[Last Episode: Foundation will be rebuild again after 200 years]
Chapter 109, Episode 109
[Two hundred years later, in a broken valley with three new subordinates, the answer was still not ready]
[But it was closer]
[The valley was quiet now]
[The village behind them was repaired]
[The hill was mostly restored]
[Vrakthos had done his best with the parts that were still missing, which was most of it, but nobody was going to complain]
[The Manipulator walked ahead of his three new subordinates, hands in his pockets, moving at a pace that suggested the destination was less important than the direction]
[Vrakthos walked behind him]
[Then Maerath. Then Serevath, wings folded, too large for the road but trying anyway]
Vrakthos: So Voriath..
[Vrakthos said]
The Manipulator: Yes?
[The Manipulator said]
The Manipulator: The seal broke three days ago, I felt it.
[The Manipulator said]
[Vrakthos was quiet for a moment]
Vrakthos: And his subordinates. Xuantian. Mercurius.
The Manipulator: They'll be back, They were never really gone, Just waiting for Voriath to return
[The Manipulator said]
[Serevath's wings shifted]
Serevath: And you're going to Siriusniyo.
The Manipulator: We need him..
[The Manipulator said simply. No pride attached to it. Just fact]
[Maerath made a low sound]
Maerath: You said even both of you together couldn't stop Voriath last time.
The Manipulator: We couldn't stop him, We slowed him down. There's a difference. This time we need more than slow.
[The Manipulator]
Vrakthos: What do you need?
[Vrakthos said]
[The Manipulator looked ahead at the horizon]
The Manipulator: A reason for him to lose
[he said]
[Nobody answered that because nobody knew what it meant yet]
Serevath: Will Siriusniyo come willingly..
[Serevath asked]
[The Manipulator smirked. Just slightly]
The Manipulator: He'll argue for an hour, and then he'll come.
[The Manipulator said]
[They kept walking[
[The seal had broken]
[The war was coming]
Meanwhile at the Afterlife World,With the Last training of Leo and Issac facing Ereshkigal
[The sky above the training ground was the same swirling black and violet it always was]
[But it felt different today heavier]
[Like the air knew something was about to happen and was bracing itself]
[Leo stood at one end of the obsidian field.
Isaac stood beside him]
[Both of them looking at the other end]
[Where Ereshkigal stood]
[She wasn't on her throne. She wasn't wearing the expression of a ruler watching over something]
[She was standing on the ground like everyone else, arms at her sides, and the twelve multiverses she governed were humming quietly in the air around her like a pulse]
[Azrael stood at the edge of the field with the remaining servants. None of them were speaking]
Ereshikigal: You've been here five weeks
[Ereshkigal said. Her voice was even]
Leo: Yeah, to train our source
Ereshikigal: You've trained every day. You've grown. Today is the Final test
[She looked at Leo. Then at Isaac]
Leo: Fight you.
[Leo said]
Ereshikigal: Fight me..
[she confirmed]
[Isaac looked at Leo sideways]
Issac: She created twelve infinite multiverses.
Leo: I know..
[Leo said]
Issac: She governs death itself.
Leo: I know.
Issac: Just checking
[Isaac said]
[Ereshkigal watched them with those eyes that had seen the beginning and end of everything]
Ereshkigal: I won't kill you, But I won't go easy on you either. If you survive what I show you today, you'll be ready to go home. If you don't, you'll spend another five weeks here and we try again.
Leo: We'll survive..
[Leo said]
Ereshikigal: Good?..Then let's begin
[Ereshkigal said]
[Isaac moved first]
[He wasn't going to wait for a goddess to set the pace]
Pyrofiend Ascension.
[The transformation hit instantly. His body became fire given shape]
[Temperature spiking, the obsidian ground around him cracking from the heat. He crossed the distance between them in under a second]
Crimson Hell Punch — Full Force.
