With a deep breath, Alan commanded the Five Pearls orbiting him to scatter at either of his sides, each expanding into an elemental Helldraken to match the skeletal one he sat atop. One sparked around its wings, another huffed fire, the third swam in its own pond, and the fourth existed within a tornado.

  Thousands slammed their spears at Alan’s back, and as Orevella’s dark minions sprinted toward the enemy portal, Alan took flight.

  “What are you doing here, Father?” He narrowed his eyes, soaring over the clay ground toward the expansive, black, cloudy portal leaking smoke from the sky.

  Golden battle angels stepped out of the portal at Alan’s father’s heels. Each equipped with ornate gold-glowing weapons, dripping with blessed Yellow Saro. Alan wondered what realm Jaeger had pulled them from… and how his father could’ve fallen so low.

  As more forces pooled out from the top of the portal mid-flight, Alan commanded his elemental dragons to the sky with Ufanda leading them.

  Jaeger’s plan is to keep me off guard again.

  But mine… will be more ambitious.

  His father zoomed forward to meet him. The closer he came, the surer Alan was that it was him. The features were the same—sunken cheeks, slightly crooked nose, full head of brown hair—but his expression had never been so serious.

  What happened to you?

  As dragon and angel soared to collide, Alan dropped into a shade and sent the skeletal dragon off with its other forms to combat the aerial forces. Alan reformed mid-run, pulling out his own double-blade, Blood-Vision Edge, and a coin in his off-hand.

  He never knew his father to be a fighter, but the universe had a way of changing fate. As he drew closer, rushing at godly speeds, he read his Title.

  Rick Right

  War Title:

  High Battle Angel of Scar’s Light

  Both father and son disappeared into blurs, until, Clng!

  A sonic boom of energy flashed outward, sending the angelic forces and Orevella’s back.

  Red-outlined blade clashed against gold.

  “Dad…”

  “You have lost your way, my son.” Rick’s voice had a celestial undertone that sent a shiver down Alan’s spine. “I have come to course correct.”

  “And how did he get you to follow him?” Alan broke the stalemate and spun, clashing against both his father’s blades and sending him skidding.

  Rick flapped his four golden wings and dashed to impale Alan, but as a god, Alan could see it coming a mile away. This wasn’t a fair fight. All the critical pathways to impaling his father lit up like Saro Christmas lights. He could sense Rick’s Saro weaknesses. Not dreadful Black, as expected, but Orange.

  Alan held back, defending a tri-strike of cross-slashes that his father dolled at him, all while charging his blade with Orange Saro.

  Why Orange?

  As he was about to counterattack, it hit him.

  The fire he died in… that trauma crossed into his second life.

  He dispelled the Saro on his blade and spun into a powerful back kick, causing his father to cross his arms over his chest as he was forced back.

  “Dad… the fire.” Alan couldn’t help but remember his old life, his godly mind bringing the memories to the forefront like they just occurred.

  “Worlds away.” Rick shook off the blow. “I was meant to burn so I could be cleansed of all sin. And now, my son, I must cleanse you of yours.”

  They clashed again, until Rick dashed away and used powerful blessed Saro to extend his blades a hundred feet and swing down over Alan.

  Alan doused his body in Purple void to absorb the blows, causing the counteractive pulse to shatter the blade extensions.

  “I’m a force for good, Dad. Can’t you see?” He spread his arms. “It’s you who invades us.”

  “Selfish gods. You defy the inevitable order decreed by the universe.”

  “Dad… all you did was defy order on Earth. You did it to make us laugh.” Tears welled in Alan’s eyes. “You did it for good.”

  “That was before I could see.” Rick repaired his blades with pulses of Yellow Saro light emanating from his fists. “Son, you will not be the first god I’ve detained. And you surely won’t be the last.”

  “How could that be? The war has only just begun.” Alan was at a loss.

  “The universe moves in swift rotations.” Rick raised his blade, brightening the sun to peak through the red sky overhead, turning all things gold. “Diyard, god of Scar’s Light, has imbued me with all of his power, sacrificing a god’s will to a mortal… to combat the likes of you.”

  The Hutten Fie sun blasted prismatic light over Alan, which met an orb of Black Saro Alan circled around him with one arm. He easily could’ve dodged it, but he needed his father to know… he could not take down a god.

