“I was an emperor,” The Master–no–Shaed said as we continued our walk down the tranquil halls of his keep. “My control stretched from the Scorched Plains to the Shard Tooth Peaks. I had conquered all of the shattered kingdoms. Subjugated the warlords, and brought peace to all of Garlay, fulfilling my father’s dreams of uniting his people.”

We stopped before a large mural depicting an armor-plated man standing atop a plateau before an army of men. His sword held high into the sky, the sun gleaming off its sharpened blade. Below, the soldiers cheered and kneeled before their emperor.

“It was here.” Shaed gestured to the painting. “In the Scorched Plains, the final battle for Garlay took place. It started in tragedy. My forces were weak in number, our supply lines were stretched thin, and the Ebisumi was upon us.”

I listened intently as my eyes moved across the massive painting that spanned the wall. “What is an Ebisumi?” I asked as my eyes shifted to the right, where the painting transitioned from victory to dread. I saw piles upon piles of corpses present in the lower half, banners of the opposing army burned, and prisoners being strung up on poles.

“The Raging Summer,” Shaed said in a low voice. “The Scorched Plains have this name for a reason,” He said dryly. “Every few weeks a heatwave unlike anything you’d ever believe would assault these lands. Temperatures would reach uninhabitable levels, your skin and flesh would be cooked under the light of the sun. It’s as if the gods themselves were holding a magnifying glass up to the sun and focusing the light on us.”

I shuddered. “Why would anyone want to live there?” I asked, and Shaed snorted.

“They don’t or… didn’t.” He sighed. “Those who remained and rejected my right to rule fled to the Scorched Plains, expecting I would not follow.” He looked back at me. “They were wrong.”

His grim expression made me shudder, and I gulped. “I take it you won the battle there?” I asked, nodding to the painting.

Shaed returned his gaze to the painting. “Yes,” he said, his stern expression shifting to, was that guilt?

“At the cost of thousands of lives, I did win.” His head lowered as he looked at his open palm as if examining the blood on his hands. He slowly curled his fingers into a fist.

He continued, “Umio Takanita, the last remaining warlord, grew emboldened when he saw how stretched my supply lines were and how tired my men had become. With the Ebisumi on its way, I had pulled my men back and readied them to hunker down until its passing.” He fell silent momentarily and closed his eyes as if reliving those moments.

Finally, after a bout of silence, he opened them. “Perhaps Takanita foresighters mistakenly predicted the Ebisumi's arrival, or he was just an idiot. In his arrogance, he forced his men to assault my fortified position. As his army marched across the desert, the Raging Summer began. What was once a wall of warriors charging towards our shelters became desperate dying men who were willing to kill to avoid the sun’s harmful light.”

As Shaed spoke, the world around us began to contort. The painting on the wall rippled before me, and like melting candle wax, everything started to sag. My eyes widened, and I opened my mouth to ask what the hell was happening when suddenly. We were no longer in the keep. Like a flashbang going off, I was abruptly blinded by the sun. I gasped and quickly found that to be a mistake as the air I sucked in was dry and hot, my throat burned, and I coughed heavily.

“What?!” I gasped and stepped back but quickly found my foot had found purchase on nothing but open air. My body lurched back, and I screamed as I felt gravity taking hold before lurching to a halt as someone grasped me firmly by my wrist.

“My apologies!” I heard Shaed’s voice, and for once, it bared emotion, shock. With surprising strength, he pulled me back onto the surface of whatever we stood on, and I blinked a few times, my vision returning.

Orange rock, smooth and cracked with shriveled weeds extending from the gaps. Boulders littered the surface around us, with brown and yellow moss clinging to its surface. I blinked and looked around. “Wh-where are we?” I asked, looking over my shoulder and gasping once again.

We were on a plateau, like the one from the painting. A few hundred feet away, another plateau stood, and in between below was a tent city. A war camp. “We’re in the painting?” I blinked.

“The continent of Garlay,” Shaed said, “The Scorched Plains. Specifically the day of my memory I was just telling you about.”

“The Forbidden Continent…” I muttered.

“Yes.” He nodded. “Many millennia ago.”

I jolted at a loud horn bellowing from below, its pitch wavering as a second and then a third roared. Shouts of men echoed from below, and the entire camp became a frenzy as soldiers in white, shimmering armor and tunics with wide-brimmed hats began to flood the streets like a river. They spilled forth from crevices in the canyon wall like a broken dam. From above, the motion was organic, fluid even.

“What’s happening?” I asked, tearing my eyes away from the event as I looked at Shaed.