[The fist connected, or should have]
[Ereshkigal raised one hand and caught it]
[Not blocked. Caught. Her fingers wrapped around his fist and the heat stopped at her palm like it had hit a wall and decided to go somewhere else]
Ereshikigal: Good speed,wrong approach.
[She said as she pushed]
[Isaac flew backward, skipped across the obsidian ground, left a trail of scorched stone, and hit the far barrier hard enough to crack it]
[He was on his feet before the dust settled]
Issac: Okay, Okay.
Cosmic Emberblaze — Full Release.
[He didn't aim at her body this time. He aimed at the space around her]
[Fire that tapped into the energy of stars, expanding outward in every direction at once, leaving nowhere to stand that wasn't burning.
Ereshkigal looked at the fire surrounding her]
Absolute Null-Zone.
[The concepts of power and energy in a radius around her simply stopped existing. Isaac's stellar fire hit the zone and went out]
[Not doused. Not absorbed. The fire just forgot what it was for a moment and disappeared]
[Isaac stared]
Issac: What??.. She erased my fire.
Ereshikigal: Yes, Try again.
[Ereshikigal said]
[Leo had been watching and already shifting his approach]
Shatter Nebula.
[The sword materialized in his hand, vibrating with the power to cut through space and negate time]
[He moved fast. Not his fastest. Measured. Reading her]
Satanael Genesis Flash Step.
[He deleted the distance between them and appeared at her left with the sword already swinging]
[The blade hit something]
Dimensional Layering Defense.
[Thousands of micro-dimensions stacked between her skin and the blade]
[The sword traveled through the first hundred and slowed in the next hundred and stopped somewhere in the middle]
[Leo felt the resistance and immediately changed direction]
Venikulanino.
[He reversed the layering. Tried to push her own defense back into her]
[Ereshkigal's eyes moved to him. Something shifted in her expression. Mild surprise]
Ereshikigal: You reversed my layers?
[She said]
Leo: Trying to..
[Leo said through his teeth]
[The reversal held for two seconds. Then her Paradox Immunity kicked in and the reversal became irrelevant]
[She reached out and put one hand on Leo's chest]
Weight of a Billion Sins.
[The spiritual weight of everything wrong in Leo's past came down on his shoulders all at once]
[Physically. His knees hit the ground before he processed what was happening]
[He hadn't expected it to be that heavy.
Isaac was already coming from behind]
Super Million — Supernova Release.
[A miniature sun at a million degrees exploded outward from his body]
[The heat was so concentrated it began burning the concept of distance between them]
[Ereshkigal turned]
Soul-Afterlife Absorption.
[She pulled the power of every soul in the Afterlife behind her and released it as a shockwave of pure force]
[Isaac's supernova hit the shockwave]
[The collision between them erased the next fifty meters of obsidian floor entirely]
[Both of them were thrown back]
[Leo used the moment to get off his knee, burning through the weight on his shoulders with Law of Saint, restoring his own state to before it landed]
Leo: She hit us with our own weight..
[Leo said, breathing hard]
Issac: She hit me with a dead army, Felt like getting punched by a planet.
[Issac said]
Leo: Same thing, so this is how strong the ruler of this world is... such power
[Leo said]
[They looked at Ereshkigal standing in the gap where the floor used to be]
Ereshikigal: You two coordinate well, But you're still reacting to me.
[She tilted her head slightly]
Ereshikigal: Stop reacting. Start deciding.
[Leo and Isaac looked at each other]
[A second of communication that needed no words]
[They'd trained together for five weeks]
[They knew each other's timing down to the millisecond]
Leo: Together..
[Leo said]
Issac: Together
[Isaac agreed]
Leo — Chaos Ascension Mode.
Isaac — Absolute Deity Souls.
[The combined aura that came off them hit the air like a physical thing]
[The remaining obsidian ground cracked in a ring around them both]
[The sky above the training field changed color. The servants at the edge of the field took a collective step back]
[Azrael watched quietly]
[They moved at the same time]
[Leo went high. Isaac went low. No signal. No call. Just timing built from five weeks of training until it was instinct]
Leo — Garp Blast
Isaac — Inferno Cascade
[The blast and the fire hit Ereshkigal from two angles simultaneously]
[Two completely different types of force. Two completely different conceptual attacks layered over each other]
Ereshkigal — Reactive Reality Warping.
