The battlefield stilled only for a breath—long enough for every pantheon to feel the shift.
Zion stood at the crater where Queen 117's body had fallen. Her broken crown lay discarded, a useless relic. Blood from her many limbs had already dried, black against the scorched stone. He didn't mourn. He didn't explain. He gave only the order:
"Let none raise queens again. The Hive will eat no more of itself."
But the execution did more than enrage the Hive. It triggered a ripple in the psionic network—an open wound. The High Queen felt it all: the cold iron of Zion's blade, the crack of vertebrae, the brief flash of terror, and then the nothingness.
It was too much.
Within hours, she issued a decree not spoken in a thousand cycles: "Extermination Protocol 77 – Kill the Mortal."
Across every sector of Hive command, Devourers redirected. The swarm twisted mid-air, across galaxies. Warriors still feeding on lesser gods halted mid-bite. All focus funneled to one singular point: Zion.
But Zion had already made his move.
The trap was set in silence.
He walked alone to a desolate stretch of the front, far beyond the barricades. No soldiers. No defenses. Just broken ground and whispers of smoke. And there, he waited.
Until they came.
The sky rippled as the Lord Marshal arrived—a being of scale and writhing limbs, towering three stories, its body chiseled with obsidian plates and mouths that screamed without sound. It had devoured over a thousand warriors. It had never once tasted fear.
And yet… it hesitated.
Because behind Zion, three figures emerged from shadow.
Papa Legba, with his crooked smile and a cane that tapped out the heartbeat of the Crossroads.
Ogou Feray, hammer in one hand, a blade of fire in the other.
Baka La Kwa, cloaked in a body of man, but his gaze held death itself—the ghost who walked.
Disguised as mortals. Hidden in plain sight.
And the Lord Marshal didn't realize—
He wasn't hunting Zion.
He was being lured to die.
The silence broke with one word from Zion's lips:
"Now."
And Ginen exploded with light and fury