Aurelian floated in darkness.

It surrounded him with an absolute, eerie lack of anything that was beyond mere silence. It was a void, an absence that was difficult to quantify for his own mind. It was terrifying in an existential and all-consuming way, one which made his once-monkey-brain want to thrash and tremble in panic, and yet in the same moment; he was calm.

Illogically and absolutely calm, in a manner that defied all reason for what was happening.

His eyes lowered to his body, and he realised he could see himself.

In truth he was the only visible thing anywhere. Perhaps everywhere.

The glow from his body was almost an inverted colour filter when it left the immediate proximity of itself, warping into a number of mutant shades, and deviating hues, which transcended all common sense.

He was fascinated, at the same moment as being horrified at what was happening.

Was he dead?

Was this some sort of oblivion?

“What is going on…?”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than Aurelian felt a sudden tug on his awareness, and abruptly he was moving. It was almost impossible to parse how he knew he was moving, but motion was certainly in occurrence and while he saw nothing to immediately indicate the speed or direction of his locomotion, he could feel himself closing distance with something.

First at a steady rate, and then at an ever-increasing velocity, to where he was almost positive he would eventually hit relativistic speeds.

It was an insane thought, and yet he could not even begin to explain—even to himself—the certainty that pervaded the mental assessment.

On and on he moved, through blackness that warped light and colour, and toward an infinite nothing which seemed in no hurry to become something. It felt like seconds at the same time as it felt like hours, and Aurelian almost began to grow bored at the feeling of movement. Instead, he focused inward and searched for some semblance of normalcy.

Within himself he found the elucidated image of his Core once again, its prismatic heart rapidly spinning within a skein of scarlet mana that continued a steady shift from transparent to opaque, like a settling liquid. It was almost thickening, and deepening in tone and substance—all while it covered, and secured, his vulnerable interior Core from external threat.

Above the layer of liquid mana that represented his Sanguinated trait and Anima control, the bands of platinum force—which he instinctively knew were empowered and strengthened both by Bael’tharax’s mana and Bahamut’s bond—formed a criss-crossing formation of braces, or bands, around his Core ten strong.

Visualising his Calamity Core head on and without the advantage of a spherical perspective, it appeared like a glowing circle; veiled in scarlet, and lined with a ten-pointed formation upon its surface.

It was only when he examined it from other angles, and its spherical truth, that he saw those bands hovered a fraction of a millimetre higher than the cardinal flush of energy forming the surface layer of his Core. The entire concept was so esoteric to his Earth-born brain, even knowing it did not inherently mean accepting it, and he found himself wondering on more than one instance during his seemingly endless transit whether everything in the Realms had been a fever dream, and he was about to awaken from a coma on Earth.

In fact, it was during just that very lovely thought that his awareness of the nothing suddenly became the awareness of something, and Aurelian snapped his consciousness out of its meditative focus to look for what had alerted him.

In the far distance, what appeared to be ten lights—each one the colour of a different type of mana—hung suspended in the darkness, as massive and incomprehensible in scale as chromatic supergiants. Each one, he instinctively knew, could snuff him in the beat of a hummingbird’s wings. Each one was a foe that would do its utmost to obliterate his existence, and cast him beyond all thought of creation or reality.

Or perhaps, he realised, only nine were foes.

The last of them, a cool silver star, was wrapped in shackles forged of the colours of all the others.

It hung with them, and yet Aurelian knew it was apart.

Rejected, ignored, and left in disgraced isolation.

The closer he drew, the more things changed, and with a suddenness that had him gasping for air; he was smashed through some sort of invisible wall and stood within a… chamber. It was marbled and pillared in the manner of Ancient Greece or Great Babylon, and looked to be some sort of Acropolis, with an open sky and no walls or ceiling.

Was he on top of a mountain? It was hard to tell.

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Inside the open chamber sat ten thrones, each one occupied by a different individual, and one broken and scorched, with rage clearly demonstrated by the appearance of its defilement.

“You are certain?” a voice of resonant authority demanded in a tone that brooked neither foolishness, nor obfuscation.

“I felt it.” the answering voice rasped urgently. “I felt it, brother. Like before. Like her.”

The interrogator sat upon the largest of the thrones, positioned beside the broken one in the same place the golden star had hung beside the silver, and his features were, in a word, divine.

Sunkissed olive skin, thick blond hair with the texture of silk, and eyes like erupting supernovas, each orb laden with liquid gold that shimmered and danced within their depths. An aura of sheer power emanated from him, and his white toga—a chiton, Aurelian mentally corrected himself—was clasped over his left shoulder by a miniature, blazing sun.

