The End of Adam the Mortal (3000 BC)
Torrential rain lashed the mud-brick huts. Adam carved the flesh from his own thigh with a bone knife, feeding it to a tribal child convulsing with high fever. Outside the window, amid the thunderstorm, wizards danced ritual prayers, driving sick refugees into the swamps.
"Don't sleep!" Adam slapped the child's bruised, pale face, his own blood soaking the straw mat. "Eat. This is the last clean piece of meat."
A wooden staff struck the earth outside the door. The High Priest's shadow fell across the threshold. "You harbor the source of the plague! You have angered the Rain God!" Three burly men rushed inside and dragged the child away. Adam's forehead slammed against the stone mortar, his final consciousness fading to the sound of a splash as the child was cast into the swamp.
The Bargain of the Gods
When Adam awoke in the stellar forge, golden thread was stitching his ribs together. The voice of a deity echoed from the summit of the furnace: "You carved your own flesh for worms, yet you could save no one. But become my sword, and you may sever the injustice of this world."
"The price?" Adam stared at his translucent palms, starlight flowing beneath his skin.
The deity flicked a finger, unfurling a vision:
The child in the swamp was reduced to bones, yet the plague continued to spread through the ignorance of wizards.
The High Priest's head was hung from an altar, while his successor proved even more brutal.
Mankind a thousand years henc…
Chapter 260