A/N: Oren and Sophia have found the God of Forges.

  … But what sort of mental state is he in after all this time?

  -x-X-x-

  In the same moment that Oren registers the metal melted into the stumps covering the Ancient God's arm stumps, the deity lunges forward with a howl. Much like Tyranos, there's an aura to the God of Forges that pulses with oppressive heat.

  However, tortured and weakened dramatically by his imprisonment, this Ancient God doesn't have a fraction of the power that the God of Tyranny and Conquest had avaible to him back on the Mortal Pnes.

  Stepping forward, the Otherworlder is able to catch him by his wrists and though the God of Forges struggles and thrashes mightily, Oren is not pushed back. After a moment he manages to reach up and rip the muzzle off of the Ancient God's face, causing an animalistic howl of pain to leave the man's lips.

  Sophia, meanwhile, isn't content to stand idly by. She comes up closer to the two of them, staying slightly behind Oren but close enough to call out pleadingly.

  "Please! We aren't here to hurt you! We want to help! We aren't with the Void Gods or Tyranos!"

  For a moment, the madness in the deity's eyes seems to get worse, not better. Oren fears that there's no getting through to him. But then… after another heartbeat, the crazed look in his eyes fades and the God of Forges' gaze softens as he slumps back, the fight going out of him.

  Slowly, mindful of a sneak attack, Oren releases the Ancient God's wrists and watches as he slumps back against his anvil, his bared chest struggling to rise and fall with each breath.

  "Ah… I see I've begun to hallucinate now…"

  Oren and Sophia exchange a gnce at that. This was… far from ideal. For Oren, it felt almost like they'd made a wish upon a monkey's paw. Their greatest hope was that the God of Forges still lived. Against all odds, against all strategic thinking and basic common sense, they'd pinned their pns on him being alive.

  Well, he was still breathing… but it seemed Tyranos hadn't been so utterly foolish when he'd let the other Ancient God live. No, the King of the Void had made sure that the God of Forges would never craft another artifact… by taking his hands from him and leaving him trapped in this smithy, surrounded by tools and equipment he could no longer use.

  In hindsight, that sort of monstrous tyranny was right up a bastard like Tyranos' alley. Still, it did leave them both a bit stymied. What the fuck were they supposed to do now?

  Biting her lower lip, clearly not having any better of an idea than Oren on that front, Sophia turns back to the God of Forges.

  "You… are him then, right? You're the God of Forges and Smithing."

  He stares at Sophia for an uncomfortably long moment, almost seeming to be soaking in her face. Finally, he lets out a huff of ughter.

  "I am he. You don't even know my name, do you? Heh, you're an accurate hallucination at least."

  Oren frowns as Sophia looks all the more worried.

  "No… I… we never met, back in the Heavens. But you seem to recognize me all the same, don't you? Would you mind telling me your name, all the same?"

  There's another pause as the God of Forges seems to consider whether it's worth wasting his breath. Finally though, he just grunts.

  "Ferro."

  … This might be the first time a god has introduced himself just by his name, rather than listing out titles and domains and kinship. Oren sees how Sophia hesitates for a moment like she's expecting the Ancient God to continue on, but when she finally realizes he's not going to, she slowly nods.

  "A pleasure to meet you, Ferro. I'm Sophia, Goddess of-!"

  "I know who you are. I know who both of you are, hallucinations."

  Oren frowns at the interruption, wanting to come to Sophia's defense… but he holds back out of guilt. Guilt for not having been able to hear Ferro's warning all those months ago. Guilt over doing nothing to alleviate the God of Forges' torturous imprisonment all this time.

  Sophia, meanwhile, lets out a shuddering breath and finally confronts the elephant in the room.

  "… Why do you think that we're hallucinations, Ferro?"

  Leaning back against his anvil, the God of Forges chuckles and shakes his head.

  "What else can you be? My two greatest failures showing up together in this empty, forsaken pce. You can't be here for a number of reasons. Especially since you both should be dead."

