​The Duke’s face had gone completely dark with a territorial, protective fury. He yanked his stallion around, his massive hand flying straight to the hilt of his insulated blade.

The silver-white light on the steel hummed aggressively, vibrating in perfect sync with the sheer, unadulterated possessiveness pouring from Alaric’s heart.

He didn’t care if this entity had just been revealed as the literal creator of all life in the universe; if the bastard was sitting behind Julian on a horse, he was a target.

​Norx didn’t even flinch. Sitting cross-legged behind Julian’s saddle like a petulant teenager on a park bench, he merely rolled his menacing red eyes and let out a loud, dramatic click of his tongue.

His two long tails of dark hair swished lazily over the horse’s flanks, and his bushy black hair floated in the air, completely ignoring gravity.

​"Hah? Yes, I know he is ’your man,’ but do not try to rub it in, you oversized mortal. That is a very sore spot." Norx hissed, tightening his folded arms across his exposed, tanned chest.

He intentionally leaned an inch closer to Julian’s shoulder, a mocking, spoiled smirk twisting his features.

"Besides, Alias told me to join his family. That means I go where he goes. Deal with it, bug."

​"I will take your head off!" Alaric bared his teeth, the terrifying aura of an apex predator exploding from his frame so violently that the grass beneath his horse’s hooves instantly withered.

​"Try it! My creations might be garbage, but I can still turn them into something worse than garbage. Don’t believe me?" He snapped his fingers and pointed at Alaric’s horse. "Watch as I turned your horse into a giant toad!" He shot right back, his voice cracked but entirely arrogant.

​A cold sweat rolled down Julian’s temple. He sat rigidly in the middle of the squabble, feeling the absurd contrast between the world-ending divine standoff that had just occurred in the void and the petty bickering currently happening over his reins.

He looked at Alaric’s twitching jaw, then felt the stubborn, heavy weight of the fallen god pressed against his back.

It was definitely not going well.

​"Both of you, stop it," Julian commanded, his smooth scholar’s cadence returning with a sharp, flat authority that made both men freeze.

He raised a hand, placing it firmly against Alaric’s forearm before the Duke could actually draw his sword, while casting a stern, warning glare over his shoulder at Norx.

"We are in front of the entire vanguard. Don’t make a fuss yet and retain some dignity." He whispered.

​Behind them, Kaelen and the northern knights were staring with their mouths completely hanging open. Commander Nadic and the Holy Knights, who were still on their knees in the dirt further back, looked thoroughly traumatized.

They had just witnessed their ancient deity ascend to the heavens, only to be left behind with a loose-robed, bare-chested creator god who was currently fighting their savior for seat space on a stallion.

​"Sir Kaelen, Commander Nadic," Julian called out, clearing his throat as he forced his voice to remain perfectly level. "The miasma is entirely gone, and the pass is secure. Order the men to mount up. We are returning to the Holy City."

​"Y-Yes, Master Julian!" Kaelen stammered, quickly scrambling back onto his horse, though his eyes never left Norx.

​Nadic slowly rose, wiping the tears of repentance from his face, his eyes fixed on the dirt as he signaled the Holy Knights. In the distance, the Pope and the council elders were still prostrated in the mud, sobbing prayers of forgiveness, entirely too terrified to even approach the vanguard after catching a glimpse of Alias’s light.

​Alaric didn’t lower his hand from his sword hilt, his sharp blue eyes locking onto Julian’s face with a heavy, demanding intensity. "Julian. We are having a long talk the moment we hit the gates."

​"I know, Lucien," Julian murmured softly, his features softening into a genuinely reassuring smile as he reached out to pat Alaric’s leather-gloved hand. "I will explain everything. I promise."

​"He’s going to sleep on the floor," Norx muttered under his breath from behind, completely ruining the moment.

​"Quiet, Norx," Julian and Alaric snapped in perfect, overlapping unison.

​With a final, deeply frustrated grunt, Alaric turned his stallion around to lead the formation.

The vanguard began its march back toward the Spire, moving under a beautifully cleared sky that finally let the sun warm the land.

The tragic loop was broken, the sister was saved, and a new dawn had arrived—even if it meant Julian now had to manage a household consisting of a fiercely protective lover, a shy son, and a chaotic, disgruntled creator god.

The march back to the Holy City proceeded under an uncharacteristically bright, warm sun, but the atmosphere within the vanguard remained thick with an entirely different kind of tension.

Alaric rode at the front, his back rigidly straight, though his sharp blue eyes constantly drifted toward his side to glare at the hitchhiker clinging to Julian’s saddle.

Norx, true to his word, spent the entire journey pulling at Alaric’s strings—intentionally shifting his weight, sighing loudly, and resting his chin near Julian’s shoulder just to watch the veins in the Duke’s neck pulse with raw fury.

​As the vanguard approached the outer perimeter of the pass, the prostrated figures of Pope Clement and the council elders finally scrambled to their feet. Their silver robes were caked in mud, their eyes red and swollen from their frantic prayers of repentance.

​The Pope rushed forward, his hands trembling as he approached Commander Nadic’s horse, entirely too intimidated by the radiant aura of Julian and the stranger behind him to address the Saint directly.

​"Commander," Pope Clement whispered hoarsely, his eyes darting fearfully toward Norx’s long, floating dark hair and menacing red eyes. "The light... we felt the absolute frequency of the Divine. We saw the true form of our god ascend. But who... who is the entity riding behind the Saint? The pressure radiating from him is colossal."

​Nadic swallowed hard, looking down at the high priest with a look of profound, lingering shock. "Your Holiness... that is the Creator of Life. The one who authored the very framework of the flesh and the god that had fallen and created the demons. He is called Norx."