Aurelian didn’t dare to move. He had a pretty good guess who the man was.

Solarius, the God of Light and the Sun.

“If what Absolum says is true,” a childish female voice interjected with the subtle singsong of spring, and grim weight of winter; “then everything is at risk, Solarius. Everything. We must end the threat before it has time to permutate into something dangerous.”

“It is already dangerous, Eidania.” another woman interjected flatly. “The question is whether the danger is manageable. We have enough supplicants that we should be able to handle one baby Nephilim. Surely.”

“Unfortunately, the System saw fit to culminate the creature’s transmigration in Elysea.” a booming male with ebon skin, a shaved head, and a bass tone like grinding rock declared impassively. “It is the one land where any use of Influence would be exorbitant beyond justification, even for our golden brother.”

“Which means that any forces we send there en masse would be subject to the lasting Intent of the Golden Duo. It is an undesirable—”

“I am aware of the danger, Broseidon.” Solarius cut in with a silencing look at the next speaker; a man with pale skin, sea-green eyes, and black hair the colour of onyx. Aurelian noticed that the interrupted god’s throne was worked with coral motifs.

Did he just call him fucking BROSEIDON?

That was a lot to unpack.

Aurelian turned his attention back to Solarius when the God of Light continued.

“Similarly, I am aware of the danger the creature poses. We cannot allow a new Calamity to rise unopposed. The cost in Influence to break such a being, were it to gain traction, would be unacceptable.”

“We have accrued plenty, brother.” a woman with feather-light tones, and a dress of scandalously sheer material, uttered airily. Aurelian noticed crackles of lightning around her eyes. “The Dragons are extinct, the Elyseans are dead, the Eternals are shackled, and the Prime Material is ours in every way that matters. Even the System cannot—”

“You do not understand!” Absolum interrupted, and this time Aurelian turned to face him entirely. The God of Death was skinny in a sickly way, with sunken-in eyes the colour of coal, wispy grey hair that barely clung to his emaciated scalp, and thin lips that seemed pale with malnourishment.

Yet his voice, despite its rasp, was strong. “You have all sat happily upon your thrones ignorant of what happens, but I see. I know. I have experimented more—!”

“Nobody wants to hear about your experiments.” another woman with a terse expression, full beckoning lips, and an alluring hourglass answered from beneath waves of green hair. “You have been twisting my supplicants for cent—!”

“All in the name of higher understand—!”

“Filthy abominations, you mean!”

“You know noth—!”

“Enough.” the word left Solarius’ mouth with the force of a solar flare, and both deities subsided. The woman, Aurelian reasoned, was likely the Life Goddess Eidania.

“Your petty disputes are meaningless.” Solarius continued coldly. “Absolum, how strong would you assume this Nephilim is?”

“Perhaps Second Temper.” the Death God replied with a dangerous sneer for the Life Goddess. “It is unthinkable for him to have bested my Vasiri elsewise.”

“And the plan for that little remnant of Elysea in the Desolation?” Solarius asked.

“Unimpeded.” Absolum confirmed with a lick of his pale lips. “The dead creature was simply a researcher, not a commander; and so the Severance did not end the Horde when he was struck by Calam—by the spell.”

Despite correcting himself, Aurelian noticed a palpable sense of discomfort, and perhaps even dread suffuse the assembled deities at the slight slip. Even Solarius, for all his absolute authority, appeared ever-so-slightly less composed. Their evident disdain, or perhaps even fear of Calamity’s Blade was definitely something to be remembered.

“Then soon the problem will take care of itself.” Solarius continued into the abrupt silence with a calm certainty, one which Aurelian could only describe as a mix between dangerous and perhaps even a little self-assuring. “A second Calamity cannot rise without a base of power from which to draw, and we have all worked hard to ensure any such possible locales are well-and-truly compromised, ever since the Calling was reported.”

“Wait!” one of the nine snarled suddenly. “Someone is here! Someone watches!”

A deity in purple robes stood to his feet, and his eyes turned toward where Aurelian stood. Immediately the God’s purple irises lit up with power, and Aurelian felt pressure suddenly snaking its way toward him.

He couldn’t even turn to flee.

He was trapped.

Trapped with the very gods that wanted him dead.

There was no escape.

He was going to—!

“Time to go, I think.” a familiar female voice said placidly.

Aurelian turned to see a pair of liquid silver eyes looking right at him.

“Who are—?”

The strange woman touched his arm, and everything shattered into pieces.