  With a wave of his fist, Alan dissolved the momentous blast, leaving the sky to dissolve back into crimson.

  “Jaeger sends you to break me.”

  “As is my duty for the Scar’s Light.”

  The armies were about to clash overhead and on the ground. This would mark the second battle on the alliance.

  “Stand down, Dad! Stop this bloodshed before it begins.”

  “This marks the Red Pact’s final acquisition. You must yield.”

  Alan’s brow furrowed. How? That doesn’t make any sense.

  How could they have moved so fast?

  My father must’ve gone mad.

  He analyzed his father’s weapons to understand the truth of his past. With a blink, the dark red sky was gone and a realm of pristine white marble structures and vast outdoor temples took its place. The spires glimmered under the rays of four golden suns. It was the realm of Scar’s Light, and seeing his dad standing at the center of a circular marble dais with less armor and less conviction meant it must’ve been an earlier time.

  Rick stared up at the sky, listening to the blaring voice of a steadfast god.

  The suns rose and fell, signaling the passage of days, months. The god called upon Rick time and time again to “right the wrongs” of the universe, culling raids in Ojin, shaping the realms as they saw fit. Upon every calling, Rick turned slightly more serious, more instilled in the ways of his realm.

  They were policing…

  And my father is the warden.

  With the loud bang of a Wizard’s Orange Saro comet exploding over the battlefield, Alan returned—he hadn’t gone deep enough. How did his father get this way in the first place? It was a far cry from his personality.

  The dad he knew would never take up the sword. He’d find a way to diffuse. Always.

  “It’s a shame it has to be this way,” Alan whispered to himself.

  In a blink, he could disable his dad to end this chaos. And so it had to be.

  As he reeled back in offensive position for the first time, a glimpse of an old memory made him falter… His father lifting Alan by his armpits with a wide smile, tossing him onto his shoulders and bouncing up and down.

  Alan didn’t even know that memory still persisted within him.

  The sentiment disarmed him immediately. His first life…

  Rick pointed his blade at Alan. “Guilt weakens your hand, but salvation empowers mine.”

  Crcht!

  Armies smashed between them. Spells of all types whooshed by. Combined Doomsayer curses reared from the ground to chomp at the battle angels, dragons fell to angel stabs, and angels plummeted with torn wings.

  The ground shook at Alan’s feet, allies and enemies bounced off him like he was an immovable object, and in the midst of battle, he realized he’d failed.

  With growing chaos around him, the god-ender could pierce him from any angle. His Saro was once again jumbled from a visit of his past.

  Jaeger knows what he’s doing. He always knows.

  Alan looked at his hand as screams of agony and fervor swirled ever higher. “How could he turn them all against me? How is his hold so strong?” He tightened his fist and looked up to his father taking flight.

  Rick’s blades extended into blessed Yellow rays of light that solidified around the edges. “In the order of the Scar’s Light, you must kneel!”

  He cross-slashed both blades downward, carving through alliance and enemy forces to reach Alan, and as they converged at swift speeds, Alan dropped his staff, flipped the coin he’d been holding high into the air, and caught both his father’s blades.

  Alan seethed at the blood and armor residue clinging to the blades. Death. Another one who murderered without a second thought. It enraged him to no end, sending Black Saro leaking out his eyes, down his arms, corrupting the blades Rick failed to get free.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Before Rick could let go, Alan yanked them into the ground, causing an enormous earthquake, while pulling his father unfathomably fast right into his grasp—hand clasped around throat.

  Alan clenched hard.

  “We will win… despite you,” Rick’s strangled celestial voice scathed.

  Alan held up his free hand and caught the descending coin.

  Bwof!

  The Bubble of Vosh expanded around them, causing the red world of war to disappear in a flash. War cries, explosions, anger… it all melted into a calm one-bedroom apartment they both knew very well once upon a time. It was Alan’s childhood home. Judging by the wallpaper, Alan couldn’t have been a day older than eight years old in this memory.

  Thunder boomed as rain pelted the window. The dim amber light blanketed a red floral tablecloth that Alan’s mother had put out a few weeks prior. If there was any way to figure whether his father was still somewhere in there, this would be it.

