As they lightly chatted, Zark suddenly chuckled. It sounded like he was happy, but everyone knew that a being like him rarely smiled outside his family.

This chuckle was of amusement and heavy disdain. Disdain, possibly towards a foolish being or perhaps a god.

"You’ve another god of Death after you, and this one is particularly very, very famous, unlike the foolish Voriel," Zark said with a smile towards Ethan.

"Who?" Ethan asked, though his father’s smile told him more. Especially after he looked at Lamair.

"He’s related to Lamair in a way, right?" Ethan asked, receiving a nod. Lamair sucked in a cold breath, his expression turning pale.

"Hades..." Lamair muttered, but everyone heard him as they’d all gone quiet.

Hades, the strongest god of Death, only second to Thanatos, the personification of the underworld. Thanatos was closer to an Arbiter than a god. He was more like a supreme god. But Thanatos, like most of the supremes, didn’t interfere in matters of mortals unless they were directly related to them, like Lamair’s final trial.

But for Hades to move... it meant that there was more at play than they saw.

"Are the gods plotting something against..." Ethan started, but Zark cut him short.

"Nope. Don’t say it. Just do what you have to do. I can’t interfere directly, so leave some of the guardians of Order here."

"Guardians of Order? Wait... you mean?"

"Yes, the golden beings. There’s more to them than just being part of your power. You will understand more after this. But be prepared for a trial... conducted by me."

"Thanks for the clarification, Father."

Ethan exhaled slowly, centering himself. The mirth in the room had evaporated, replaced by that peculiar stillness that only arrived when history was about to trip and fall forward.

"So be it," he said quietly.

He raised a hand.

Not high nor dramatic.

The space behind him responded first with order. Reality straightened, like a spine finally aligned. The mirror-dimension’s ceiling fractured into concentric sigils, each one rotating in reverse, grinding against causality itself.

Then the gold appeared.

Not the warm gold of sunlight or wealth. This was older. Heavy. A gold that looked like it had survived universes.

One by one, twelve figures stepped forward from nothingness, their arrival soundless, absolute.

They did not radiate just pressure.

They were pressure.

The shortest among them stood just over six feet. A humanoid knight clad in layered golden plate, etched with symbols that shifted when not directly observed. No face showed beneath the helm, only a narrow vertical slit filled with liquid light. At his side rested a straight-bladed sword that hummed softly, as if remembering every war it had ended.

Next came a robed summoner, tall and slender, floating inches above the floor. Multiple golden sigil-circles orbited behind their back like halos torn from angels. Their hands were folded calmly, but the space around their fingers bent, as though countless entities waited just beyond the veil for permission to exist.

A beastkin followed, leonine in shape, broad-shouldered, with a mane forged entirely of hard light. Golden chains wrapped around his forearms, not as restraints, but as weapons. Each link carried inscriptions of broken oaths and enforced verdicts.

Beside him strode a winged executioner, six-winged, but not seraphic. The wings were bladed, segmented like weapons rather than feathers. Their armor was sleek, almost minimal, and their eyes, two perfect golden rings, never blinked.

A dragonkin emerged next, humanoid but unmistakably draconic. Scales like polished aurum layered their body, and a crown-like crest swept back from their skull. Heat did not radiate from them; instead, the air crystallized briefly with every breath they took, as if temperature itself deferred to their presence.

Then came something stranger.

A void-born entity, vaguely humanoid, its golden form fractured by negative space, as though pieces of it had been erased and replaced with absence. Its limbs moved with delayed precision, slightly out of sync with reality, and its gaze passed through everyone without seeing... yet somehow knowing.

A colossus knight, nearly twelve feet tall, planted a tower-shield into the floor with a soundless impact that nonetheless sent tremors through the hall. The shield bore no crest, only a single symbol repeated endlessly: balance. His helm was smooth, unadorned, featureless.

A female figure followed, slender and deadly, clad in form-fitting golden armor like living silk. Twin daggers floated behind her shoulders, orbiting slowly. Her presence was subtle, almost ignorable, until one realized their instincts were screaming to never look away from her.

Then came a construct, mechanical yet alive. Gears of light rotated within a transparent golden frame. Its core pulsed rhythmically, each beat syncing with the dimension’s laws. This one did not walk; it assembled itself into position, piece by piece, snapping into place with divine precision.

A giant archer, broad as a fortress gate, carried a bow taller than most men. The string was drawn from condensed causality, and the quiver on his back contained no arrows, because he did not need to carry them.

The eleventh was a humanoid leviathankin, fourteen feet tall, scaled and serpentine, with fins of hard gold cresting along its spine. Ancient eyes regarded the room with tidal patience, as though time itself were just another ocean current.

Finally...

The twelfth stepped forth, and the room felt it.

Sixteen feet tall.

A true Leviathan.

Its body was massive, draconic, and serpentine, coiled partially upon itself simply because there wasn’t enough conceptual room to stand fully upright. Plates of deep gold armor fused seamlessly with dark, abyssal scales. Vast horns swept back from its skull, etched with runes older than language. Its eyes burned like twin miniature suns drowned in the depths of the sea.

Where it stood, the floor did not crack.

It yielded.

The twelve Guardians of Order knelt as one, a synchronized motion so perfect it bordered on ritual inevitability. One knee down. Heads bowed. Weapons lowered.

"We heed the call," they spoke, not aloud, but directly into the fabric of existence.

Ethan’s gaze hardened, his usual warmth sharpened into something colder, more imperial.

"Hades moves," he said. "And when gods of death stir, worlds bleed first."

The Guardians did not react. They did not need to.

They were not here to feel.

They were here to enforce.