Chapter 310

The gods watched from their distant place, removed from all things that crawled upon the earth. They had been patient. They had been kind. But all of that ended when they looked down upon the people they had created and saw the endless stretch of greed, the rapacious hunger for more, for power, for dominion over what they did not own. The earth groaned under the weight of their destruction.

Once, humans had been a curious species. They asked questions, they built, they learned. The gods had watched them in the early days, proud of the spark in them, the strange light that shone in their eyes as they reached for the unknown. But something had changed. Somewhere along the way, the spark turned into a fire that consumed all in its path.

The gods grew tired. They looked upon the earth and saw the scars left by humanity: forests leveled, oceans poisoned, skies choked with smoke. It was no longer enough to learn, to explore. No, now they took for the sake of taking. Now they destroyed for the sake of destruction. The gods had given them everything, and still they wanted more.

And so, they decided. It was time to end it. Time to give the earth to something else, something quieter, something that would not taint the world with its greed.

Miles away from the crumbling cities, in a forest forgotten by time, a woman stood. Her name was Clara. She had always been different, even when she was a child. She had seen the world for what it truly was long before the others had. She had always understood that humans were not kind, not even to themselves. Yet, she had tried to remain hopeful, to believe that perhaps one day, people would change.

Now, as she stood in the moonlight, she saw the truth. The gods were tired of them, of humanity, of the endless cycle of greed and destruction. And they had decided. It was over.

Clara had been alone for months. She had watched as the cities around her fell, as the people she once knew turned on each other, desperate to hold onto what little they had left. She had heard the screams, the cries for help, the sound of buildings crashing. But she had been helpless. She had no power to stop it. The gods had seen to that.

She stepped forward into the clearing, the soft crunch of leaves beneath her boots the only sound in the otherwise silent night. She wasn't sure why she had come here. She hadn't meant to, but the pull had been undeniable. The gods had reached out to her, chosen her to witness the end.

As she walked deeper into the woods, she felt the earth shift beneath her. Not in any way she could explain, but she could feel it in her bones, in the way the trees seemed to sway just a little too much. She felt the presence of something ancient, something that had been waiting for this moment for a long time.

The trees parted before her, revealing a stone circle in the center of the clearing. The stones were old, worn by time and weather, but they still held a power, a weight that Clara could feel in the air.

It was then that she heard them. The gods, not in words, not in sound, but in something deeper, more profound. Their thoughts brushed against her mind, cold and indifferent, like a gust of wind through her soul.

"You are the last," they said. "The last of your kind."

Clara's heart beat faster, a mix of terror and understanding flooding her chest. She had known this day would come, but she hadn't thought it would be so soon, so sudden.

"What… what do you want?" she asked, though she knew it wouldn't matter. They didn't need her to ask.

"We are done with you," the voice said, echoing in her mind. "Done with the selfishness, the destruction. We gave you all we had, and still, you took. We gave you life, and you squandered it. We will start again, with something better, something worth saving."

The stones around her began to glow, faint at first, like the first flicker of a flame, then brighter, until the entire circle was bathed in light. Clara stumbled back, her heart hammering.

"They'll be gone," the gods said. "All of them."

Clara closed her eyes, not sure if she could bear to watch. The world around her began to crack, the earth splitting open as the skies above grew darker. It wasn't a storm. It wasn't a natural disaster. No, this was something else. This was the wrath of something far beyond the reach of humankind.

She saw flashes of light, brief moments of clarity amidst the chaos. Buildings falling, the screams of people as the earth swallowed them whole, the oceans rising up and swallowing entire cities. It was happening. The gods were wiping it all away.

She couldn't stop it. She never could. And now, she wouldn't even try. She understood. It was over.

The gods didn't need to destroy humanity all at once. No, they simply made it too much to bear. The weight of the devastation, the finality of it all, was more than any human could carry. And Clara… Clara was the last one left, standing in the center of it all, knowing that she was the only one who had been able to see what was truly happening.

The stones flickered again, and she felt the world shift beneath her feet. She looked up to see a shape in the distance, something moving toward her through the trees. The figure was tall, almost too tall, like a shadow that stretched across the land.

It wasn't human. It wasn't anything that Clara had ever seen before.

The figure stopped before her, its presence overwhelming. Clara tried to move, to run, but she couldn't. She stood frozen, the weight of what she had seen anchoring her in place.

And then, the figure spoke.

"You are the last of them," it said, its voice low and resonant. "The last to understand. The last to know what was done."

Clara nodded, though her throat was tight, her heart filled with grief. She had known. She had always known.

The figure reached out to her, its touch cold but gentle. "You have seen the truth," it said. "And for that, you will not be forgotten."

Clara felt her knees give out beneath her, and she sank to the ground. The figure knelt beside her, its presence filling the space, comforting her in the way only something truly ancient could.

"The world will begin again," it said. "A new species. A new hope. This world will heal, and you will not be a part of it. But you will have peace. Your sacrifice will not be in vain."

And then, as Clara's body finally relaxed, she felt something she hadn't expected. A strange sense of release. She had witnessed the end, and now she would be allowed to rest.

The figure stood, watching her for a moment before it turned and began to walk away. The stones around the circle flickered one last time before they vanished into nothingness.

And as Clara's body lay still in the clearing, the earth began to heal, slowly, but surely, as the gods had promised. The world that had been ravaged by human hands would soon be gone, replaced by something new, something that would not know greed.

For Clara, it was over. And in that, there was peace.