High above, where time itself dared not breathe, the thrones awakened.
Echoes of ancient magic pulsed among the stars, and every deity gazed upon the mortal board with eyes that ignited possible futures.
All thrones were present.
The tension was almost matter — dense, tangible, capable of making the very cosmos hold its breath.
Odin raised his head. His single eye swept across the sacred circle, landing on each god like a silent blade.
When he spoke, the silence that followed seemed to kneel before him:
"All here have felt the disturbance," his voice was grave, austere, reverberating like restrained thunder. "The order built by our hands trembles. Something dared to tear through the web we have stretched across destiny."
Hugin and Munin sliced through the skies above, their black wings crossing realms, empires, eras. Odin continued, each word heavy as an oath:
"My messengers have flown over mortal lands seeking the one who dared to challenge balance. And now it is certain… she has risen. In the Empire of Tupã."
A faint murmur swept across the thrones, like thunder choking on itself.
Varuna leaned back, a philosophic smile curving his lips, cold as a winter sea.
His gaze met Tupã's with quiet malice:
"Oh, Tupã…" his voice dripped with irony, like sacred water falling upon molten metal. "It seems your vigilance grows lax. You've been… careless with the management of your own dominion."
A whisper of contempt, thin as a wet blade.
"Or have you simply lost the pulse of those who pray your name?"
Tupã did not move.
His throne remained still as a mountain watching ages pass without bowing to a single storm.
But the air around him changed — heavy, electric, as if every atom were on the verge of becoming thunder.
When his voice came, it was not loud.
It was deep.
It was absolute. The sound of a sky about to tear open in lightning:
"Watch your tongue, Varuna."
The space vibrated. A golden spark coiled through the void, lightning restrained only by the god's will.
"Do not mistake silence for weakness. Nor balance for neglect."
His gaze fell upon the lord of the seas with the weight of an ancient storm.
"What rises beneath my sky does not escape me" — each word branded reality as a hot iron brands flesh. "The one who dared break the order did not bloom through negligence… but through destiny. And destiny, as you know, is not stopped by arrogance."
A pause.
The energy around Tupã wavered — distant thunder echoing though no lightning fell.
"If your peace depends on mocking your neighbor… perhaps the sea you govern is too shallow for you to see the depth of this event."
Silence. Hard, sharp.
Tupã tilted his chin — a minimal inclination, yet carrying the weight of uncontested sovereignty.
"I watch my realm. I protect my order. And I will not allow any dog — marine or earthly — to bark in my direction as though the lightning feared the ocean."
The last words seemed ready to detonate an entire sky.
A dry boom reverberated — not sound, but presence.
The realm trembled as if the firmament suddenly remembered who had once split it in half with a bolt.
Zeus did not need to rise.
His throne, crowned with silent lightning, seemed to pulse with divine pride.
His voice came slow, heavy with certainty and calculated disdain:
"Skies competing for thunder now?"
His eyes wandered lazily through the distance between Tupã and Varuna — but there was steel behind the humor.
"Interesting. I turn away for a brief breath of time and return to find audacious storms and insolent seas… debating who guards their empire best."
His fingers drummed upon the arm of the throne, each tap sparking pure light.
"Tupã," he said the name without submission, but with rightful acknowledgment. "Your thunder echoes loud. Steady. I'll grant you that… few could hold it without their voice breaking."
A faint smile — arrogant, yet sincere in its respect for another's strength.
Then his gaze turned like a blade toward Varuna.
"But be careful not to mistake the noise of a storm for the roar that precedes it."
The air shifted. Dominion over the sky, even here, seemed to restore his primal instinct for command.
"After all" — and now Zeus laughed, a low sound that trembled like trapped thunder — "skies and seas may fight as they please… but he who commands lightning commands the dawn of war."
No shouting.
Only sovereignty.
He inclined his head, a slight gesture — the kind that ended a discussion that was no longer his, yet no one dared continue without weighing their words first.
"Do not confuse pride with power. Nor make thunder a coin of dispute. There are other eyes upon us — and I do not speak of birds."
A thick, heavy silence flooded the space.
Zeus leaned back once more, as if he had never left the center of the sky.
The stillness that followed Zeus's words was not empty.
It was deep — almost ritual.
Like the exact instant before the tide turns… or before the universe exhales.
Then, calm took form.
No rumble, no violent glow.
The presence of Vishnu rose like an ancient river awakening at dawn — inevitable, gentle, immeasurable.
His voice came clean, serene, carrying a peace no god would ever dare mistake for weakness:
"Thunder, seas, and destinies… each raising its truth as if the fabric of the cosmos depended upon it."
His gaze crossed the thrones — not in judgment, but in profound knowing.
