He liked the way snow crunched under his boots. How quiet it was in the winter time. How the only sound in his skull was the rhythmic expansion of his lungs, the crunching, and the sound of sharp cracks in the forest as the trees groaned under the frigid temperature. So peaceful and serene, white snow as far as the eye could see and the dark mountains to the north all crowned in white.

This place, he'd learned, was called the Antioch. The Antioch. The westernmost Orik installation in their once vast territory. An empire that had dominated the 'true' eastern continent in days past before they'd destroyed themselves. Too degenerate to see that a race should not go so far in correcting their supposed imperfections. They'd tried to match the nephilim, and they'd failed, considering themselves beholden to no law.

The bane that was science and technology, of trying to bend and break the rules of one's plane, looking in the wrong places for power. Thinking themselves transcendent until it was too late, too far gone before they saw the curse that would cast them low.

They'd gotten off easy, their children – the orcs, goblins, and trolls all still existed. Orcs, their warriors. Goblins, their tinkerers to fit in the small places, disposable labor with exceptionally quick gestation times. Trolls, their most aberrant failures, perhaps the only race that still shared their true blood. They still existed in sapient forms, many others had made the same mistake and had not been so lucky.

Near all forsaken creatures were a product of this sort of magic, from the savage warg to the werekin. Products of hubris, failures, Tyr would learn from their example.

It was a familiar locale, Tyr had been here before. So long ago, a lifetime had stretched by since then, or so it felt.

That platform hovering over the chasm below, stretching on in a collection of frozen humanoid forms and the sheer cliff where it's gate stood. The only thing new about it was the village of goblins decorating the surrounding area. They feared, huddled in their masses. Hobs, they were. Evolved, awakened by their promise, one that he never remembered agreeing to – but it didn't matter. Swear themselves to him, fall to their knees and praise his name, that was all his selves cared for. A power meant to be shared, not hoarded. Not slaves, but belief was a shackle all it's own, and Tyr was a storm, a force of nature now and they knew it. On the brink of madness and marching willfully to seal the deal, to sink or swim – the only option left to him.

Meat.

They watched him go but did not stop him, didn't dare call out and draw his attention. Some did not fear him, but felt great significance with every step of those metallic boots clacking against the stone. Blind men and eyeless children, those born twisted and deformed would rise to their feet whole and blessed, kissed by his path. Bathed in faith, they'd belief would solve all problems, that which had been given to them.

They could feel the doom in those steps, though they were blessed by mere proximity to him.

Implacable, eyes forward and with great purpose and intent.

What he was about to do, there was no turning back from. No greater taboo, of that he was sure, on the path to commit the greatest evil a man could possibly conscience.

But Tyr was not a man. Not anymore.

“Identity: Tyr Faeron. Known quantity. Greater nim... Inconclusive derivative species. Welcome ba--”

Tyr's flaming boot met the gate with all the force he could muster, caving it inward and taking the familiar chatty construct with it. Rippling cracks all along the mountain face, borne witness by stone men and shaking goblins. Making their signs, awestruck, horns about their heads and eyes wide at the titanic display of might. Tyr struck again, clearing the door from the hinges and punching a hole straight through the edifice. Their metal was strong, but the cold made it brittle and easily shattered.

It wasn't dead, that 'god' in the walls. The riddler. The gatekeeper, an intelligence that circuited throughout the fortress city. He took it for himself. Tearing it out of the wall and tossing it emotionless into a stasis cube in the event it was of future use, but it was already so weak and dull now. As for him, he felt power overwhelming, and it was his, for once, after all this time. Brimming with unbridled majesty, as long as he remained on the proper path he need fear no enemy.

Every step towards his eventual demise was a foot treading the path of might.

Bittersweet, but he'd gone through the labyrinth, a ritual that failed to hold his mind. Split his soul. Worthless. All of his shards were of too high a grade to be influenced by human magic. All that was left was this was this, a need to find something else. He'd succeeded, in a way, that much was abundantly clear – thanks to Sinno – but he was still splitting at the seams. Like his skin was too taut, straining to avoid the eventually tearing when he ascended.

Tyr would survive, but his consciousness would be no more – and with that being said, 'he' in his current state would be dead. He refused to stomach that idea, they would not have him, he would do anything to remain amongst the living for as long as he could. No matter what he had to do to see that happen.

Stalking through the dead city like a specter, hunting a higher power. And he'd find it, at the center of it all, exactly where she had been. The first promise. She was emaciated, nowhere near as beautiful as she'd been before, wrinkled and grayer than ever. Jurak, that artificial, profane 'god' of the Orik.

'God'.

As if a mortal race could truly bend divine energy to their will, or even put a name to a celestial. She was and always had been a shell, a foul attempt to create their own primus. Those who came first, the high men on their Ark's who'd spoken no words and clashed with titans.

“I was beginning to lose hope that you'd ever return.” Her chuckle was soft and melancholic. Little more than a dry rasp, Jurak must've been in terrible pain all this time. So close to death and they still wouldn't release her, left prone on the ground, too weak to even stand. “So, you've come to take my bargain...”

