Even dead, the being radiated enough pressure to distort the air around it.

The figure sat upon a shattered throne, massive beyond comprehension. Golden chains wrapped around its body like restraints, binding its arms, chest, and throat.

Its body had partially mummified with age, yet traces of divine energy still flickered faintly beneath the dried skin like dying stars refusing to fully fade. But it was the chest that made Alex stop breathing for a moment. A massive hole had been punched straight through the god’s torso, large enough to see the shattered throne behind it, as though something had reached directly into the being and ripped its divinity out by force.

The sight alone made every instinct in Alex’s body scream at him to back away immediately, but before he could even fully process what he was looking at, a sharp notification rang inside his head.

DING!

Alex’s eyes widened slightly as his system suddenly reactivated after remaining silent for so long, yet the relief only lasted for a fraction of a second before something immediately felt wrong. The interface flickered violently across his vision, distorted static swallowing nearly half the screen while lines of corrupted text appeared and vanished too quickly for him to properly read.

Then the warnings started flooding in.

[WARNING]

[WARNING]

[WARNING]

[ENTITY DETECTED]

[ERROR...]

[ERROR...]

[DO NOT...]

The entire system glitched violently, the screen tearing apart repeatedly as though something was interfering with it directly. Alex frowned deeply as he watched the chaos unfold inside his interface. This wasn’t normal system behavior. It wasn’t struggling to process information.

It was panicking.

Then, through the distortion, a single line slowly forced itself onto the screen.

[Identifying Corpse...]

The text froze midway through the process before the entire interface distorted violently again, corrupted static tearing across Alex’s vision as though the system itself was struggling to continue. The words glitched repeatedly, fragments of broken symbols flashing across the screen before another line finally forced its way through.

[Classification: Dead ███]

The name vanished instantly, censored before Alex could properly read it, and more text immediately began appearing beneath it.

[Cause of Death: Terminated by Legacy Candidate]

Alex’s pupils contracted sharply.

Legacy Candidate?

A player?

For a moment, he simply stared at the words, his mind struggling to process what they implied. The god sitting before him hadn’t been killed by another deity, nor had it fallen during some divine war between celestial beings. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

It had been killed by someone like him.

Someone who had entered the Legacy Trial.

Someone who had survived long enough to stand before a god... and slaughter it.

The realization made the entire chamber suddenly feel colder.

Alex slowly lifted his gaze back toward the corpse, and for the first time since entering the room, the pressure radiating from the dead god no longer felt purely divine.

It felt fearful.

Like the lingering remains of something that had died, realizing too late that it wasn’t invincible.

Then the system glitched again, far more violently than before, the interface tearing apart so aggressively that even the surrounding air flickered with unstable light.

The interface violently distorted again before another line forcibly pushed itself through the static.

[The Gods Are Not The Creators Of The System]

Alex’s breathing slowed instantly as the words burned themselves into his vision, and before he could even fully process what he had just read, another line appeared beneath it.

[The System Was Created To Manufacture God Killers]

The chamber fell completely silent.

Even the whispers haunting the sanctuary disappeared, as though the ruin itself had gone still after revealing something it was never supposed to say aloud. Alex stared at the screen without moving, his mind struggling to process the implications behind those words.

God killers?

Wasn’t the system created to make gods?

Then what exactly had humanity been participating in this entire time?

The screen flickered violently once more before shutting down completely, the distorted interface vanishing from his vision and leaving him alone again with the corpse and the suffocating pressure radiating from it. Alex swallowed slowly, his eyes fixed on the dead god seated upon the shattered throne.

Every instinct told him to leave.

To turn around immediately and get as far away from this place as possible.

But instead, against all logic, he stepped forward.

Then another step followed.

The pressure intensified with every movement, growing so heavy that faint blood trickled from Alex’s nose, yet he continued walking anyway. Something about the corpse pulled at him relentlessly. Curiosity. Instinct. Maybe even the same reckless part of him that had carried him this far in the first place. Whatever it was, it refused to let him stop now.

Eventually, Alex reached the corpse itself, and up close, the dead god looked far more horrifying than it had from a distance. Its massive body wasn’t fully decayed; parts of its pale skin still looked disturbingly alive, faint traces of divine energy flickering beneath it like dying stars trapped under flesh. But what unsettled Alex most was the expression frozen on the god’s face.

Shock.

Not rage. Not pain.

Shock.

As though even in death, the being still couldn’t comprehend what had happened to it or how it had been defeated in the first place.

Alex stared at the massive hole punched through its chest before slowly raising his hand toward the corpse, curiosity overpowering the instinct screaming at him to stop.

"...Let’s see what secrets you’re hiding."

The moment his fingers touched the dead god, the world shattered.

BOOOOOOM!!!

Pain exploded through Alex’s mind so violently that his knees nearly buckled instantly, but this wasn’t physical pain. It was memory. Endless violent flashes slammed into his consciousness one after another with overwhelming force, flooding his brain with scenes that didn’t belong to him.

War.

Endless war.

Entire realms burned beneath black skies while collapsing cities drowned in oceans of fire and blood. Massive divine beings screamed as they fell from the heavens like dying stars, their bodies crashing into worlds already consumed by destruction. Reality itself looked unstable, splitting apart under the pressure of battles far beyond mortal comprehension.

Massive divine beings fell from the heavens like dying stars while armies of ascended players hunted them across collapsing worlds. Alex saw monsters wearing crowns and players wielding powers capable of splitting realities apart with a single movement, their battles tearing through entire dimensions as though existence itself had become fragile.

And standing above all of it were the Reigners.

They did not fight. They did not interfere. They simply watched in cold silence, unmoving amidst the destruction while entire civilizations burned beneath them. Their presence alone radiated something terrifyingly absolute, as though the war consuming countless worlds was nothing more than a necessary process to them.

Then a voice echoed across the chaos.

Ancient. Heavy. Absolute.

"The Reigners created the system because the gods became uncontrollable."

The moment those words rang out, the entire vision cracked apart violently like shattered glass. Darkness swallowed everything instantly, and Alex’s eyes snapped open as he lurched back into reality with a sharp breath.

He was back inside the chamber.

Sweat dripped down his face while his chest rose heavily, the pressure inside the sanctuary feeling even more suffocating than before.

His hand still rested against the corpse, but before Alex could fully process what he had just seen, a dry cracking sound suddenly echoed through the chamber.

His body froze.

The sound came again.

And slowly—very slowly—the dead god eyes opened.