  Alan released his grip around Rick’s neck, and with a swipe of his hand, broke all of Rick’s armor. It cracked and tumbled to the floor, piece by jagged piece, before dissolving to dust, leaving his father in bare cloth wrappings.

  He stared at his dad, picking this particular point in time because it was a special one. Not because some terrible or grand event transpired, but because Alan remembered it. This was the day Rick had completed his coin collection.

  “I got it!” Rick’s bodiless voice yelled with mirth. “Honey, I finally did it. Get the kids so I can show all of you.”

  Alan’s throat ran dry. This conjuring was as dangerous for him as it was his father. He dissolved his own armor to show his father he would no longer be a threat in here and then took a seat at the dining room table… while his father stood dumbfounded.

  “Dad… by the time we met in this universe, I only wanted to make for you what you made for me,” Alan said, pressing his hands over the tablecloth as thunder boomed again. “A home.”

  “Look here, Alan, see? The eighteen-nineteen brushed nickel coin with a double-eight misprint. Remember? Been telling you I’d get it. Now I finally did!”

  Rick’s old voice soothed the space. Alan could hear the lightness in it, and he knew his father could too.

  Yet still, the Scar’s Light version of his father still stood there with clenched fists.

  “Dad. Please. Forget your zealous purpose for one second and have a seat. Listen to who you once were. Or… did you really forget how to feel?”

  “I—”

  “Do you remember the coin?” Alan asked. “’Cause I do. Mom was furious at you because you forgot to get the milk, but she let it slide because of how happy you were to put your final coin in your booklet.”

  “I thought I had made it to heaven,” Rick’s voice tapered, taking one hesitant step and using the table to keep himself upright. “Diyard is god, and I am his angel.” His voice matched the one in the background now.

  A faded image of Origin Rick held the coin out for young Alan to take. “Will you do the honors?”

  Alan’s eyes lit up as he held out his hands to receive the coin, and when Rick pointed to the last open slot in the booklet, Alan carefully placed it.

  “How long was it before you realized Diyard is one of many gods?” Alan asked.

  “After too many deeds were done.” Rick blinked hard, staring at the table.

  “I guess I should consider myself lucky to have a wacky Wizard who showed me the way early on,” Alan said.

  “It probably helped that your realm didn’t look like heaven preached from Earth,” Rick stated sadly.

  “Strangey Town might be the furthest thing from that.”

  They shared an awkward laugh, gazing only at the faded image of their past.

  “Have you seen Mom? Or Raya?” Alan asked, wondering whether they were still alive back on Earth.

  “My son, it is too late for me.” Rick scrunched the tablecloth under his fists. “Diyard’s empowerments come with certain… absolutes.”

  Alan leaned forward. “So did accepting godhood. Fight it, Dad. I know you’re still in there.”

  “Sentiment already subsides. My duty is all that’s left.” He wiped a tear from his eye and turned sharply away from the memory.

  “I know the god-ender comes.”

  Rick’s breath caught in his throat.

  “I know Hyndole aches for this moment. Stabbing me while I’m distracted,” Alan went on. “When it comes, I’ll move so he misses a god’s heart and take the grueling pain. Do you know why?”

  Rick clenched his jaw.

  “Because I have a duty too, Dad. And if that’s to house a blade so the other gods can defeat the Red Pact… then that’s what I’ll do.” Alan smiled sadly at him, holding his eyes.

  Rick bared his teeth, fighting some internal conflict.

  “It’s clever what your god, Diyard, has done,” Alan said. “Building up a universe warden and imbuing his most trusted Knight—”

  “I’m no Knight, Alan,” Rick’s face twitched. “I spawned as a Merchant, like you.” Another tear leaked from his eye as the fading image of their family huddled over the booklet dissolved.

  Alan’s smile remained, the rushing winds beyond the Vosh bubble ever-present to his godly senses—Hyndole descended with Itsy as his wielder.

  “Remember, Dad, it’s not too late—” Alan shifted in his seat as an ornate gothic sword impaled his back and burst through the other side. The burning sensation was immense, Variant Saro splashing all over his mother’s tablecloth.

  Rick jerked, disturbed and conflicted—holding his head as the Vosh image dissolved around them.

