DIVINE.EXE: Ascension Protocol

CHAPTER 8: A System Built To Stop Him

The sky above Helheim did not move. It never did.

Ash hung in the air like a held breath. Rivers of black fire crawled through the land in slow, deliberate veins. The throne spire rose at the center, jagged and alive, carved from the remains of wars that never ended.

Two gods stood at its edge.

Iroas stood with his chin up—armor layered his body like memory hardened into steel. Every plate bore scars. His presence bent the space around him—not violently, but with certainty. As if the world already knew better than to resist.

Keranos stood opposite him, staff grounded against the stone. Lightning crawled lazily along its length, crackling, restless. His eyes were narrowed, unfocused, staring through the realm instead of at it.

“He’s awake,” Keranos said.

Not loudly. Not urgently. Just truth.

Iroas did not respond at first.

Below them, something howled. A distant sound. Old. Familiar.

“How much?” Iroas finally asked.

Keranos exhaled. The air shuddered.

“Very little,” he said. “Fragments. Instinct. Reflex. Power without memory.”

Iroas’s jaw tightened.

“That is how it started last time.”

Keranos turned his gaze to him then. Lightning flared briefly in his eyes.

“Yes,” he said. “And we both remember how it ended.”

Silence followed. Not peaceful.

“Theros should not exist,” Iroas said. “Not anymore.”

“He shouldn’t,” Keranos agreed. “But he does. In flesh. Bound. Limited.”

“A cage,” Iroas said.

“A seed,” Keranos corrected.

Iroas’s hand clenched slowly.

“Even now,” Keranos continued, “even like this—he bends outcomes. Humans move around him differently. Power recognizes him before he recognizes himself.”

Iroas turned toward the abyss beyond Helheim’s edge.

“When his memory returns,” he said, “he will remember us.”

Keranos nodded once.

“He will remember who betrayed him.”

“He will remember who sealed him.”

“He will remember who tore his divinity apart and scattered it into time.”

Iroas’s voice lowered.

“And he will come.”

Lightning snapped violently across the sky.

“That is why Clark was given everything,” Keranos said. “why we leaked knowledge to him through dreams and inspiration. Meta-humans were never meant to rule.”

“They were meant to delay his coming,” Iroas said.

“To bleed him,” Keranos finished. “To slow the second coming.”

Iroas turned sharply. 

“And yet,” he said, “the human did not report him.”

“He walks among them,” Iroas said. “Awakening. Accelerating. And Clark says nothing.”

Keranos closed his eyes.

“I will look into—”

“No,” Iroas said.

The word landed like a blade.

“I will.”

The world split.

Helheim folded inward, collapsing around Iroas as space bent to his will. The ash vanished. The fire silenced. Reality tore open and swallowed him whole.

***

Clark Industries stood quiet under artificial night. The upper levels hummed softly. Machines breathed. Lights glowed. Data flowed.

And then—

The air folded.

Pressure crushed downward, sudden and absolute. Glass trembled. Alarms screamed once before dying. 

A figure stood in the center of the chamber. Unannounced. Uninvited.

Dr. Clark froze.

His body reacted before his mind did.

He dropped to one knee. Head bowed.

“My lord,” Clark said.

Iroas regarded him without expression.

“You did not notify us,” the god said.

Clark swallowed. “Of—of what, my lord?”

Iroas stepped forward.

The floor cracked under his foot.

“Ryker.”

Clark stiffened.

“That subject is dormant-class,” Clark said quickly. “Unremarkable initially. His recent anomalies—”

“You were given divine engines,” Iroas said calmly. “God-forged blueprints. Technology beyond this era. Do you know why?”

Clark hesitated.

“To… advance humanity?”

Iroas leaned down.

Close enough that Clark felt war pressing against his skull.

“No,” Iroas said. “To stop him.”

Clark’s breath caught.

“Ryker,” Iroas continued, “is Theros.”

The room felt suddenly smaller.

“Human flesh,” the god said. “Divinity buried. Memory stripped. Power bound.”

Clark stared up, stunned.

“The God of War,” Clark whispered. “The one who—”

“Ruled,” Iroas said. “Until he was betrayed.”

Clark’s mind raced.

“What… what do I do?” he asked.

Iroas straightened.

“Nothing.”

Clark blinked.

“You will not accelerate him,” Iroas said. “You will not restrain him. You will not provoke suspicion. You will let him believe he is free.”

Clark nodded quickly. “Yes. Of course.”

“The gods will handle the rest.”

Iroas turned.

The pressure lifted instantly.

And he was gone.

***

Helheim welcomed him back with fire.

Keranos was waiting.

“You went yourself,” Keranos said.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“He does not know,” Iroas said. “Not yet.”

Keranos tapped his staff once.

“Then we buy time.”

Iroas raised his hand.

The abyss below churned.

Chains rattled.

Something ancient stirred.

“Release Begarus,” Iroas said.

The ground split open, and a shape emerged—massive. Low. Four heads pulling against one another, each snarling with a different hunger. Eyes burned red. Saliva hissed where it hit the stone.

Begarus—the hound that hunted gods.

“Find him,” Iroas commanded. “Test him. Bleed him if you can.”

The beast vanished in fire.

Keranos watched the void where it disappeared.

“If Theros remembers,” he said quietly, “no hound will stop him.”

Iroas said nothing.

***

Ryker was sitting on his couch. Lights low. Room quiet. For the first time in days, nothing pressed at his thoughts.

Then the air shifted. The temperature dropped.

Four shadows stretched across the wall. And something stepped into his home that did not belong to this world.

Ryker stood slowly.

Calm settling in his chest.

The system remained silent.

The beast growled.

And all four heads grinned.