[Her defense activated automatically]
[The Garp Blast became harmless light. The Inferno Cascade became flower petals]
[But Leo had expected that]
Venikulanino — Reversal.
[He reversed the conversion]
[The harmless light became a Garp Blast again mid-transformation, skipping the defensive process entirely and hitting her from the inside of her own defense]
[Ereshkigal moved]
[She moved fast. For the first time she actually moved to avoid something]
[The reversed Garp Blast clipped her shoulder]
[The training field registered the hit]
[Azrael straightened up]
[Ereshkigal looked at her shoulder. Then at Leo]
Ereshikigal: You reversed the conversion
[she said]
Leo: You turned my attack into light, I turned the light back.
[Leo said]
Ereshikigal: Inside my own defense.
Leo: Yes.
[A pause]
Ereshoikigal: Good
[he said]
[Then she stopped being gentle]
Ereshkigal — Calamity of Chaos.
[The laws of physics inverted in the entire training field]
[Gravity pulled sideways. Heat moved backward. Sound arrived before it was made]
[The ground became ceiling]
[Leo and Isaac both stumbled as their sense of the world scrambled]
Leo — Grand Equation.
[He immediately rewrote the local physics back to normal in the space around them both]
[A small bubble of correct reality in a field that had gone wrong]
Leo: I've got the environment
[Leo said]
Issac: Then I've got her
[Isaac said]
Isaac — Knowledge Hellfire.
[His body powered up to a hundred million degrees]
[The fire wasn't just hot. It was conceptual. Capable of affecting matter and soul and reality simultaneously]
[He closed the distance with Hell Gate Friction, burning the space between them until it was nothing]
Isaac — Crimson Hell Punch — Engulfed.
[The punch hit]
[This time it actually hit]
[Ereshkigal's form flickered. She absorbed the impact with Aura of the Eternal Void, drinking the energy in]
[But the conceptual fire inside the punch didn't get absorbed cleanly. It burned at the void from the inside]
[She let the void go before it could be compromised]
[Leo was already in her space]
Shatter Nebula — Galaxy Divide
[A vertical slash aimed not at her body but at the layers of defense around her. Cutting through the dimensional stacking]
[Through the paradox immunity. Trying to find the real her underneath all of it]
Ereshkigal — The Finality Mandate.
[She touched the blade]
[The sword began aging. Rapidly. Millennia passing in seconds]
[Leo felt it through the hilt. He let go]
Law of Saint — Restoration
[The sword restored itself to its original state mid-fall. He caught it before it hit the ground]
Leo: She aged my sword
[Leo said]
Issac: Age it back..
[Isaac said]
Leo: I did.
Issac: Then stop talking.
Isaac — Logic Void Cinder.
[He burned the rules of the field. Every established law Ereshkigal had been using as the foundation of her defense]
[The null zones. The reactive warping. The paradox immunity]
[They didn't disappear. But they flickered. One second of them flickering was enough]
Leo — Nebula-Finite
[He channeled everything into the tip of the Shatter Nebula and released it in a sphere the size of a marble]
[It hit the flickering defense in that one second window]
[The localized collapse it caused was small. Precise. But it went through]
[It hit Ereshkigal directly]
[The shockwave from a controlled Big Crunch at point blank range sent her backward for the first time in the entire fight]
[Three steps. She caught herself on the third.
The training field went completely silent]
[Three steps]
[Nobody said anything]
[Ereshkigal stood where she'd stopped]
[She looked at the ground in front of her. At where her feet had moved. Then she looked up at the two of them]
[Leo was breathing hard]
[His Chaos Ascension aura was flickering from the energy cost]
[Isaac was at his limit. His fire had shifted from white back toward blue. One more form would put him on empty]
[Both of them barely standing]
[Ereshkigal standing three steps from where she'd started]
Azrael: You moved her
[Azrael said from the edge of the field. Very quietly]
[Belili looked at him]
[He just watched]
[Ereshkigal straightened]
Ereshikigal: Three steps, In the history of this realm, you are the second and third beings to move me in a training session.
