[Last Episode: But inside that small room, for one day, none of that was the most important thing]
Chapter 110, Episode 110
[The throne room of the Invictus World had no end]
[It simply continued. Upward. Outward]
[Through layers of reality that Voriath had built himself, each one a different universe folded into the architecture of the place he called home]
[Voriath sat on his throne]
[He hadn't moved in three days]
[Not because he was resting. Because he was watching. Every timeline. Every universe. Every small movement across the cosmology that thought it was hidden from him]
[His eyes were open]
[The Infinite Glass rotated slowly above his palm. Infinite shards of the multiverse's own consciousness, each one a different timeline, a different version of him]
[Some of them looking back. Some of them unaware. All of them his]
[He closed his hand around it gently]
Voriath: Two hundred years
[he said to no one]
[Mercurius stepped forward from the line of seven]
Mercurius: The cosmology has been preparing, They felt the seal break.
[Mercurius said]
Voriath: I know
[Voriath said]
Xuantian: They'll be gathering, Every ruler. Every strong arm they can find.
[Xuantian said]
Voriath: I know...
[Voriath said again]
[He stood]
[The room responded the way it always did. That slight shift in everything. Like reality adjusting its posture]
[He looked at his seven subordinates.
Lily. Xuantian. Isadora. Glutto. Mercurius. Galacik. Jaxx]
[Two hundred years sealed. Two hundred years of the cosmology thinking it had won something]
[Two hundred years of Xuantian and Mercurius working at the edges of the seal, pulling threads, finding gaps, until the Glass found the right configuration to break it from the inside]
Voriath: Are we ready??
[Voriath said]
Galacik: We've been ready
[Galacik said. His hand was on his sword the way it had always been]
The way it was every morning she'd woken up in that sealed place and reminded herself what they were waiting for]
[Jaxx cracked her knuckles]
Jaxx: Two hundred years, I have things to destroy.
Voriath: You'll have your chance
[Voriath said]
[He turned to Mercurius]
Voriath: Contact the Null Collapse..
[he said]
Mercurius: With Pleasure
[He said with a smirk]
[Mercurius stood in front of the dimensional link and opened the channel with the kind of calm that suggested this was a routine task rather than a conversation between one of the most dangerous beings in existence and the people who had sold their loyalty two centuries ago]
[The image resolved]
[Mephisto appeared on the other side]
[He looked the same as he always did. Careful eyes. Measured expression]
[The particular posture of a man who had spent two hundred years not dying because he was always the least threatening person in any room]
[Behind him the Solstice Sisters stood mirrored]
[Caladrache off to the side. Alberviaa with her cards]
[The rest of the Null Collapse assembled]
Mercurius: You felt the seal break..
[Mercurius said]
Mephisto: Three days ago, We've been waiting for your contact.
[Mephisto said]
Mercurius: The deal still stands..
[Mercurius said]
Mephisto: The deal has always stood, We've spent two hundred years honoring our part. The Hyper Soul locations. The embedded agents. The intelligence on every major universe's current strength.
[Mephisto said as he tilted his head slightly]
Xuantian: Interesting....
[Xuantian interrupted for a moment]
Mephisto: We want the Nexus. We want the Hyper Soul cores. We want the new world.
Mercurius: You'll have them..
[Mercurius said]
Mephisto: And the Book
[Mephisto said]
[Mercurius looked at him]
Mercurius: The Book is Voriath's concern, Focus on your assignments.
[Mercurius said, his voice commanding]
[Mephisto accepted this with the expression of someone filing information away rather than dropping it]
Mephisto: What do you need from us??
[Mephisto said]
Mercurius: Stay positioned, When our forces arrive at the Empire States, you don't fight. You observe. You manage your embedded agents. You keep the Null Collapse out of the direct conflict.
[Mercurius said with focus]
Mephisto: You really don't understand the concept
[A pause]
Mercurius: What concept, Your value is in what you know. Not in what you can hit.
[Mephisto nodded slowly]
Mercurius: And when the time comes...you open the doors from the inside.
Mephisto: Understood
[Mephisto said]
[The Sisters exchanged a look. Caladrache said nothing]
[Alberviaa turned a card over without looking at it]
[Mercurius closed the channel]
[Voriath stood at the edge of the Invictus World's outer platform]
[Below it, if below meant anything in a place made of infinite layered realities, the assembled force waited]
[Ten Hyper Gods]
[Each one born from the same fundamental energy that had built the Invictus World. Not created in the way ordinary beings are created]
[Emerged. The way something emerges when the conditions for it become inevitable, their power didn't have a ceiling in any framework the Primus World used to measure such things]
[Twenty Justice Hyper Guardians]
[Voriath's own, Created by him, Shaped by him,each one carrying a fragment of his intention, his architecture, his specific understanding of what power was for]
[Two thousand Hyper Beings]
[The ones who had chosen the Invictus World. Who had looked at the cosmology and decided it was wrong and come here and stayed]
[Voriath looked at all of them]
Voriath: Three targets, The Cosmos Universe. The Chaos Universe. The Eastern World and other worlds. You are not there to destroy. You are there to demonstrate.
[he said. His voice carried without effort]
[Silence from the assembled force]
Verath: Demonstrate what my Lord?
[One of the Hyper Gods said. His name was Verath. Old even by Invictus standards]
Voriath: That the seal meant nothing, That two hundred years of preparation changes nothing.
Verath: Ohh, so your purpose isn't about breaking the seal, but to let everyone feel your wrath and presence
[He looked across the force]
Voriath: I want them to understand, before the real war begins, what they are dealing with. Don't kill the rulers. Don't destroy the worlds. Just make sure every living being in every universe we touch knows we are back.
[He turned away]
Voriath: Move..
