Divine power was merely a byproduct of a god's existence.
A deity's true source of strength lay in its divine status and authority.
If one had to make a comparison, divine power was the water. Authority was the mechanism that drew the water out. Divine status was the reservoir itself.
Jehovah had exhausted every drop of divine power he possessed.
He had no options left.
To continue fueling his shattered authorities, he could only burn the source itself.
His divine status.
The cost would be irreversible.
The damage permanent.
But he had no choice.
Jehovah was God.
The Heavenly Father.
The supreme deity of an entire pantheon.
Even among Earth's gods, his divine status ranked among the highest.
The moment he ignited that source, an endless torrent of divine essence erupted from within him.
The precious energy poured into his broken authorities and, under the guidance of his will, attempted to rewrite everything that had happened to him.
It failed.
The reality already created involved too many intertwined chains of causality.
Too many consequences.
Too many connections.
They exceeded what he could alter.
Forcing the issue would only accelerate the destruction of his authority while making reality's backlash even worse.
So he settled for something less ambitious.
Instead of changing reality, he used causality to resist the universe's correction.
This time, it worked.
A little.
Far too little.
He preserved his existence.
He preserved the religious empire he had spent millennia building.
But he could not preserve his power.
Nor the glorious miracles that had once defined him.
Deep within his soul, where no one could see, his causality authority faded into a vague shadow.
Then it disappeared.
Completely.
And it wasn't alone.
His resurrection authority.
His sacred flame authority.
His authority of omniscience.
His authority to grant blessings and divine power.
His authority to judge darkness and heresy.
One after another, they were stripped from his soul.
His strength plummeted.
Not merely to rock bottom.
Far beneath it.
He had saved his existence.
He had preserved his pantheon.
But the price was unimaginably severe.
And the consequences did not stop with him.
They spread into reality itself.
That day, every believer on Earth felt it.
Catholic.
Protestant.
Orthodox.
It didn't matter.
Anyone who sincerely believed in God felt the same thing.
A sudden wave of terror.
A nameless sense of dread.
And a hollow emptiness deep within their souls.
It felt as though something fundamental had been severed.
Something impossible to describe.
Yet undeniably real.
That was only the spiritual effect.
The physical manifestations were even more shocking.
Across the entire world, every cross cracked.
The massive crosses atop cathedrals.
The small pendants hanging around believers' necks.
Wooden crosses.
Metal crosses.
Crosses bearing the image of Jesus.
Simple crucifixes.
Every single one split down the middle as though struck by an invisible force.
On that same day, cathedrals throughout the Vatican began collapsing.
One after another.
Like buildings caught in a powerful earthquake.
Believers and nonbelievers alike came to the same conclusion.
If God truly existed...
Then something terrible had happened to Him.
Once that realization spread, the entire Western world was thrown into turmoil.
For nearly a thousand years, the singular God who had dominated the spiritual landscape of the West had finally displayed a miracle.
And that miracle had been a public declaration of his own ruin.
It was a tragic irony.
Yet Jehovah had no way to conceal it.
The damage caused by reality's correction could only be mitigated to this extent.
His power had collapsed.
Without that power, everything connected to him naturally reflected the catastrophe.
As for what consequences that would bring to the world, Jehovah no longer had the luxury of caring.
This was the only path available.
And he had chosen it.
Or perhaps more accurately, he had been forced to choose it.
The price was already unbearable.
Yet even that wasn't enough.
Because the Three Supreme Treasures of Chaos clearly had no intention of stopping.
Then, suddenly, sacred hymns echoed throughout the entire Black Hole Dimension.
The dimension itself was singing.
Welcoming the return of its true master.
Its supreme ruler.
Drex Valen.
He descended slowly through the void.
Step by step.
As though invisible stairs existed beneath his feet.
No one knew where he had come from.
No one knew when he had appeared.
One moment he wasn't there.
The next, he was.
And the instant Drex emerged from the God Quarry, several terrifying existences turned their attention toward him.
The ruler of the Crimson Cosmos, Cyttorak.
The creator of black magic, the Elder God Chthon.
Shuma-Gorath, the many-eyed ancient horror.
And the Cosmic Abstracts.
Cyttorak appeared as a colossal giant with crimson skin.
Chthon remained hidden beneath dark robes, his true form concealed within shadow.
Cyttorak required little introduction.
He was the supreme ruler of the Crimson Cosmos.
A being with overwhelming power and an unmatched reputation.
One of the great demon gods of the multiverse.
Chthon was more mysterious.
Far more subtle.
As the God of Black Magic, he had created the original forms of dark sorcery.
Every mage who practiced black magic in later generations ultimately drew upon his power.
Dormammu.
Mephisto.
The Ancient One.
Doctor Strange.
All of them, in one way or another, stood within the shadow of Chthon's legacy.
Then there was Shuma-Gorath.
An ancient entity born from primordial chaos.
One of the eldritch rulers that existed long before most civilizations could even comprehend such beings.
As for the Cosmic Abstracts...
There was hardly any need for explanation.
Their names alone spoke for themselves.
Even Galactus.
People often underestimated him because of his notorious habit of showing up hungry and losing fights.
But with the Ultimate Nullifier in hand, Galactus remained one of the most terrifying beings in existence.
If he truly intended to kill someone, very few could stop him.
Even Rune King-level entities had ultimately fallen because of forces connected to that weapon's power.
Drex Valen had only recently ascended to the level of a multiversal demon god.
Yet his rise had been impossible to ignore.
The commotion he caused during his ascension was simply too great.
After all, he had drained the entire God Quarry.
An act so outrageous that even other multiversal entities were forced to take notice.
Not long ago, he had reached across the timeline itself, dragged a future version of Franklin Richards out of his own era, and promptly spanked the overpowered cosmic troublemaker before kicking him back where he belonged.
Franklin had spent the entire encounter smiling nervously and offering no resistance whatsoever.
By the time he returned to his own timeline, he was perfectly fine.
The two of them had understood each other perfectly.
Drex knew exactly what Franklin would become.
An adult Franklin Richards possessed the power to create multiple multiverses.
That placed him firmly beyond ordinary multiversal entities.
A true heavyweight among cosmic beings.
For that reason, Drex hadn't pushed things too far.
Not unless he someday reached that level himself.
Or surpassed it.
Because becoming a multiversal powerhouse only meant one thing.
Sooner or later, he would have to face beings like the Cosmic Abstracts.
The Annihilation Swarm.
The Living Tribunal.
The Beyonders.
Molecule Man.
And countless other monsters lurking at the top of existence itself.