The man in black’s eyes was distant. He was looking not at the camp but eastward toward the scorching desert. The land was flat with few hills, and its surface cracked and broken like the surface of Mars. I followed his gaze and gasped when I saw that the horizon of the blistering landscape was glimmering. The sun reflected off a massive army of red and yellow banners held high alongside… umbrellas?

Among the ranks of soldiers, I could faintly make out massive umbrellas held aloft on four poles over the formation, shielding them from the sun’s rays as they marched. “This is it,” I said, “the story you were just telling me.”

“Indeed,” Shaed said, turning his gaze to me. “I am happy to see you’re observant.”

I frowned. “Haha.” I gulped and took a breath. “Why are we here?”

Shaed eyes shifted back to the army in white below. Like the invading force, servants, or possibly even enslaved people, quickly hoisted their large, white umbrellas into the air. Yet these were different as the fabric shimmered, reflecting the light away.

“It was an accident,” he said with little emotion. “As I said before, we are in a construct of materium. A realm of my own making.” He looked at me. “When I was recounting my tale, I mistakenly let my mind slip. So we are here.”

This was true. This realm felt so real I had forgotten we were essentially in a dream. “Right.” I nodded and turned my attention towards the two mustering armies. Soldiers below were taking positions around trenches and partially built palisade walls. I saw men in bleach white plate armor with large feathery plumes sprouting from their helmets shouting orders to those in white leather tunics.

From behind, I gasped loudly and pointed towards the canyon bend in the west, where the war camp stretched back and up along the side, where shade protected what seemed to be the more critical structures. There were horses. I mean real horses—pure, unfiltered horses. Large equine creatures, maybe a bit bigger than I remember from any farm I’ve been to, but I knew a damned horse when I saw one.

There was a whole force of them. Perhaps a hundred or more quickly trotting out of what seemed to be stables carved into the side of the canyon. Horses. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’ve seen plenty of critters on Enora that vaguely resembled creatures from Earth, but there were always differences. An extra limb, or perhaps another eye. Yet these were horses. A sense of nostalgia I never knew I could ever feel washed over me. I didn’t know why, but I was beaming ear to ear.

“Shinpudens,” Shaed said from behind.

I turned back to him. “Huh?” That was all I could say.

“The breed,” he nodded towards the troop trotting down the center of the war camp. “Shinpuden Windseekers. Or, as you know them. A horse.” He said the last bit with pursed lips as if unimpressed by the simple word.

“Wh-what are they doing here?” I asked. “How can they be here?”

“They’re here for the same reason humans exist on this world,” Shaed said flatly. “The Consolidation of the Planes. When the portal storms struck Enora, many entities were exchanged and planted across worlds from far beyond. These ‘horses’ as you call them and Humans being a handful of them.”

I blinked and turned back to the column of riders now moving directly beneath me. “Fascinating,” I muttered. “How come… I’ve never heard of such an event?” I looked back at Shaed, who merely cocked his head. “Portals just appearing everywhere, even my old world would’ve had to be documented. I think… Vinland for instance the vikings that Isa told me about. That was during the early Medieval period on Earth, surely someone would’ve written about it.”

Shaed curled his lips back into a thin line as he thought and merely shrugged. “Unfortunately, my knowledge of your prior life is limited to only what you know. I may be a god, but my domain is bound strictly to Enora.”

“Bound?” I said as a horn echoed from below as the two armies began to posture before one another. Shouts and echoes of taunting soldiers could be heard as spears clattered against shields. Part of me wanted to watch the chaos unfolding, yet I restrained myself and focused on the man in black.

“Yes. Before my imprisonment, my presence extended all across Enora and her sister moons. Anything beyond that my power would fade and weaken. I do not know why. I theorize that perhaps it’s related to my followers and the essence they provide to me through worship. When studying your life on this Earth–”

I held up a hand. “Wa-wait, you studied me?” I butted in. The thought of the Master examining me like a biologist studying an animal was amusing but also equally unnerving for some reason.

Shaed’s eyes narrowed on me. “Yes. Please do not interrupt. What I was getting at is this, in your old world you had a technology called a mobile cellular device.”

“Cellphone,” I corrected, and he glared at me, and I shrunk. “Sorry. It’s just… nobody called it that.”

He blinked and looked surprised. “Then why is it called that?”

“Uh, well, that’s what they are called,” I said, and Shaed cocked his head. “Though no one went around calling them that all the time…” I trailed off, realizing I was just wasting time.

“Right…” Shaed sighed. “Anyway, what I was getting at is those devices worked by being near towers in your world.”

