“Indeed, that is purely a mortal’s plight”, Aorrata stated after ruminating.

  “So fragile and yet so desperate and eager to make something of themselves in their fleeting lives. They’ll stumble, fall, and crumble but believe all that pain is worth something, anything in comparison to doing nothing and rotting away whether peacefully or otherwise”

  “That is the fallacy of hope inherent to mortals… that things will be better. Regardless of how possible it is, how it will happen, or when something positive will occur in their anthology of tragedies”, the masked man responded.

  “Perhaps but even amidst all the misery, they strive and march onwards. Even I can’t help feeling moved by their persistence”

  Aorrata then turned to properly face the masked man. A stony expression could be felt despite his face being covered.

  “...All that persistence is merely desperation. They’d much rather writhe, squirm, and crawl than confront the futility of their existence. And in the end, broken people have no need for the appreciation of worthless bystanders”, he stated, filled with intense vitriol.

  Aorrata grimaced briefly before resolving himself.

  “A worthless bystander I might be… far too many things would inhibit me if I even attempted to intervene… but that’s no excuse. So, I will do what is necessary to compensate the dead. To atone for merely watching as they screamed in anguish”

  From within, a massive current of radiant crimson burst forth with the immense ferocity of an imploding star. Endless intangible rivers of energy surged, lining the entire continent in its resonation. And as Divinity seeped in from the God’s domain, the world and sky became tinted in a deep shade of red reminiscent of hellfire tainted by viscous blood.

  The immense Divinity which enveloped the world then froze in place. It then began to crystallize like frost forming in intense cold. Right before the crystallized energy could solidify and blot out the sky, it then vanished. Having returned to its point of origin, it converged as a horrifying torrent distorting the sky and the placement of the stars. The lines of its motion could be seen in the gaps of the clouds, the interrupted rays of red sunlight, the severed falling creatures of the sky, and the erased peaks of the greatest mountains.

  And at the epicenter of the red tides, the world itself began to shift. All color and any nuance had been overwhelmed by the deepest shades of red. From within the tide, numerous hands writhed seeking to breach the surface. Innumerable hands without any connecting entity burst forth. Some grabbed onto the masked man, some succumbed to the flow, and a minor few attempted to separate themselves, only to get crushed by the flow of the crowd.

  Incapable of moving, the masked man struggled like a mortal caught in a tsunami. He was being dragged by the great flow and struggled to remain above the burgeoning stream. Despite his immense strength, it took everything to resist being subsumed by the divine tide. However, the thousands, perhaps even millions of hands, which grabbed at him, grasped at his corporeal form, that held onto his limbs, and attempted to force him down to their level, to join their ranks as a part of the great flow, had no impact.

  “..... your relation with others is nonexistent. As if you don’t properly exist”, Aorrata observed as he continued harnessing the Divinity, shaping it to his will.

  “It could be seen that way… in this lifetime, I did not approach others. Because people become bound by their duties, the positions placed upon them, their place within society, or the value which they seem to extract and gain. They let these restrictions cage them, mold them, and define their path and life. All I have is what I need to do. Nothing more, nothing less”, the masked man began as he extricated himself from the divine tide.

  Unleashing his own divinity, he began to contest reality. Exuding an ominous pressure, he began to encroach upon all that was red with his colorless affinity. Multiple distortions began to form within the formerly perfect tide. Some currents began to flow backward, some ceased in motion, some began to disrupt other tides, and the entire flow began to circle around itself. And the hands. All the hands which reached out. They rotted, they waned, and they gave up.

  Resisting the deluge with unnatural ease, he advanced. Persisting despite the immense pressure, he reached Aorrata at the epicenter where everything converged. He stood firm in the face of winds which could tear flesh from bone, rock from earth, and even soul from man.

  Pulling back his fist, he then struck with unprecedented savagery and unhinged brutality.

  Unleashing blow after blow, his bare fist collided grotesquely against the God’s vessel. Each strike left deep gashes which breathed oxygen into exposed fragmented bone and spilling marrow. With explosive force, each strike of his fist forced out chunks of flesh and ripped veins, leaving gaping holes in the body. The moment directly after they began reforming with the skin spreading across meatless orifices, only to collapse once again with each relentless strike.

  Indifferent to the brutality, Aorrata stood still as he was pummeled with great ferocity. Focusing on maintaining the flow of Divinity, he watched calmly as each blow struck and landed. Heavy and significant but incapable of dislodging his place as the epicenter of power.

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  A direct blow to the head as his fist went right through, compressing the skull, the brain, and then launching the eyes. Then another swing which separated the jaw and scattered his teeth.

  A sweeping cleave which collapsed the entire right rib cage. Mercilessly and ravenously, he ravaged every part of the immortal vessel. Shattered limbs, pulverized bones, exploded organs. Destroyed and broken again and again. And the next moment, it would just heal. Only for him to negate the healing with brute force and have it patch as if utterly indifferent to its tattered state.

