The Extra Can't be A Hero

Chapter 368: Reaching Heaven (3)

Amon and Yue passed through Heaven's Gate, and the clouds parted for them like curtains drawn aside by unseen hands.

They had heard so many things about Heaven.

That it was a place of gilded halls stretching endlessly into the horizon, of ornate palaces carved from light itself.

The Holy Church had spoken of it as the final sanctuary, a Utopia where want did not exist, where the dead were reunited with the living, where souls feasted and laughed and wept in joy for all eternity beneath the Kingdom of God.

What greeted them instead was silence.

Radiant light spilled across everything, sourceless and absolute, reflecting off the clouds that served as the ground beneath their feet.

It was beautiful, in the way that a vast and empty canvas was beautiful, full of potential that had simply never been realised.

There was nothing here.

No palaces. No gilded halls. No souls laughing in reunion.

No gardens heavy with fruit, no rivers running silver.

For miles and miles in every direction, Heaven offered only itself… light, and cloud, and the hollow resonance of a place that had been forgotten.

Heaven was not a sanctuary.

It was a graveyard of promises.

"So much for a Utopia."

Yue's voice cut clean through the silence, sharp as a blade unsheathed. She wandered a few steps forward, her gaze roving across the endless nothing with something between disdain and pity.

The Holy Church had sold this… this as the greatest reward a mortal soul could aspire to. A desert of clouds dressed up in prophecy and prayer.

Amon said nothing, but his nod was enough. He stood still, eyes half-lidded, reaching outward with something deeper than sight. He felt the vibrations moving through the clouds beneath his feet — subtle, rhythmic, like a heartbeat buried beneath stone. He felt the resonance singing through the upper atmosphere, the air itself trembling with the weight of something ancient.

And beneath it all, unmistakable: The aura of the First Throne.

"Yue."

A single word and she was already turning toward him.

"Got it."

She took his hand.

The world warped and then ceased to exist for half a breath, and then resolved again, sharp and sudden, as though reality had skipped a page.

What stood before them now stole the words from both their mouths.

The First Throne.

It rose from the clouds like a decree made manifest… a seat of black and white, absolute in its geometry, flawless in its construction.

It did not gleam. It did not need to. It simply was, in the way that laws and judgements simply were — inevitable, uncompromising, beyond appeal.

The aura that poured from it pressed against Amon's chest like a hand laid flat against a door, not hostile, but immovable.

Even he, the newly ascended God destined to claim its power, felt the weight of it.

Felt, for just a moment, the breath-stealing enormity of what it meant to sit upon the First Throne.

The prime position of the Pantheon.

The place from which all divine authority flowed.

It was his... But the seat was not yet ready for him to claim.

The clouds fractured.

It began as a tremor, something breaking through from underneath, pushing upward with quiet, unstoppable insistence.

A sprout emerged first, pale and thin as a whisper. Then it grew. In seconds, it had become a tree, vast, ancient, its bark silver-grey and deeply gnarled, its branches spreading wide enough to blot out a small sky.

The trunk groaned with history.

With the weight of millions of years. And set within the cradle of its highest branches was a throne. Or what remained of one.

It was a ruined thing. Dilapidated, its carvings worn smooth by uncountable ages, its once-resplendent surface dull and hollow.

Where the First Throne blazed with restrained authority, this one had been emptied completely.

Every trace of divinity that had once lived within it had been drawn out, consumed, sacrificed across an unimaginable span of time.

The original throne.

The seat that had come before all others.

The place where Hyades had sat for millions of years.

And sitting upon it now was a woman who looked like she might dissolve if the wind changed. She was gaunt, not merely thin, but hollowed, as though something fundamental had been extracted from her. Her hair fell in tangled curtains the colour of dying moss, emerald dulled to something greyer.

Her eyes were sunken and empty, the way wells looked in droughts, dark and depthless and without reflection. Wrinkles mapped her skin like the rings of a tree counted wrong, too many, too deep, carved by something beyond ordinary age.

She did not move.

She simply sat, and looked at them, and breathed.

Amon and Yue stood frozen.

Of all the ways they had imagined this moment, of all the shapes they had given their final enemy in the quiet hours between battles, neither of them had imagined this.

Hyades.

