The mist thickened, visibility dropped. Aurelion felt the weight of what he'd started.
Messengers had taken their forms. Their sight was pitiful. Deformed in every way from the torment of living and obeying for eternity. But the feeling was mutual. Aurelion really wasn't all that different from them.
There was one messenger who stood out to Aurelion. The messenger of the God of Identity. After so many years of him doing the job, who could it be other than him?
The messenger smiled and nodded at him. Identity was proud of him.
The door opened.
Everyone's attention snapped to it. Two guards held Kaelen, followed by Zephyr.
Seraphina and Valerius whispered something to him.
They held Kaelen with chains, but it wasn't a problem for Aurelion.
He sent his identities flying, breaking the chains. Forcing them inside Kaelen and merging himself with Kaelen. Kaelen's high authority and Aurelion's control made them untouchable.
The gods gave it their all, forcing many changes on both of them, using the surroundings to affect them indirectly, sacrificing their power just for a chance to stop them. None of it worked. Everything was neglected. Nothing could get past Kaelen's authority.
The gods sent every ability they had, hoping even a minor change would open Kaelen to attacks. Nothing affected him.
Aurelion forced Kaelen to move toward the center, where Aurelion could protect him. Kaelen's steps came slow and wrong, dragged more than walked, his body answering to something other than his own will.
Aurelion looked around. He laughed. Louder. Even louder, till everyone knew that corruption had gotten to him. "They really can't do anything," he said to the room itself, announcing his victory.
Then he looked at Seraphina and Valerius. Seraphina looked scared. Whatever kept him standing there wasn't ambition. He'd get nothing out of this either way.
Aurelion stretched back, his hands in the air as far as they could go.
He sent the cursed identities he had stored for years flying across the room. They stole artifacts and blessings from the gods, killed the guards. Seraphina, Valerius, and Zephyr were a different story. Kaelen's fear of them stopped the identities from touching them.
It was going exactly as he had anticipated. The gods had to feed their blessings and authority to the cursed identities, only delaying their death.
Aurelion set a four-minute timer, the exact amount of time the gods would die in. "This is fine as well. First your offerings, then you." He shouted at the gods.
Two of his identities latched onto Valerius and Seraphina, tracking their every move. Before he could set another, a message came through from Deception. Sealed.
Identity had done it.
Aurelion looked at Identity's messenger. "Is this all you care about? Your power? This makes you no different from those we've spent years fighting." Aurelion's voice echoed through the room.
No reply came through. The silence answered more than words ever would.
Even worse was that Aurelion still couldn't leave him, nor could Identity. It was the first time one of them had sabotaged another. And they both saw it coming. Their idea of a perfect world would never match.
Aurelion was already exhausted. His body was burning itself. And only twenty seconds had passed.
"You three seem awfully calm," Aurelion said, waiting for their attention. "For friends about to lose one another." He added, trying to buy his identities more time.
"We are co-workers, not friends," Zephyr said. "This is just the job." His tone was different. Zephyr had suspected something. Aurelion was never the kind to trash talk. "Whatever it is that makes you think this will go your way, you're wrong," he added.
"Wrong?" Aurelion let out a laugh, a forced one. "I am the one person who will never be wrong about this. How many times do you think I've faced this? This exact room, the same statues, me always standing here." His eyes rolled back to Seraphina and Valerius. A strange aura had covered them. He could no longer observe them on a physical level. Whatever they were doing, it had pulled them somewhere the eye couldn't follow, even standing right there. "And your hopeless attempts will have no use this time, too." His eyes didn't leave the pillar. "That's the difference, see. Some of you spend your whole lives trying to become something else. He never had to."
"What about you? Are you the same?" Valerius said. It landed harder than it should have.
"That's not what you should be worried about." Aurelion's face said otherwise.
"They're going to get rid of you this time," Aurelion said, pointing his finger at Zephyr.
"Still trying?" Zephyr smirked.