[he said]
[The dimensional rifts opened across the Invictus World like cracks in glass]
[Three directions]
[Three forces]
Meanwhile at the Cosmos Universe
-Astraheim-
[The rifts appeared above the city at midday,
No warning. No buildup]
[Just the sky tearing open in seven places simultaneously and the particular cold light of the Invictus World pouring through]
[Kai was on the rebuilt amphitheater stage when it happened]
[He looked up]
[Neo appeared beside him in under a second, Universal Light Magic already active]
[Luxas was on the other side, his True Incantations settling into the air around them both like language being spoken in a register below sound]
[Duravaio's form shifted once, his World Magic reading the energy coming through the rifts]
Duravaio: Hyper Guardians,I can feel the structure of them.
[Duravaio said]
Kai: How many??
[Kai said]
Duravaio: Seven. And Hyper Beings. A lot.
[Neo looked at the rifts]
Neo: They're not attacking for some reason thats strange??..
Kai: Not yet...
[Kai said]
[From the largest rift, a figure descended]
[A Hyper Guardian. Not one of the ten Gods, something slightly below that, but only slightly]
[His presence pushed against the city of Astraheim like a physical weight and the celestial rings above the city groaned]
[He landed in the open plaza below the amphitheater]
[Looked up at Kai]
Orrath: Ruler of the Cosmos Universe, My name is Orrath. I speak for my master, Voriath Luminael.
[he said. His voice had a quality to it that made the air vibrate]
[Kai looked down at him]
Kai: I already know who you speak for..
[Kai said]
[Orrath looked at the city around him]
[At the people who had stopped moving. At the guild members who had gathered at the edges of the plaza, hands raised, magic ready]
Orrath: You should tell them to stand down, This isn't a battle.
[Orrath said with a confirmed smirk on his face]
Kai: Then what is it
[Kai said]
[Orrath looked back up at him]
Orrath: A message, Voriath Luminael has broken the seal. The Invictus World is open. The deal he offered two hundred years ago stands for anyone willing to take it.
Kai: What...
[Kai said with panic]
[A pause]
Orrath: And for those who aren't. He wanted you to know that he remembers this place. He remembers every place.
[He said as he looked at the place]
[Kai came down from the stage]
[He walked across the plaza and stopped ten meters from Orrath]
[They were approximately the same height]
[The difference between them was everything else]
Kai: I remember him too..
[Kai said]
[Orrath looked at him steadily]
Orrath: He said you would say something like that.
Kai: What else did he say
[Kai said]
[Orrath paused]
Orrath: Then, He said to tell you that Sagris still owes him a fight. And so do you He said he intends to collect on both. When the time comes.
[Kai was quiet for a moment]
Kai: Tell him that we'll be ready to take him on anytime, anyday...
[Orrath looked at him one more time]
[Reading something in the Cosmos Universe's ruler that he filed away to report back]
Orrath: He knew you'd say that too
[Orrath said]
[He rose back through the rift]
[The other six rifts held their positions for a long moment]
[The Hyper Beings inside them visible but still. Watching]
[Then they closed]
[The sky over Astraheim returned to normal,
nobody in the plaza moved for three seconds]
[Then Neo said]
Neo: That was a message..
Kai: Yes..
[Kai said]
Luxas: What do we do?
[Luxas said]
[Kai looked at the sky where the rifts had been]
Kai: Contact Sagris, Now!, The World is about be in danger
[Kai said with a worrisome face as he still wonders]
[The Scene switched to the Chaos Universe]
[The alert came through the guild network first]
[An appearance. Rifts opening above three of the Chaos Universe's major cities simultaneously]
[Hyper Beings descending but not fighting. Standing, Waiting]
[In the Force Light Guild hall, Klaus had every guild member on standby in under a minute]
Angela: What are they doing..?
[Angela said]
[She was by the window looking up at the two Hyper Beings visible from their position]
[Just standing in the air above the city]
[Massive and Patient]
Leon: Nothing yet...
[Leon said]
Angela: That's worse than something
[Angela said]
[Marx had his Soul Magic reading the energy of the beings above]
Marx: They're holding back. Significantly. Whatever they are at full power—
Klaus: Don't finish that sentence
[Klaus said]
[Marx didn't finish it]
[In the center of the city, a Justice Hyper Guardian had landed in the main square]
[Similar to what had happened in Astraheim but with a different quality to it]
[The Chaos Universe was louder than the Cosmos Universe. Its people were more reactive]
[Three guild members had already tried to attack before Sagris arrived]
[The attacks did nothing]
[Not blocked. Not absorbed. The Guardian looked at each one with the expression of someone watching a candle try to light a fireplace]
[Sagris came through the crowd and stopped in front of the Guardian]
[They looked at each other]
[The Guardian's name was Vellith]
[Younger than Orrath. Still immeasurably beyond anything in the Chaos Universe]
Vellith: Sagris Livastar..
[Vellith said]
Sagris: Yes..
[Sagris said]
Vellith: The seal has broken, Our Lord, Voriath Luminael sends his regards.
[Sagris looked at him]
Sagris: Just regards?
Vellith: And a reminder of what happened two hundred years ago. And an invitation.
[Vellith said]
Sagris: To what, be specific??
[Sagris said]
Vellith: To choose a side before the choice is made for you..
[Vellith said]
[Sagris was quiet]
[Around him the guild members of the Chaos Universe were watching. Thousands of them]
[Every guild represented]
[Blaze had come down from the Ice Knights' position and stood near the edge of the square]
[Christo beside him. Becrux. Quinn. The rest of the Ice Knights]
[Klaus and the Force Light Guild had arrived from the other direction]
[Dark Lords. Solar Dragons. Black Phoenix]
[All of them present. All of them watching their ruler face something that made every high-rank among them quietly grateful they weren't the one standing there]
[Sagris looked at Vellith for a long moment]
Sagris: Tell Voriath, that the last time he came here we bled and we broke and we lost people we haven't stopped missing and we still didn't choose his side.
[Sagris said with a high commanding voice]
[Vellith waited as Sagris continued]
Sagris: Tell him also that two hundred years hasn't changed our answer.
[Vellith looked at him. At the guilds behind him. At every face in the square]
Vellith: He said you would say that...
Sagris: Then he knows where we stand...
