EDGE

"Then that wouldn't be Fate, would it?", the voice replied, its tone thickly coated with sarcasm.

"Hmmm...you got me there", the man mumbled as he adjusted his tie. He then walked over to a blank wall to his right - his long strides covering the large distance within a matter of seconds. His index finger tapped the white marble wall and it immediately turned viscous. Ripples emerged from where he touched the wall before it opened up to form a large window that revealed a breathtaking view.

Massive palaces and endless gardens, exotic birds and stunning parks, mythical creatures and gorgeous fountains. The bustling streets were filled with a number of unnaturally beautiful people who radiated power and looked ageless. The sun peaked out from behind the clouds ever so slightly, bathing the mountainside in light orange, as though it were coated with honey. If there ever were Paradise, this would be it, yet the man's expression remained as it was.

"How did Apollo fare?", he said, looking at the endless sea of clouds at the bottom of the floating mountain.

"He failed. He is reforming as we speak", the wizened voice replied, schadenfreude evident in its voice.

The man's eyebrow lightly twitched.

"Who did he meet?"

Silence.

"Who did he meet?", he repeated, his voice heavier and his eyes narrowing.

"We do not know"

"WHAT!", he thundered and whirled around. Three bluish-purple strings extended from his midsection and coalesced into three separate, hunched figures. They were ancient women with silver hair tied back in a white bandana and bony arms. They all wore identical cotton dresses but each held different objects.

Clotho, The Fate of Birth, held a large ball of yarn.

Lachesis, The Fate of Life, held two knitting needles and seemed to be in the midst of knitting something using Clotho's yarn.

Atropos, The Fate of Death, held a large pair of pitch-black scissors that radiated danger.

They were the Moirai, better known as the Fates.

"You lie. Out with it! Who is it? Is it the anomaly?", Zeus growled and the hands clasped behind his back crackled with bright blue lightning.

The Moirai could lay out a myriad of Paths that could happen and even influence them to a certain degree. He had used them to carefully plan out his next moves, albeit with varying degrees of failure. After all, the Moirai, despite dwarfing almost every being he'd known, weren't omniscient. Even so, their foresight lost all credibility when the Fall occurred.

The Sky should have never met the Earth.

Ever.

He had the Moirai under his control and he would know if their Divinities were affected, thus he could only attribute it to either reality having gone to shit or chalk it up to a being he named the Anomaly.

A being free from the constraints of the World.

A Fateless one.

One who wrote their own destiny.

"We do not lie", the Moirai said in harmony. "It is not the Anomaly either. Our strings have been purged from this one."

Zeus' countenance darkened, akin to a thundercloud. If the strings had been purged from the being, then the Moirai would have no influence over them.

"Another Anomaly?"

Silence.

"ANSWER ME!", he thundered and his left eye briefly flickered purple, his pupils taking the form of a wilted lotus.

"Ugh!", the Fates groaned as an Ichor trickled down their chin. It was evident that they did not want to answer the man. Hate could clearly be seen festering behind their cloudy pupils.

"No, not an anomaly", Clotho spat, wiping her chin. "The World still affects the being."

"What?!", Zeus frowned. He had never encountered such a God. A God who did not possess Fate strings but was still affected by the World and the Backlash that came with it? Just what was going on? First, the Anomaly who threw a wrench in his every plan and now this?

"Where is its location?", he mumbled.

"We do not know."

"What? Did my son not tell the council?"

"He did tell the council that he was going to investigate an energy surge, but not where said surge was."

"Fuck!", a bolt of Lightning unintentionally shot out from his shoulder and blasted the wall to his left. It reformed instantly, but Zeus did not seem to be any less angry. "Tell me some good news. There has to be some. I did not slumber for this long after the Fall to wake up to this."

The Moirai did not answer.

Zeus slowly looked up, his eye's now bright blue.

CRACK!

Ribbons of blue lightning curled about his wide frame, the floor cracking due to his aura alone.

"You seem to forget something", he said, taking a step forward and bearing down on the three women. "I COMMAND you. No matter how powerful you are, you shall remain trapped because I say so. I sense you are withholding something. So SPEAK!"

Clotho sighed before speaking begrudgingly, "Thoon has been slain"

The Lightning surrounding Zeus flickered before disappearing as he looked up in genuine surprise.

"Him? How?", he said, his mind going back to the first Gigantomachy. Even Porphyrion, the Giant who was hailed to be a direct counter to him, didn't pose as much of a challenge as the Ruler of Destiny, Thoon, did. At his peak, his power level allowed him to match the strongest attack the Master Bolt could conjure. If it were not for the Moirai's assistance, Olympus would've fallen aeons ago.

"We do not know."

"Fucking USELESS!", He boomed and the Moirai coughed another glob of Ichor.

"We believe it to be the Anomaly this time", Atropos said hurriedly and he calmed down before looking out the window.

The Moirai had sealed a large part of Thoon's powers when he was defeated - not killed, mind you - in the first Gigantomachy and the giant had probably been further weakened over the years, thus he wasn't much of a risk this time. His death was good news, not due to the threat he presented, but due to a deal Zeus had struck with a certain someone.

"We shall speak more of this incident later. Time is of the essence currently", Zeus said before flicking a finger. The Moirai turned back into bluish-purple strings that were absorbed back into his midsection.

"Hup!"

With a leap, he jumped out the large window but instead of plummeting to the ground, he shot toward the sky with a sonic boom.

***

BOOM!

Another sonic boom sounded as Zeus broke through the Mesosphere and into the Thermosphere, the temperature giving him no discomfort, yet his face was scrunched up in pain as Ichor climbed up his throat. He was facing backlash for merely flying too high. The World was cruel indeed.

The Mesosphere marked the end of his Domain and the boundary from which he would begin facing the World's wrath. It never liked God's trying to escape its control even though it had a foolproof failsafe.

Seconds ticked by as he shot directly upward and endured the stabbing pain in his chest. His injuries began to accumulate, becoming more dangerous by the second. It was as though his insides were slowly burning up and liquefying into golden sludge but eventually, he reached his goal.

He broke through a giant cloud and what met his eyes made him gasp in wonder. He'd never get used to the sight. He had reached the border of the Exosphere. The closest he could ever get to the Edge of Space.

***

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