The name that had echoed through divine history like thunder through a canyon. The God who had held the Pantheon in her palm, who had outlasted civilisations, who had watched stars burn out and been unmoved.

She looked like a woman who had simply run out of time.

"Amon Solaris… Yue Elune… You dare step foot on my domain!"

"Hyades… Let's just stop."

Instead of picking up his sword, Amon shot Hyades with a sympathetic gaze.

"I know why you're trying to horde the Mandate of Heaven… You're afraid that if the dimension evolves, we will be invaded by the Demon Realm. In the Prophet's dying moments, he divulged the truth to me."

"... what?"

"The Demon King always had the ability to destroy our dimension. If he wanted to, he could destroy it right this instant. The only way we can be free of their influence, is to become strong enough to defend ourselves."

"..."

"If we continue to fight, it would only be to the Demon King's benefit. Let us evolve the realm, and I promise you will be granted a place in the new Pantheon."

Amon gave Hyades a new proposal. Despite all of the grievances Hyades had caused them… she was a Goddess who had ruled the dimension for millions of years. If she were willing to take a spot in the new Pantheon, her power and experience would be invaluable for Amon and the other Gods.

Hyades remained silent. However, despite being fed new information, Hyades's eyes didn't become thoughtful

On the contrary, the fire in her eyes only burned brighter.

"I know that."

"... what?"

Now, it was Amon's time to be confused. If she knew the Demon King's plans all along… Why was she so against the new Pantheon?

"From the beginning, I knew that the Demon King could destroy our planet. But, that's not the reason why I prevented the world from evolving."

"Then… why?"

"..."

Seeing that her strength was waning and there was little chance of victory, Hyades bit down hard on her lip before confessing.

"Because… I don't want the world to fall into ruin."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you think you guys are the first Pantheon of Gods this planet has ever experienced?"

"!!!"

The revelation made both Amon and Yue freeze. The only history that the pair were aware of were the Age of Man, the Age of Dragons and the Age of the Titans. Now, they were told that there was an age far before that.

"The history you know is pitifully little," Hyades scoffed before continuing "Do you know how many cycles the Mandate of Heaven had? How many Gods have risen and fallen? How many species have been annihilated because of the Mandate of Heaven's will to evolve?"

"You mean…"

"Hah… That's right. All of this is a never-ending cycle."

Hyades growled with venom in her voice. Although she held and monopolised the Mandate of Heaven for the longest time, she also despised it. Loathed it with all her heart. Yet, she could never let it free.

"Each cycle empowers the Mandate of Heaven, and each cycle brings forth countless death and destruction. Before I became the Goddess… I was just a simple mage. But, I was dragged into the war between gods."

The Goddess's eyes burned with hate as she recollected the painful years she spent at the mercy of someone else.

"Gods would wage wars over petty reasons. One God would covet another's wife. Another God would wipe out a country because they didn't meet their sacrifice tithes… It was an era where the Gods ruled the planet by their whims, instead of justice and prosperity."

"..."

"And whenever the Mandate of Heaven enters a new cycle, the Gods would wage war, plunging the world into a new era of darkness."

"..."

Amon and Yue looked at each other, as the final pieces of the puzzle fell in place. Amon recalled that the Clay Emperor who slumbered within the Eternal Storm, was buried after a dimensional war. A war that destroyed the planet.

At first, Amon brushed it off, thinking it was the Titans who had caused the demise of the ancient Clay Empire, but it seemed… They were destroyed by one of the ancient wars before Hyades claimed the Mandate of Heaven.

"I changed that."

Hyades declared with cold authority.

"I single-handedly took the Mandate of Heaven away from the selfish Gods. I suppressed the Mandate of Heaven, creating a fake one to spread among the masses. The Titans, Dragons, Demons and even mankind… they were only able to seize the false Mandate of Heaven, while I firmly held onto the real one."

Hyades gritted her teeth, as she recalled the years of solitude she sat on the throne, firmly holding onto the Mandate of Heaven.

Despite being all alone, despite having nothing in heaven to entertain her, Hyades remained firm.

She sacrificed herself… to hold onto the Mandate of Heaven… all to protect the realm.

"And now… you're trying to bring back the chaos I sealed… so tell me… Why should I?"