The world burned around him.
Aren stood frozen in the middle of the battlefield. Fire danced across the skies, winds screamed like banshees, and the earth cracked under the weight of magic too powerful for mortals to witness. The two gods—Creation and Rebirth—hovered high above the shattered plains, their colossal forms framed by swirling clouds of gold and silver.
They looked down on him, confusion twisting across their divine features.
"Who dares interrupt the battle of gods?" thundered the God of Rebirth, his voice echoing like a thousand drums.
"A mortal?" scoffed the God of Creation. "Or… something else?"
Aren couldn't speak. His hands trembled. The ring on his finger pulsed, alive with strange heat. The air around him was charged—magic, so dense and ancient, that it made his lungs tighten.
They raised their hands.
Twin beams of divine magic shot toward him, one of blazing light, the other of flowing time.
Instinct took over.
Aren threw out his hand. He didn't know how or why—he didn't even know what—but something within him moved. A dark ripple surged outward from his body. It wasn't light. It wasn't flame. It was void—raw, silent, swallowing everything.
The gods' attacks shattered against it.
Silence.
The wind stopped. The earth froze.
Both gods stared at him, wide-eyed. Their bodies cracked. Blood—if it could be called that—spilled from divine flesh. They staggered.
"That... That magic…" whispered Creation.
"Impossible."
Aren's knees buckled. He couldn't stand the pressure. He collapsed to the ground, panting, vision spinning.
"I... I didn't mean to—"
Before he could finish, a scream echoed from the distance. Not divine. Human.
Aren turned his head just in time to see a boy—no older than ten—being whipped by a cruel, snarling man near the outskirts of the battlefield. The boy's shirt was torn, his back bleeding.
The man raised the whip again.
Something snapped in Aren.
He didn't think. He moved.
One second, he was on the ground. The next, he was standing between the man and the boy, his palm raised. The man froze, eyes wide in fear.
"W-Who are you?!"
Aren's voice was calm, too calm.
"Don't touch him again."
With a flick of his fingers, a dark spell burst from his palm.
The man screamed as the spell hit. Not in pain—but in finality. His body crumbled into dust.
The boy looked up, eyes wide. "You… You saved me."
Aren dropped to one knee. "What's your name?"
"Tio," the boy whispered. "I don't have anyone."
Aren felt the ache in those words. It mirrored his own past.
He reached out. "Then come with me, Tio. Do you know a place where no one will find us?"
Tio nodded slowly, wiping his tears. "Yes… A forbidden forest. No one goes there. They say it's cursed."
Aren stood. "Good. Let's go."
As the two figures disappeared into the distance, neither saw the gods slowly rising behind them, bruised but burning with fury.
And somewhere, in the deep corners of the world, a beggar woman smiled beneath her hood.