The glowing number four burned like a molten coal against Kota's skin while the newly formed celestial brand settled deeply into his flesh. The smoke slowly drifted away into the cold night air, leaving the dark mark sitting right above his nipple.
Thorne dropped the skinning knife into the soot and stood up while Jaeger remained entirely still alongside him, both men staring at the smoking seal with grounded caution. Inside Kota's mind, the fragile quiet completely shattered as the woman's voice erupted into a violent, deafening screech.
"My vessel is ruined! Who gives her the right to brand my vessel? My precious vessel!" the voice screamed.
Kota choked on a breath, pressing his hand hard against his forehead to suppress the internal roaring.
"Calm down. Everything is fine just stop yelling," Kota commanded.
"But she ruined you!" the voice shrieked back.
"Be quiet," Kota commanded.
Leiya watched him closely, evaluating the sharp, concentric rings of Yen that suddenly began to warp the perimeter around the fire.
"Kota," Leiya spoke aloud. "Can you stand?" Leiya asked.
Kota slowly forced his posture to straighten, pulling the edges of his loose cape back over his shoulders to cover the glowing number four.
"I'm fine," Kota responded out loud, staring blankly into the flickering embers.
Far away from the ruins, the sudden surge of celestial energy tore across the districts, striking the remaining Speedhardt line present at the Null Haven. Each sibling experienced a completely different reaction to the divine carving.
Kaola collapsed against the stone floor of the Roundtable room, her hands clutched frantically at her collarbone as a blinding heat tore through her skin and smoke rose between her fingers. In the adjoining hall, the twins reacted with an eerie, detached confusion.
Hykee and Lokee didn't feel a single ounce of physical pain from the celestial energy, standing perfectly still instead as they watched thick trails of gray smoke billow from their bodies.
They stared closely at each other's frames, noting the raw, bloodless searing of flesh as the unyielding divine rankings carved themselves into their anatomy without a sound.
The ripples of the goddess's descent did not stop at the Speedhardt line, causing the core of the world to shift deep within the earth in response. The middle of the earth was a place of absolute stillness, a monolithic stone ring hidden far beneath the shifting tectonic plates.
In the center of the ring sat Apex with a heavy, rune inscribed cloth bound tightly over his eyes as he rested his chin in his palm. A sudden ripple of hot wind cut through the cavern as Dual stepped out from the shadows of the eastern archway.
Within heartbeats, Aliv materialized from a silent vortex of compressed air to the south while her brother Idle flickered into reality from a beam of refracted light to the west, slouching instantly.
Saint arrived last, his boots leaving faint, crystalline tracks of black frost on the ancient floorboards as he stepped in from the northern corridor.
"Now that the god slayer Kalamity is dead, those pesky gods have been full on sprinting in our world. Apex, it may be time for us to come out and fix the wrongdoings in the world as our father's children we cannot just sit here while they treat the soil like their playground," Saint growled.
Idle let out a long, weary sigh, slouching heavily against a block of fallen masonry.
"Do whatever you want in the North, Saint. The world can burn for all I care, as long as the smoke doesn't reach the West," Idle said while waving a dismissive hand.
"Oh, look at our grand protector," Dual mocked, a dangerous pink flame flickering along the length of her forearm as a sharp, antagonistic grin split her face. "Are you going to nap through the entire end, Idle? or does lifting your eyelids just take too much energy?" Dual asked.
Idle refused to even straighten his back, waving a dismissive hand.
"Go set something on fire, Dual, your voice is giving me a headache," Idle said.
Dual laughed, the sound sharp and entirely unbothered, before turning her sharp gaze toward the southern vortex.
"And what about you, Aliv? Still locking yourself away?" Dual asked.
Aliv adjusted her collar and looked at her younger sister.
"The shifting realities are moving faster than your mouth can move, Dual," Aliv countered.
"I can feel everything altering in the kingdom. King Voss has built a new vanguard named the Grim Phantoms, and the Speedhardt bloodline has fractured from the inside because of Koma's desires. We cannot ignore the weight of this world knowledge, Apex. The celestial gods are making chess moves," Aliv warned.