  That gets another shared look between Sophia and Oren. His two greatest failures? It's obvious why he might feel he failed with Oren all things considered, but Sophia?

  Shaken and confused, the goddess furrows her brow as she looks back to Ferro.

  "How exactly did you fail me, Ferro? As far as I know, I never met you. Not once in all of my centuries living in the Heavens. You've never wronged or harmed me, and that's more than I can say for most of the men in my life."

  Oren twitches, even though he knows she's talking more about the likes of Law and Tyranos, and to a lesser extent Raythe and Aureo, then she is about him. But he's still pyed a part in doing a great deal of harm all the same to her.

  Ferro, meanwhile, just smiles sadly.

  "Is that why you're here, hallucinations? To make me confront my failures head on? So be it… might as well enjoy the 'company' while it sts."

  Gesturing with his stumps in her direction, Ferro grunts.

  "You are Sophia. Daughter of Law. Presumably a Minor Goddess of Wisdom and Equity. Except… that st part is a lie. You were born something else entirely. You were born a Goddess of Misfortune and Folly. My brother…"

  Oren's eyes widen but Sophia actually physically jolts, unable to help but interrupt.

  "Your brother?!"

  Giving her a curious look, Ferro nods.

  "Yes. My brother Law, King of the Gods, God of Justice and Righteousness. Your father, hallucination. After we were forced to lock away our other brother and his followers in the Void, Law set forth to make sure nothing like the schism could ever happen again. There were only two options in his eyes. Throw those gods and goddesses who manifested with negative concepts into the Void with the rest or kill them at birth."

  Ferro sighs and shakes his head.

  "I agreed with neither… but I did not disagree nearly as strongly as I should have. In the end, Law chose to kill any would-be 'dark gods' at birth. He considered it both a mercy and wisdom, seeing as sending them to the Void would only give those gods already imprisoned there greater and greater numbers. As King, this was his right. And so I did not stop him even though I should have."

  It's clear this choice weighs heavily on the Ancient God. Oren on the other hand, is reeling a bit from finding out that there was in fact a third brother all along. Not a God of Travelers and Roads as Tyranos had pretended, but instead Ferro, the God of Forges and Smithing.

  "And what happened when I was born? Why did we never speak to one another? Why did I not know I had an uncle in the Heavens all my life?"

  Ferro's shoulders slump, his face falling at Sophia's accusatory questions.

  "… Because I could not bear to lose you, niece. When you were born with your 'dark' domains, I stayed Law's hand. I begged him not to kill you. I told him it would make him no better than our brother. He listened… but not without cost. I helped him forge the binding that would keep your true domains suppressed."

  Sophia gasps, but Ferro just continues on unabated.

  "He provided the power; I provided the know-how. However, after all was said and done, he forbid me from ever interacting with you on pain of death. Your death. After all, if the truth were ever to come out… he would be forced to kill you. So I stayed away. I kept my distance. I had to. For both our sakes."

  Well damn. Not only had her father suppressed her domains all her life but sparing her hadn't even been his idea. Oren can't help but grimace as Sophia quietly tries to come to terms with that revetion. Ferro, on the other hand, has no reason to give her any time for that kind of thing. After all, in his eyes they're just figments of his broken mind and twisted imagination.

  Turning to Oren, the Ancient God huffs.

  "Not that any of it wound up mattering in the end, I suppose. The real Sophia is dead… killed by you no doubt, with the armor and bde that I crafted for you."

  Oren purses his lips for a moment. Rather than try to convince Ferro that they're both really here and both still alive, he goes with a different tack entirely.

  "… But you tried at least. You tried to warn me."

  Ferro's eyes soften for all of a moment before hardening. He waves his stumps angrily.

