[Oliver’s POV]

  [A way to contain him… how interesting.]

  The voice echoed through his mind.

  Oliver blinked.

  In the instant it took for his eyes to open again, the room was gone. The hum of machinery, the lights, the tanks, all of it had vanished.

  In their place was a vast hall of impossible scale.

  At the far end of the hall sat Cernunnos, his massive form draped across a throne made of ancient wood. His antlered silhouette cast long shadows across the chamber, his eyes burning with an ancient, almost mischievous curiosity.

  Beside him stood Athena, radiant and composed, her armor gleaming with the faintest hint of silver-blue light. Her expression was one of intrigue, but beneath it, a spark of interest.

  “A way to contain him,” Athena repeated. “It makes sense.”

  Cernunnos leaned forward, resting his chin on one massive hand. “The old one must’ve seen many try to kill our kind,” he said, his tone carrying a strange blend of amusement and respect. “Clever until the very end. Did you notice it?”

  Oliver frowned. “Notice what?”

  Cernunnos grinned, the sound of his laughter rumbling through the hall like distant thunder. “The reason he forbade the use of Ranger Armors. That lying bastard. You actually fell for that little speech about fairness, didn’t you?”

  Oliver froze, the realization dawning slowly. “Wait. He broke his own rules… so he must’ve had a reason to stop others from using them.”

  “Exactly!” Athena said, her tone sharp and precise. “And what was he?”

  “A prisoner,” Oliver answered immediately.

  Athena shook her head slightly, her gaze narrowing. “Worse. He was outside the Grand Game.”

  The words struck him like a physical blow.

  Oliver’s breath caught. “He didn’t want the other Sovereigns to find him…”

  “Of course not!” Cernunnos said, laughing again. “He might have wanted to die, but the Sovereigns wouldn't allow him. Those still bound to the Game would never let him return. After all, how could they be sure he truly wanted death?”

  “But what he said, does it make sense?” Oliver asked.

  Athena’s gaze flickered, her expression unreadable.

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “And no.”

  “In any other era, he would be right. But not now. Not anymore. Even as one of the oldest Sovereigns, he’s wrong.” She explained.

  “Oldest?” Oliver tilted his head. “I didn’t realize your kind had… ages.”

  Athena’s lips curved faintly, almost into a smile. “The Grand Game is recent compared to our existence. But that doesn’t mean all of us ascended before it began.”

  From the far side of the chamber, Cernunnos laughed—a deep, rumbling sound that made the walls vibrate. “Did you really think I was the same age as this ancient relic?” he teased.

  Athena’s head turned sharply, her golden eyes narrowing.

  “Relic?”

  The air changed.

  Pressure built in the room like a rising storm. The faint hum of Energy became a roar, invisible currents crackling through the air. The ground trembled beneath Oliver’s feet as Athena’s power surged outward, her fury palpable.

  “See?” Cernunnos said, grinning, though his voice carried a note of forced levity. “She’s angry because she lost the Grand Game before someone who, by her standards, is little more than an infant.”

  Oliver could feel it.

  The temperature dropped as the Energy thickened, the very air vibrating. Sparks of golden light began to arc around Athena’s hands and feet, streaks of raw power dancing like lightning. The floor beneath her throne cracked, the elegant stone fracturing under the sheer weight of her presence.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Even after all his time among them, Oliver still wasn’t accustomed to this, the divine pressure.

  He no longer buckled under it the way he once had, but it still pressed against him, heavy and suffocating.

  Athena’s voice came through gritted teeth, low and furious.

  “There are Sovereigns of all kinds. I don’t know when the first one came into being, but most of us lived mortal lives before ascending, through the System or other means.”

  “But some,” she continued, “are as old as the universe itself. They remember creation. They’ve seen civilizations rise and die before your species ever crawled from its oceans. They know things even the System can’t touch.”

  Cernunnos nodded.

  “Every Sovereign has two weaknesses,” Athena said. “Time and solitude. Time makes us arrogant, certain of what we already know. And solitude… it makes us afraid to share what we’ve learned.”

  Her eyes flicked toward Oliver, sharp and luminous. “Even gods grow blind when they’re alone for too long.”

  Cernunnos leaned forward. “In his case, there was a third weakness. The System itself. He was barely bound by it, so he never realized how much it bound everything else.”

  Oliver crossed his arms, his mind racing. “And he was imprisoned,” he said slowly. “That means there was an asymmetry of information. He knew less about the outside than anyone else.”