[She said]
Issac: Who was first
[Isaac said, still catching his breath]
Ereshikigal: Someone you'll meet eventually
[She said]
[She looked at both of them. Something in her expression had changed. Still unreadable. But different]
Ereshikigal: You're ready
[she said]
[Leo looked at her]
Leo: We moved you three steps.
Ereshikigal: Yes.
Issac: You weren't going full power.
Ereshikigal: No, Not even close.
[She said simply]
Issac: So we still lost
[Isaac said]
Ereshikigal: You still lost, But you found something against me that most beings never find. You found a window. One second. And you hit it.
Leo: Really????
[She looked at Leo]
Ereshikigal: Yep, But That's not strength. That's intelligence. That's the difference between someone who fights gods and someone who fights like a god.
[Leo was quiet for a moment]
Leo: Is it enough, For what's coming.
[Leo said]
[Ereshkigal looked at him for a long time]
Ereshikigal: No , Not yet. But you're closer than you were this morning.
[She said calmly]
[She turned back toward the realm]
Ereshikigal: Rest. Tomorrow the seal returns you to the Chaos Universe.
Issac: The seal on Voriath, Has it—
[Issac said]
Ereshikigal: Broken, Three days ago
[Ereshkigal said. Without turning around]
[The word landed like a stone]
Leo: Then we're out of time
[Leo said]
Ereshikigal: You've been out of time since you arrived, The difference is now you're ready enough to matter.
[She walked away across the broken training field]
[Leo looked at Isaac]
[Isaac looked at Leo]
[Five weeks of training. Two bodies that felt like they'd been put through a universe-grade grinder. One three-step victory against a being who governed death itself]
Issac: We moved her
[Isaac said]
Leo: We moved her
[Leo agreed]
[Isaac sat down on a piece of broken obsidian]
Issac: I'm so tired
[He said]
[Leo sat down beside him]
Leo: Yeah
[He said]
[Above them the sky swirled black and violet and somewhere beyond it the Chaos Universe was waiting and the seal was broken and the war was coming]
[They sat there for a while]
[Just two people who had found a window]
[One second wide]
[Against something infinite]
[It would have to be enough]
[The night before they left, Leo and Isaac sat outside the training ground on a ledge overlooking the Afterlife]
[The realm stretched out below them. Dark and vast and beautiful in the way that things are beautiful when they don't need to try]
Issac: Five weeks
[Isaac said]
Leo: Five weeks
[Leo said]
Issac: Feels longer, Much longer.
[Isaac looked at his hands]
[The fire that was always just under his skin, always warm, always present]
[It felt different now. Deeper. Like it had roots it didn't have before]
Issac: Do you think they're okay back home
[He said]
[Leo was quiet for a moment]
Leo: Angela's probably driving Leon insane
[he said]
[Isaac laughed. Short and genuine]
Issac: Luna's probably worried
[he said]
[Leo didn't answer that one. Just looked out at the Afterlife]
Leo: Yeah
[He said finally]
[They sat there until the sky shifted. Until the black and violet gave way to something softer that passed for dawn in this realm]
[Then Ereshkigal was behind them]
[Neither of them had heard her arrive]
Ereshikigal: It's time
[she said]
[They stood]
[Leo picked up the Shatter Nebula]
[Isaac rolled his shoulders and the fire settled into him properly]
[They turned to face her]
Leo: Thank you
[Leo said]
[Ereshkigal looked at him]
Ereshikigal: Don't waste it
[she said]
[She raised her hand and the seal opened above them]
[A circle of light in the dark Afterlife sky. On the other side of it, somewhere, the Chaos Universe was waiting]
[Leo looked at it]
[Then at Ereshkigal one more time]
Leo: The Primordial Void, When it comes back.