"No, it's going to happen. Maybe you're ready for the big reveal of your life." Aurelion started circling the center. "We humans are never made equal. Not just physically or mentally, but in a sense we can never fully understand, yet the sense that defines us." Aurelion stopped for a second, reading Zephyr.
"In what sense?" Zephyr asked hesitantly, his hands twitching.
"Don't listen to him," Seraphina shouted, hiding behind a pillar, doing the ritual to ascend. Valerius mirrored him on the other side. Both of them were following the same instructions, making it impossible to find out who was going to ascend. And Aurelion was sure of it: the gods were too greedy to make two apostles at once.
Zephyr raised his hand, palm out toward Seraphina, signaling him to stop.
"I made the same choice, too," Aurelion said, clapping for Zephyr, once, twice, then a third time. Aurelion looked up and said, "Well... you see. Do you know why you worked at a desk? Why Seraphina and Valerius weren't part of the ritual?"
Zephyr said nothing.
"Because you weren't capable of it."
Zephyr stayed silent, but his impatient limb movements showed he wanted the answer. Bad.
"This world was never meant to be equal, and there's a simple reason."
Aurelion stopped and took a deep breath. "All of us have our own level of authority over this world. It determines what we can change or create. Its limit is your imagination."
"What stages are we?" asked Zephyr, sweating, his words coming at a broken rhythm.
"I'm Stage One—," his eyes flickered to the clock. Ninety seconds. "—far above the three of you. Your friends are Stage Three. And you, Zephyr, your Stage Five. Worthless by comparison. They'll get rid of you. A Stage Five isn't allowed to hold this much knowledge. They might not kill you themselves, but you will be sent on your first fight. Very soon."
"And the kid?"
He looked at Kaelen, disconnected from the outer world. Too much exposition from an entire new world was killing his brain. It reminded him: the new apostle would burn out just the same.
"I shouldn't be telling you this. But it won't matter once you're dead," Aurelion said. "He's stage one. Not just Stage One. He stands above everyone. The gods. Me. The gods above the gods we serve." Aurelion looked at the watch. Two minutes left.
Something ran towards him. Aurelion turned back. Suddenly, his vision blackened. Nothing outside the center was visible.
Aurelion looked down. Kaelen was next to him.
He looked at the watch. One minute left.
Aurelion searched for the curse's weak spot. It was a perfect one. Its source of power blended in perfectly with its surroundings. Aurelion reached out for it. He clenched his fist. It shattered.
The darkness broke.
Zephyr stood in front of him, with guards shaped from the identities Aurelion had released.
"Tsk... Just before they reached the gods." Aurelion murmured to himself.
They were thin, wearing black armor, wielding obsidian swords. They were like a glass cannon. Lethal but weak.
They marched forward in formation, circling around Zephyr, who was ready to deal a single deadly blow with the black knife he had hidden in his collar.
"That's a cheap technique," Aurelion said, looking at Zephyr's collar.
"It's enough for you."
Red thralls emerged around Aurelion, made from blood. "Protect Kaelen." He ordered them. The thralls surrounded Kaelen.
As Zephyr's guards closed in, Valerius jumped from the side.
Kaelen held Valerius by the neck and slammed him into the ground.
Aurelion looked towards the thralls. Kaelen wasn't there anymore. Aurelion turned back to Kaelen. Valerius had crashed into the ground, unconscious. But Kaelen was nowhere to be seen. Then he turned back again to the thralls. There, Kaelen rested on his knees. Still unable to do anything. He had forgotten how to breathe. He didn't need to remember anymore.
The gods had only two paths. Either they killed Kaelen and destroyed the golden goose, or they controlled him. Which was the harder part. And it was clear to everyone what the gods would choose.
Identity left the room. Aurelion didn't try to stop him. There was nothing to stop them. He had already made his choice, and it wasn't the one Aurelion needed.
Zephyr smiled.