  The cries of war resumed as Alan gripped the sharp end of the blade with both hands as Itsy did her best to yank it free and finish the job.

  “It is over, Merchant. I was forged for this very moment… to drain the life of a god. Now suffer!” Hyndole’s voice blared over clashing blades and intense spells.

  Alan’s body shivered with feverish chills, goosebumps lining his arms and legs as Saro depleted out of him by the gallon. He knew since his first cut from the blade that taking a stab would be unbearable. This was his purpose… to save the realms.

  He syphoned all of his remaining Saro into his hands, coating the blade in ice to keep it in place, molten to melt it from within.

  “It’s too late to stop it,” Hyndole assured, pulsing out opposite Saro to counter Alan’s.

  Itsy worked to twist the blade.

  “Dad…” He looked to Rick, who was frozen in place.

  “What are you waiting for, battle angel? Finish your task,” Hyndole demanded. “Or are you going to be the one to explain why Diyard forfeits his seat at the high council?”

  Hutten Fie soldiers dove to save Alan, only to be lifted by powerful Red Pact Doomsayers. Curses clutched the Knights in their fangs and dropped them from the sky. Alan’s summoned Helldrakens soared down to defend him but were intercepted by a roost of black-scaled wyverns.

  Entire armies had emerged from the funneling portal since Alan’s trip down memory lane. It was only now he would know whether his efforts were worth it.

  He stared the battle angel general in the face, the one who raised him in another life.

  His father took a struggled step forward.

  “Drag the blade across his heart,” Hyndole commanded.

  Rick redonned his gauntlets, hands shaking.

  “Do it now!”

  Alan winced, syphoning every bit of his godly powers to keep the blade in place.

  His father stared at him as he gripped the edge of the blade.

  “Dad…”

  He began to slide it, cutting Alan open farther.

  Alan shouted in agony… his plea for empathy failing in spectacular fashion. His father was gone. The gold overlay over his eyes and deadpan expression told him so. These were the absolutes of accepting a god’s power.

  Fssh!

  The blade dragged closer to his heart, where Alan had to double his efforts to stop it from cutting through. Resplendent residue dripped from the wound, Alan suffering agony he’d never known. Death hurt less than this. Far less.

  A god’s power and a god’s pain were both amplified beyond mortal levels.

  Rick clenched the blade harder, planting his feet with determination.

  “Dad… this isn’t you,” Alan winced. “It isn’t—”

  Alan Broadcast:

  Now’s the time, gods of Unlikely Guds.

  I have the blade, but I’m not sure how much longer I can hold…

  Destroy them all—

  Before Alan could finish his message, Orevella’s gloves wrapped tightly around Itsy’s neck, strangling Hyndole’s voice to air. Mujungo dropped from an angry cloud and wrapped his fingers around Alan’s father.

  “Say… lightning!” Mujungo activated a godly spark that sent Rick flying in the other direction, making way for Gosfor to leap from Dolfi—the female Borai’s—shoulders.

  “We couldn’t leave you hanging, Alan. We simply couldn’t.” Gosfor dusted the blade while holding his hair.

  Alan coughed Variant Saro. “The portal—”

  “Faith is in order, I think.” Gosfor smiled weakly, wrapping the god-ender in silver dragon wraps that dulled the pain.

  Orevella’s gloves finally yanked Itsy away from the hilt, leaving the god-ender with no corrupted wielder.

  “Majooby. You did goooood taking that stab, Alan. Just like you took that arrow to the face back when. Waaareeba!” Mujungo cart-wheeled away before Alan could grab at him.

  That’s when he heard it. A voice bellowing louder than a god’s.

  “Hhhhheeav!” Flint inhaled powerfully, momentarily sucking the air out of the realm, spreading his arms wide with powerful winds of Jaeger’s portal encircling him.

  Minions, warriors, armies continued to pool out, but Flint’s aura kept a circumference of pulsing cold air around him.

  “Hooo!” He whistled out White Saro that surpassed Alan’s. Ice winds exhaled out of him in the form of phoenixes flying straight into the heart of the portal—freezing sections of it at a time. “Hhhheeav!” Flint inhaled again. “Hoooo!” Icy talons grasped the funneling portal, freezing it all the way to the circular source in the sky.

