[WP] You're a small time blacksmith apprentice that just accidentally forged a blade capable of killing immortals. Obviously, immortals are not happy with this
"Not all of us are happy with the order of this world," Saffron said. "Give the blade to us, and we will make commoners equal to kings."
The representative of the usurpers made a compelling argument. He did so every week when he came to visit. So did the demi-gods who sought to overthrow their parents. And the underlings from the netherworld who wanted their turn at ruling over the heavens. Some appealed to Caden's morality, and others to his more selfish desires. A king offered him his daughter, and an emperor offered to make Caden his heir. Each week they poured into his tiny village, some only to look at the blade, others to bargain for it.
"Why haven't you sold that bloody thing yet?" his father asked. Whatever happened, whoever ended up killing the gods or failing at it, their village would stay the same. It had not changed when the primordial gods had been exiled to the netherworld by their children, and it had not changed when those gods in turn were enslaved by their children. Mountains could crumble over time, but dust remained much the same.
"I'm waiting for a better offer," Caden said.
"A kingdom not enough?"
Caden shook his head. His father was a man truly of their village. His imagination had narrow boundaries. Caden was similar when he first made the blade. It had been an accident, a ratio of metals and temperature he had stumbled upon by accident. While he was forging it, hammering it straight, the heavens shook. The gods knew before he did, the power of his creation.
Niar, the messenger god, appeared his smithy the moment the blade had cooled, a crooked smile on his face, his legs crossed at the ankles.
"How about an offering for the gods, mortal?" he'd asked, and Caden had raised the blade by instinct, surprised at the large stranger, the unknown trespasser.
"We have sent our monthly tithe to the temples," Caden said.
"I meant the blade, mortal."
"This?" Caden asked. He didn't know yet what it was. To him, it was only his finest work yet, a sword that would fetch a good price once he made the hilt. A price too high to just gift it to a god. If the man was even a god in the first place. He had no divine aura, and the bards spoke of godly beauty. He looked just like any other man.
Caden picked up the blade.
"Good, now bring it here," the man said, because Caden at this point was convinced he was not a god. Gods did not show fear, especially in front of a single barely armed blacksmith.
"Get out of my smithy," Caden said, convinced the man was no more than a clever thief, an impostor seeking to benefit from peoples' fear of the gods.
"Mortal, hand over the blade," the stranger warned. He stepped forward, not foreseeing that Caden was advancing as well. Caden lunged forward when the stranger did, and the blame dug itself deep into the stranger's gut.
Like a knife into butter, Caden thought. It had been too easy, and now the stranger was bleeding. Not blood, but a fluid like molten gold. It was ichor, the stuff that ran in the veins of gods. The blade was drenched in it, and so was Caden.
The god died, stumbling to his knees and then landing face down on the stone floor. He had killed a god, and soon the rest would come for him. Except they never did. People whispered of Niar's absence for a few days, his tithes and sacrifices being left untouched, and his prayers going unanswered.
Caden liked the tithes and sacrifices. He rose to the smell of incense as the priests lit them at his altar. The blame had ripped immortality away from Niar, and transferred it to its wielder. He was the messenger god now, and the only message he sent to the other gods was a challenge.
They would come to him, sooner or later. If they didn't, he would seek them out. Finally, where there were no more gods to kill except himself, his blade would go back into the fires of his smithy, melted into steel the color of ichor.
