They did not come as gods.
They came as laws.
---
The earth sensed it first—not footsteps, not weight, but authority pressing down like a command carved into reality. Roots recoiled. Stones vibrated in fear. Even the insects fled, abandoning the ground as if it were about to be judged unworthy of existence.
The Snake Mother rose sharply.
"They are here," she said.
Chukwudi felt it too—a tightening in his bones, like the world drawing a blade across its own throat.
From the shadows of the forest, figures emerged.
Not flesh.
Not spirit.
Edicts wearing form.
They wore masks of stone and gold, faces carved with symbols older than names. Their bodies flickered between human outline and something vast, impossible, like mountains trying to stand upright.
The council had voted.
---
"By the old compact," intoned the first, voice echoing with layered thunder, "the anomaly known as the Snake Woman is to be unmade."
The words struck the land like hammers.
Chukwudi stepped forward instantly.
"No."
The word left his mouth—and died.
It fell to the ground like ash.
One of the figures turned toward him.
"You are not recognized," it said calmly.
That was worse than anger.
---
The Snake Mother moved before Chukwudi could.
The ground split as she surged forward, coils massive, eyes blazing with primordial rage. She struck the nearest figure, fangs sinking into stone and light—
—and screamed.
Her teeth shattered.
The figure did not move.
Instead, it placed a palm against her forehead.
And rewrote her.
---
Roots erupted from the ground, piercing her coils, binding her in place. Symbols burned into her scales, erasing pieces of her name with every glowing mark. She thrashed, roaring, the earth shaking violently in response.
Chukwudi screamed.
The cursed children felt the covenant snap tight, pain ripping through them as if their bones were being pulled from their bodies.
Adaeze collapsed, coughing ash and blood.
"They're killing her," she cried. "They're killing the earth through her!"
---
Chukwudi ran.
The blade leapt into his hand on its own.
He swung.
Reality screamed.
The strike tore through one of the council-forms, ripping a wound through its torso—through law itself. The figure staggered, cracks racing across its surface.
For the first time—
The gods screamed back.
"You dare?" they roared in unison.
The land answered Chukwudi before he could think.
Not gently.
Not cautiously.
The ground surged upward, crushing two of the figures against the sky, roots and stone grinding divine authority into fragments of burning command.
But it was not enough.
---
The Snake Mother cried out—a sound like continents breaking.
Her form began to unravel.
Her coils bled soil. Her scales turned to dust. Her eyes met Chukwudi's one last time.
"Listen to me," she gasped.
He ran to her side, pressing his hands against her fading form.
"I'm here," he sobbed. "I'm here—"
"You must not save me," she whispered.
The words cut deeper than any blade.
"If you do… the world will burn beyond repair."
The council figures closed in, weapons of concept and decree forming in their hands.
"End this," one commanded Chukwudi. "Or be ended with her."
The earth trembled.
Waiting.
---
Chukwudi looked at his mother.
At the woman who birthed him beneath moon and soil.
At the goddess who taught him to listen.
And he understood.
This was not an execution.
It was a test.
He screamed—not in rage, not in grief—
—but in refusal.
---
The covenant ignited.
The cursed children cried out as power surged through them, marks blazing like brands. The land roared as Chukwudi did something no god had dared.
He split himself.
Part of him anchored the Snake Mother to the earth—binding her essence into the soil, into rivers, into roots too deep to destroy.
The rest of him rose.
Something tore.
The sky cracked.
The council recoiled.
"What have you done?" they thundered.
Chukwudi turned to them, eyes burning with something new.
"I chose," he said.
---
The Snake Mother's body collapsed into earth and stone.
Gone.
But not dead.
Her presence pulsed beneath the ground—vast, quiet, eternal.
The council figures withdrew, shaken.
"This is not over," they warned.
"No," Chukwudi replied.
"It's begun."
---
Silence followed.
The cursed children stared at him in horror and awe.
Adaeze whispered, trembling, "What are you now?"
Chukwudi looked down at his hands.
At the soil clinging to his skin.
At the power humming beneath him like a living heart.
"I don't know," he said.
But the earth did.
And it whispered his new name into the roots of the world—
A name no god had ever carried.