[Sagris said]
Vellith: He does,he asked me to tell you one more thing.
Sagris: What...
[Sagris said]
Vellith: He said next time I won't ask.
[The rift above the city opened and Vellith rose into it]
[As they were fleeing, Vellith taught for a second]
Vellith: How intelligent is this ruler...
[The Hyper Beings held their positions for one more long moment]
[Then they were gone]
[The square was silent]
[Then everyone in it started talking at the same time]
[Sagris turned to the guilds assembled behind him]
[He looked at Klaus. At Marx. At Angela and Leon]
Sagris: Get everyone together, Full assembly. Every guild. Tonight!!
[Sagris shouted with a commanding voice]
[This time serious]
Klaus: And Leo and Issac, They are still—
Sagris: I know where both are, We will be back when they are back.Until then we work with what we have.
[Sagris said as he turned and walked back through the crowd]
[Blaze watched him go]
Blaze: He knew... he knew this was coming
[Blaze said quietly to Christo]
Christo: Everyone knew, Nobody wanted to be right.
[Meanwhile at the Eastern World]
[It hit differently here]
[The Eastern World had felt the seal break at the same moment it happened]
[The subordinate leaders of the Eastern World were already in emergency session when the rifts appeared]
[Six rifts. Above the Eastern World's capital]
[The largest force Voriath had sent to any single location]
[Jeannette was the first one out of the meeting room]
[She looked up at the rifts and her jaw set]
[Lilura was beside her. Her magic flickering. Pandorami. Laxcarseel. Antoinette. Martha. Infinite. Jairulioyo]
[All of them looking up]
[What came through wasn't a single Guardian with a message]
[It was three]
[Three Justice Hyper Guardians descending together. Their combined presence hit the Eastern World's capital like a pressure change]
[Structural things cracked. Windows shattered not from force but from the vibration of their aura in the air]
[Laxcarseel's power spiked immediately]
[Jeannette put her hand on his arm]
Jeannette: Not yet..
[she said]
Laxcarseel: They're in our world, what do you expect Jeannette
[Laxcarseel said through his teeth]
Jeannette: I know, not yet.
[Jeannette said as she calmed him down]
[The three Guardians landed]
[The leader stepped forward. His name was Carath. Oldest of the three. Old enough that his armor had stopped being armor and become something closer to a second nature]
[He looked at the gathered subordinates of the Eastern World]
Carath: The Eastern World, Founded by Leo Sebastián with a current ruler absent
[He looked at each of them]
Carath: Interesting.
[Antoinette stepped forward]
Antoinette: You're in the wrong world.
Carath: Am I??
[Carath said]
Jeannette: State your business and leave..
[she said. Cold and absolute]
[Carath looked at her with an expression that wasn't disrespect. Something more unsettling. Interest]
Carath: Our Voriath Luminael is free, The seal is broken. We are here because your founder is not, A world this powerful with no king is an opportunity.
[He looked at the capital behind them. At the Eastern World spreading outward]
Martha: We're not a kingdom without a king, We are a world waiting for its founder to return
[Martha said. Quiet. Steady]
Carath: And when he returns,what does he return to?
[Carath said]
Pandorami: Home
[Pandorami said. Simply]
[Carath looked at her]
Carath: Voriath offers the Eastern World a place in the new order, Your founder's power is significant. His soul is significant. There are those who want to take it and those who want to preserve it. Voriath wants to preserve it. Under the right conditions.
[Carath explained]
[Laxcarseel made a sound that wasn't a word]
[Jeannette kept her hand on his arm]
Jeannette: The Eastern World serves Leo Sebastián. Not Voriath Luminael. Not anyone else. You can take that message back
[Her voice was flat and final]
[Carath looked at all of them one more time]
Carath: He'll come for the Hyper Soul, Personally. He wanted you to know that.
[Carath said]
Laxcarseel: Let him come..
[Laxcarseel said]
[It slipped out before Jeannette could stop it]
[Carath looked at Laxcarseel]
[Something almost like a smile]
Carrath: He will..
[Carath said]
[The three Guardians rose back into the rifts]
[The rifts closed]
[The Eastern World's capital returned to its normal light]
[Laxcarseel exhaled]
Jeannette: I know, I know
[Jeannette said before he could speak]
Laxcarseel: They were in our world..Our World
[he said]
Jeannette: Yes
[she said]
Lilura: When Leo comes back— When Leo comes back, we tell him everything. We tell him calmly. And we let him decide what comes next.
[She looked at the sky]
Jairulioyo: Yep....
Lilura: Until then we hold this world together.
[Infinite's holographic map activated beside them]
[Every point where rifts had appeared. Every universe touched]
Infinte: They went to three locations simultaneously, Cosmos. Chaos. Eastern World.
[Infinte said as he analyze the situation going on]
Martha: A coordinated message
[Martha said]
Antoinette: Not a message, A test, He's checking our reactions. Seeing who holds. Who breaks. Who reaches out first.
[She said as she looks at the map]
Pandorami: None of us are reaching out..
[Pandorami said firmly]
Antoinette: No, But someone might...
[They all thought of the Null Collapse and said nothing]
[The Scene switched to the Invictus World]
-The Throne Room-
[The reports came back to Voriath in sequence]
[Cosmos Universe. Chaos Universe. Eastern World]
[He listened to each one]
[Sat with them]
[Then he looked at the Infinite Glass rotating above his palm]
Mercurius: They held, All three.
Voriath: Of course they did
[Voriath said]
Lily: You expected it..
[Lily said]
Voriath: I always expected it, They're not going to fold at a message, but that wasn't the point
[He looked at the Glass]
Glutto: What was the point
[Glutto said]
[Voriath looked at the infinite shards of timeline rotating slowly in the air]
Voriath: I wanted them looking up, At the rifts. At the sky. At what came through.
[Voriath said]
Isadora: While
[Isadora said]
Voriath: While I looked at them, Leo Sebastián will be back soon, The Afterlife is almost done with him and the Book is in the Terra Celestial World and the Nexus is closer than any of them know.
