Chapter 50
Drifting.
That was all it had been for so long now.
No body. No breath. No sensation of weight or place. Just fragments, scattered through the currents between what was and what is.
A soul should not exist like this.
And yet—he did.
Atreus.
Or what remained of him.
The name felt distant now. Heavy with echoes. It didn’t fit anymore, not after everything had been torn apart and scattered across worlds that no longer remembered his name.
Not sleep. Not death. Not silence. But the drift—eternal and dreamlike, caught between moments, between layers of reality like ash floating in a dying breeze.
A soul unanchored.
He should have perished, truly perished, that day.
But Atreus had always been stubborn.
___________
He remembered fire.
He remembered screaming sky and blackened sea.
He remembered gods with eyes like eclipse-rings descending on a battlefield of broken cities.
He remembered the taste of true power, bitter and raw on his tongue.
And her—the radiant queen, the Divine of Chains, the last of the gods still standing.
They had called it her sanctum, though there was no sanctity left in that place. Just ruin and wrath, and the arrogance of a being who had fed on worship until she believed herself the world’s spine.
Atreus had fought her not with swords, nor with sermons. He wielded flame, memory, and the terrifying power of a soul that had created more than it had destroyed.
She came at him in the form of a celestial storm.
He met her with a kitchen knife forged from condensed Aether and layered with nine runes—each one drawn from a god’s own recipe.
The battle split the world.
One half sank beneath molten tides.
The other, scorched and hollowed, became what would later be called The Aetheric Shardlands.
____________
Time had lost meaning.
He did not count the centuries. The rise and fall of nations passed like ripples on a pond he could no longer see.
Sometimes, he would remember.
A spice blend whispered by wind.
A texture in the heat of a sunbeam.
The moment he first made a god weep from the pain of nostalgia baked into a tart.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Other times, he simply drifted—unthinking, unfeeling, broken.
Until something changed.
It began as a tug.
Not strong. Not sudden.
Just a note in the background noise. A faint resonance. Like hearing a forgotten song hummed in another room.
Atreus turned toward it—not with body or breath, but with what remained of his will.
A presence.
A soul.
Young. Mortal.
Cast adrift from its life by the whims—or mistakes—of some divine being or another.
Poor thing.
And yet…
It was familiar.
It was similar neither in technique, nor in soul—and certainly not in power.
But it had the same flavor.
He watched.
The soul moved through trial and pain, not with arrogance, but with adaptation. It fought not to conquer—but to understand. To survive.
To create.
And in that creation, Atreus saw the glimmer of something he hadn’t dared believe existed anymore.
Possibility.
____________
He moved closer.
A wisp of him, at least—one surviving thread of soul that had not yet faded into the cosmic winds.
It found the boy in darkness, curled in pain. His soul bruised. Struggling.
But still unbroken.
It sang quietly to itself, in the way only souls can.
Atreus recognized the tune.
A song made not of words, but of refusal.
Refusal to yield.
Refusal to forget joy.
Refusal to stop creating, even when all that remained was ash.
He did not speak. He had no voice left.
But he reached.
And the boy’s soul—Ren—felt it.
Not as instruction. Not as a blessing.
As contact.
Two threads brushing across the void.
Ren's soul trembled, not from fear—but resonance. He didn’t understand it. Couldn’t name it. But something deep inside him—older than his memories—recognized the thread for what it was.
A piece of something ancient.
A warmth that had cooked for gods.
A defiance that had sealed the Divine of Chains.
And without knowing why, Ren didn’t pull away.
He welcomed it.
___________________
Atreus had nothing left to give. Not truly.
But some instincts do not fade.
He had fed others his whole life. Beings of flesh and beings of light. People and monsters and strangers with hungry eyes.
Now, for the first time in what felt like eternity, he fed again.
A purple thread of memory.
One fragment of intent.
No secrets. No power. Just support.
A push.
A reminder.
That he had once stood, broken and burning, before a god and said:
“No more.”
_______________
The thread merged with Ren’s soul.
And Ren did not change.
He clarified.
His soul shuddered with pain—but straightened. Like metal finally remembering its shape after being bent too long.
His threads shifted.
They glowed.
Not purple, not blue.
But there was something—something different.
Original.
Almost... golden.
And as Atreus began to drift again, losing the last of his focus…
He smiled.
Not with lips. Not with thoughts.
Just presence.
That soul—Ren’s soul—would go on.
And maybe… just maybe…
He’d cook a better end for the world than Atreus ever could.
