away from the serpent. Be spared."
A thousand weapons lifted.
The ground held its breath.
---
Chukwudi stepped forward.
"No," he said.
The word cracked the sky.
The army answered with prayer.
---
The first cannon fired.
It was not iron it launched—but compressed divine essence torn screaming from the caged spirit. When it struck the hillside, the explosion peeled reality apart.
Stone evaporated.
Trees aged a hundred years in a heartbeat, then collapsed into rot.
Two cursed children screamed as blood poured from their noses.
The Snake Mother roared.
The earth rose.
---
Roots impaled soldiers. Soil swallowed ranks whole. Graves burst open beneath chanting mouths, cutting hymns short with dirt and bone.
But the army did not break.
They advanced.
Blessed bullets tore through spirits. Nets woven with scripture trapped serpents mid-strike, burning through scale and flesh alike. Holy oil set the ground on fire—fire that screamed in tongues.
Chukwudi swung the blade.
Once.
A line carved through the battlefield where nothing existed afterward. Not ash. Not air.
Nothing.
Men vanished.
Faith shattered.
Still—they came.
---
One of the cursed children fell.
The shadowless boy.
A spear of consecrated bone pierced his chest. He looked at Chukwudi, eyes wide, mouth trembling.
"I never had a shadow," he whispered. "At least… now I know why."
He died smiling.
Something inside Chukwudi snapped.
The earth screamed with him.
---
He no longer asked.
He commanded.
The land obeyed in terror.
Mountains cracked. Rivers reversed. The sky darkened as if afraid to watch.
The army faltered at last—not from fear of gods, but from fear of him.
Chukwudi stood at the center of devastation, blade dripping with absence, eyes glowing like buried suns.
The Snake Mother watched her son—
And did not recognize him.
---
Far away, Idemili Ọbara laughed.
"Yes," she whispered. "Break the world for me."
As the holy army burned and bled and prayed to a god who did not answer, Chukwudi finally understood:
This war would not end with victory.
Only with what remained.