Mark Lantrun's office was an ice-cold fortress of glass and steel, illuminated only by the faint glow of data screens. He sat at his desk, flipping through endless reports on the logistics of hosting his mother's upcoming charity gala.
He rubbed his temples in frustration. His love for Clara was genuine—she was the one person in the world who could still make him feel human. But organizing her endless string of events? That was a nightmare he wouldn't wish on anyone. **Catering requests, security clearances, entertainment schedules—**none of it mattered in the grand scheme of things. It was drudgery, and it was beneath him. But Clara enjoyed these parties, and that meant they had to happen.
This whole ordeal would have been so much easier if he and Clara had access to their full divine abilities. But their powers were limited now, bound by rules he hadn't foreseen when he tried to control Eden through religion. Creating matter from nothing or bending space itself—those feats were almost out of reach. He could still control objects with precision, but it required immense effort and focus. The only improvement was that his mastery over biological material had deepened—he could now reshape living tissue with a thought. Clara, on the other hand, had begun to extend her influence into non-biological matter, slowly learning to manipulate atomic bonds.
But there was a price to their power.
He leaned back in his chair, staring into the dark ceiling, allowing himself a rare moment of regret. It was his fault. He had guided Eden into worshipping him and Clara as divine figures—turning them into something akin to gods. It had seemed so clever at the time: what better way to unite and control a population than through faith? If the Pharaohs of Egypt had ruled as gods for millennia, why not him?
But there were laws that governed divinity in this world, ancient rules written into the fabric of reality itself. Spiritual beings were bound to these laws, and once they were seen as gods, he and Clara could no longer wield their powers freely in the material world. The spirit realms welcomed them, granting them a place among the Council of Gods, but in the mortal realm, their strength was limited. They could only exercise their full powers beyond the veil of reality.
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Mark exhaled sharply as he thought back to their induction into the Council. R'hllor, the fire god worshipped by the red priests, had welcomed them as allies—but his followers, desperate to hear his voice, kept burning people alive in misguided rituals. Mark despised it. R'hllor was unable to intervene directly, his divine essence trapped in the fragmented prayers of his priests.
The other gods on the Council varied in nature. The god-emperors of Yi Ti were ancient beings, ruling effortlessly without the need for worship. The Old Gods of the weirwood trees cared little for the affairs of mortals, thriving on natural cycles and memories instead. These deities existed independently of faith—they simply were.
But many gods resented Mark and Clara, especially those who depended on human belief to maintain their power. The Dothraki horse gods loathed them, attacking Eden's trade routes and interests by sending mutated warriors into battle. Even the Seven of Westeros, gods of order and tradition, had begun to grant divine powers to the old aristocracy, hoping to halt the spread of Eden's influence. But it was too late. Over 60 percent of Westeros had already converted to Eden's new faith. Three out of the seven kingdoms were under Edenite administration, with only four remaining to conquer. The Seven would fall, just like the others.
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Mark drummed his fingers on the desk, irritated at the thought of how many enemies still lurked in the shadows. The worst of them were the Old Ones of Leng, ancient horrors imprisoned millennia ago by Azor Ahai. Even in their confinement, they managed to sow chaos, building cults among Eden's citizens, drawing in the weak-minded with promises of power and freedom through madness. Their goal was eternal chaos—to shatter the barriers between dimensions and let madness devour reality itself.
They weren't just enemies of Eden; every god on the Council despised them. Even the Dothraki gods, brutish and wild, stood united against the Old Ones. No one had forgiven those ancient entities for their attempt to unravel the world during the First Long Night.
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Mark sighed as he thought about those ancient conflicts. There had been multiple Long Nights throughout history—each a separate apocalypse, all merged in human memory into one myth. The planet's unstable orbit made it vulnerable to invasions from other realms, bringing horrors and chaos every few millennia. The First Long Night was a war between the Lion of the Night and the forces of Day. Another came when the Great Other invaded, spreading death and winter. The fall of the God-Emperor dynasty in Yi Ti triggered yet another Long Night, plunging the east into blood and shadow.
The wild gods of Sothoryos had their own moment of triumph, conquering the southern jungles and twisting them into a nightmare that made the land nearly uninhabitable. Humanity, in its infinite capacity to forget, had condensed these separate catastrophes into one mythic Long Night.
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But not all gods were ancient horrors. Some were just... difficult.
The fourteen flame gods of Valyria were notoriously arrogant, despising all other deities. And then there was Ker, the Lady of Spears, a strange, obscure goddess worshipped through the offerings of castrated Unsullied by the slave masters of Astapor. Mark still remembered the chaos she caused when Astapor fell. In her rage, she shattered the veil between the material and spiritual realms, weakening his protective barriers around Londonium. Though her power was diminished, she remained a thorn in his side.
The Dothraki gods were perhaps the greatest threat. They attacked Eden's interests indirectly, corrupting and mutating followers to resist Eden's influence.
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Mark leaned back and stared at the glowing map of the world projected above his desk. In time, Eden would triumph. The Four Kingdoms of Westeros would fall, the Seven would be crushed, and the mind parasites would be eradicated. Even the Old Ones of Leng would be silenced again, sealed away for eternity.
But none of it would matter if he couldn't manage his own affairs. He glanced back at the charity gala's guest list, feeling a dull ache in his chest.
"Why do I have to waste time on parties?" he muttered aloud. He could bend life and matter to his will, had shaped entire nations with a thought, and yet here he was, planning seating arrangements and flower decorations.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a slow breath. But this was the cost of loving Clara. She brought joy and light into his otherwise cold and calculating existence. And if hosting a gala for her was the price, so be it.
With a flick of his hand, the reports vanished into thin air. It was time to get to work. Even if the gods of the Council plotted against him, even if the forces of the universe tried to restrict his power, Mark Lantrun would find a way.
He always did.