[Leo said]
Ereshikigal: It will come
[she said]
Leo: Will you fight with us?
[A pause]
Ereshikigal: I govern twelve multiverses, When existence is threatened, I don't have the luxury of staying home.
[She said]
[It wasn't a yes, but it was enough]
[Leo stepped through]
[Isaac stepped through behind him]
[The seal closed]
[The Afterlife was quiet]
[Azrael appeared beside Ereshkigal]
Azrael: They moved you
[he said]
Ereshikigal: Three steps
[She said]
Azrael: I've served you since before time had a name, I've never moved you. Ereshkigal watched the place where the seal had been.
[Azrael said]
Ereshkigal: No, You haven't.
[She said]
[She turned and walked back toward her throne]
Ereshikigal: Prepare the servants All of them. What's coming won't wait.
[She said with confidence]
Meanwhile at the Chaos Universe
[Luna Roseveltie had been staring at the same map for three hours]
[The guild hall around her was busy]
[Members coming and going. Leon and Angela arguing about something in the corner]
[Haschwalth sharpening a blade that didn't need sharpening]
[Normal. All of it normal]
[Luna looked at the map, specifically at the edge of it]
[The part where the known territories ended and the notation simply read Terra Celestial World — Location Unconfirmed]
[She folded the map. Stood up]
[Angela noticed immediately. She always noticed]
Angela: Where are you going?
[Angela said from across the room]
Luna: Out..
[Luna said]
[Angela looked at the folded map in Luna's hand. Then at Luna's face. Something in her expression went careful]
Angela: Luna??
Luna: I'll be back, I just need to find something.
[Luna said]
[Angela opened her mouth]
[Closed it]
[Looked at the map. At the edge of it]
Angela: How long??
[she said]
Luna: I don't know
[Luna said honestly]
[Leon had stopped arguing. He was watching now too]
[Luna looked at both of them]
[At the guild hall she'd called home for years]
[At the people who had become family in the absence of the one she was going to find]
Luna: I'll be careful..
[She said]
[She walked out]
[The first day she spent asking in the markets of the Chaos Universe's capital]
[Most people had heard the name]
[Terra Celestial World. They said it the way people say things they've heard but don't believe]
[Like a story. Like somewhere that exists in books but not in maps]
[An old merchant at the edge of the eastern market squinted at her]
[His name was Zaol]
Zaol: Celestial World, Far. Very far. Past the Outer Rim of the Chaos Universe. Past the neutral territories.
[Zaol said]
[He tapped the counter]
Zaol: You'd need to cross three universe borders at minimum.
Luna: How long??
[Luna said]
[He thought about it]
Zaol: Weeks. Maybe more. Depends on how you travel and who lets you through.
[Luna put coins on the counter]
Luna: Which direction??
[He told her]
[She left before sunset]
Day Two
[The second and third days were travel]
[Long stretches of road through the outer territories of the Chaos Universe where the cities thinned out and the sky took on that particular quality of places that exist at the edge of things]
[She stopped in a small border town on the third night and asked again]
[A woman running a small inn looked at her carefully]
[Her name was Shiki]
Shiki: Terra Celestial World. You're serious.
Luna: Yes
[Luna said]
Shiki: That's not just far, That's a different kind of place. The Celestials don't exactly put up signs, Why do you want to go there.
[Shiki said as she dries the cup]
Luna: My mother is there
[Luna said]
[The woman stopped drying the cup]
[She put it down]
Shiki: The road east from here, Follows the edge of the neutral territories. At the end of it there's a crossing point. A gate. Old one. You'll know it when you see it. Ask whoever's guarding it about the Celestial passage.
[Shiki explained]
Luna: Thank you..
[Luna said]
Shiki: Be respectful when you get there, Those people are old. Much older than anything in the Chaos Universe.