I nodded. “Sort of, that’s how many of the older phones worked,” I said, catching on to what he was referring to. Phones send signals to the cell towers, carrying your transmission to whomever you contact. Or at least that was my rough knowledge of how they worked.

“Then you know that the further away from those towers you are, the weaker the device becomes,” he said, though his phrasing made it seem like he meant the phone became physically weaker.

“Yes, I understand,” I said. “Leaving this planet means you physically can’t receive peoples essence… whatever that means.”

Shaed nodded. “That is the basic of it.”

“What’s the more indepth part of it?” I asked curiously, and Shaed grimaced.

“Explaining that might be too cumbersome,” he sighed.

Disappointed, I was about to protest when a booming voice shouted from below, drawing my attention back to the armies. The army in white had fully fortified their positions at the edge of the war camp. Extensive stake fortifications and trenches were packed with soldiers behind them, and archers took up positions as the large reflective umbrellas were raised over them.

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I noticed now that around us, the ground was beginning to bake. Heat distortion waves rippled around me and the army below, creating a hazy effect that forced me to squint. Strangely, I couldn’t feel the heat. Shaed’s work, most likely. I thought. It’d be awful if he allowed me to feel whatever was happening as I noticed what little plant life was present was beginning to steam and cook while other root-like vegetation began to recede like worms into the cracks in the earth searching for shade.

“The Ebisumi is starting,” Shaed said, pointing to the sky.

Following his finger, I gazed toward the sun and held a hand up to shield my eyes. This did not help. The sun had changed. A dark ring circled its edges, silhouetted against its light. The ring's center amplified the sun's light and directed it upon the Scorched Plains.

“Holy shit,” I gawked. “Y-You weren’t joking.” It was like a magnifying glass. A weapon floating in what? The sky? Space? What the hell was it?

“Why would I be joking?” Shaed said.

The land around us began to burn, and plants that had failed to recede beneath began to boil and burst into flame. Below, screams of those not shielded beneath the umbrellas and shelter could be heard. A horn sounded, and the army in red and yellow began to charge towards the canyon. Soldiers screamed in desperation, fear, and rage as they rushed the fortifications. Archers let loose their arrows, and cries of pain were soon added to the din.

The sound sent a chill down my spine, and my blood ran cold. The screams of agony sounded too similar to what I’d witnessed in Kassel. Men and women were gunned down around me. The battle at the prison as soldiers around me were slaughtered in the field and complex. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t prepared to see another onslaught of death.

“End it,” I said hollowly.

Shaed waved a hand without questioning, and the world around me spun. My vision swam, and my gut churned as everything faded to black like a droplet of water hitting a pound. A mote of light rippled in the darkness as the world reformed into the castle hallway beside the mural painting, the sounds of war fading.

I stumbled back and leaned against the mural wall, a hand resting on my chest. Even though this wasn’t technically real, it felt like it. My heart was ramming against my ribs, and my breathing heightened. I was panicking. Shit, I was panicking. Why?

I was calm during the air raid and primarily during the prison attack. Yet here I was, in a dream world, or whatever the Master said it was, panicking over a vision.

“My apologies,” Shaed said flatly. “I should’ve anticipated this would happen.”

I sucked in a few gulps of air, or whatever it was. Do I even need to breathe here? After a few more refreshing inhales, I relaxed, my heart rate rapid but gradually slowing. “It’s okay… I just. I just don’t wanna see any more fighting. Hearing people screaming in pain it just, it’s not right. No man or woman should cry like that.”

“I agree,” Shaed said with a solemn nod.

I paused and looked up at him. “You say that… but in that dream, that vision you showed me.” I nodded to the mural behind me.

“Was a necessary evil,” Shaed said, his face hardening, though it cracked moments later. “Or at least, that was what I thought back then. The other Umios refused to bend to my demands and mocked my rightful claim to the throne of Garlay.”

“So you slaughtered them?” I said in a calm voice, eyes widening.

Shaed turned away from me and began to levitate down the hall. “Yes,” he said. “Then, I was young, and immature. My father requested that I unite his people… to end all of the suffering.”

My eyes narrowed. He sounds exactly like Charity.

“I tried being diplomatic,” He continued as I followed behind him. “But none of them would listen. So I did the only thing I thought I could then.”

“And how did that turn out?” I asked. “What happened afterwards?”

He glanced at me from over his shoulder. “I became a god. A god born from the deaths of tens of thousands of people.” He held a hand up and curled his fingers into a fist. “My hands soaked in their blood, their pleas and screams forever echoing in my mind. All for the sake of peace.” He turned to face me but continued further down the hall as we passed the paintings of Shaed when he was a man, an Emperor.

