The Hyperion conference room thrummed with tension, its wood-paneled walls soaking up the heavy silence. Beyond the towering windows, LA’s faint hum droned on—a heartbeat too feeble to cut through the pressure choking the space. Esterio sat rigid, his laptop closed on the table, its stillness a stark contrast to the chaos swirling in his mind. Ancient glyphs from EVO’s scans flashed behind his eyes, jagged and unrelenting. Beside him, Marcus slouched, arms crossed, his gaze locked on Dain like a hawk stalking prey. Elliot sat upright, his usual grin gone, his face etched with sharp focus.

  Dain paced slowly, hands clasped behind his back, his voice low and edged with steel. “You want the truth, Esterio? Fine, I’ll give it to you. It’s a story that governments, historians and many other big shots scraped out of history’s shadows, pieced together from fragments across time.”

  He stopped, turning to face them with a predator’s calm, his eyes flicking over the trio. “It’s about ancient times. The Earth wasn’t ours. It belonged to them.”

  Marcus tilted his head, brow furrowing. “Who’s ‘them’?”

  “Gods,” Dain said, his voice hard and unyielding. “They shaped it, ruled it, demanded blood and obedience.”

  Esterio’s chest tightened, the glyphs flaring like a warning in his skull. “You mean Odin, Zeus, Ra,... those gods?”

  “Yes,” Dain replied, his gaze unwavering. “It is not myths or bedtime stories, they once walked here on Earth. Egypt, Greece, the Norse wilds—all belong to them. The Oathtakers were their followers, serving their masters for millennia. And now, some of them play the Galactic Tournament to represent their gods.”

  Marcus leaned forward, his voice cutting through the air. “Tournament? How’s that work?”

  Dain’s eyes narrowed, a shadow passing over them. “It’s a series of games and we don’t know which one they’ll pick. The Watchers run it and they choose randomly. The gods loved these contests and they threw in their Oathtakers, some warriors with energy in their veins, builders crafting impossible wonders, minds that could unravel reality itself, but it all collapses.”

  Esterio’s fingers dug into the table’s edge, his voice taut. “Collapsed how?”

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  Dain’s face darkened, his tone dropping to a grim murmur. “The All-Mighty God intervened, he sealed them away. He didn’t kill them, but just locked them somewhere beyond our reach. After that, Earth went dark. No history, no records, nothing until Atlantis. All we’re left with are ruins, whispers, and half-forgotten stories that all come from the lost city.”

  Esterio sought confirmation, his voice edged with curiosity. “You mean there’s a God above all these gods?”

  Dain shook his head slightly. “I can’t tell you more about that, everything I’ve said is all I know.”

  Elliot straightened, his expression deadly serious. “Which lost city are you talking about ? Atlantis?”

  “Yeah,” Dain said. “They burned too bright and got pulled into the Tournament, I believed they ran up against something they couldn’t beat. As a result, they got wiped out, reduced to dust. There are a few survivors, they scattered, and rebuilt the Earth.”

  Esterio’s breath caught, the glyphs pounding louder, still indecipherable but insistent. “Wiped out by what?”

  Dain shrugged, his voice flat. “The records don’t say how Atlantis fell. Survivors hid, and Earth started over. And now, our tech’s spiking again—maybe that’s why we’re being dragged back into the game.”

  Elliot leaned in, humor absent from his tone. “The stakes sound so brutal. Survival is our baseline, but.. what if we win?”

  Dain’s gaze turned icy. “Survival’s just the start. Win, and maybe Earth holds together and we can all live and see the other days.”

  Esterio’s hand brushed his laptop, the glyphs’ buzz sharpening like a blade against his nerves. Whatever was locked in there, it was tied to this—he could feel it.

  Elliot broke the silence, his voice steady. “You’ve laid out Earth’s past and this is the information you said those big shots got, but I remember earlier you mentioned a voice. What’s that about?”

  Dain smirked, his eyes glinting with a razor’s edge. “That’s my little secret, boys, and I haven’t shared it with anyone. But since you’re all in this with me, and you might actually learn something from it, here it is. Fifteen years ago, I dug up a shard, a relic from a space expedition.

  At first, I thought it was just some cool trinket from the cosmos, so I stuck it in my showroom as a keepsake. But then, something weird started happening. Every time I walked by that shard, I’d hear… something. I brushed it off and thought I’d had too much to drink or was losing my mind. But no, the sound was real, and it was coming from that damn shard. So I poured my time into researching it, and guess what? That shard’s no ordinary relic—it’s a communication device.”

  Marcus froze mid-breath, his eyes narrowing. “Communication device? So who’re you talking to—some alien?”

  Dain’s answer cut through the air, crisp and certain. “No. Better than that—an Asgardian.”

  Esterio’s breath caught, the glyphs flaring wild in his mind. “Asgardian? Like Norse Asgardian?”

  Dain nodded, a faint gleam in his gaze. “Yes. And the voice belongs to the one and only—Loki, the god of Asgard.”