  “Soar, my friend.” Alan smiled as the two gods worked to encase the god-ender in sacred wrappings.

  Another army of Stalkers seeped out of the portal cracks before Flint closed it for good. Hutten Fie would surely be overwhelmed. Alan had to get back out there.

  “Hurry,” he begged the gods circling him.

  Tick.

  All sound suddenly stopped, except for the tap of a cane. War cries, spell incantations, commands… quieted.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Each strike created a deafening pulse that sent enemies high into the air.

  Tick.

  The next shoved them tumbling back toward their portal.

  Alan turned to look over his shoulder, straining to do so.

  “Orevella…”

  The goddess of patterns was out of her wheelchair, hobbling with a faint smirk.

  “Lady Orevella graces us!” one of her generals called. “Mobilize!”

  Ranks reformed, despite the chaos. Green Saro brightened to life to lick wounds as Orevella slowly made her way past Alan and her ranks. Once she made it to the front, she perched over her staff and stared at the incoming Stalker army swarming to overwhelm them.

  Orevella held up her finger, pulling the feral Green rank’s Saro and summoning a stampede of hollow creatures to meet the swarm. She then reached for her gryphon ranks in the sky and summoned blessed lightning to strike Stalkers off horseback. Then came the rings of fire pulled from ranks to her right.

  She was a conductor, confusing and dismembering her enemies while she commanded her floating gloves to weave copycat ranks to charge into battle.

  The devouring of the Stalkers and battle angels reached its crescendo just as Flint finished freezing the portal in place with a powerful huff!

  “By the heavens, it’s done.” Gosfor let out a giant sigh of relief, then looked to Mujungo. “Now, to remove this horribly enchanted blade before it dooms us all.”

  Alan coughed. “It must stay… until the war is done. I must be the one to let it feast.”

  “Alan, that’s madness!” Gosfor waddled to the front.

  “You both did what you could. Hyndole is contained within me and can corrupt no other wielder.”

  “Has he corrupted you?” Mujungo stuck his face inches from Alan’s.

  “Far from it.” Alan coughed again. “I feel him writhing to get out, which can only mean we’ve done right.”

  “You’ll perish if it touches your heart, good Alan.” Gosfor bit his nails, glittery sweat tracing down his brow.

  “Then let us hope my Saro is strong enough to withstand him.”

  “Vrrroobie! Alan’s Saro? Hah. May he bless us all.” Mujungo whistled. “That old bag is something else, huh?” He put his hands on his hips and nodded toward Orevella.

  “The grandest of us, the goddess of patterns is. No doubt about it.” Gosfor snapped his tongue.

  Alan never imagined he’d stand amongst gods with a giant sword pierced through him. The universe certainly had strange ways of churning.

  Bloodied ogres and skeletal warriors marched up to Orevella to pay her tribute. Her mimic ranks fell to sand once the final battle angels were chained.

  Itsy was slowly regaining consciousness. Her skin was pale and her neck plagued with black veins, but her confused expression meant she was back to herself, Alan hoped.

  “God Alan.” A Knight dropped Rick to his knees.

  The battle angel’s wings wilted like flowers, and his gauntlets still sizzled from Mujungo’s lightning. He was alive.

  “My son,” Rick’s voice had lost all its celestial vibration.

  Alan clenched his jaw.

  “Shall I stick a happy cloud down his gullet and watch it expand?” Mujungo tilted his head. “Think that’d be punishment enough to the Scar’s Light.”

  Alan held up his hand, noticing his father trying to get out the words.

  “Only… the beginning.”

  Alan furrowed his brow.

  On cue, the iced portal cracked down the center and out floated a ring of Dreamcatchers on a dirt platform, holding a manifestation of Jaeger’s face large enough for the entire army to see.

  “I must thank you all for gathering to our little show.” Jaeger’s smile split his face as his Dreamcatchers descended. “Though I planned for the gods to accumulate in the face of Alan’s certain death, I never imagined he’d be able to survive the god-ender.”

  Alan rose to full height, struck with nerves.

  “No matter.” Jaeger smiled even wider. “My flank worked. Sar’fidius’ army already overwhelms Token. Listen closely, and perhaps you can hear the screams.”