ACT II · Chapter 10
NO WORLD BENEATH HIS FEET
The First Light
There was no single explosion.
Continents lifted. Seas became steam. The atmosphere peeled away in burning ribbons. Billions of lives vanished beneath a sound too large for any human ear to understand.
Ren'ō reached for the planet.
Golden light poured from both hands, desperate and uncontrolled. He tried to hold the crust together. Tried to pull the atmosphere back. Tried to find one signal, one heartbeat, one impossible proof that Laana had survived.
The War God watched him fail.
"This is the nature of things," he said.
Ren'ō turned.
Something inside him went silent.
He crossed the distance and struck. No shout. No fury. Just a fist carrying the weight of a world that no longer existed.
The War God blocked with both arms.
Space shattered behind him.
For the first time, blood touched the man's lips.
He looked at it, almost offended.
Ren'ō hit him again.
The Divine Remnant began devouring Ren'ō from within. His skin opened into lines of gold. His memories flickered. Laana's final file repeated beneath the static.
Remain a man.
The War God extended one hand. A black aperture opened behind Ren'ō, deeper than space, empty of stars or time.
"You are unfinished," he said. "And I have no patience left for your becoming."
Red geometry closed around Ren'ō's body.
He resisted. Golden energy tore through the symbols, but the aperture pulled harder. The remains of La-Sol 7 stretched into distant light.
Ren'ō saw one fragment of the laboratory drifting among the debris.
He saw Laana's pendant caught against a broken console.
He reached.
His fingers closed around the small golden instrument one heartbeat before the Void took him.
The universe vanished.
No stars.
No wind.
No body beneath him.
Ren'ō fell without movement, clutching the pendant to his chest.
He waited for impact.
None came.
He waited for death.
It did not come either.
Far outside the dark, the War God turned away from the grave of La-Sol 7.
Inside the Void, Ren'ō opened his mouth and screamed until he forgot what sound was.