This is a short story by Genré du Plessis
Atlas drove down the highway in silence, the roar of his old pickup's engine a low hum beneath the thudding of his heart. The war had ended, or so the world said, the news outlets declaring victory against the so-called false gods and their demonic hordes. It had been ten years of hell, a decade of battlefields that blurred the line between nightmare and reality. But now, as the sun sank into the horizon, casting the sky in an eerie, blood-red glow, Nicolas was going home.
Home the thought was almost foreign after so long. The last time he'd seen it, the house had stood sturdy with peeling white paint, surrounded by the scent of lavender and the laughter of his children playing tag. He'd replayed that memory so often it was more vivid than the present.
He turned down the gravel road that led to his small town, the air growing colder, heavy with a strange, metallic tang. Something prickled at the edge of his mind, a tension that had him gripping the wheel tighter.
As he rounded the last bend, the breath caught in his chest. The place he called home was gone. Where there had once been houses, gardens, and the familiar storefronts, there was now only ruin. Charred skeletons of buildings loomed like ghosts in the fading light. The lavender fields were scorched black, their scent replaced by the acrid stench of ash and smoke.
Atlas stumbled from the truck, his knees hitting the cracked road as he took in the destruction. His eyes scanned the remains of his home, desperate for movement, for life. The wind whispered through shattered windows, carrying no laughter, no voices only silence that screamed.
He staggered forward, feet dragging over what was left of his lawn, now a bed of gray dust. The front door lay splintered on the ground. Inside, beams that once supported the ceiling had collapsed, their jagged edges jutting out like ribs. He sifted through the debris with shaking hands, searching for anything a photograph, a toy, a trace of them.
There was nothing.
A sob tore from his throat, raw and choking. Rage followed, an inferno that made his blood roar in his ears. His vision swam, and he clenched his fists so hard that his nails bit into his palms, drawing blood. They had taken everything from him everything. The false gods, the creatures with their obsidian wings and eyes like molten gold, had not just waged war; they had razed what little peace he'd fought to protect.
Atlas stood, the last light of day casting his shadow across the ruins. The vow he made then was as cold and unyielding as iron. He would hunt them down, every last god and demon that had brought this upon the world. If the world called them untouchable, invincible he would prove it wrong. He would take them down with his own two hands, even if it meant carving through their flesh and bone with nothing more than his rage.
He walked back to the truck, not with the staggering steps of a man broken but with the deliberate stride of someone reborn. Inside, he opened the glove compartment, retrieving a black leather case. Inside it lay the hunting knife he had kept through every battle, its edge keen, its handle worn smooth by his grip.
The road before him stretched dark and empty, but Atlas didn't care. He knew where he was going: to the heart of their world, wherever it lay. The gods and demons thought the war was over. They had no idea that the real reckoning had just begun.
The hunt began in whispers legends of a lone warrior striking down beings that once stood untouchable. At first, they called him a ghost, a myth conjured by desperate survivors. But as ruins of shrines crumbled and gods fell silent, they knew he was real, and they began to fear him.
Atlas tracked them through scorched earth and forgotten cities where shadows seemed to breathe. His journey led him into caverns where light cowered, across seas where the water seethed with spirits, and into mountains where the winds spoke his name in tones of dread. One by one, the false gods fell.
The first, a deity of storms who wielded lightning like a sword, met Atlas on a plateau beneath a raging sky. Thunder cracked as their battle raged, splitting the air with the ferocity of their blows. In the end, Atlas drove his knife deep into the god's chest, and the thunder stopped mid-roar. The silence that followed was the first hint that the world could change.
The second, a goddess draped in shadows and poison, tried to ensnare him in a labyrinth of illusions. But Atlas was relentless. He burned her temple to the ground, the flames consuming her whispered threats until nothing but embers remained.
With each god slain, the world felt lighter, as though the sky lifted an inch higher, and people began to hope. The demons, those wretched servants with twisted forms and jagged smiles, fell in droves. Atlas became the monster in the nightmares of beings that had once haunted his own dreams.
Decades passed, and legends of the hunter who could kill gods spread from city to city. His name, Atlas, became a rallying cry for those who had once feared to stand tall. Yet even as the gods' numbers dwindled, one remained the greatest of them all. A god whose true name was forgotten but who was known now only as "The Sovereign", the first of the false gods and the one who had sent the demons to raze Atlas's home.
The Sovereign awaited him in a palace carved from a mountain of black stone. The place pulsed with an ancient, terrible power, and the air itself felt heavy, as though it resisted Atlas's approach. He stepped through its massive gates, their obsidian surface reflecting his scarred face, eyes that burned with relentless purpose.
"Atlas," a voice rumbled from the dark, a voice that seemed to speak from within the stone itself. "You've come so far. For what? The ashes of mortals long forgotten?"
"I've come for you," Atlas replied, the blade in his hand glinting with an edge so keen it seemed to hum.
They fought, and the palace shook with the force of their blows. Each strike reverberated through Atlas's bones; each wound bled not just his blood but the last remnants of his grief. The Sovereign's power was like nothing he had faced a storm of energy that shattered columns and split the ground beneath their feet. Yet, Atlas stood his ground, cutting, striking, enduring.
But even iron can break. In a final, desperate move, The Sovereign lashed out with a blast of light so fierce it seared the very air. Atlas was thrown back, his body crumpling against the ruined floor, his knife slipping from his fingers. He gasped for breath, eyes unfocused, the room spinning.
The Sovereign loomed over him, eyes glowing with victory but tinged with something new: respect, and perhaps fear. He could have ended it then, crushed the last ember of humanity's defiance. But he hesitated.
"You are more than they were," The Sovereign said, voice low and almost mournful. "Perhaps… that is enough."
The god turned, his colossal form casting a shadow that retreated as he walked away. Atlas lay there, the weight of defeat pressing into him as the sounds of battle faded to silence. He was alive, but broken. The Sovereign, whether moved by Atlas's defiance or tired of endless war, left the human race untouched. The gods' power waned, their influence fading into stories told by firelight.
And so, Atlas's name was passed down, a warning, a testament, and a tale of resilience. Some said he lived on, watching from afar, waiting for the day a new threat would rise. Others believed he succumbed to the wounds that victory carved into him.
But one truth endured Atlas, the man who hunted gods, had become legend. And The Sovereign, with his power unchecked but now tempered by fear, ruled no longer with arrogance but with the knowledge that even gods could fall.