Our eyes met, and I gulped and gritted my teeth. I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came. He’s a genocidal monster…

“Indeed I am.” He nodded.

“What about the Twilight War?” I asked. Even though it was apparent, I knew from the beginning that this was his identity. The Dark Lord, the bringer of death, the false god who tried to bend the world to his whims. The unleashed of the Necrophage. In all the history books, he was depicted as an evil entity, a demon. He didn’t look like that. With the cloak, he was mysterious, but now, hood off, he looked like a frail man. Shaed, the Master, helped me. He saved my family and those captured by the Rusivites. He could be an asshole, but so far, he’s been a good man.

“Just because he was nice to you doesn’t mean he can be trusted.” Charity’s voice rang in my mind.

I’m being an idiot. This man, this monster. Perhaps that’s who he was then,… but maybe I’m too naive.

“Your look of disgust is warranted, Luna Ashflow,” Shaed said flatly, his face twinged with guilt. “I am not a good god, or a man. I never was. Like every mortal I was driven by greed and power. I merely used my father’s wishes to further my own agenda.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said. “What really happened back then?”

Our eyes met again. At first, he said nothing and came to a stop. I hadn’t noticed initially, but I’ve already seen the paintings around us. Was the hallway looping? I shook my head and refocused on him.

“I learned the truth,” He said in a low voice. I could barely hear him, but then he spoke up. Repeating himself, “I learned the truth of the world. Or at least, part of it.”

“And that is?” I asked.

Shaed’s brow twitched, his jaw setting as he clenched his teeth. His blue eyes darkened as they almost became black with rage. I stepped back hesitantly. “I learned that our gods are not what they really are.” His hands clenched.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“What I mean, Luna,” His eyes burned into me, and I shrank away. He wasn’t glaring at me but through me at something only he could see. “That there is no such thing as a good god.” The darkness in his eyes faded, but anger remained as he looked at me. “In fact, I would go so far to say that there is no such thing as a god.”

“But aren’t you–”

He waved his hand to the side, dismissing me. “I meant what I said, Luna. Do you remember what I told you shortly after you arrived in this city? Our last meeting?”

I nodded. “Yeah, you mentioned that the apostles want to destroy us.”

He crossed his arms and nodded. “That was one of the things I said.”

“Uh,” I wracked my brain, then snapped a finger. “You said you were exploring where the gods came from!”

He nodded. “Indeed. I was exploring the true origin of where they came from. How do beings of creation appear? Were they created? Did they just pop into existence? I discovered that those who worship the gods are what grant them power. It’s the collective consciousness of all those who believe that brings them life.”

I nodded. “I guess… in a fantastical way that makes sense,” I said, and Shaed agreed with a nod.

“And much of the masses would agree,” He said, “but think about Luna. If the gods created Enora, and gods are birthed by those who believe. Who was there to dream them up originally?”

I pursed my lips. “That’s like asking what triggered the Big Bang… it’s unknowable?”

Shaed blinked for a moment before widening his eyes with realization. “Ah, yes… the birth of your prior universe. In a sense, yes, if that helps you understand.”

“So you were exploring the god's origin,” I said, bringing us back on track. “But you’ve already told me the gods also didn’t know.”

“That is until I discovered the Great Wound,” He said, raising an index finger. “You have heard of the Far Reachers, have you not?”

“Yes,” I said. “Isa said they were a powerful empire that spanned the stars or something like that. Like some kind of space empire or something.”

Shaed nodded slowly. “That one, Isa, she is intelligent. I am pleased that I chose to help you when she was injured.”

“So you admit you’re an idiot for telling me to leave her?” I growled, remembering that moment.

Shaed grimaced. “Yes. I was a fool.” He then took a breath. “She is correct, though. The Far Reachers, or their true name, the Humari, were a vast empire.” He waved his hand out, and the world began to ripple and shift again.

Around us, the walls and paintings melted into nothing. Darkness consumes all, only to be replaced by a vastness of shimmering stars and nebulae. “Their reach was so great they had conquered the Void itself. It is said they held hundreds, if not thousands of worlds similar to Enora. It’s said that nothing could oppose them, they had no enemies.”

The stars around us began to tint and change color, each turning blue to show this empire’s influence expanding outward. At this moment, I realized that around us was an entire galaxy, though not to scale, as I could faintly see the edges of it. The changing color of the stars began to increase with speed, and soon, as the influence stretched out, the entire starscape was glowing a faint, blue hue.

I looked at Shaed. “So they controlled the whole galaxy?” I said. What does this have to do with the god's origin?”

