Chapter 153 The Last To Wake

Chapter 153 The Last To Wake
Every god turned inward, murmuring low among themselves — nothing Zuri could make sense of, just uncertainty passed hand to hand.

Had Seth simply refused to come back?

"His coffin remains sealed, my Lord." Osiris's voice carried from somewhere near the back, and he gestured to a golden sarcophagus still standing whole, untouched by the corrosion that had claimed the others. "He's still dormant. Perhaps your call never reached him."

"My call reached every one of you. No exceptions." Zuri started toward the coffin, gods parting silently to let him through. "Unless he's decided to ignore it. That would be like him." A dry laugh escaped him. "The one god capable of testing my patience even from inside a locked box."

The crowd parted in silence as he crossed to the coffin, slow and deliberate.

It stood just as stubborn as the god sealed inside it — untouched, defiant.

He leaned in, pressed his ear to the cold metal, and knocked once. The sound rolled out across the chamber, hollow and unanswered.

"Or perhaps he's finally dead." Zuri's tone turned playful despite himself. "I'd almost be relieved to be rid of the aggravation. But not today." He stepped back, raising a hand over the coffin. "Today, I need his hand. Seth, wherever you're hiding, your master calls. god of chaos and destruction. Rise."

The air turned cold, sharper this time, carrying more weight than before. The coffin groaned like it was fighting the command, cracked along its seams, pulsed light at the edges, and gave way all at once, crumbling into mist that curled and vanished almost as soon as it appeared.

"Welcome back to the living realm, Seth." Zuri's voice stayed level, calm.

Seth rose out of the wreckage like a mountain deciding to stand — broad-shouldered, towering, gold armor barely containing the bulk of him, a jackal helm still masking his face.

He drew one long breath, the kind that sounded like it hurt on the way in, and let it out slow, like he was expelling a thousand years of dust from his lungs.

"How long was I under?" He sniffed once, unimpressed. "Smells like rot and old age in here." His eyes cut to Zuri, entirely unbothered by whose presence he'd woken into. "How long has this chamber gone without proper upkeep? It's disgraceful."

The silence that followed should have warned him to stop talking. Every god in the chamber knew better than to expect that from Seth.

"You will address your Sovereign with reverence." Ra's voice cracked across the chamber like a whip. "Remove your helm, Seth, and speak to the Darkmoon properly."

"It's fine, Ra." Zuri waved him off, unbothered, watching Seth take in his surroundings with all the urgency of a man checking into a lodge he found beneath him. "Seth, it's been fourteen millennia. You slept through every one of them, and you're the last of all of us to answer the call. Beneath even your usual standards."

Seth finally pulled the jackal helm free, revealing a sharp, angular face and eyes that glowed molten gold.

"And unlike the rest of them, your strength came through the seal untouched. As expected of the god of destruction."

"I sealed my own power before you trapped the lot of us, Lord Father. It stayed exactly as it was." Seth's voice carried an edge of contempt wrapped in respect. "Thank you for dragging us to the bottom of the food chain for a few thousand years."

"You were never part of the food chain, Seth. Don't flatter yourself." Zuri's mouth curved, amused despite everything. Seth dropped to one knee anyway, bowing with all the grudging reverence he could apparently manage. "But I am glad your power held. Saves me the trouble of sharing quite as much of my own. Welcome to the end of the world, you're early enough to get a front-row seat to watch it fall apart."

"What?" Seth's head snapped up. "Lord Father, what happened to reality? I can feel it coming apart from here. What did you..."

"Seth." Isis's warning came sharp this time.

"Save your questions for Erebus, when we're standing in front of him." Zuri turned from him, all the humor draining out of his voice at once. "There's no time left to spend on curiosity. Trivia is out there right now, desperate for our help. The living, the dead, every pantheon still standing — all of it depends on the Darkmoon showing up in time. We move. Now."

"Trivia's one of us now?" Seth climbed to his feet, brow lifting.

"Trivia has always been one of us." Zuri didn't slow down. "There's no time for the history lesson either. I need one thing from you when we reach the surface, Seth. Destroy."

Light poured from the scepter and spread across the chamber floor, circling every god gathered there in a blinding wash of gold.

"My essence will restore each of you to full strength. Use it. Fight in my name." He struck the scepter twice against the stone, and the air answered, shuddering through the room until even the ancient statues seemed to bow inward with the force of it. "To war."

"Lord Father!" Seth's voice cut through the noise, half-shout, half-laugh. "Where's that useless little moon god hiding these days? I'd love to see his face when he realizes what he's missed."

"I am Khonshu, Seth." Zuri's voice carried, calm and absolute. "Your useless little moon god, your superior, lives in me now."

Seth had nothing to say to that. The light swallowed the chamber whole.

\---

The Himalayas had stopped resembling anything that had once been mountains. Lava ran in rivers where snow had been, ice steaming where it met the heat, thunder rolling endlessly overhead as flame lit the sky from every direction at once.

Yuna still burned at the center of it, unwavering — at least outwardly.

Underneath, her mortal body was giving out. Cracks spread along her arms, fine lines of failing light, the cost of holding this much power finally coming due.

The army of Darkness hadn't thinned. If anything it had grown fiercer, throwing itself into the flames without hesitation. Wraith Draugr, twice the size of the Leviathans that had come before, wheeled overhead on ragged wings. Hydras coiled through the boiling lava sea, horned heads rising and falling like some grotesque tide.

"They're not slowing down." Yuna's voice was hoarse, barely audible over the storm. "The Darkness has an endless well to draw from, and I don't think this is even close to everything it has." She pushed harder anyway, and the cracks along her arm split deeper, pulsing with pain. She groaned through it. "I don't suppose Zuri's coming." A weak laugh escaped her. "Doesn't matter. I've played my part." She looked skyward, tears sliding gold down all three faces even as she smiled. "I hope you woke your army, Darkmoon. End this — for all our sakes. Save our children from this. Restore what's been lost. I've done what I can. I'm tapping out. This is as far as I go, my love."

Her light climbed higher, brighter, a second sun readying itself to collapse, and take the entire horde down with her when it did.

"You're not." Zuri's voice reached her from somewhere behind, calm, steady, achingly familiar. "It's not your time yet."

She opened her eyes.

He stood there inside the firestorm like it wasn't touching him at all, and something in her chest loosened despite everything.

"Zuri."

She felt it before she understood why — an old presence, unfamiliar to her mind but instantly recognized by whatever lived beneath it. Ancient recognition, bone-deep.

The Darkmoon army had arrived.

Zuri raised a hand toward the sky. Clouds gathered above them, low and he
avy, thick with something building.

"Now, Trivia. Let the army of the Darkmoon take it from here."