“No.” The back of his hand sent her sprawling after an ungainly attempt to rise from the floor. His fist struck her solar plexus, peeling away the skin and cracking her bones. Opening her like a flower, grasping. A 'god' shouldn't be a being of flesh. So soft. So breakable. “I've come to take, that much is true, but there will be no bargain.”

The liver of a living thing was so spongy, soft, easily torn. Tender and gummy. But the heart of a divine, whether it bear any similarity to the heart of a man or not – was tough. No match for his teeth, those teeth carved from the essence of nothing to devour everything. Ripping, shredding, chewing, swallowing, wet tears and a crunching cacophony bouncing from the dull walls of this dead place. Eyes in the walls, he couldn't see them anymore.

Couldn't feel them.

Those eyes had fled, all that was left in the end was Tyr. Alone. The master of himself. All his selves. The only ones left watching were distant, very different. New things. Whether by design or accident, Tyr had given them something to gaze upon, bearing his soul to them when he took a fragment of a divine seed unto himself.

God Eater.

So many of them, not eyes, but there were faces. An unexplainable gravity pushing down on him under their accusing gazes. Some cursed him, filling his innards with chattering locusts, screaming of profanity and taboo. He knew instinctively that these were celestials, gods, divines. Not all of them, and yet more than he had ever expected resided on this world. Not dozens... Hundreds of thousands of 'gods' were here, joined by earthly guardians who'd slumber for millennia.

Perhaps this day wouldn't be so dreadfully boring after all, some of them thought. Others screamed and howled, doing everything in their power to kill him.

But a god... What was a god, to a nonbeliever?

He refused them.

Tyr stared at the presences, so far away and yet they felt like they were standing right next to him in a press of bodies. Opening his arms wide as if to show them their folly. Their arrogance, thinking they had any say in the matter, his life was his own and so was his soul. He would not bend to the order by which these things existed, there were no gods.

Only him.

Lesions sloughed skin from flesh, cataracts blinded him, pustules bursting into acidic spray that bred yet more virulent blisters. He felt his manhood ripped away, his virility taken. Blind, dumb, deaf, every organ turned inside out. This was their wrote judgment. Such a grand disparity in their power. They tried to make him hurt, surrender the spark, and he laughed in their faces. Spitting blood and filth from every orifice, mocking them bold faced, they could touch him all they wanted, but they'd never have him.

Goading them on as they warped his flesh and punished him with every disease known to man, and many that were not. Filling his eyes and mouth with spiders. His blood became poison, shaking and frothing but never kneeling.

Continuing to laugh even as they throttled him, vipers writhing in his stomach. Biting and threading until he pulled them out and beat them flat on the stone floor, weeping their venom. His legs became that of a goat and his skull split with a forest of spiny bristles. Tusks split his gums, his skin became as gray and rough as stone, and arms were made bladed tentacled appendages.

His face split and segmented into dozens of eyes, all staring back at them as his lipless mouth cackled in mocking amusement evermore. Taking more from her, every ounce of Jurak. Every bone, every hair, every flake of skin until he was licking the floor free of any trace of her.

They named him monster, anathema, cursed one. He named them impotent. Some laughed, some looked almost proud, but most bayed in rage at his disrespect. A lower life form that would consider these beings worshiped and revered for eons as lesser.

Not all would assault him, though.

The largest of the presences merely watched, standing like giants among children behind the others. He knew them for what they were, the prime earthly gods on this world. Those who had their own churches, feeding on the faithful to become monoliths. Bumi, Astarte, Veles, Vortigern. They could see him now, and they'd know how much he despised them.

And there were those close to those high minded deities, just below them, who seemed split. Some even protected Tyr for reasons he could not fathom.

As for Thanatos and Agni, Tyr could feel them.

Agni was amused.

This was a challenge, same as any other, perhaps greater than any before taken in any era. Suffering under the pain and discomfort as the other spirits attempted to properly damn him for what might be considered the greatest taboo of all nim. A race that could take from others under the right circumstances. And Tyr had done that. In the worst way, taking from a god. An artificial, disgusting creature, some of them were less wroth with that and more aggravated that he'd consumed Jurak. Once she'd perished fully, she would have ascended as the others had, being punished in the proper way like her damned kin. That too, was stolen from them, their right to judge. In doing this thing, Tyr would protect her for all time against retribution.

Tyr spat on it, cackling at their anger and showing them that not even a god could kill him. I am the judge. The arbiter. It is my prey to claim and your eyes to watch me do so. Your hands to remain impotent to stop me. I am everything, and you are nothing.

Thanatos watched, but this was the first time he did not find the events surrounding the boy entertaining. If it played out the way he thought it would, things would get very busy for him. Another war was coming, so many dead. Plagues and catastrophe. But it wasn't all bad, a brief moment of work was well worth the show sure to follow.