As the witch made her way towards the distant city, the only place she expected Mattius to run to, she heard a whistling sound in the sky, like an arrow, except bigger.

The spear landed in the ground with a loud bang leaving a massive crater beside the witch.

The spear disappeared moments later.

Cautiously, she approached the decapitated heads.

The witch grabbed the heads and placed a flesh-eating curse on their necks, stopping them from waking up.

"He actually managed to do some damage..." the witch remarked as she focused on the distant silhouettes of Mattius and Thal, barely visible in the dark.

In the distance, the sound of the crashing waves could be heard.

"Looks like the lich decided to return..." Thal noted, not seeing any sign of Darius.

The witch held up the two heads causing Thal to gasp, unable to hide his surprise.

He stood there, mouth agape as the witch came closer, tossing Mattius the heads.

“Quick, before they regain consciousness,”

“R-right!” he replied.

He used his magic to place them into objects as well, the god of magic into a glove and the god of raids into a pair of glasses.

“How’d you-” Thal began but was cut off by the witch.

“I don’t know, Darius sent me to see you guys since Oscar disappeared,” the witch clarified.

Thal cleared his throat, doing his best to disguise his shock,

“Uh… good job… I didn’t expect you to be so strong!” he exclaimed.

He turned to the mage.

“Now, you should probably go ahead and use Melnym and-” Mattius cut Thal off.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t order me around, demon…” he grumbled.

Mattius equipped the glove.

Immediately he could feel it, as if you were living in a rubber balloon that just got inflated by a giant, his mana pool grew exponentially.

Eventually, the god within broke and Mattius could feel his mana reserves growing even more, he could see the very flow of mana, the grid on which it was placed.

He gained an unexplainable confidence in his magic skills, he felt like he was able to harness any school of magic.

“I guess I’m the only combat-god left, huh?” Oscar asked in a flat tone.

Everyone looked up and saw Oscar.

“Surrender, demon! The power of your comrade will let me imprison you all, forever!” Mattius exclaimed.

“I know,” Oscar replied.

“Don’t play mind games with me!” Mattius exclaimed.

Oscar sighed.

“I’m not,” he replied.

“When the god of time, Magnus chose to opt out of the fight, I knew that it was over,” Oscar explained.

Mattius clenched his fists.

“Then why did you still come down here?!” Mattius demanded.

“I wouldn’t expect a mortal to understand,” Oscar replied.

“The four of us that came down knew that this was a suicidal mission, but we wouldn’t deserve to be called gods if we chose to accept our fate,” he continued.

“I did however hope Thal would understand what’s on the line,” Oscar sighed.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a modern-looking pistol.

“Now then, let’s end this…” Oscar sighed.

Mattius extended his hand towards Oscar who only pointed the pistol into the air.

Just as the spell was about to be ready, Oscar fired the pistol into the sky, a regular bullet flew up into the heavens.

As Oscar turned into a small hammer, Mattius trailed the bullet’s flight.

Oscar let out a victorious smile.

His last words: “An eye for an eye,”

Thal and the witch looked up to the sky, the bullet burst into flames and began to grow bigger and bigger.

The world became illuminated as if it was day.

The clouds in the sky turned into plasma, the birds unfortunate enough to be close to the spell became ash.

“What is that!?” asked the witch.

Mattius looked down, the ball of flames was located above the city Mattius wanted to protect so much.

With his new power, Mattius teleported to the centre of the city’s courtyard, leaving Thal and the witch behind.

The streets were mostly empty due to the fact it was night, though several people popped their heads out to see the source of the light.

With his vast pool of magic, he created a shield spell the size of the entire city, atop it another shield and atop that another one.

Eventually the sky above the city became fully blocked by the neon-green shields.

The ball of flames continued to expand as the shields began to form around it, each layer being consumed by the flames in seconds, Mattius kept piling on more and more shields to no avail.

Still outside the city, Thal began running towards it.

“That’s the Armageddon spell, the same one used by Lorb!” Thal thought out loud.

“He’s actually planning to take this world down too!”

When he eventually made it, he was greeted with Mattius barely managing to hold the still growing sun at bay.

Thal placed a hand on his shoulder and began channelling his strength to the mage.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE?!” demanded Mattius glancing over to Thal.

“I HAVEN’T PUT UP WITH ALL THIS EFFORT TO SEE THIS WORLD BURN!” Thal replied.

Thanks to the added strength, Mattius was able to push back the ball, it was a long process, it took over twenty minutes, but for the first time, the orb began to shrink.

“We’re… getting close…!”

Mattius was exhausted, what previously felt like an endless reservoir of mana now felt like a drain pulling his very lifeforce in.

“We’re… almost there…” Thal exclaimed.

“…”

“Why… are you helping me… demon?” asked Mattius.

Thal remained silent.

“Are you going to… rule the world now?... once this is all over?” he asked.

