The forge, usually a place of divine stillness and purpose, trembled with an unfamiliar violence.
Inside, Ogou stood alone—his iron-clad arms crossed, head bowed. The flames around him roared not from fuel but from fury. Something sacred had been defiled. A mark—his mark—had been torn from the flesh of one bound to him.
He did not speak. He did not shout.
He walked.
The first step he took cracked the stone beneath his feet, flames licking upward in the shape of a sigil. His second scorched a path through the earth. With each step, the heat behind him rose—the forge raged, not in creation but in vengeance.
Outside, the sky darkened unnaturally. Clouds gathered like soldiers at war. Lightning split the heavens, not once—but again, and again, and again, clashing like the roar of iron blades. The people of Kan Ogou looked upward and fell to their knees, not out of reverence—but dread.
Ogou emerged from the forge slowly, deliberately. His eyes were not fire—they were deeper, darker. They were molten judgment.
The trees bowed, their leaves shriveling from the heat that radiated with every step. The air itself cracked, unable to bear the weight of his presence. Birds fell silent. Beasts hid in the shadows of the world, refusing to look upon the god who no longer protected, but punished.
And still, he walked.
Every step branded the earth, flames hissing in the outline of his footprints. Grass turned to ash. The jungle parted without being touched.
His destination was far—another tribe, another land. But Ogou did not need distance.
He needed purpose.
The moment his rage had been kindled, the ground between worlds began to collapse beneath his will. Each step reverberated not only through earth and sky, but through the spiritual veins that connected all living things.
A storm followed him—not weather, but judgment made sky. A god's fury, measured in lightning and fire.
He said nothing.
The people did not dare to ask.
And far away, across rivers and thickets and the bones of other fallen tribes, the god who dared desecrate his sigil began to tremble, sensing too late that the god of iron and fire had risen—not as a patron, but as a force of reckoning.
Far from Kan Ogou, in a land where snow clung to the blackened trees and hunger chewed into every breath, the rival tribe huddled beneath their totems of bone and broken stone.
They had taken a prisoner — a scout from Kan Ogou — and defiled the sigil carved into his chest. They had burned it from his flesh, mocked the mark, and thrown the body into the frozen woods like spoiled meat.
They thought themselves safe.
Their god, Maleth, stood atop a ridge carved by time and ritual. He was a twisted figure, cloaked in shadows and antlers, his limbs too long, his face more beast than man. His power came from death—not glory, not flame, but the cold silence of decay.
He felt the tremor first.
Then the fire.
The sky ignited.
A single line of flame, red as blood, split through the heavens. Then came the thunder — a sound like ten thousand anvils slamming into bone.
The villagers screamed. Some dropped to the earth, weeping. Others ran — but to where?
Ogou had arrived.
He walked into their village unannounced, uninvited, and utterly unconcerned. His armor pulsed like a living forge, every inch of it radiating molten fury. His hammer hung at his side — untouched, not yet needed. The mere sight of him was enough to burn away the snow, revealing the scorched bones of the land beneath.
Maleth emerged, towering over the thatched huts and sacred poles of his people.
"You tread where you are not welcome," the beast-god hissed, his breath freezing the air between them. "Go back to your fire, Ogou. This is not your place."
Ogou did not slow.
He stopped ten paces away — no more, no less.
And only then did he speak.
"You tore my mark from one bound to me. You fed his blood to the snow. You thought I would not come."
The wind howled.
Maleth bared his jagged teeth. "He was mortal. His mark means nothing here."
Ogou stepped forward. "Then let us see what mine means."
He lifted his hand — not the hammer, not yet — and pointed it to the earth.
The forge erupted beneath their feet.
Fire cracked open the frozen soil like shattered glass. Stone pillars forged of flame and smoke rose from the ground, encircling the two gods.
Maleth roared, summoning a tide of shadows that surged toward Ogou like wolves.
But Ogou did not move.
He stood still — and the shadows burned before they touched him.
The first swing of Maleth's claw struck with a force that split the earth, throwing trees into the air like feathers.
Ogou caught the blow with one hand.
And broke it.
A crack echoed like the splitting of mountains. Maleth screamed, his monstrous arm bending at an impossible angle.
Ogou answered with his hammer.
It did not swing. It fell.
Straight down — like judgment.
It struck the beast-god's chest, smashing him into the ground with the weight of a god's fury. The snow vaporized around them. Ice turned to ash. Fire bled from the crater.
Maleth crawled from the ruin, his body twisted, steaming.
"You… cannot destroy me," he rasped.
Ogou's voice was iron.
"No. But I will burn you from memory."
And he did.
He walked forward — slowly — lifted Maleth by the throat, and held him to the sky.
Lightning bent toward his hand. Thunder screamed in the language of war.
And then—fire.
The sky itself opened. Not with mercy. Not with light.
With vengeance.
Maleth screamed once more — and was gone. Consumed. No bones, no ash, not even a whisper left behind.
Only silence.
Ogou turned to the trembling enemy tribe, still on their knees.
The sun had not yet risen when the forge doors groaned open.
The winds around Kan Ogou stilled. Flames dimmed as if bowing in reverence. Those nearest the forge paused their work and turned, sensing something beyond mortal understanding approaching.
Ogou emerged.
But this time, he was not alone.
Cradled in his massive arms — like a father returning a wounded son — was Mirol, the scout who had been taken. His body was broken, pale with blood loss, the sigil once burned from his chest now a torn scar. But his spirit… his spirit still flickered like a dying ember refusing to surrender.
Maela ran first. Behind her, Zaruko and two of the inner circle followed, expressions torn between awe and dread. None spoke as Ogou approached, the heat around him bending the very air.
He gently laid Mirol at Maela's feet.
"He did not break," Ogou said simply. "Even as they carved away his connection, he held to me with his last breath."
Maela knelt beside the young warrior and began her work without hesitation. Her hands moved with skill, but her eyes were glassy — overwhelmed not by the injury, but the return itself.
Ogou stepped back, and before anyone could react, he knelt — placing his hand above Mirol's chest.
From his palm, molten fire shimmered.
But it did not burn.
It danced.
It etched.
A new sigil — brighter, deeper, more intricate — formed just above Mirol's heart. Unlike the first, this one pulsed with a soft crimson glow. It was alive. A bond reforged in suffering and sealed by Ogou himself.
The onlookers fell silent.
Zaruko stepped forward.
"Will he live?"
Ogou looked at him — the heat in his eyes no longer wrathful, but enduring.
"Yes. And stronger than before. This mark… is not only a brand of protection. It is memory. My fire lives in him now."
With that, Ogou turned toward the forge. He did not ask for gratitude. He did not wait for thanks.
He vanished once more into the flame, leaving behind a healed warrior, a tribe forever changed — and a silence filled with the weight of godly justice.
He pointed to the melted stone where Maleth once stood.
"Let no hand touch my mark again."
And with that, he vanished, leaving behind only scorched footprints — still smoldering.