[Voriath said]
[He closed his hand around the Glass]
[The throne room was quiet]
Voriath: It begins properly soon
[Voriath said]
[He sat back]
[And smiled the smile of someone who had waited two hundred years and found the wait exactly as long as he needed it to be]
[Voriath's subordinates stood in their line before the throne]
[Behind them, slightly to the left, the Null Collapse group had assembled. Mephisto at the front. The Sisters behind him]
[Caladrache. Blaise. Euros. Alberviaa. Viaa. Callista]
[All of them in the same room as Voriath Luminael for the first time]
[Every single one of them bowed]
[Not because they were told to. Because when Voriath's presence expanded in the room — not deliberately, just naturally, the way his presence always behaved when he stopped containing it — the option to remain standing stopped being available]
[Even Mercurius bowed lower than usual]
[Even Xuantian, who had spent two hundred years working in the dark to break the seal, who had never bowed to anything in two separate lifetimes, found his head lowering without deciding to lower it]
[The Null Collapse bowed completely]
[Mephisto's forehead was inches from the floor. His hands were steady]
[His expression, hidden from everyone, was the expression of a man performing the most important calculation of his life]
[This is not a person, Mephisto thought]
[His Acausality Magic, which normally kept him outside the reach of cause and effect, was struggling. Genuinely struggling]
-I have stood near gods. I have sat across from the Legendary Justice. I have watched The Manipulator crush our attack with two fists and call it unremarkable-
[This is not that]
[This is something that those things would still fear]
[He didn't let it show. He never let anything show]
[But inside, quietly, with the careful honesty he only ever permitted himself in the space between his own thoughts]
[Mephisto acknowledged something he had suspected for two hundred years and was only now confirming at close range]
[They had made a deal with something they did not understand]
[They had never understood it]
[And the deal was still the only play they had]
[The Nexus, he thought. Get the Nexus]
[Build the new world. Get out]
[Voriath looked at all of them]
Voriath: Rise!
[He said]
[They rose]
[He looked at the Null Collapse specifically. At Mephisto]
Voriath: You held up your part..
[Voriath said]
Mephisto: As agreed
[Mephisto said. Steady. Even]
Voriath: Good..
[Voriath said. He looked at each of them in turn. The Sisters. Caladrache, whose Copy Magic was very quietly filing away every detail of the room and everything in it]
[Blaise, whose Cosmic Manipulation was doing its best not to react to the weight of Voriath's presence and mostly failing]
[Callista, in the back, was looking at the floor]
[Voriath's dark aura pulsed once. Slow. Like a heartbeat from something very large]
[The temperature in the room didn't change]
[The light didn't change. But everything felt different for a second. More real. More final]
[Like the universe had just reminded everyone present what it was made of and who was responsible for the reminder]
[Euros, the fist fighter, had his hands completely still at his sides]
[He was a man who had never backed down from a fight in his life. He was currently choosing very carefully not to think about what fighting this would mean]
[Alberviaa's fate cards were still in her pocket]
[She hadn't reached for them once since entering the room]
[She already knew what the cards would say]
[She didn't need to read them]
[This man, she thought, looking at Voriath from the corner of her eye, has a future that fate cannot read]
Alberviaa: I have read the end of gods. I have seen the last moments of beings that existed before this universe
[She said]
[She have looked at the finale of reality itself and described it out loud]
[As if it's waiting for him to choose]
[She pressed her lips together]
[Voriath looked at Lily]
Voriath: The next phase
[he said]
[Lily stepped forward]
Lily: Ready, Xuantian...
Xuantian: Ready
[Xuantian said]
Xuantian: Mercurius..
[Mercurius said nothing. Just looked at Voriath with those eyes that had spent two hundred years pulling threads and finding gaps in a seal that was never supposed to open again]
[Voriath almost smiled]
Voriath: Ready..
[he said for Mercurius]
[He turned]
Voriath: The city of Valtrex in the Chaos Universe, I sent twelve Hyper Beings there three days ago. They're positioned and waiting.
Galacik: What are they waiting for..
[Galacik said]
Voriath: Leo Sebastián, He'll be coming through that area when he returns from the Afterlife. The Hyper Beings don't know what he looks like. They have instructions to question anyone who seems unusual. I want to know how much he's grown.
[Voriath said as he has seen all of Leo moves and from Ereshikigal]
[Lily looked at him]
Lily: You want him tested.
Voriath: I want him measured, There's a difference.
[Voriath said]
[He sat back on his throne and the Infinite Glass rose above his palm again, spinning slowly, each shard a different timeline glinting in the dark light of the Invictus World]
Voriath He'll be there soon
[Voriath said]
Meanwhile at the Chaos Universe at the City of Valtrex
[The portal opened in an alley]
[No sound. No light. Just a circle of space folding back on itself and two figures stepping through and the portal closing behind them like it had never existed]
[Leo and Isaac stood in the alley]
[Both of them in black coats. Hoods up. The coats had been waiting for them when they came through the Afterlife's seal — a gift from Ereshkigal, though she hadn't called it that]
[She'd just left them folded on the ground at the exit and walked away]
[The material was dark. Simple. The hoods were deep enough to shadow the face completely. Nothing about them looked significant]
[That was the point]
[Keep your identity hidden, Ereshkigal had said in the final hour before they left. Her voice the same as always. Even. Absolute. From everyone. Your guild. The other universes. Your own subordinates in the Eastern World. Everyone]
[Issac]
-Why-
[Isaac had said]
[Ereshikigal]
-Because Voriath is looking for Leo Sebastián, she had said. Not a person in a black coat. Names carry weight. Identities carry weight. Until you're ready to carry that weight in the open, you move in the shadow of it. She had looked at Leo specifically. You are not ready to announce yourself yet. You are ready to act. Those are different things-
[Leo had understood it]
[He hadn't liked it]
[But he understood it]
[Now he stood in the alley in Valtrex and looked out at the city]
[Valtrex was a mid-tier city in the Chaos Universe. Not a capital. Not a backwater. The kind of place that had markets and guild halls and ordinary people trying to live ordinary lives in a universe that made ordinariness a daily achievement]
[It was also, at this moment, wrong]
[Leo felt it immediately]
[Not an alarm. Not a sound. Just the particular quality of a place that has something in it that doesn't belong there. Like a smell that's slightly off. Like a color that's one shade past normal]
Issac: You feel that..
