A handsome white-haired man wearing a white suit stood on a cliff, the clouds visible below. No life could be seen except him and the one behind. It was a woman, with a long blue hair.

“Eris, did you bring them back?” he asked without looking back.

“No problem at all.” she said in a cheerful tone.

“Then that’s good, now the frozen time can move on again.” smirked the man.

“Yeah, the countdown has finally started.” said Eris with a disturbing grin on her face.

The man moved his arms, as the clouds below started changing colors. Now it was showing something. If you looked good enough, it would be seen showing the battle between Raven and Jet.

“This is interesting; this Jet kid couldn’t be the reincarnation of Raul, could he?”

“Any human who can fight Crow’s reincarnation would logically be him, isn’t that right, Helios?”

“Yeah, only that Tyrant can do that.”

…

Meanwhile in Olympus, the gods were in shambles. The situation Asgard weren’t better off. In fact, even the Pagans could feel it, a feeling they had long since forgotten. In fact, their respective paranoid leaders had actually called for a meeting.

An old, yet muscular man with white beard and hair asked “Odin, you can feel it too?”

Another old man resembling the first, but with an eye patch said “Yes, something I’m sure all of us has forgotten.”

“I suggest we crush all the mortals before they can riot.” Said a man with a fierce face and a scar across his eye.

“You dare show up here, Ares!!!” shouted out Zeus, the first man.

A man with a gentle face and a red spot on his forehead said “Instead of using brute force, how about knowing the details and trying to prevent it? You surely know something, Chronos.”

The agelessly old man sitting on the end of the table said “No, there are too many possibilities. Luckily, our loss is in the minority.”

“Does that mean it is safe?” asked the previous one.

“I hope so.” answered the oldest god.

Right then, a beautiful woman with a stone mirror in her hand opened her mouth, everyone else closed their mouths. “It feels like Helios is doing something.” she said, and looked at Ra.

“The same goes for me.” said the few worded god of Egypt.

“We can’t interfere with the mortal world, so how about we let our children handle this?” said a wise looking man with the head of an ibis.

“The one move without losses, Thoth?” asked a wise looking woman.

“If Thoth and Seshat have the same opinion, we have no say in this matter.” said the chief god, Chronos. He asked the others for their opinion, but received silence “Then, I hereby declare this meeting over.”

…

On Terra, something interesting was brewing. And it was entirely Elis and Helios’s fault for committing the taboo, summoning The 10 back.

“My king, we have sufficient food supply for 1000.” reported a pale-skinned burly man to another pale-skinned, yet smaller man. He was currently sitting on a throne and was wearing black and red formal clothes, and had one-eye glasses. Surprisingly, the millennia old vampire was handsome.

“How about the bandits?” he looked at his most trusted general, wearing military style, black and red clothes and asked.

“They’ve been cursed, but the success rate, by estimation is 10%.”

“Hmm, we still don’t have enough. Quality without quantity is weak. Find more strong and stronger men.”

“Yes, my lord.” he reported and turned to leave.

“Do you know what happened of the messenger?”

“The one four years ago?”

“Yes, that one.”

“It seems he has done his job.” answered the general.

“Find him.” he demanded.

…

“Do you understand your mission?” asked a man wearing majestic white clothes and a matching tall hat. He was old, almost ancient, and of course, was sitting on a throne like seat. He wasn’t alone, with 8 more sitting with him.

This was the Hall of God, where the most influential religious leaders sat. One of them looked far younger, others not that different from the first one.

“Yes, arch-bishop.” answered the currently kneeling man wearing a white shirt with a red cross on its chest and had a sword sheathed, possibly enchanted or blessed. His hair was jet black and so were his eyes. He then continued “Our mission is to crush all who use the divine power without God’s consent.”

“Then I’ll bestow this responsibility upon you and your Templars” said the arch-bishop.

“It is my honor.”

…

Shouted a man wearing army clothes “What do you mean by ‘disappeared’?”

Answered another man wearing the same clothes, but he had only 1 star on his medallion, instead of the 3 star standing in front of him. “I mean, the cells are all empty.”

“They… escaped.” said the first man, horror in his eyes.

“But how, commander?” asked the new recruit.

“If I knew that, they would be in their cells.” said the acting chief-in-command of the Faustian Prison, one of the most highly secured jails in Terra.

…

“Who dares awaken me from my slumber?!” said a deep-voiced woman in a building entirely made of ice.

“My queen, it has been millennia.”

“Oh, it’s that time again.” said the young looking woman, apparently older than at least millennia old, with white hair and deep blue eyes. She was emitting a cold aura, almost to the point of sparkling.

She put her hand on the ice floor and the earth, or ice, started shaking. The ice cracked as a pure white dragon appeared. It was almost 16 meters long and 10 meters tall, but the spacious room provided enough space.

“It’s time to dye the world in blue again, Shiro.” said the Ice Queen as she caressed the ice-cold dragon.

“Ah, it feels like centuries since I last came out.” said the dragon, supposedly female.

“That’s right, it’s been millennia. So, how about playing a little game on that fellow over there?”

“You never get bored of that, do you, Hina?” asked the goddess.

“Of course, it’s so fun to see them begging for mercy.”

…

“That’s brilliant, you’re a genius, Alysteir.” said a red-haired man wearing a hoodless red robe looking at a woman with the same type of clothing, but a lighter shade of the color. She had blue hair and was quite beautiful.

“Thank you, leader.” said the girl, a little shy.

“You can call me Roger. If you handed it over to the cult higher-ups, you can even become someone with a bigger rank than me.” said Roger, with eyes full of respect.

They were in a cult called Cult of Primordial Destruction, a bunch of lunatics who believe the world must return to dust and is currently trying to open the portal to hell and bring forth destruction upon the world, with their lives unregarded.

The girl named Alysteir had just created a part of the circle for optimizing power usage. With this, they would decrease the number of the sacrifices exponentially, thus, the chances of them being found out by the world, at least before it’s too late.

Roger then motioned for her to follow him and opened a door to an otherwise forbidden room, a room with a portal.

…

Around the West end of the world, deep into the Land of the Fallen, the city of Tombator stood. It was a residing place of the necromancers responsible for bringing that name to the land. Most were liches and the minority was alive, and a few inbetween could be seen.

“It’s about time for us to move.” said a floating skull.

“Winter is coming, shouldn’t we wait it out.” said a lich, donning a tattered blue robe.

A necromancer answered “Our troops aren’t dependent on climate, we can win this way.”

“But we will lose most of our forces to the dragon.” said the first one, in his defense.

“When have we been short on minions?” asked the floating skull.

“I understand, master.” answered the lich.

Then the floating skull continued “I have survived the Winter once before, I was alive then. It was indeed terrifying, but in the end, we won. How do you think?”

“With strategy.”

“With heroes.” and dozens of other answers resounded through the hall.

“No, it was resilience, and what we don’t lack is just that. We can defeat the Winter and reign the world as its rulers!!!” the unsynchronized answers turned into perfectly tuned cheering.