A god who did not react: he recognized.
"Strength is not proven by volume," he said, unhurried. "Nor sovereignty by swift reply. The universe does not bow to the scream… but to balance."
Vishnu rested his hands upon his knees, serene as time itself when it lies down to breathe.
"What rises in Tupania is not born of neglect. Nor planted by chance. And neither is it an empty threat to provoke the prides that rest here."
His eyes met Tupã's — mutual respect, silence between equals.
"There are ages in motion. Lines of fate entwining beyond the reach of mortals and immortals alike. If the world stirs, it is not from failure… but because the hour has come."
A subtle radiance rose behind Vishnu — not light, but the sense that everything, for an instant, fit within the palm of his hand.
"Before you contest power, dispute thrones, or measure skies, remember: Order was not born of storm — it was born of purpose."
A pause — soft, absolute.
"And purpose speaks. Now."
The silence that followed was different.
Less warlike. More inevitable.
The transition was not marked by sound.
It was marked by absence.
The light resting upon the Norse throne flickered — not from weakness, but from reverence to what was about to move.
The Father of Ravens lifted his face slowly.
His eyes — once merely watching — tore through time.
And for an instant, the stars trembled.
His voice did not echo — it engraved itself:
"I beheld the Veil… and the Veil has torn."
The air grew heavier than iron.
The gods felt it — not in their flesh, but in their thrones.
"From the edges where Eternity bends… something has awakened."
Huginn and Muninn appeared behind him like shadows of thoughts that should never have been spoken.
Their feathers trembled as if touched by a wind that did not exist.
Odin rose — and even the eldest felt the weight of that motion.
"An Abyssae born of chaos itself."
The word fell like a blade dividing eras.
"A being that guards the boundary between existence and ruin. Born from the silence between two heartbeats of the cosmos. It walks where even the Void fears to breathe."
Odin's eyes burned with contained chaos — fire not of the world, but of fate.
"It already walks among mortals."
An ancient murmur — almost a roar from behind time — crossed the celestial plains.
Odin continued, lower, sharper, as if every syllable locked the universe tighter around his prophecy:
"And with it… something returns from the depths where even shadows perish."
Huginn shrank.
Muninn averted his gaze. Both — for the first time — were afraid.
"It is not merely chaos moving. Not merely the manipulator raising his pieces. Nor merely the Abyssae taking form."
Odin extended his arm, the air warping around his fingers.
Truth fell like a primordial verdict:
"If what rises reaches its fullness… thrones will fall."
The pause that followed was crueler than any threat.
"Not just the lesser ones. Not only the forgotten. But us."
And then, slowly, with a voice that carried ages of blood, vision, and sacrifice:
"This… is not war. It is return."
Absolute silence.
The cosmos held its breath.
Silence — not of peace, but of cosmic recalculation.
The thrones trembled.
Not a physical quake — but a shudder within certainty itself.
Zeus was the first to break the silence.
His thunder did not roar — it merely vibrated beneath the skin of the universe.
"Then let them return," his voice was blade and contained storm. "I was not forged to fear. If the abyss raises monsters, let them prove their worth by facing Olympus."
But his fingers tightened upon the arm of his throne.
Strength did not hide the weight — it merely masked it.
Tupã raised his chin, silent thunder beneath his skin.
"Let them come." Firm, ancestral. "The land I guard does not whisper before the dark. The divine Empire of Tupania will stand."
Yet behind his eyes, the thunder hesitated — a thousand years of war know the scent of the inevitable.
Vishnu remained serene — almost compassionate.
"The tide does not fear the wave; it merely acknowledges its arrival. Destiny cannot be defied with rage — but with understanding."
A subtle glow — the universe breathing within him.
Varuna reclined, smiling venom and poetry.
"If chaos walks, at least it shall have worthy company along the way," he murmured, as though singing an omen. "And we shall see which thrones know how to swim… and which merely drown in vanity."
His voice was sweet. His sentence, a sharpened blade.
A lesser god — no name required.
Only a peripheral throne that trembled.
A whisper escaped — barely audible:
"…they return…"
It was the fear of the small that sealed the scene. Where the great weave destiny, the lesser feel the end first.
While the gods watched over the horizon of the cosmos,
in the mortal plane, their shadows were already moving.
What the thrones feared…
was already walking.
The celestial light dissolved — not fading, but yielding place to the earthly world.
Gray. Cold. Mist dragged by the harsh wind of the Tupania Empire.
Footsteps carved the mud of the road that led to a village of stone and dark roofs.
Éreon and Éon emerged through the low fog — steady steps, predatory bearing, silence sharpened.
Where the heavens debated the end…
On earth, two beings walked to begin it.