1 Prologue

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C Clarke, 1973 'The Hazards of Prophecy'

Alarms were blaring all across earth. Although the year was lost to history, there are many things that were not forgotten so easily. The leader of the western nations had rebelled against their common sense and elected an angry orange man to be their king. Although I said there were some things not lost, this is a point of contention for a lot of the modern day scholars. They argue that although there were many skin colors during the pre-nerf era, orange was not one of them. Still, the writs insist that it was a very angry and selfish orange man with tiny hands, even though humans were still the only humanoid species that was acting out in the open.

That is beside the point. The angry orange man had finally pushed the other powerful nations too far. Through some sort of spider-related magic that has also been lost to the passage of time, this new king of the western world insulted many of the other monarchs at once and they decided to finally act upon it. They launched their most powerful explosive magic weapons from all over the world, knowing full well that it would be mutually assured destruction.

The king obviously retaliated by launching his own more powerful and plentiful magical arsenal back at the offenders, including several nations that had not attacked him. This in turn caused them to launch their own at him and other nations, etcetera etcetera.

Many of the common folk attempted to hunker down in their private bunkers, as well as the wealthy being spirited away to the private havens provided to them by the devious Bunker-Co corporation. Fires filled the night sky with a violent glow, blotting out the stars and many cults marched through the streets screaming about the end times with singing and screaming to their heart's content.

Public services shut down, stores were looted, magical metal carriages were burned and flipped, and murder and rape were at an all time high. The world was truly going to end, and nobody would be spared.

Throughout the entire event, the angry orange man used his web-magic to chirp about how the entire thing was fake news being spread by the biased donkey parties. 'Wrong! Lies and slander! Fake news! Saaaad!' he chipped out to the world from the safety of his exorbitantly expensive bunker. He knew the world was ending, but his wealth secured him the closest thing to life that it could, and he couldn't help but take final shots at his political enemies on the way out. Chaos for Chaos's sake, that was his memo the entire time he reigned.

Elsewhere

"Well, wake them up! The world is going to end if we can't push the vote through! Rip their hair out if you need to!" Apollo was very angry. The humans had finally gone too far and were going to destroy everything that they'd built along with everything that they hadn't. The gods knew that they possessed the power of the gods for a long time now, but since the first time they'd used it on other humans they'd managed to reign in themselves and not do it again. Nuclear warfare did not have a victor, only sorrow and death.

[Vote: Quick-Load 50% for, 6% Against, 44% Not voted] [Status: Still pending…]

The gods only hope was to force a quick-load of the planet before the nukes went off and destroyed the natural infrastructure. Unfortunately, every god that had been worshipped by a certain number of people also maintained a vote on the council. Many of these gods had faded to near obscurity and had been sleeping for many centuries. Without followers sending them power through faith, they simply did not have the energy or really the care to pay attention to the day to day activities of the humans.

In fact, if it weren't for the emerging fiction novels and comic books that were becoming popular, there would probably be far fewer gods and goddess awake to cast their votes to save humanity. As it was they'd been hung up at 50% for the quick-load for almost 15 minutes now and the first missiles would be landing any minute. The Egyptian, Norse, Greek, and Roman gods had all gained enough belief from popular media so they were awake and attempting to rouse the others. Damnable humans and their migration to monotheistic religions. Even Christianity had only three votes for God, Jesus, and Mary.

"I woke Ki up!" shouted a named Disir from across the plane. Apollo rushed over as she explained the situation. It was a long way away, and before Apollo could reach him, his vote was cast.

[Vote: Quick-Load 50% for, 7% Against, 43% Not voted] [Status: Still pending…]

"No! What is wrong with you, woman? The world will end and we will all cease to exist!"

Ki glared back up at Apollo, "Why should I care? The bipedals stopped worshipping me long ago but I can not fade away to death. With them finally dead and knowledge of me erased, I will at last be at peace."

A boom resounded throughout the plane that the mortals currently referred to as heaven. The first nuclear missile had landed and taken out most of Washington D.C. The world was ending, just as the oracles had predicted. The folly of man was pulling hellfire down upon their heads and laying waste to the nations.

Countless missiles landed and tore cities asunder, there was screaming and crying and radiation all over. There was a silver lining however, the massive shaking of the earth sent tremors even up to the heavens and awoke the many personalities of the oldest god.

Gaia, Mother Earth, Gaea, Ge, Great Mother, Magna Mater, Tellus, Terra, and many more awoke at once. All shared a single body but represented many votes. She heard the screaming and crying of her host body and tremors were sent throughout her. Unlike the other gods her slumber was not due to the lack of followers but the abuse that the humans had been pumping into her. If any god had a right to end humanity it was she who had suffered so much, not these miserable cultists and fanatics that just wanted to see the world burn.

She wept a tear for what her kingdom had become and every god and goddess wept with her. The moment stretched into eternity and then she cast her vote.

[Vote: Quick-Load 56% for, 7% Against, 37% Not voted] [Status: Majority reached…]

[Quick Load failed: Save corrupted]

[Qui… ]

Everyone saw the messages and knew that due to the extensive damage caused by the god leveled weapons that devastated the planet, most of the infrastructure had been damaged. So many of their save points for humanity were corrupted. They blew past the roaring 80s, the world wars, the age of slavery and colonization. Even past the bronze age had been corrupted. Gaia had awoken but it had been too late, many gods were going to die their final death.

[Due to lack of viable save, Quick Loading from alternate timeline]

[Nuclear radiation incompatible, reformatting…]

Many of the gods faded away instantly as the internet and other records of their existence disappeared. They had no followers and nothing to declare their existence, and so finally they died a true death. Humans who had died in the explosions stayed dead, and their souls were erased from existence as none of the gods of death had survived the culling. Very small amounts of the human population were saved, the land shifted, and the nuclear fallout morphed into something henceforth known as Aether.

Most human knowledge was reset and they were left only with a baseline knowledge of common in the bronze ages. Strangely enough, most memories of fictions that they'd read persisted throughout the reformatting, albeit nothing with guns or explosives stuck. Human memories were tricky to mess with as no human's brain would be wired the same as another's.

Gaia watched all this happen through eyes as old as time. She would survive this culling because she needed to exist for the humans to exist. Without Earth there would be nowhere to survive, and she did not need their worship to survive. So long as a sapient life existed upon her planet, she would live for the fact that they unconsciously worshipped her every day.

The Age of Magic had begun at last.

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