[Isaac said beside him]
Leo: Yes, Something's here
[Leo said]
Leo: Several somethings, They're spread out and positioned
[Leo said. He pulled his coat tighter. The hood stayed up]
[Isaac looked at the market ahead of them]
[People moving. Normal activity. But at the edges, at the corners, things that looked like they were watching rather than participating]
Issac: Hyper Beings..
[Isaac said. Not a question]
Leo: Five of them, They are not attacking yet
[Leo said. His Cosmic Awareness had already mapped them. Positions. Energy levels. The particular signature of the Invictus World's power clinging to them like a second skin]
Issac: Why are they here??
[Isaac said]
Leo: Looking for someone...
[Leo said]
[Isaac looked at him]
Issac: Us..
[Isaac said]
Leo: Me, They're looking for me specifically. They just don't know what I look like
[Leo said as he has already read the future]
Issac: So as long as the hood stays up—
[Isaac started]
Leo: We're just two people in black coats..
[Leo said]
Issac: Right..
[Isaac said]
Leo: Let's go get food..
[Leo said]
[Isaac stared at him]
Issac: We're surrounded by Hyper Beings and you want food.
Leo: I haven't eaten in six hours and I want to get a closer look at them and getting a closer look at Hyper Beings is not the same as getting food.
[Leo said as his stomach growled]
Leo: It can be both..
[Leo said. He was already walking]
[Isaac looked at the sky briefly]
[Then followed]
[They finally reached to the market]
[The market was busy enough that two figures in black coats didn't draw immediate attention]
[Leo walked at an ordinary pace. Hood up. Hands visible. Buying a small wrapped bread from a stall and eating it while walking, which was exactly what someone who wasn't suspicious did]
[Isaac walked beside him doing the same, except he'd also bought two and was eating both at once, which was less subtle but he'd been in the Afterlife for five weeks and the bread was good]
[They passed the first Hyper Being at the edge of the market]
[He looked like a man. Mostly. The tell was the way he stood. Too still]
[The way things that have immeasurable power sometimes stand when they're trying to look casual — perfectly balanced, not a single unnecessary movement, the stillness of something that could level a continent without warming up]
[Satanael suddenly popped up]
[Satanael]
-One of the Hyper beings u just passed, his name is Vrakon-
[His name, Leo's source, Satanael told him it was Vrakon]
[Satanel]
-Energy signature: Abilities in the hundreds. The power to erase entire timelines sitting underneath a surface that looked like a person waiting for a market stall-
[Vrakon looked at Leo and Isaac as they passed]
[Leo kept walking]
[Vrakon kept looking]
[They made it to the other side of the market before Vrakon moved]
[He appeared in front of them]
[Not walked. Appeared. Spatial displacement, Leo clocked it instantly. Fast. Very fast by Chaos Universe standards]
[Not fast enough to be invisible to either of them but fast enough that any normal guild member would have had no idea it had happened]
[He was tall. Dark armor. Eyes the color of something that had been cold for a very long time]
[A scar running from his left temple down to his jaw that looked less like a wound and more like a marker]
Vrakon: You two..
[he said]
[Leo looked at him from under the hood]
Leo: Us?
Vrakon: Where are you from..
[Vrakon said]
Issac: Around...
[Isaac said]
[Vrakon's eyes moved between them]
[Something in his expression sharpened. Not alarm. Just the particular focus of a predator recalibrating]
Vrakon: Your energy, It's strange.
[He said slowly]
Issac: We get that a lot..
[Isaac said]
Vrakon: Take your hoods down..
[Vrakon said]
Leo: No..
[Leo said]
[A beat]
[Vrakon looked at them both]
Vrakon: You know, most people when I ask them something, they do it.
[He said slowly]
Leo: We're not most people..
[Leo said]
[The other four appeared]
[They didn't bother with subtlety. Four spatial displacements at the same moment, each one coming from a different direction]
[As they were boxing Leo and Isaac into a circle in the middle of the market street]
[The civilians nearby started backing away. Quickly]
[The particular instinct of people who have lived in a universe where powerful things clash and have learned to identify the three seconds before it starts]
[Leo looked at the five of them]
[They looked back]
[The second one stepped forward]
[She was shorter than Vrakon. Silver hair. Armor that looked like it had been made from compressed space rather than any physical material]
[Her name was Shael. Her energy signature was heavier than Vrakon's]
Shael: I'm Shael, Second of the Valtrex unit. We serve Voriath Luminael. Identity yourselves
[She looked at both of them without a flicker of hesitation]
Leo: Why??
[Leo said]
Shael: Because we've been given instructions to question anyone whose energy doesn't match the baseline of this city, And yours doesn't. Not even close. What are you?
[She tilted her head]
Issac: People eating bread..
[Isaac said. He still had a piece in his hand]
[The third Hyper Being spoke without stepping forward]
[He was leaning against a building at the edge of the circle. Arms folded]
[His name was Orell. Built wider than the other two. His armor was plain except for the sigil of the Invictus World pressed into the chest plate]
[The particular hax of someone whose power touched the laws that governed other powers]
Orell: You have no readable origin signature,That's not possible for a normal being. Everything has an origin. Everything has a source that the universe can read.
[Orell said. Not to Leo. Not to Isaac. Just into the air]
Issac: Everyone in this universe has their source pertaining to their magic they produce and that's their inner power....
[Issac corrected him and explained it]
[Orell looked at them directly]
Orell: Yours are there. But they're covered. Something put a veil over them.Something very powerful put that veil there.
[Orell replied coldy]
Leo: Well, we don't have to reveal ourselves to talk to you...
