God of Death: Rise of the NPC Overlord
Chapter 75 - 76: Dominion Reclaimed

Chapter 75: Chapter 76: Dominion Reclaimed

The portal opened like a bleeding wound in the fabric of unreality.

And through it, Darius walked—not as a god, not as a man, but as a fracture between both.

Kaela and Nyx followed, though even they now kept distance. The air around him shimmered with residual anti-code; mere contact could unravel lesser beings. But they had been forged in his shadow, shaped by his madness. If anyone could survive near him now—it was them.

What greeted them on the other side was not the dominion they had left behind.

It was ash.

Skies once painted with living constellations were now dull and cracked, as though the heavens had starved themselves in mourning. The Obsidian Citadel, once his throne, stood shattered—its spires broken like ribs jutting from a corpse.

And in the distance, where cities once thrived under his rule, there was silence.

No prayers.

No chants.

No fear.

No faith.

Only absence.

"...They abandoned you," Nyx said bitterly, her eyes scanning the ruins with a flicker of disgust. "The moment they thought you were gone. They turned their backs."

Kaela knelt and brushed her fingers across a cracked tablet, its inscriptions half-erased. "No. Not just abandonment. This was purging."

She held up the stone. It had once borne Darius’s name—now scrubbed clean with violent precision. Someone had tried to erase his mark from this realm, even before his name vanished from reality itself.

Darius walked forward in silence.

But as he moved, the winds bent around him. The sky darkened further. His presence stirred the dead code beneath the earth, and from the ruins, echoes began to slither.

Echoes of memories.

Faith once held.

Lies once spoken.

Then came a voice—hoarse and broken, but alive.

"Y-you’ve returned..."

A figure emerged from the shadows of the ruined citadel. It was one of the High Keepers, his face lined with fear and age beyond its years. He knelt immediately, eyes averted. "I-I didn’t think... we didn’t believe you could come back."

Darius approached slowly.

He didn’t speak.

Not at first.

Instead, he reached into the ruined stonework and pulled free a relic—his old scepter, cracked and rusted. He gripped it and it pulsed once, then shattered into dust in his hands.

"I am not returning," he said finally. His voice was colder than death. "I am rewriting."

With that, he raised his hand—and a pulse of voidlight exploded outward.

The earth screamed.

The broken buildings bent backward, reshaping as his will poured into them. Obelisks reformed. Spires returned. The air itself thickened with divine weight—but this was no longer the golden aura of godhood. This was anomaly made manifest. This was rule enforced by fear.

From the corners of the ruins, survivors began to emerge. Shivering. Starving. Faithless.

Darius looked upon them—and judged them.

"You feared my end," he declared, his voice now echoing across the realm. "And in your fear, you dismantled what we built."

He opened his arms—and his silhouette blurred. Horns formed. Wings of shattered logic unfurled. A crown of paradox flickered above his brow.

"I offer no redemption."

He stepped forward—and with every step, those who once doubted him fell to their knees, groveling, praying again not from devotion, but from terror.

"I offer no salvation."

Nyx watched with a strange mix of pride and dread as Darius raised a hand and rebranded the realm with his new sigil—an inverted glyph of godhood fused with the law of unmaking.

Kaela whispered, "They will worship you again... but this time, only because they fear they’ll be erased."

And still Darius did not smile. Did not rage. He simply stood over them, sovereign once more.

Then—

From the deepest sanctum of the Citadel, Celestia emerged.

Tattered robes. Barefoot. Eyes hollow. She said nothing as she walked toward him—through wind and terror and the trembling masses.

The crowd parted like frightened children.

Darius looked at her—and in that moment, something in his aura dimmed.

Just slightly.

"...Celestia," he said.

She didn’t flinch.

But her voice, when it came, was like glass breaking. "This... is not what we built. This is not you."

He clenched his jaw. "This is what I had to become."

Tears rimmed her eyes, but no sobs came. "Then everything I fought for... everything I sacrificed... was a lie?"