"Be quiet," Apex commanded, his voice cutting through the bickering like a heavy hammer against stone. The entire cavern fell into a dead, suffocating silence as Apex shifted his chin from his hand, his blindfold tracking across the semi circle of his brothers and sisters.
"Everyone continue doing what you are doing and thank you, Aliv, for your knowledge you are the most useful out of everyone here," Apex muttered.
Dual rolled her eyes, throwing a playful glare toward the shadows, while Aliv simply bowed her head in acknowledgment while Apex turned his hidden gaze toward the northern corridor.
"And how is training going for your new pet, Saint?" Apex asked.
Saint growled, his jaw tightening as a massive surge of dark frost crackled violently across the floorboards.
"She is not a pet and that is none of your concern, broth-" Saint said.
Before the final word could even leave Saint's mouth, a violent crack split the air. Apex instantly vanished from the center stone, flickering into existence a fraction of a millisecond later directly in front of Saint, the sheer displacement of his speed blasting the frost away from the ground.He leaned in close, his blindfold inches from Saint's eyes.
"I asked you a question. Now answer it," Apex commanded.
Saint's breath caught in his throat as the raw, heavy mass of Apex's presence pressed down on his lungs, forcing his elemental aura to instantly flatten.
"Her density is stable." His teeth gritted as his resistance completely crumbled. "Her absolute zero capacity is scaling ahead of schedule." "She will be functional soon" Saint answered immediately.
Dual burst out laughing, clapping her hands together as she leaned against a fallen pillar.
"Look at you, Saint! He cant even see, and somehow he is still faster than you!" she shouted.
Apex didn't turn around, simply holding up a single finger toward the eastern archway to casually manipulate a vector of absolute gravity. Instantly, a localized field of immense weight slammed down directly onto Dual's shoulders, pinning her flat against the floor with a heavy, concussive thud.
"Shut up. Your voice is aggravating," Apex said codly, keeping his hand raised.
Dual gritted her teeth, straining hard against the invisible crushing weight holding her flat to the stone.
"You always take your anger out on me! But Idle never gets reprimanded!" she shrieked.
Apex's blindfold tilted slightly toward the western masonry where the slouch remained limp.
"Unlike you, Idle just sits there. He's useless, but he doesn't speak," Apex said.
Lifting his chin, Apex looked past Saint completely.
"Aliv, give me the exact coordinates of Koma Speedhardt," he commanded.
Aliv's eyes went entirely blank as her absolute world knowledge flared, filtering through the continents instantly.
"He is at his hideout a place he calls the Null Haven. There are currently three other people there with him.. his siblings," Aliv detailed.
"Idle and Dual, go kill them immediately," Apex ordered without a flicker of emotion.
Idle let out a miserable, exhausted groan from his spot against the rock.
"Why me? Why is it always me?" he groaned.
He sighed heavily, and then, in a blink of light refraction, he instantly vanished from the room. Apex stood over the cratered floorboards, his blindfold pointing straight down at the ground before he looked over to Dual.
"Why are you still here?" he questioned.
Dual let out a harsh, strained wheeze, clutching tightly at the stone floor. "Umm," Dual wheezed. "You have me pinned down, idiot!" Dual shouted.
Apex casually lowered his finger, releasing the gravitational grip. Dual snapped up, throwing a furious glare at him before she instantly vanished into a hot pink flash to join the hunt.
Apex turned his focus back to Saint, his tone dropping to a sharp, commanding edge.
"How long do you intend on keeping your little pet from your siblings, Saint? Let us meet this so called primordial being you have been keeping locked away in that ice," he demanded.
Saint didn't answer right away, his jaw tightening as the dark frost around his boots began to recede into the stone. The heavy silence of the underground vault became thick with tension while the sibling of the North weighed his options against the absolute authority standing before him.
Far above their hidden sanctuary, across the vast expanses of the kingdom, the physical world remained completely oblivious to the impending collision of forces. The boundaries of the fortress stood silent under the dimming sky, waiting for the first strike to land.
A flash of refracted light hit the grass outside the Null Haven. Idle collapsed flat on his back in the dense green blades, entirely alone as Dual lagged far behind.
"Too much work," Idle muttered to the sky.