[The fourth appeared on Leo's right without speaking. A woman. Tall. No armor. Just a dark coat not entirely different from Leo's and Isaac's but worn differently]
[Her name was Cressa]
[She had the energy signature of someone who moved through concepts rather than space — the kind of being whose attacks didn't travel toward you but arrived inside the space you were occupying]
[The fifth stood directly behind Leo. He hadn't been there a second ago]
[His name was Tarak]
[The heaviest energy of the five. Not aggressive. Just present. The way very heavy things are present]
Vrakon: Five of us, Two of you. And you're not running. Why aren't you running
[Vrakon said as he looked at the hoods]
Issac: Because we didn't do anything wrong... whats the point of running away?
[Isaac said]
Leo: Because running would be insulting..
[Leo said at the same time]
[Isaac looked at him]
[Leo looked at Isaac]
Leo: Both..
[Leo said]
[Vrakon's expression shifted. Something between annoyance and genuine curiosity]
Shael: Let me explain something..
[Shael said. Her voice was patient in the way that things are patient when patience is a weapon rather than a virtue]
Leo: go on...
[Leo responded]
Shael: We serve Voriath Luminael. The King of the Invictus World. The being who broke a seal that the founders of existence put on him and walked out the other side unchanged.
[She looked at the two hooded figures in front of her]
Issac: I see, Voriath, almost everyone knows his awareness in every universe
[Issac replied]
Shael: We are here because he sent us here. We are looking for someone called Leo Sebastián. The Hyper Emperor of the Eastern World. A Hyper Being who has been hiding his nature among mortals.
[Leo intervened]
Leo: Leo Sebastián, you say, well he must be pretty strong...
[She paused as she got a little bit suspicious]
Shael: And we are going to find him.
Issac: Sounds like a big job...
[Isaac said]
Shael: Do you know him
[Shael said]
Leo: Know who
[Leo said]
Shael: Leo Sebastián?
[A pause]
Leo: Heard the name...
[Leo said]
Vrakon: Where...
[Vrakon said immediately]
Leo: Around..
[Leo said]
[Orell pushed off the wall. He walked forward until he was three meters from Leo and stopped]
[His ability — the one that touched the laws governing other abilities — was running quietly. Reading]
Orell: Your power, Whatever is veiling it, it's not hiding everything. I can feel the shape of it.That's not a normal soul.
[Orell said as he looked at Leo's chest. Not his face. His chest]
Issac: Lots of people have unusual souls...
[Isaac said helpfully]
Orell: Not like that.. and yours
[Orell said. He looked at Isaac. Then back at Leo]
[He frowned]
Orell: Fire that old doesn't exist in the Chaos Universe naturally. That fire has been somewhere it shouldn't have somewhere outside normal reality.
[Neither of them said anything]
[Vrakon and Shael exchanged a look]
Vrakon: We're going to need you to come with us
[Vrakon said]
Leo: We're going to decline..
[Leo said]
Vrakon: That wasn't a request..
[Vrakon said]
Leo: I know, but we're still declining.
[Vrakon moved]
Vrakon — Absolute Spatial Lock.
[He reached into the space around Leo and tried to freeze it. Pin every molecule in the surrounding area to a fixed coordinate]
[The ability could hold multiversal-tier beings in place for long enough to do what needed doing]
[It touched Leo's space]
[And stopped]
[Vrakon felt it stop and he pushed harder]
[The spatial lock met something in the space around Leo that it couldn't identify and bounced back]
[Not deflected. Bounced. Like trying to lock down something that existed at a different level of the equation]
[Vrakon stared]
Vrakon: Interesting...
[he said]
Leo: Isn't it..
[Leo said]
[Cressa moved from Leo's left]
Cressa — Conceptual Arrival.
[She doesn't move toward a target. She simply exists inside their space]
[She appeared inside Leo's guard, her hand already extended, the ability she was using designed to touch the concept of the target's existence and compress it from the inside]
[She found Leo's space empty]
[He was behind her]
[One step. No visible movement. No displacement of air]
[He was simply there and then simply somewhere else, and the step between those two states had not happened in any way that her senses could track]
[She spun]
[He was standing behind her with his hands in his pockets, hood still up, looking at the back of her head with the patient expression of someone waiting for the next thing to happen]
Cressa: How??
[she said]
Leo: Careful..
[he said]
[Isaac, from the other side of the circle, was standing behind Tarak with the same total absence of visible movement]
[He wasn't touching him. Just standing there]
[Tarak had turned around and was looking at Isaac with an expression that combined genuine surprise]
Issac: Hi
[Isaac said]
Tarak: How are you behind me
[Tarak said]
Issac: Practice
[Isaac said]
[The five Hyper Beings reassembled their formation. Faster this time. More alert]
[They were too powerful for alarm in its ordinary sense — but was a genuine upgrade in how seriously they were taking the situation]
[Orell looked at Leo]
Orell: You moved without using space
[he said]
Leo: Did I??
[Leo said]
Issac: There was no spatial displacement. No teleportation signature. No time skip. You just changed where you were. That's generally how movement works..
[Isaac said]
Orell: Not at that speed, Not with that absence of tell. What are you
[He looked at both of them]
[The question had changed]
[Leo looked at Orell for a moment]
Leo: We're just passing through..
[Leo said]
Shael: Nobody just passes through a city with six embedded Hyper Beings
[Shael said]
Issac: Five, I can only count five of you.
[Issac responded]
Shael: Six, There's one positioned on the roof.
[Shael said]
[Leo looked up briefly]
[Then back at Shael]
Leo: There are five of you..
[he said]
[A pause]
[Shael looked up]
[The roof position was empty]]
[She looked at Leo]
Shael: Where is—
Leo: He walked away, about a minute ago. He felt our energy and made a decision. Smart.
[Nobody said anything]
[Vrakon looked at the empty roof. Then at Leo, something in his posture had changed]
[The stillness had become a different kind of stillness. Not casual. Prepared]
Vrakon: Let me tell you about Leo Sebastián, because you asked why we're here. And I think you should know..
