In the Divine Realm, a few moments before Rythar died. The Gods were sat, gathered around while waiting for the Tartarus to arrive.

Rythar, the God of Might and Righteousness, sat in the center of the Gods with a golden light around his body. His actual body was that of a hulking man with long golden hair and a rough look about him. His clothes consisted of mostly furs from Divine Beasts he had killed at some point.

Kara sat distant from the rest of the Gods in the Golden Hall. Xandes, the man who was something of a mentor and a friend to her had withheld his role in the purge of the Avarus from her. The way he reacted when Ira’s spoke to the Gods told her all she needed to know. And as if they shared some unspoken understanding, Xandes hadn’t tried to approach her.

At the moment, Kara’s current focus was on Ira’s parting words. It seemed that he had some relation to her daughter but she couldn’t tell if it was bad or good. She even wondered if her daughter was still alive or if Ira was the one to kill her.

“We have entered a dangerous time, Kara.” Ionus appeared beside her and spoke in a low whisper.

“Have we?” Kara turned and asked him.

“The last time an Avarus focused its attention on the Gods, many were lost. I see the same events happening once again, only this time…” Ionus trailed off, turning his head toward Rythar’s body.

“What is that?!”

“What’s going on?”

A few other Gods began to speak up in confusion as they observed Rythar. A small but noticeable black hole formed in the middle of his chest and began to slowly expand.

Someone moved to help but Xandes blocked their path.

“Don’t touch him!” Xandes shouted while staring ahead with pure disbelief.

The black hole that grew within Rythar only continued to increase in size.

Suddenly, Rythar opened his eyes.

“No! No! No!” Rythar bellowed in agony as he clenched his chest. Tendrils made of black mist emerged from the abyss-like cavity and wrapped around his body.

“No!” Rythar struggled but the tendrils only became tighter. “Please! Someone help me!”

The dignity of a God could no longer be found in Rythar as his pleas echoed throughout the Golden Hall. No one moved to help and the tendrils soon covered most of his body.

“Damn you all! Die! I curse you all to death!” Rythar screamed as he was pulled into the black hole consumed him.

Within a few seconds, he vanished, leaving a trace of black mist in the air that soon dissipated.

“...What just happened?” Someone asked with a look of devastation.

“Hold on!” Xandes raised his hand and stared into the distance. “I can’t detect a trace of Rythar’s divinity anywhere. It’s...gone.”

“Impossible!” A Goddess stood up in protest. “That would mean that Rythar’s divinity was taken or stripped away while he was in the Mortal Realm and that isn’t possible. He merely possessed a human so there is no reason for his real body, and more importantly, his divinity to vanish.”

Some Gods wanted to agree with her but they knew better. What they witnessed was no illusion or trick, Rythar was killed.

“This is a good thing.” A God whose divinity was centered around trickery grinned. “With Rythar dead we should be able to descend. No matter what, if someone in the Mortal Realm has the strength to kill even a weak God, they have broken one of the greatest taboos.”

“Then why haven’t the columns activated?” Another God replied.

As if to answer their question, a high-ranked Angel came flying into the Golden Hall with clear urgency.

“Forgive me for intruding but there is important news I must share with the exalted ones.” The Angel knelt.

“Speak,” Xandes responded.

“All of the columns have lost their light.”

The Gods immediately went into another uproar. The reason being that there had never been a time where the columns had suddenly gone dull without them first interfering. What that meant now was they couldn’t manipulate the Mortal Realm anymore. Even if they wanted to raise the barrier between the two realms again in order to create a second collapse they would be unable to do so.

“This is the doing of the Avarus,” A God muttered.

The gravity of Ira’s threat became apparent and each one of them began to feel it though they wouldn’t show it. Rythar, even as the God of Might, wasn’t anywhere near the strongest of Gods. But a God shouldn’t have died so easily no matter the circumstance. After all, a single God was enough to upturn entire continents in the Mortal Realm.

“...There is nothing left for us to say here. I’d suggest we all prepare for the Avarus’ arrival since he’d have no choice but to ascend after killing one of our own.” The scheming God suggested.

“He hasn’t ascended,” Ionus spoke up and all eyes gathered on him immediately. “There has been no shift in the entire realm. You can wait all you want but the Avarus will not appear here. Not today.”

“Have you seen his arrival?” Xandes asked gravely.

“No, but I’ve seen the fury of an Avarus first hand just as you have and many others who stand here now. You can only prepare yourselves for what is to come.” With those words, Ionus gave a single glance to Kara before he left.

Silence reigned over the mighty Gods inside of the Golden Hall. No one wanted to admit it but Ira was now something that required their full attention.

“I’m leaving.” A Goddess transformed into a ray of light before disappearing.

The rest of the Gods began leaving the Golden Hall in short order. Each one thinking of preparations they needed to deal with a formidable foe. For some Gods, it had been the first time in countless years since they fought.

“Kara,” Xandes called out to the Valkyrie Goddess who was among those leaving.

“You’ve moved past the level of absolute in terms of swordsmanship and reached the zenith. You are among the few Gods who might pose a threat to the Avarus...Will you fight when the time comes?”

Kara took a pause, turning to look at Xandes with cold eyes. “I will only fight if I have a reason.”

She left him with her curt statement.

“Good,” Xandes said to himself. He knew the Valkyries to be a battle-centered race so it stood to reason that they would’ve fought with the Avarus and lost. That was what Xandes strongly believed.

…

Ira opened his eyes and groaned as he climbed out of a crater. He looked at his arm to see his sleeve ripped, exposing the trail of black markings that stopped at his shoulder. Of course, the sigil that depicted a wolf eating a moon remained on the underside of his wrist.

“Oh yeah,” Ira recalled the events that passed and surveyed the area around him.

The magma had cooled, the ground had settled, and the dust had cleared. What remained now was nothing more than a broken and shattered mockery of what was. The Underground City couldn’t quite be called that anymore as the destruction of the canyon that surrounded it caused most of it to be exposed to the sunlight.

The remnants of the Unified Army were still around, albeit destroyed in their own way.

“Dad!” Raveria shot straight into Ira’s arms.

“Woah!” Ira smiled as he caught his daughter.

Zephyr, Valeryn, and Rhys came over immediately after and grabbed Ira.

“You disappeared and we didn’t know what do! I thought that you were going to be gone forever.” Raveria’s face became wrinkled as she began to cry.

“It's ok, Ravi.” Ira held his daughter tightly before lifting Zephyr onto his shoulder and holding Valeryn with his free arm.

“I would never leave just like that, Ravi,” Ira assured her.

Raveria nodded her head while fighting the tears that continued to pour.

“Something happened to your arm, Father.” Valeryn noticed something off about Ira and it wasn’t just his marked arm. Something had definitely changed within his father but he had no idea what it was.

“Yeah, it’s a little souvenir.” Ira smiled.

Rhys looked at Ira strangely as she too felt something was different about him. Looking at him now gave the feeling of being a few feet from a cliff’s edge but not peering over it.

Inside of him, at that very moment, Rythar’s divinity was being broken down before it would ultimately be recreated with the Void’s influence. The result of that process would no doubt be something dangerous.