“No… I’m not,” Thal replied.

“Then why?!” Mattius cried.

“Calm down!” Thal exclaimed, seeing his magic destabilize.

“Why would a god choose to help us m-” it was then that his hold over the magic slipped, the ball of fire was unleashed in its final state, not enough to end the world, but just enough to reduce this entire city to rubble.

Outside the city, the witch grabbed onto a nearby tree as the massive shockwave from the explosion began heading her way.

The entire plains began to shake, parts of the land cracked, collapsing down into caves and caverns.

Slowly the city itself began to fall down, the massive cavern below it now housing the ruins like a massive grave.

Ash fell down like snow.

The mage released the shield that protected himself and Thal for the explosion.

The sight of the homes and the people within going from scared to burned in less than a second burned its way into Mattius’ mind.

Tears began streaming down his face as Mattius stumbled forward, still in total shock he looked around in search for any survivors.

He lifted the charred remains of what must have once been a door revealing a blackened corpse of a human, their clothes burned off and their eyes molten, their face twisted into one of agony.

Mattius let out a screech as he fell to the ground and crawled backwards.

He kept crawling away before he bumped into his sister, at least most of her.

The urge to keep his vomit back anymore, he lay there, hunched over the body of the charred human, only recognisable by their necklace and rings.

Ash fell and settled like hellish snow.

He began mumbling to himself.

“My fault…”

“I should have focused on the magic…”

“This is my fault…”

Thal walked up to the human from behind.

“Why did I help the mortals? It’s not that complicated,”

“One could say it was a selfish reason,”

“I don’t want anybody to feel the burden of their world ending, be it literally or not…”

“And I don’t wish the guilt and regrets somebody who lost a world placed upon anyone,”

He placed a hand on Mattius’ head.

Before the human could react Thal cast a spell.

Mattius’ expression shifted as his memory of what transpired changed.

“I will do you this one favour…”

“What’s… happening?” he asked looking around.

Thal took a deep breath.

“HAH! So, you finally snapped out of it!” Thal laughed.

Mattius looked around, seeing the corpses of his friends, sister and neighbours.

“You-!” he began.

“YES! I, THAL, GOD OF DESPAIR DID THIS!”

“You actually thought I helped you people for your sake?!” Thal laughed hard enough to make some rubble above fly down.

Mattius got off the ground, seeing the god of despair before him.

“WHY!?” Mattius demanded.

“Power of course, now that you have taken out the strong gods, I finally get the chance to rule!”

“Every last town, village, home, family!”

“I will slaughter them all!”

Mattius gritted his teeth.

“You monster!” tears flowed down his face.

Mattius extended his hand as Thal faked surprise.

“It can’t be! I thought you ran out of mana!” Thal exclaimed.

“GO TO HELL! ALL OF YOU!”

And as Mattius cast his spell, through the world flowed light, like a sun in the nights sky, shining brightly..

Everyone could see it.

The doctor walking home after a long day of work.

The wolfman that helped Darius escape, as well as his uncle, both watching from inside a stone cell.

The surviving guards that led Darius and the witch away on the cart.

The frogman who ran the inn, bringing trash out while the guests were asleep.

The few merchants that survived the encounter with the paladin.

The remaining gods in the sky became items of power and rained down like meteorites.

Gone was the time of gods, of divine rule and living the life dictated to you.

And thought Darius didn’t live to see the day where his goals were achieved, his soul could respawn freely, as whatever it saw fit.

“A few year later, the system of nobility crumbled, without the power of the gods backing it, the power balance was thrown off by heroes of the time. “

“The city of Hudderdown disappeared, Mattius was never found, neither were the bodies of everyone in the town,”

“In its place now stands a small lake that seems to dry out and overflow easily,”

“Some people wanted to attach some sort of meaning to that… I think it’s just water being weird…”

“As for the witch,” the man shrugged.

“Who knows, she probably died in the explosion,”

The voice of a woman came from across the road, she was sitting in a cart, on her head a brightly-coloured witch’s hat.

She had pale, smooth looking skin.

“Are you going to keep taking shit all day or come and help me load the supplies, asshole?!” she demanded.

The wolfman turned back to the cart and stretched.

“I didn’t realise you were here already! I told you to leave the carrying to me, it’s not like I have to worry about stamina anymore!” the man exclaimed hurrying over to the cart.

“You said you wanted turnips for soup, so I had to stand in line for like twenty minutes!”

“What the hell were you doing!?” she demanded.

“Nothing, nothing,” the wolfman laughed, diverting her attention from the fact he did nothing but tell tall tales for the entire twenty minutes.

The few children to whom he was telling the tale looked at the strange wolfman with dead-looking eyes, in confusion as they said: “You’re full of shit, old man!” before running off in search of better entertainment.

The wolfman helped the woman load the supplies they bought for the journey before hopping onto the cart.