The battlefield was already lost. The Divine Council, once untouchable, once revered, stood upon the precipice of annihilation. The Forgotten watched them from atop the ruined spires of Solaria, his form flickering, shifting between the faces of the dead, between memories stolen and identities lost. Power radiated from him; an emptiness so absolute it seemed to swallow the light itself. Below, the gods fought like desperate kings defending a crumbling throne. Their divine power clashed against the nightmarish hordes of Malathrax’s army, their attacks carving through darkness only for the abyss to swallow the light whole. They did not yet see the truth.
That the war was already over. And then, he moved. The Keeper of Shadows struck first. She was a specter of shifting darkness, her form moving between realms, striking from angles unseen. Blades of pure void cut through the battlefield, seeking the Forgotten’s heart. But he was no longer bound by shadows. The Forgotten simply raised a hand, and the shadows betrayed her. They turned inward, wrapping around their master, folding into themselves, until the Keeper of Shadows was swallowed whole. No scream. No resistance. Just absence. The Harbinger, guardian of death, watched in horror. His skeletal fingers clenched around the staff he carried, the key to the passage between life and the afterlife. His hollow eyes, empty as the void itself, flickered with something rare, fear. He reached out, his power surging, trying to pull the Keeper of Shadows back from oblivion. But there was nothing to bring back.
No soul. No echo of existence. The Forgotten stepped forward, his form flickering like candlelight in the storm. “You thought you understood death, Harbinger,” he mused. “But death has rules. I don’t.” The Harbinger turned to flee. He knew now, there was no stopping this. The Forgotten was not merely killing them; he was unmaking them. The veil between life and death had always been his domain, the passageway he guarded, the balance he preserved. And now, the balance was broken. He barely took one step before the Forgotten whispered a single word. “No.” The Harbinger froze, his body trembling violently as the shadows of the Keeper crawled toward him, reaching for him with unseen hands. He tried to resist, his skeletal form flickering with power, but the Forgotten had already taken his dominion. The veil between life and death shattered. The passageway collapsed into nothingness. A terrible silence followed, not of peace, but of unraveling The Harbinger’s hands spasmed, clawing at the air, as if he could grasp onto something, anything, to anchor himself in existence. But there was nothing left. His dominion had been undone, the veil torn apart like fragile cloth. His hollow sockets, once endless voids, flickered with dim, dying embers. “No,” he rasped, his voice barely a whisper, stretching into nothingness. “This… this is not how it was meant to be.” The Forgotten smiled. “But it is.” The shadows of the Keeper pulled him inward, tendrils of void wrapping around his skeletal form, twisting into him, suffocating him, not killing him, for that was no longer possible. The Harbinger of Death, the one who had ushered souls into their final rest since his creation, was now trapped between existence and oblivion. He was neither dead nor alive. He was unmade. A shudder ran through the battlefield as the weight of his absence took hold. The warriors who had fallen, who should have been granted the peace of death, remained. Twitching. Shivering. Staring. Some still moved, their lifeless eyes empty, their wounds gaping but no longer bleeding. Others whispered in agony, unable to pass beyond. Trapped. The world had lost its final mercy.
The Forgotten turned away, stepping over the place where the Harbinger had once stood. Two were gone. Ten remained. He felt them watching. The Dreamweaver trembled, stepping backward, her eyes wide, her lips moving in silent prayers. Prayers that would go unanswered. Because the gods could not save themselves. And now? Nothing could. The Dreamweaver tried to run. She stumbled back, her hands clutching at the fabric of reality itself, her magic weaving frantically, trying to undo what had been done, trying to escape into a dream, any dream but this one. The Forgotten followed, slow and deliberate. His steps made no sound, his form flickering like a mirage, his presence bending the world around him.
The Dreamweaver clenched her teeth, eyes glowing with desperate power. She had seen this moment. A thousand times, a thousand ways. She had tried to unmake it. Tried to twist fate, to bend the dream of reality itself. But every time, she failed. The Forgotten smiled. "Still trying to wake up?" She whispered a spell, her voice raw with terror. Her magic flared, a blinding, shimmering tapestry, golden threads wrapping around her, trying to pull her away, to hide her in the folds of some distant dream. The Forgotten reached through it. His fingers, long, cold, formless, tore into the very fabric of her being. The Dreamweaver screamed. She saw infinite deaths, infinite failures, looping endlessly in her mind. Divinia burning. Again. And again. And again. The Forgotten tilted his head, watching as she convulsed, her body twisting in and out of focus. "So much power wasted on hope," he murmured. The Dreamweaver tried to wake up. But there was no waking up. There was only him. Her final breath was a sob. And then, she was gone. The Forgotten had claimed her dreams. And in doing so, he claimed her. A broken gasp echoed across the battlefield. The Lifebringer fell to her knees. Her golden hands pressed against the scorched earth, trying, begging, to heal it. To mend what had been shattered.