[Vrakon said. His voice had changed too. Lower. More deliberate]
Leo: Go ahead
[Leo said]
[Vrakon looked at the hood]
Vrakon: He is a Hyper Being, Born reincarnated into the Chaos Universe. His source is Satanael — a core that is fundamental to the Laws of the Cosmos itself. He is the Hyper Soul. The single most significant Hyper Being currently existing in the Primus World.
Issac: Interesting, he is a serious threat
[He looked at both of them]
Vrakon: Indeed, Voriath wants him. Not to destroy him. To claim the Satanael core. To add that particular piece to what he's building.
Issac: What is he building??
[Isaac said]
[Vrakon looked at him]
Vrakon: A new order, The Nexus Power reshapes the multiverse. The Infinite Book grants everything else. With both of those and the Satanael core— There is nothing left to oppose him. Not the Fundamental Laws of Cosmos Not the Manipulator. Not Siriusniyo. Nothing.
Leo: And the people, In the worlds he reshapes.
Cressa: They adapt..
[Cressa said. Simply]
Tarak: Or they don't
[Tarak said. With the same simplicity]
[Leo was quiet for a moment]
[Then he looked at Isaac]
[Isaac looked at him]
[Something passed between them]
[Orell felt it. Whatever it was, it moved through the space between the two hooded figures like a language being spoken below the register of sound]
[A decision being made. Completely mutual. Completely instant]
Leo: We're going to leave now..
[Leo said]
Vrakon: No, You're not.
Vrakon — Dimensional Erasure Field.
[The ability expanded outward from him in a ring. It didn't destroy space. It removed the option of moving through it]
[Every dimension in a radius became locked, every path out sealed, every spatial option eliminated]
[It was one of his strongest abilities. It had held beings capable of moving through realities]
[Leo looked at the field as it reached him.
He reached out with one hand. Touched it]
Law of Saint — Reversal Application.
[He restored the field to the state it had been in before Vrakon activated it]
[The field vanished]
[Vrakon stared at his own hands]
Tarak: He undid it..
[Tarak said]
Orell: From the inside, He restored it to pre-activation state from inside the field. That requires— That requires understanding the fundamental structure of the ability well enough to touch its origin point.
[Orell said. His voice had gone very quiet]
[Shael looked at the two hooded figures]
Shael: Who are you?
[she said]
Leo: I told you, We're just passing through..
[He turned]
[Orell stepped in front of him]
Orell: I can't let you leave, Not until I know what you are.
[Orell said. His ability — the one that touched the laws governing other powers — was fully active now]
[Leo looked at him]
[Then he reached up with one hand and pulled the Shatter Nebula from the space at his side where it always was, the sword materializing in a pull of blue-black light]
-The blade was different from five weeks ago.
Five weeks ago it had been powerful. Now it glowed with the particular light of something that had been to the Afterlife and come back having learned what it was for-
[The edge of it caught the air in a way that made the air seem less certain of its own existence. Light blue. Almost cold. Almost warm]
[Something in between that didn't have a color name yet]
[The five Hyper Beings looked at it]
Leo: One sword, That's all.
Vrakon: You're going to fight five of us with one sword..
[Vrakon said]
Leo: I'm going to end five of you with one sword, There's a difference.
[Leo said]
[Orell attacked]
Orell — Law Negation Field.
[He reaches into the laws governing an opponent's power and negates them at the root]
[The field reached for the laws governing the Shatter Nebula]
[Leo moved]
[The Shatter Nebula was already swinging]
Shatter Nebula — Spatial Cut.
[The blade moved through the air and the cut it left wasn't just physical]
[It went through the dimensional layer. Through the conceptual layer. Through the law that Orell was using and through the ability itself at the point of its activation]
[Orell's Law Negation Field ceased to exist mid-execution]
[His ability itself got divided and the two halves fell away from each other and dissolved]
[Orell stumbled backward]
Orell: He cut my ability, He cut the—the ability. Not the effect. The ability itself.
Shael: Move
[Shael said]
[All five of them moved at once]
[Cressa came from the left]
Cressa — Conceptual Compression.
[She appears inside the target's space and compresses their concept of existing]
[She arrived inside Leo's guard]
[He was already stepping to the right]
[The Shatter Nebula came with him and the swing caught the edge of Cressa's technique as she activated it]
[Leo smirked]
Leo: I can predict your movements
[The blade hit the conceptual compression mid-formation and the compression reversed]
[Instead of compressing Leo it compressed inward on itself and vanished]
[Cressa pulled back]
Cressa: That sword, It negates concepts on contact.
Leo: Yes, now you know how powerful my sword is, to not be underestimated
[Leo said]
Vrakon — Multi-Dimensional Strike.
[Hits from six different spatial planes simultaneously]
[Six strikes appeared at Leo from six directions at the same moment. Not sequential. Literally simultaneous]
[Six different planes of existence delivering force at the same point at the same time]
[Leo planted his feet]
Shatter Nebula — Galaxy Divide.
[One vertical slash]
[It moved through all six planes at once. Not because it was faster than the strikes]
[Because the cut itself existed across multiple dimensional layers simultaneously, meeting each of Vrakon's strikes on their own plane and negating them where they lived]
Vrakon: what.. His cut can exits at multiple locations no matter where you exist..
[Vrakon said in panic]
[The collision produced a shockwave that flattened the market stalls on both sides of the street and cracked the road in a line that ran for thirty meters in both directions]
[Vrakon was thrown back]
[His feet hit the ground and he slid before he stopped]
[He looked at the sword]
[One sword]
Vrakon: That's not possible
[he said]
Leo: For who..
[Leo said]
[Tarak came from behind]
Tarak — Absolute Weight.
[He applies the conceptual weight of a collapsing multiverse to a single point of contact]
[The ability hit Leo in the back]
[Leo absorbed it]
Omni-Absorption — passive.