  "Bah! Tried? What did I try? To tell you the truth? More idiot I was for that. I tried to warn you yes, but I failed in the end. They had you ensorcelled and I didn't realize just how deeply the illusion ran until it was too te. Not to mention, I gave them the ability to summon you in the first pce. Your kidnapping, your torment, and ultimately your death… they're on my hands. Just as the death of every deity and every mortal in the Heavens and on the Mortal Pnes rests on my shoulders as well."

  … What? Oren is struck dumb for a moment, before finding himself demanding more answers with a fresh sense of urgency.

  "What do you mean by that? How did you give them the ability to summon me?"

  Smiling grimly in a way that doesn't reach his eyes, Ferro grunts.

  "It got to me, in the end. The lies. The killings. Law's hypocrisy. The niece I could never see, never speak with, never talk to. I couldn't take it anymore. Eventually, I convinced myself that I'd chosen the wrong side back in the schism. I fooled myself into believing that Tyranos and the others locked away in the Void… they were victims in all of this."

  Looking off to the side, Ferro huffs.

  "If I tried to enter the Void from within Creation, Law would have known immediately and put a stop to it. Instead, I had to leave Creation and enter the Void from OUTSIDE of Creation. Using an artifact I devised; I managed to break into the Void with Law being none-the-wiser to my pns. He had no idea where I'd gone or what I'd done."

  "What… what WERE your pns, exactly?"

  Sophia's shaken voice cuts in then as she finds her words again. Looking over at her, the Ancient God just shrugs.

  "I didn't want to fight Law or anyone else in the Heavens or on the Mortal Pnes. Foolishly, I assumed after millennia locked away, the gods and goddesses in the Void would have lost their taste for battle as well. My pn was simple. I was going to recruit the Void Gods for a mission to retrieve you from the Heavens, and then we were all going to leave."

  Brow furrowing, Sophia frowns.

  "Leave… as in, leave Creation?"

  Smiling wistfully now, Ferro nods.

  "Indeed. I made something that would allow us to go elsewhere, to leave this universe behind. Everyone could have been happy. Nobody else had to die, I thought."

  The smile drops and Ferro shakes his head.

  "I was foolish. I'd convinced myself that Tyranos wasn't as bad as my memories said he was. In the end, he and the others here didn't even give me a chance to speak. I was captured and muzzled immediately, my creations stolen and studied until they understood exactly how I'd done what I did. While I was chained up, they hatched their pn, pulling an Otherworlder through the crack I made on the outside of the Void and training him before making a simir hole into the Heavens to send him on as their vanguard."

  A single tear runs down Ferro's cheek.

  "… I didn't even get the chance to tell Tyranos about his niece, nor the truth about her domains. He sent his Otherworlder weapon to wantonly sughter the Heavens, unknowingly killing the closest thing to a daughter he ever could have had."

  The Ancient God hangs his head as Oren and Sophia stand there silently. Neither of them says a word… but then, what DO you say in the face of all of that. They had both thought they knew the architect of their shared tragedy. It was Tyranos, the King of the Void, who had turned Oren into a weapon and used him to sughter the Heavens. It was Tyranos who had gone on to create the God Hunters and began systematically scouring the Mortal Pnes of divine beings.

  … But the thing about the God of Tyranny and Conquest was that he wasn't much of an architect. He was an opportunist, pin and simple.

  It was Ferro who had done all of the work. It was Ferro who had made everything possible. Tyranos had simply improvised, using the foundation that the God of Forges had so generously id out for him.

  At long st, Oren and Sophia have come face to face with the true architect of their shared misery. Just their luck that it's a broken down man with stumps instead of hands and more despair and grief that either of them could ever hope to inflict upon him even if they wanted to.

  Of course, Oren couldn't really bring himself to hate Ferro for what he'd done and he doubted Sophia could either. But they were still stuck with a number of problems.

  Before anything else though, they needed to figure out how to convince Ferro that they weren't actually hallucinations here to torment him for his perceived crimes.

  -x-X-x-

  A/N: Some more reveals in this chapter~

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