Shaped side-eyed me. “Everything. The Humaran Empire controlled everything. When there was nothing left to conquer in their realm, they began to look elsewhere. They turned their attention to the sciences began to study, and learn everything they could about the universe.”

“What about magic?” I asked. If these beings were so technologically advanced, how powerful would they be magically? Would they rival the gods?

“What magic?” Shaed smirked.

I frowned, and my eyes widened as he continued, “At first, the Humari were a purely technological species, like the humans from your prior life.” The starscape around us began to dissipate, the castle hall returning. “It wasn’t until the Humari uncovered the truth that figured out how reality truly functions. They were too limited by what you and I know as the laws of physics, or at least our perceived laws. Once they figured out how to circumvent those laws.” He snapped his fingers. “Magic as you and I know it was discovered.”

“Okay,” I said. So we have a bunch of aliens who figured out how to become wizards. What does this have to do with the gods?”

Shaed sighed, “I’m trying to give you context. Fine, I’ll keep it brief. The Humari discoverd all they could within their reality of Middendaum except for one thing known was the Eye of the Universe. The center of everything. It was during this time the empire discovered soul and ether and in turn magic as you and i know it. They discovered that everything posses a soul and souls can be manipulated.”

“Spirimancy!” I gasped, and Shaed nodded.

“It was with the advent of spirimancy that they uncovered something awful,” He said. “The stumbled upon Father.”

I blinked. “The apostles?” I muttered, and he nodded slowly.

“Middendaum was destroyed by Father, and only a handful of Humari escaped to Eifelheim, our reality, via an event known as the Great Wound. They tore a hole in their reality that led directly into ours–”

“The Consolidation of the Planes!” My mind was blown.

“Not exactly, but you are very, very close,” Shaed said. “In reality, you would call this first consolidation, yet instead of all realities converging, it was only two beings forcibly bridged.”

“Okay, but how does this correlate with the gods?” I asked yet again.

“I’m getting there,” Shaed said with a roll of his eyes. “The Humari came to our reality from another with knowledge of spirimancy. Upon their arrival they were not welcomed like refugees. They were introduced with bloodshed.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“They were slaughtered by the gods, or what we think are gods, Luna.”

I shook my head. “What? Why?”

“Because the Humari know what gods really are,” He said. “You know magic tricks? They’re just that. Tricks. Nothing is not magical about it, but if you don’t know that and aren’t aware how they work. It seems wondrous. The truth can be said for deities. If you truly understand how gods work, nothing is special about them. The Humari understood reality, they conquered it, until they uncovered our common enemy that is.” Shaed explained.

I sputtered momentarily and shook my head again before clapping my cheeks to focus. “Hold on, you’re telling me. The gods just straight up genocided an entire race fleeing to safety because they understood their party tricks?”

“Yes,” He said bluntly.

I blinked. “How do you know this?” I asked. “If they’re all dead, how do you know? I thought you said not even they knew?”

Shaed laughed. “Luna, gods can lie. When I first began my study into this they tried to tell me what I wanted to to hear. Most men believe that gods exist simply because they’re gods. They just do. Yet, here I was, a man who had become one. I had origin story, yet they didn’t. I simply couldn’t believe that. So I searched, and searched, and eventually… I found my lead. An individual you’ve already met, or at least… you’ve met one of them.”

I curled my lips into a line. “Lucien,” I said. “The one you called you Garl.”

“Bollocks I hate that!” Shaed cursed. “Yes.” He looked at me. “Lucien About, he’s a piece of my friend.”

I frowned. “A piece?” He nodded. “Last I saw he was Human… where did he go anyway? He poofed when that reactor went did, whatever it did!”

“He was dispelled,” Shaed said, “Do you know how Putinov was actually a shell? His soul contained in the crystal?”

“The one that shattered,” I muttered, and Shaed blinked with surprise. “Yeah, it uh, broke when the reactor pulsed or whatever.” My frown deepened.

Shaed cursed again. “That isn’t good, but, not much we can do now. But yes, Lucien… what we saw was merely fragment of my friend. The one you know as Ami.”

I groaned. “That asshole? Ami is your friend?”

“Yes. He is an old ally of mine, one who is close to the former Humari Empire. He is the one who warned me of this… thing known as Father and their apostles. He is the one who helped me find you and bring you to Enora.”

“He’s such a dick though.” I groaned.

“He can be, but he is vastly intelligent. He knows how things are, Luna, he knows what gods really are.”

I bit the inside of my lip and held his gaze. “What are they then?” I asked.

Shaed eyes held firm as he sucked in a breath and sighed. “Do not mention this outside of here,” He said, “For what I am about to say is very, very dangerous for the two of us.” I nodded. “The gods are constructs.”