[The weight arrived and Leo's system took it in and processed it and the floor beneath his feet cracked from the distributed force but he didn't move]
[He turned around slowly]
[Looked at Tarak]
Leo: Heavy..
[He said]
[Tarak stared at him]
Tarak: He absorbed it, That weight is multiversal weight. It can't be absorbed. The body has no mechanism to—
[Tarak said in suprise]
Leo: Mine does
[Leo said]
[He raised the Shatter Nebula]
Nebula-Finite.
[He channeled everything into the tip. Compressed it]
[The marble-sized sphere of infinite density formed at the sword's point and glowed with the cold blue light of something that shouldn't exist at that scale]
[He didn't fire it]
[He looked at Tarak]
Leo: I'm going to give you a moment
[Leo said]
[Tarak looked at the sphere]
[He felt what it would do when it released]
[The localized Big Crunch. The collapse of the immediate solar system into a single point)
[From a marble]
[From the tip of a sword]
[Held by one person in a black coat in the middle of a market street]
[He stepped back]
[Shael had been watching all of it. Her expression had gone through several stages and settled on something very still and very serious]
Shael: Stop!!
[she said. To her own unit]
[Everyone stopped]
[She looked at Leo]
Shael: Who are you?!
[she said. For the third time. Each time the question had been different]
[This time it was just honest. Just a person asking because they genuinely needed to know]
[Leo let the Nebula-Finite dissolve. The sphere faded]
[He looked at Shael]
Leo: Tell Voriath that the person he's looking for is closer than he thinks.
[He turned]
[Shael's eyes widened]
Shael: Wait—
[She said]
[Isaac, who had been standing quietly beside the whole fight with his hands in his pockets and his bread finished, looked at the five Hyper Beings]
Issac: You should eat something, You all look stressed.
[He turned and walked after Leo]
[The five Hyper Beings stood in the damaged market street and watched them go]
[The sixth Hyper Being, the one who had been on the roof, came down from a side street and stood beside Orell]
Elavia: I felt what he did to your ability...
[the sixth said]
Orell: Then you understand why I walked away
[Orell said]
Elavia: Yes..
[the sixth said]
[Vrakon was still looking at the end of the street where the two figures had disappeared]
Orell: That sword..
[he said]
Cressa: That sword negated a concept, A live concept. Mid-use.
[Cressa said]
Shael: And he absorbed Tarak's weight..
[Shael said]
Vrakon: And he restored my field to pre-activation from inside it
[Vrakon said]
[They stood there for a moment]
Shael: We need to report..
[Shael said]
Tarak: Report what exactly
[Tarak said]
[Shael looked at the cracked road. At the dissolved market stalls. At the clean, precise line where the Galaxy Divide had gone through six simultaneous spatial planes like they were paper]
Shael: That he's here, That he's here and he's different from what the reports said. That whatever he was before the Afterlife, he isn't that anymore.
Orell: And that one sword almost ended five of us
[Orell said]
Vrakon: Almost..
[Vrakon said. Quietly]
[Orell looked at him]
Vrakon: He wasn't trying, Not even partially. That Nebula-Finite. He formed it and held it. He gave Tarak a moment to step back. He wasn't trying to win. He was trying to not destroy the city.
[Vrakon explained motionless]
[Silence]
Shael: Report it all, Exactly as it happened. Every detail.
[She looked at the space where the hooded figures had been]
Vrakon: I hear you..
Shael: Voriath is going to want to know.
[She said quietly]
[The Hyper Beings left as Leo and Issac going their normal routine]
[Leo and Isaac walked at a normal pace]
[Hoods still up]
Issac: They're going to report us..
[Isaac said]
Leo: Yes..
[Leo said]
Issac: To Voriath..
Leo: Yes.
Issac: And you told them to tell him we're closer than he thinks.
Leo: Yes
[Leo said]
[Isaac looked at him sideways]
Issac: Was that the plan?
Leo: Part of it..
[Leo said]
Issac: What's the other part.
[Leo looked at the city around them. At the ordinary people filtering back into the market now that the immediate danger had passed]
[At the guild hall signs visible down the main street. At the Chaos Universe going about its loud and chaotic and very alive business around them]
[He was home, Not the Eastern World. Not the Afterlife. The Chaos Universe]
[The place he'd woken up in after reincarnation with nothing but a name and a power he didn't understand yet. The place he'd found a guild and a purpose and people]
Leo: Find the others, Without them finding out who we are. Ereshkigal said to stay hidden. But hidden doesn't mean absent.
Issac: It means watching..
[Isaac said]
Leo: It means watching
[Leo agreed]
[Isaac thought about this]
Issac: Luna
[he said]
Leo: She went somewhere, not here, further out
[His Cosmic Awareness had been running since they arrived. Reading the Chaos Universe. Finding the shape of things]
Issac: Angela..
[Isaac said]
Leo: Guild hall, She and Leon are arguing about something.
[Leo said]
Issac: Of course they are, What about Klaus.
[He said]
Leo: Training, He knows something is coming. He's been pushing everyone harder.
[Isaac was quiet for a moment]
Issac: They're worried about us
[he said]
Leo: Yes
[Leo said]
Issac: And we can't tell them we're back.
Leo: Not yet, Not until we know what Voriath's next move is. If our identity gets out now—
Issac: He adjusts, He's had two hundred years to adjust. He's good at it.
Leo: Yes..
[Leo said]
[They walked]
Issac: I hate this..
[Isaac said]
Leo: I know
[Leo said]
Issac: Five weeks in the Afterlife training under a goddess who governed death and twelve multiverses and we come back and immediately have to sneak around our own universe.
[Issac said]
Leo: Yes..
[Leo said]
Issac: It's undignified
[Isaac said]
Leo: Very!
[Leo agreed]
Issac: Leo...
Leo: Yeah.
Issac: That sword fight was fun though
[Isaac said]
[Leo didn't answer immediately]
[Then, quietly]
Leo: Yes, It was.
[They kept walking]
[Two people in black coats in a city that didn't know them yet]
[Coming home the long way around]
To be continued....