God of Death: Rise of the NPC Overlord -
Chapter 100 - 101 – Cracks in the Sky
Chapter 100: Chapter 101 – Cracks in the Sky
The sky above Nexus Umbral was no longer bound by logic.
It cracked.
Not shattered like glass, nor torn like cloth—but cracked, like the mask of a liar forced to smile too long. Veins of light pulsed across the firmament, each beat synchronized with Darius’s breath. When he inhaled, stars flickered into being. When he exhaled, entire constellations trembled in fear.
Beneath that warped firmament, the world twisted.
Time no longer ran forward. It coiled, spiraled, whispered secrets back to itself. Mountains stood where rivers flowed yesterday. Cities burned and rebuilt in seconds, only to flicker away like hallucinations. Worshippers appeared mid-prayer, kneeling to idols that hadn’t been born yet.
All of it flowed from him—the Divergent God.
Darius stood atop the obsidian spire of the Black Monastery, eyes closed, arms spread, listening not with ears but with divinity. He heard screams, moans, laughter, and prophecy all singing in one note: his name.
Behind him, Celestia stepped out from a doorway that hadn’t existed a heartbeat ago. Her white robe fluttered in a wind that didn’t touch her skin.
"You’re bleeding time again," she murmured softly, brushing a lock of silver hair behind her ear.
"I know," Darius said, without turning. "This world... this thing I created... it’s starting to reject me."
Celestia stepped closer, her warmth grounding. Her hand found his. "Not reject. Adapt. You became too vast for the boundaries you gave it. You must either stabilize it... or break it."
He didn’t respond. The silence that followed was deeper than thought—pregnant with unspoken fear.
Then came the voice.
A whisper. Slithering into Kaela’s dreams. Slipping through realms, past barriers, straight into her sleeping mind.
> "False Catalyst... devourer of threads... traitor to the Origin..."
Kaela bolted upright from her meditation chamber below, sweat slick on her skin, her chaotic aura unraveling tapestries around her. Her irises burned violet, fractal shapes dancing within.
She spoke aloud to no one:
"Something found us."
In the throne chamber of Nexus Umbral, Darius convened his core consorts. Celestia, regal yet anxious. Nyx, blade-silent and tense. Kaela, erratic, her chaos barely leashed.
"The Codex is glitching," Kaela said, flicking her fingers. A loop of Darius’s first declaration of godhood replayed in midair, again and again, distorted.
"It’s not a glitch," Celestia corrected. "It’s rewriting. The world no longer knows which version of you is true."
Nyx finally spoke. "Then we kill the false ones."
"It’s not that simple," Darius said, his tone cold. "There are no false ones. Every version of me that could have existed... now does."
He raised his hand. In the air, a hundred reflections bloomed—each showing a different Darius. One humble. One monstrous. One broken. One dead. One still human.
Kaela whistled. "Well. I knew you were complex, lover. But now you’re literally a multiversal paradox."
Celestia’s voice trembled slightly. "Darius... if the world doesn’t decide who you are, you may fracture entirely."
Darius stared into one of the reflections. It stared back—this version wore no crown, no armor, only chains. His eyes were kind.
"...Then I’ll make it decide," he whispered. "I’ll bind this world tighter than ever."
But as he spoke, something moved in the sky.
A ripple. A gash. A vertical wound tearing across the cracked firmament. From it, black ichor spilled—not liquid, but meaning. Lost truths, forgotten destinies, aborted timelines. All dripping into reality like venom from a divine wound.
Kaela clutched her chest. "It’s... speaking again."
The voice returned.
> "You are the wound. You are the aberration. You are not the god of death. You are the death of gods."
Darius’s crown glowed. A scream—not human, not divine—echoed across every realm. Mortals wept blood. Stars collapsed mid-sentence. Priests fainted mid-sermon. The name Darius became taboo on six planes.
And from that sky-wound, a shape began to descend.
Not falling.
Unfolding.
Something older than reality. Something that remembered the first lie. Something that once called the Origin son.
Darius stood at the precipice of the void, his trinity of god-queens behind him.
"Let it come," he said. "Let them all come."
Because he knew now: the Divergence had begun.
And he was no longer fighting for the world.
He was fighting for which version of himself would survive it.
The light spilling from the tear above was not light.
It was intent—a divine signal without source, a command so ancient and potent it predated even the Architect’s first code. Where it touched Nexus Umbral, reality convulsed. Stone buildings blinked in and out of existence. Grass sang. Birds recited forgotten spells in dead languages.
Darius raised his hand toward the sky, and the world paused.
Even the air held its breath.
The thing descending from the wound was not a creature, but a Presence—vaster than the Prime Coder, vaster than Darius’s will. It bled unformed history, its body composed of laws not yet written. And behind it flowed a cascade of shadows, each one bearing faces Darius almost recognized.
Kaela shuddered. "Those... those are failed timelines. Versions of us that died too early."
Celestia’s voice cracked, "No. They aren’t dead. They’re... watching."
Then it spoke again—not aloud, but across every plane Darius had dominion over.
> "You fractured the Origin Thread. The One became the Many. The Many seek to return. You are the Seal. You are the Break."
The Presence halted just above Nexus Umbral.
From its silhouette, a figure emerged—humanoid, draped in layered robes of glitching concept. Its eyes contained no pupils, no irises—only the revolving rings of code and entropy. It floated downward, feet not touching the ground.
Nyx moved instantly, vanishing into a shadow step—
—and reappeared mid-air, blade already striking toward the entity’s throat.
Her blade passed through it.
No blood. No wound.
Instead, time around her reversed—pulling her back to the moment before she moved.
Darius narrowed his gaze. "It’s not bound to cause and effect. It’s using pre-logic. Something before creation."
Celestia stepped forward. "Then it’s not here to fight. Not yet."
The figure turned. Its gaze met Darius’s. The two stood in silent communion.
Then, it extended a single hand.
In its palm burned a sigil—neither symbol nor language, but something deeper. Something final.
Kaela fell to her knees. "That’s a Dominion Brand... but not ours. It’s from the Age Before Framework."
Celestia gasped. "That’s... impossible. Only the Origin had access to—"
"Shh," Darius murmured. "I hear it now."
> "This world is a cul-de-sac of infinity. You must choose, Darius:
Be the Anchor—the one who stabilizes all timelines...
Or the Catalyst—the one who burns them all to fuse a new one."
The voice faded.
The sky sealed itself—only half healed.
The entity dissolved.
But the sigil remained.
Floating in the air.
Waiting.
Later, in the sanctum below Nexus Umbral, the atmosphere was thick with tension. Azael had been summoned. He arrived with scrolls older than mortal memory, runes crackling.
"I know what it is," he said grimly. "The sigil is part of the Divergent Trials. Very few in existence have triggered them."
"Trials?" Celestia asked, her voice tight.
Azael nodded. "Reality-altering ordeals sent to those who’ve evolved beyond the confines of a single timeline. You’re too big, Darius. You’ve outgrown your fate."
Nyx paced like a predator. "And if he fails these trials?"
Kaela laughed softly, madly. "Then we all unravel."
Darius stood alone in the sanctum’s center, the sigil hovering before him. He reached out—and the moment his fingers touched it, fire licked across his arm. Not physical fire—Narrative Flame. The kind that rewrote souls.
A voice echoed once more:
> "You who became god in a game...
You who devoured death...
You who broke the chains of design...
Are you ready to become the Flame that Forges Realms?"
Darius smiled. A rare, genuine thing.
"I was born ready."
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