He didn’t answer.

Couldn’t.

Nyx looked away, Kaela lowered her gaze. Even the wind hushed itself.

Celestia took one final step forward, resting her trembling hand against his chest. "Please. Before there’s nothing left. Before you forget that you were once human..."

He stared down at her hand.

Then gently took it... and pulled it away.

"I can’t afford humanity anymore."

And just like that—whatever thread had remained between them snapped.

Celestia crumpled to her knees, and the sky above rumbled—not from weather, but from grief.

Darius turned his back to her... and ascended the steps to his new throne.

His fractured throne.

Forged not of faith, but fear.

Not of glory, but shadow.

And as he sat, his voice echoed once more:

"Let the gods watch. Let the rebellion begin. I am dominion—unbound."

The throne was jagged—formed not from gold, but from obsidian, ash, and fragments of broken commandments. It was a seat unworthy of kings, yet perfect for what Darius had become.

He sat in silence.

Below him, the people remained on their knees, eyes downcast, unsure whether their supplication was enough to survive the return of a god they once abandoned.

Nyx stood by his right, a blade sheathed but quivering—ever loyal, ever alert. Her eyes scanned the silent masses, but her heart pulsed only for one presence: his.

Kaela leaned against a column of dark matter, arms crossed, her skin still marked by the residual scars of their fusion. Her gaze never left Celestia.

And Celestia...

She knelt still, not in reverence, but in emotional collapse.

Her voice, once the song of salvation for this realm, now hung muted in the void between them.

"You could have reclaimed them with mercy," she whispered—so soft only gods could hear.

Darius’s fingers drummed on the armrest of his throne. The rhythm was slow, deliberate, like the ticking of a celestial bomb.

"Mercy," he repeated, tone dry. "That was the language they forgot the moment I fell."

He extended a hand, and the skies churned in response. Storms made of black flame and fractured stars whirled overhead. Divine scripts lit up across the horizon—his new law encoding itself across the world in real-time.

—ALL SHALL SUBMIT TO THE VOID-CODE.

—ALL SHALL SPEAK HIS NAME IN FEAR.

—ALL SHALL BE REWRITTEN.

Suddenly, a ripple tore through the realm.

A quake in reality.

Something ancient... watching.

The crowd gasped and scattered back as a jagged monument burst from the ground before the citadel—twisting up like a corrupted obelisk. It bore no markings of Darius’s new dominion.

Instead, it radiated a different signature.

Older.

Colder.

Familiar.

Kaela’s eyes widened. "That’s... not you."

Darius rose from his throne immediately. The symbols along his skin glowed, reacting violently.

He knew that essence.

Revenant.

But the corruption at the base of the obelisk wasn’t just his rival’s energy—it was something beneath it.

A whisper pulsed into his mind.

"You were never the first..."

"And you shall not be the last..."

The words vibrated with anti-code, echoing from the depths of existence itself.

Darius’s eyes narrowed.

And for the first time in this return, his voice shook not with anger—but with realization.

"Something is clawing upward."

Celestia looked up, her eyes haunted. "The Voice... beneath."

He turned toward her.

"You know it?"

Her lips quivered. "...I dreamt of it. During the trial. In the place between places. I heard it breathing beneath creation."

Nyx stepped forward. "Then it wasn’t the Revenant who infected our dominion..."

Kaela concluded grimly, "It was what’s inside him."

Darius stood silent as thunder cracked above.

His gaze fell once more on the kneeling mortals—watching, trembling, waiting for orders.

They thought he was their greatest terror.

But even he now knew... he was only the prelude.

He raised his hand, and his voice boomed once more across the realm:

"Summon the warpriests. Prepare the rites. Burn the temples. Lock the gates."

He turned back to the black obelisk, walking toward it with unwavering steps.

"The rebellion is not against me," he said softly, more to himself than any follower. "It’s against what waits... beneath."