Chapter 40 Divine Interest
Strange phenomena had begun following them.
Clouds moved against the wind. Birds fell silent mid-song. There were moments, brief, disorienting gaps, where time seemed to skip. A step forward would suddenly place them twenty paces ahead. A conversation would pause, then continue as if nothing had happened.
Even the Calamities had grown cautious.
Veth kept her axe ready but no longer laughed at every shadow. Mara stayed closer to Darius than usual, her golden eyes scanning the sky. Solis walked in silence, her sorrowful presence heavier than before.
"They are watching," Solis whispered. "Not through mortals anymore. Directly."
Darius felt it too. A pressure at the back of his mind. Not hostile. Not yet. Just… interested.
They crested a hill when the air itself split open.
A figure stepped out of the tear in reality. Tall, androgynous, dressed in flowing silver robes that moved as if underwater. No weapons. No aggression. Only a pair of luminous eyes that studied Darius with visible confusion.
The divine envoy.
Mara and Solis tensed immediately. Veth grinned, but even she held back.
The envoy ignored them at first, focusing entirely on Darius. "Three bonds. Plague. War. Famine. You should be dead. Your body should have torn itself apart weeks ago. Yet here you stand. Walking. Talking. Planning."
Darius met the envoy’s gaze steadily. "You are not here to kill me."
"Not yet," the envoy admitted. The confusion in their voice was genuine. "I was sent to observe. To understand. The Pantheon is… unsettled."
Veth snorted. "Unsettled? Good."
The envoy turned slightly toward the three Calamities. "Three bonds should already have killed him. The conflicting natures alone should have hollowed him out. Yet he carries you. And you walk with him willingly."
The envoy looked back at Darius. "What did they make you for?"
The question hung in the air.
Darius answered calmly. "They did not make me for anything. They cursed me to be weak. The rest… I built myself."
The envoy tilted their head. For a moment, something almost like wonder crossed their luminous features. "Impossible. Your bloodline was designed to fail. To break. To remain harmless. Yet here you are. Collecting what should destroy you."
Around them, the sky darkened unnaturally. Wind moved in circles. Time stuttered again, a bird froze mid-flight for three full seconds before continuing.
Mara stepped forward. "Leave him."
The envoy ignored her, still focused on Darius. "The Pantheon debates even now. Some wish to destroy you before the fourth bond. Others wish to study you. A few… fear what you represent."
Veth laughed. "Let them fear."
The envoy’s expression shifted. "Three bonds should have killed you. The strain should have…"
The envoy suddenly jerked.
Their luminous eyes widened in shock.
No wound appeared. No struggle. No sound of attack.
They simply collapsed where they stood, silver robes pooling around them like liquid moonlight. Dead.
A single whispered sentence drifted through the air from nowhere, cold and ancient:
“He is not ready yet.”
The tear in reality sealed itself. The unnatural phenomena vanished. The sky returned to normal.
Silence fell over the group.
Veth stared at the envoy’s body. "What the hell was that?"
Mara knelt beside the fallen figure, checking for any sign of life. "Gone. Completely. No poison. No wound. Just… stopped."
Solis whispered, "One of the Pantheon. Or something older. They are intervening directly now."
Darius looked down at the dead envoy, then at the sealed tear in the air where the being had appeared. His expression remained calm, but his mind was racing.
The Pantheon wasn’t just afraid.
They were watching him closely enough to kill one of their own when it spoke too freely.
He wiped fresh blood from the corner of his mouth, hidden from the others, and adjusted his pack.
"We keep moving," he said quietly. "Faster."
The Calamities exchanged glances. For the first time, even Veth looked slightly unsettled.
The gods were no longer content to watch from afar.
They had begun to move.
And something, or someone, among them had just declared that Darius was not ready yet.