  His fists rained down like starlight. Blow by blow, each utterly annihilated the God, only for it to reform even greater and even more defined by the divine. First it was effortless, then it became like air, dust, clouds, wood, stone, and then the durability of a mountain. And yet as Aorrata’s durability improved with each obliteration, his strikes never relented, indifferent to the force he exerted.

  Soon, each immense strike carried unbelievable recoil. Each strike against something so unimaginably hard carried the force back into his forearms, shattering his own bones in the process. But just like Aorrata, his own wounds would patch right before the next action. An endless battle of regeneration and pure destruction. If not for Aorrata’s indifference.

  With shattered knees, he did not buckle.

  With severed arms, he did not waver.

  His limbs would recover and his divinity would flow uninhibited even between gaping holes.

  His organs did not matter as a God, he had long since transcended the corporeal.

  Even if the brain scrambled, the lungs flattened, or the spine caved, it would not make a difference.

  Then with full force, he struck once again. After having obliterated every part of the human form, he finally aimed for the heart. As his hand shattered the sternum, it rushed to reach the heart. Right as his hand stabbed it, Aorrata finally reacted.

  With one hand, he grabbed the masked man’s wrist and with the other hand, he held a concentrated catalyst with an unimaginable amount of divinity. It even writhed as if it was alive.

  Aorrata then spoke with only a half-formed jaw, still missing the upper half of the head. The brain still exposed and oozing.

  “We both know Gods don’t die easy”, he bellowed in a deep resonant tone.

  The catalyst of Divinity then erupted. A brilliance radiant enough to rival starlight, poured out, overwhelming the world. A light so great it created a void in reality and annihilated all observers. Then it began to form. The initiation of Providence.

  Providence was the Will of a God manifest. A miracle on a grand scale capable of transcending logic and reality in unfathomable ways. A type of change that did not have to abide by the laws of reality or even dimensions. A great sacrifice on a scale that would guarantee everlasting guidance. An action that could cause even deities to hesitate.

  With eyes which began to melt from the intensity of the radiance, the masked man looked ahead, undeterred and anticipating the next step. He could feel the world shifting, another great motion which disturbed its integrity. Once again, the bounds of reality distorted and the rift truly formed. Where previously there had been a weakening of the boundaries, there was now a definitive opening.

  It then concluded. As swift as it had appeared, the blinding void returned as soon as reality had been redefined.

  In front of him, a metropolis of immense prosperity lay where there was once a barren land ruined from fierce and unhinged warfare.

  From the beyond, the Antares Empire had returned. Escaping the jaws of death, it was evident that they had not been merely revived. If it was just that, it would have been a miracle but not on the scale of Providence.

  He could tell from the splendor and effort dedicated. This was their capital but not one he could recognize. It was far grander, more imposing, more decorated in the architecture employed. The city even stretched towards the horizon and likely spanned the entire continent. Even the most decrepit districts had been gentrified, symbolizing an unprecedented harmony even between different classes. The streets were not teeming with citizens, likely due to his presence but he could sense them. In the billions, they existed within this endless city. But somehow there was no dissent, no discussion, and yet they breathed and lived. Despite emulating the behavior of drones.

  The only ones that were granted free reign were the ones with ability. And in this society, they were the greatest and most brilliant minds. The ones written of in textbooks, the ones which were referenced as builders of foundational theory, the ones which made history.

  A deep metallic groaning disrupted his ruminations. He then felt the vibrations as the city moved. In front him, an entire skyscraper leaned as it was mechanically moved to the side by a mechanism below. Following it, an entire district of towering buildings gave way. A district to the north, to the west, to the east, and then the south.

  In an instant, a volley of lightning fast energy shot through the city. With his hand on the mask, he shifted far enough to barely evade the lightning storm. The motion charged the air and electricity began to crackle without wires.

  “It’s ready. Shall we proceed?”, a man in a lab coat said as he fiddled with a mechanical apparatus.

  “To think we could come this far”, an old man stated in awe as he marveled at the technology surrounding the command center.

  Charged with divinity, he was able to comprehend all that he saw despite the discrepancy in time and technological development. Despite having been known as the First Mechanic which started the tradition that led the Antares down the path of machinery, he was able to understand and his brain could only marvel at the progress that had been made throughout the ages.

  Alongside him were numerous figures, all of which had great significance to the Antares Empire. The founding emperor, the visionary that changed the relation between man and machine, the greatest inventor, the man that elevated mechanics to noble status, the zealot that brought the Antares into a new world, the second greatest tactician of the Empire. And so many more all with considerable abilities, rich lives, and great renown that all paled in comparison to Tavelly.

  “No matter who you bring back, whether it is from another dimension or another time. As long as they are of Antares, all they can do is ponder as their metallic servants die for them”, the masked man stated with great mockery.