CHAPTER 5: The Fifth Fracture

The crack in the sky trembled.

Not from the gods above—

But from something rising below.

A ripple tore through the fracture, like a scream ripping across the fabric of law itself.

Then—

A blinding pulse of violet-white light erupted from the horizon, bending vectors, warping constants, rewriting reality in real time.

The Five Gods turned—

Too late.

He appeared.

The forgotten one.

The Sixth.

A voice thundered—not spoken, but imposed—like a concept forced into every particle of existence.

“You still pretend to be the arbitrators of balance? Is this what it takes to tip the scale in your favor?”

With a single gesture, the sky fractured again.

Not from damage,

But from force.

Pure will.

Pure mathematical dominance.

The Five Gods staggered. Their silhouettes flickered, their once-unshakable presence faltering—like corrupted code glitching under a virus.

And then—he shoved.

Not physically.

Mathematically.

Constants twisted. Laws bent.

Space-time rejected them.

Their elevation dropped—ten fractal layers deep, stripped of divinity, dragged downward by the very structure they once ruled.

One collapsed backward.

Another’s aura cracked and unraveled like dying code.

The Sixth God floated upward—his cloak rippling, his eyes burning with impossible depth.

I turned to Saaya, my voice caught between awe and disbelief.

“This god… is your master!? From where I’m standing, he’s leagues stronger than the Five that cast us out!”

Saaya met my gaze. Her voice trembled—not with fear, but memory.

“He is… but only temporarily. They used their knowledge to curse him. To banish him to our realm. He can’t hold this power forever.”

The Sixth God turned slightly.

His eyes—twin galaxies of collapsed time—locked onto Saaya.

No words were spoken. But in that instant, a silence passed between them deeper than speech.

A look that carried sorrow. Memory. Maybe even guilt.

Then he turned away, facing the Five again

As she shouted, the Sixth God held the Five back—while simultaneously closing the crack in the sky, sealing the rupture within this fractured reality.

I looked up. Watching.

The kind of power that bends existence without touching it.

“So that’s the level I need to reach… to kill the Five Gods?”

The question left my lips before I could stop it. My resolve… cracked for a second.

Saaya’s voice cut through me, sharp and unwavering.

“Don’t waver, Sukara! You’re different! You can defeat them! Maybe not now. Maybe not soon. But you can kill them!”

The sky above continued to heal.

The rupture shrank, its edges stitched closed by raw will.

Then one of the gods—still laughing, still raging—screamed.

For the first time, I heard it.

A name.

A god’s name.

“ZURVAN!!!”

“You, Sukara, and Saaya—we will find a way to erase you from existence. Across every timeline. Every multiverse. This isn’t the end!”

As Zurvan’s power sealed the final remnants of the crack, the trembling stopped.

The sky stilled.

The fracture calmed.

Balance—however temporary—had been restored

Saaya stopped walking. Her head tilted toward the sky—like she was listening to something I couldn’t hear. Her hand slowly reached toward the horizon, fingers trembling not from fear, but recognition.

I saw something in her eyes then.

Not rage.

Not calculation.

Something older.

Like the memory of warmth… long since lost.

And then he descended.

Zurvan, the all-powerful deity, floated down from the broken sky.

It was like watching an angel return to the mortal plane—only heavier, quieter, burdened by centuries of silence.

He landed before her. Neither of them spoke.

But then, without warning, Zurvan stepped forward and embraced her.

His voice, when it finally came, was deep but gentle.

A storm remembering how to whisper.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t reach the Realm Between Realms to save you. The curse wouldn’t permit me to leave this plane of existence. I hope… you can forgive me.”

Saaya didn’t answer with words.

Only tears.

He held her until they stopped.

And I just stood there, silent.

Smiling.

Happy to see her reunited with the one who had once been her father… or something close to it.

After a quiet moment, I stepped forward.

“Are you okay, Saaya?”

She turned to me, her voice lighter now. “Yes. I’m fine.”

Zurvan looked at me with calm eyes, his presence gentle despite the power I could feel radiating from him.

“Thank you for bringing her out of the Realm Between Realms,” he said. “I may wield incredible power, but even I am bound to this plane of existence. The curse the Five cast on me… it still holds.”

I looked at him carefully. Until now, every god I had seen was shrouded in black, distant and untouchable.

But Zurvan—he revealed himself.

He stood tall—maybe an inch or two taller than me. His long, dark purple hair was slicked back, falling just past the middle of his torso. A few loose strands framed his narrow forehead, drifting slightly with the wind. Around his neck hung a glowing violet amulet. He didn’t wear a shirt, and his body was lean but muscular—like a sculpture half-finished by divine hands. A gold belt fastened his black pants, which stretched down to his bare feet. His entire right arm and hand were pitch black, as if forged in fire or rewritten by another law entirely.

He looked like something caught between divinity and humanity.

Timeless, but tired.

I smiled faintly, still unsure how to process what I was witnessing.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

Saaya finally stepped back from his embrace and looked up at him.

“Zurvan… if it’s not too much to ask—could we go to your place? Sukara and I have questions. You’re the only one who can give us answers.”

Zurvan met her eyes and nodded.

“Of course,” he said with a soft smile. “You’re always welcome in my home.”

I found myself staring at him—almost disrespectfully.

Zurvan noticed.

He tilted his head and asked, calmly, “Do I have something on my face, Sukara?”

I shook my head, stepping closer. “No, not at all. I’m just… in disbelief. You’re a god. And a nice one at that. The one who tortured me, the laughing maniac—he didn’t exactly give me a great first impression of your kind. He threw me into some twisted space I still don’t understand.”

Zurvan’s expression remained neutral. “All of us gods have human-like forms. We reveal our true appearances when we choose. The one who harmed you was called Set. While we are all gods, we come from different mythologies, different beliefs.”

I lowered my gaze to my hand. My fingers curled into a fist, and the scalar field around me began to flicker again—energy pulsing as my anger rose.

“Set,” I muttered. “So that’s your name. The god who cut off my arm. I’ll be the one to end you. Not even your soul will remain when I’m done.”

My eyes narrowed like sharpened blades.

Zurvan and Saaya didn’t interrupt. They just watched.

And then Saaya stepped forward.

“Sukara,” she said gently.

Her voice pulled me back to the present. The aura around me faded.

She reached out and took both of my hands.

“Let’s go to Zurvan’s place first. We can rest, get food, change clothes… and maybe start to understand this world. The gods. Everything.”

I looked up into her eyes—those beautiful violet irises that always seemed to ground me.

The calmness in her voice made me believe—just for a moment—that things might actually be okay.

“You’re right, Saaya,” I said softly. “Let’s go.”

Zurvan smiled.

Then, with a single wave of his hand, he tore open the fabric of space. A glowing portal surged into existence behind him.

“Step through,” he said. “We’ll be home soon. And I’ll answer anything you wish to know.”