But the Forgotten had taken something greater than life. He had taken death itself. Without death, there was no renewal. No rebirth.
The Lifebringer’s hands trembled, golden light flickering between her fingers like a dying star. She tried again, tried to heal something that could no longer be healed. But the land did not answer.
Her breath hitched, her chest rising and falling in quick, panicked gasps. She had never known fear, never known what it meant to be powerless. But she felt it now. Her gaze lifted, desperate, searching for something, anything, that might still hold. That might still endure. The Voice of the Earth roared. The massive divine, his form a walking mountain, thundered forward, his heavy steps shaking the battlefield. Rage bled through every inch of him. "You will not take her," he bellowed, his voice like stone grinding against stone.
He raised his fists, the very land beneath him responding, roots twisting upward, vines snapping like whips, trying to ensnare the Forgotten, trying to bury him beneath the weight of the world itself.
The Forgotten simply stepped forward. And the earth withered beneath his feet. The Voice of the Earth staggered. His deep-set eyes, once like polished stone, cracked, fragments of divine essence crumbling away. He felt it. The severing. The way the land no longer spoke to him, no longer listened. The forests collapsed into dust. The rivers turned to barren, cracked ground. The Lifebringer gasped, reaching out, but her body dimmed, draining as the Forgotten took her light into himself. The Voice of the Earth fell to one knee. And the Forgotten leaned down, his voice barely above a whisper. "You were never the foundation of this world," he murmured. "You were just something waiting to be broken." The Voice of the Earth let out a shattered breath and became dust.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
The Lifebringer did not scream. She couldn’t. Because she was already gone. The sky burned. The Flamebearer unleashed everything. A firestorm descended; an inferno meant to purge the world of the Forgotten’s existence. The battlefield was swallowed in scorching light, the heat melting steel, turning sand into glass.
The inferno consumed all. The battlefield became a sun, a searing wasteland where even the air ignited. Emberfall and Selenian warriors fell to their knees, shielding their eyes from the sheer brilliance of it. But the Forgotten did not. He stood within the fire, his form wreathed in dancing embers, his face unreadable. The flames licked at his skin, but he did not burn. Then, he breathed in. The inferno collapsed inward, vanishing into his form, drawn into the endless void that was him. The heat, the destruction, the raw power, all devoured. The battlefield cooled. The glass beneath their feet cracked, steam rising from where the fire had once raged. And the Flamebearer staggered back. His divine light, his essence, was gone. His lips parted in disbelief. “No…” The Forgotten reached out, his fingers brushing against the god’s chest, And the Flamebearer vanished. Snuffed out. Extinguished. The moment Stoneheart moved, the Forgotten turned to him. The god of mountains charged, his body a living fortress, each footfall sending shockwaves through the battlefield. His massive fists, forged from the very bedrock of Divinia, swung forward, enough power behind them to shatter cities. The Forgotten raised a single hand. And the earth beneath Stoneheart collapsed. The unbreakable stronghold fell into nothingness, his own foundation betraying him. He reached out, but there was nothing left to hold on to. Stoneheart fell. And he did not rise. Above them, Skywatcher screamed. Her storm roared, the heavens ripping open at her command. Winds howled, rain pelted the battlefield, and thunder crashed like the wrath of gods forgotten. The Forgotten simply lifted his gaze. The storm stilled.