  “Exactly!” Cernunnos boomed. “But he wasn’t wrong, boy. In any other case, his advice would have been sound. Creating a prison for your Sovereign might be the only way to win. It’s not so different from what the elves did to me when they bound me to sleep.”

  “But your Sovereign isn’t ordinary, Oliver. He’s one of the oldest, perhaps not as ancient as the Bronze, Silver, or Gold, but still old enough to see patterns others miss. He would sense the trap long before it closed.” Athena explained.

  Oliver frowned. “Then how am I supposed to contain him?”

  “Because,” Athena said, her tone softening, “you have something no one else has had in millennia.”

  She gestured toward him, her hand tracing faint arcs of Energy, making a chain in the air. “A Sovereign is chained. Now. In this age.”

  Cernunnos’s deep voice rumbled from his throne, equal parts awe and amusement. “Something not even the Bronze could have imagined. The System’s chains are heavier than any curse, any ritual, any poison ever conceived. It binds deeper than flesh, it binds existence itself.”

  He leaned back, his glowing eyes narrowing. “Of course, it isn’t perfect. Nothing ever is. You’ll still need weapons strong enough to wound him. But now?”

  He grinned, sharp and terrible. “Now you have a plan that might work.”

  Athena’s gaze met Oliver’s, her voice quieter, but no less powerful. “You stand on the edge of something no mortal, and few gods, have ever attempted. To turn the System’s own chains into a weapon.”

  “Still, there’s wisdom in what he said,” Athena murmured.

  “He’ll expect us to play the old way—” she continued, “with cages and rituals. But maybe… maybe there’s a simpler way. Instead of locking, he might be weakened. Poisoned.”

  Cernunnos tilted his head. “Poisoned? How? I’ve felt that kind of thing before, but I’ve never known how to apply it to another Sovereign.”

  Athena’s eyes narrowed. “I can think of three ways to weaken a Sovereign.”

  She raised her hand showing three fingers. “The first, and simplest, is to make him punished by the System.”

  Cernunnos let out a low hum, unimpressed. Athena ignored him.

  “But that would take time. We’d need to find more violations, more infractions. The System moves slowly, deliberately. It could take years before the punishment is enforced. For us, that’s nothing. But for Oliver—” she glanced at him, “you might not live long enough to see it.”

  Oliver nodded grimly. “Then that’s not an option.”

  Athena lowered one finger.

  “The second,” she said, “is to starve him.”

  Cernunnos frowned, his expression darkening.

  “You mean cutting off his supply of Energy,” he said.

  “Exactly.” Athena’s tone was clinical, detached. “If you stop fighting the Orks, the Energy they generate through conflict will cease to flow to him. Slowly, he’ll weaken. But—” she paused, her voice hardening, “he’s already made it clear he’ll destroy anyone who tries to stop him from regaining his strength.”

  She lowered another finger.

  “That leaves the third option.”

  Her eyes gleamed, the light around her throne intensifying. “The most difficult. But perhaps the most effective.”

  Oliver leaned forward slightly, his pulse quickening.

  “We poison his Energy supply,” Athena said. “Right now, he’s desperate to recover his power. He’s consuming everything he can—his Crystals, his reserves, anything that can restore him. If we can capture even one of his Crystals before he reabsorbs it… We can lace it with a toxin. Something subtle. Something that forces him to bleed Energy instead of obtaining it.”

  Cernunnos’s eyes glinted with intrigue. “A trap disguised as nourishment. I like it.”

  Athena nodded. “It wouldn’t last long. But if he consumes the poison before facing you, he’ll be weaker, far more mortal than he is now.”

  Oliver exhaled, the gears in his mind already turning. “Then it becomes another weapon in our arsenal.”

  “Precisely,” Athena said.

  “But how will I know which Crystal belongs to him?” Oliver asked.

  Cernunnos grinned, his teeth gleaming like ivory. “You leave that to us.”

  “We still have some influence left in the System,” he said. “Enough to find what you need.”

  Oliver opened his mouth to respond, but the world around him began to dissolve.

  The hall unraveled into smoke and light, the thrones fading into nothingness. The divine presence of Athena and Cernunnos dimmed, retreating into the folds of reality.

  And then, as the last fragments of their voices echoed through his mind.

  [For now, return. Someone is calling for you.]

  https://discord.gg/dnPYbzN974.

  https://www.patreon.com/c/GCLopes.