The rain froze in midair. And then, it turned. Skywatcher’s own hurricane twisted against her, the winds she commanded wrapping around her like a noose, her body lifted higher and higher into the dark sky. She reached for the storm, and the storm devoured her whole. Nothing remained but silence. The Warden of Light stood alone in the darkness. His golden radiance flickered, his sword still glowing with the last remnants of celestial power. His brethren were gone, but still, he stood. "Not all light can be consumed," he said, lifting his blade, its edge gleaming like the final ember of a dying fire. His eyes, once unshakable, held only grim determination. He was the last beacon, the last flicker of resistance against the void consuming Divinia. The Forgotten watched him with something close to curiosity. "Not all light can be consumed?" he echoed, tilting his head. "You misunderstand, godling." The air between them rippled. Shadows coiled like living things, slithering toward the Warden. He did not waver. "I am not afraid of the dark," the Warden said. The Forgotten smiled. "Oh, but you should be." He raised a hand, and the light in the Warden’s blade sputtered. Dimmed. Died.
The golden glow around the Warden collapsed inward, as though it had never been his to begin with. His power, his radiance, stolen.
The sword in his grasp became nothing more than cold metal. No different from any mortal’s blade. The Warden staggered back, gasping as the weight of mortality crashed upon him. "No…" His hands trembled, reaching for a light that no longer answered him.
The Forgotten stepped forward. "You were not the fire," he whispered, almost gently. "You were the candle." A single flick of his wrist. The Warden of Light winked out of existence. Alyc gasped, her hands gripping the bars of her prison window. The battlefield below was unrecognizable, a graveyard of gods and men. Her breath came shallow, her mind reeling. The Tideweaver’s hands trembled as she called upon the last remnants of the ocean’s fury. Waves surged from nothing, cascading toward the battlefield, a final defiance against oblivion. The Forgotten merely sighed. He raised a single finger, and the waters froze midair. The tide did not crash, did not flow. It simply stopped. The color drained from it, the motion erased, until it faded entirely, undone. The Tideweaver gasped, her body stiffening as the moisture in the air itself vanished. The rivers, the rains, the sea, gone. A moment later, so was she. The Timekeeper ran. His robes billowed as he turned the great hourglass in his hands, his lips moving in a frantic chant. The sands of time shifted, reversing, desperate to undo the slaughter that had unfolded. But time was not his to command anymore.
The Forgotten turned his gaze upon the fleeing god. A quiet, amused chuckle left his lips. With a snap of his fingers, the hourglass shattered. Time itself cracked. The Timekeeper barely had time to scream before he was torn apart, scattered through every moment of history, existing and not existing in an instant.
And then, there were none. Alyc barely registered her own breathing. She could feel her pulse, rapid and uneven, thundering in her chest. Divinia had no one left. No one, except him. A sound echoed from the battlefield, one that should not have been possible after so much death. Laughter. Jesta Valance stepped forward, her boots crunching over scorched ruins and shattered bones. She rolled her shoulders, shaking out the tension in her arms, a grin splitting her face. “Well, well, well,” she mused. “I've been waiting to beat your ass since the trials.” The Forgotten turned toward her, unimpressed. Jesta smirked. "Been a long time coming, don’t you think?" The Forgotten tilted his head. “Do you really believe you ever stood a chance?” Jesta shifted her stance, preparing for a fight. “Oh, I know I do.” She moved to strike. And in an instant, he was behind her. A single, lazy breath escaped him. "You never stood a chance." Jesta’s eyes widened. A blade pierced through her back.Her breath caught, her body freezing as cold steel pushed through her ribs, her own blood staining her armor. She coughed, choking on laughter, even now, she was laughing. The Forgotten leaned close, his voice a whisper in her ear. "Don't you see?" With one sharp motion, he wrenched the blade free. Jesta crumpled forward, falling onto the ruins of a world that no longer had a place for her. Her grin was still there as she bled out. Alyc couldn’t move.
Her fingers trembled, gripping the window’s bars as she watched the last of Divinia’s warriors fall. Then, the Seer stepped forward.
She alone remained, untouched by time, by war, by death itself. Her robes fluttered as though caught in a phantom wind. She did not tremble. She did not run. She only watched the Forgotten with knowing eyes. He studied her in turn. “You foresaw all of this, didn’t you?” The Seer nodded. "I did." "And still, you did nothing." A small smile touched her lips. "That is where you are wrong." The Forgotten frowned. The Seer exhaled, closing her eyes. “Because even now when all light has faded… there is still hope.” The Forgotten stilled. For the first time, he hesitated. Just for a fraction of a second. Then, he stepped forward and ripped her apart. No scream. No resistance. Just absence. The world fell into silence.
The Divine Council was no more. The Forgotten lifted his gaze to the heavens, a slow, satisfied breath leaving his lips. It was over. Nothing remained to stop him.