[Shiki said]
Day Four past
[Days four through eight were the hardest]
[The neutral territories had no roads]
[Just open space between universes, shifting and unstable, the kind of place that didn't exactly welcome travelers]
[Luna navigated by the direction the old merchant had given her and by instinct and by the particular way her magic hummed when she was going the right way]
[She slept in the spaces between]
[She ate what she'd packed and what she could find]
[She kept moving]
[On the eighth day she found the gate]
[It wasn't dramatic. Just an arch of stone at the edge of a plateau, older than anything she'd seen before, the stone worn smooth in a way that spoke of an impossible amount of time]
[The air through it was different. Cleaner. Lit with something that wasn't quite light]
[A figure stood beside it]
[Just present]
[Luna stopped in front of them]
Luna: I'm looking for the Terra Celestial World?
[she said]
[The figure looked at her for a long moment]
-Unknown Figure-
"Why??"
[It said]
Luna: My mother, Her name is Lunar. She lives there.
[Luna said]
[Another long pause]
-Unknown Figure-
"Lunar??"
[The figure said slowly]
Luna: Yes..
[Luna said]
[The figure stepped aside]
-Unknown Figure-
"Through the gate, Walk toward the light. Don't stop walking until you arrive"
[Luna looked at the gate]
[At the light on the other side of it]
[She stepped through]
[It was exactly what the name suggested.
Brilliant]
[The kind that entered through your eyes and moved through your whole body and left you feeling like you'd been cleaned]
[Gardens of things that had no names in any language Luna knew]
[A sky that held three different phases of moonlight simultaneously]
[People moved through it]
[The Celestials. Calm and ancient and unhurried]
[None of them looked at her strangely. Like they'd been expecting her for a while]
[Luna walked through the main thoroughfare and stopped a Celestial who seemed less occupied than the others]
Luna: I'm looking for Lunar..
[she said]
[The Celestial looked at her face for a moment]
[Something in their expression shifted]
Bellatrix: Follow me..
[She said]
[She walked through the Celestial World for a few minutes]
[Past gardens and halls of learning and places that hummed with the particular energy of the Infinite Book nearby, that vast and sealed power that the God of Lunar kept close]
[Luna eyes widened as she saw the book]
Luna: What.... that's the infinite book, this is the first time seeing it
[They stopped outside a quiet building]
[Smaller than most around it. More personal]
Bellatrix: She's inside, She knows you're here.
[Bellatrix said]
[Luna looked at the door]
[Her hand rose toward it]
[Stopped]
[Five years. More than five years since she'd seen her mother's face]
[Since before the Eastern World's conflicts]
[Since before the Force Light Guild. Since before everything that had happened in between]
[She'd spent so long being okay without her]
[Learning how to be okay without her, becoming someone who functioned without her]
[Now, standing at the door, all of that fell away]
[She was just a daughter]
[She knocked]
[The door opened]
[Lunar stood in the doorway]
[She was exactly as Luna remembered]
[The same face. The same eyes that held a kind of quiet that went very deep]
[The same quality to her presence, that gentle nullification that had always made the world feel slightly safer when she was in it]
[She looked at Luna]
[Luna looked at her mother]
[Neither of them spoke for a moment]
[Then Luna's face did something she hadn't let it do in years]
[She didn't cry quietly. She didn't try to hold it together]
[She just stepped forward and her mother opened her arms and Luna walked into them and the sound that came out of her was the sound of five years of being strong without permission to stop]
[Lunar held her daughter]
[Didn't speak. Didn't shush. Just held her]
[[The Terra Celestial World went about its quiet business around them and the three moons held their light and nothing hurried either of them]
[After a while Luna pulled back just enough to look at her mother's face]
Luna: I looked everywhere, I didn't know you were here. Nobody told me. I didn't know where—
[Luna said]
Lunar: I know, I know, my love.
[Lunar said quietly]
Luna: Why didn't you—
Lunar: It's a long story, And I owe you every word of it." She held her daughter's face in both hands. But first. Let me look at you.
[Lunar said in excitement]
[She looked]
[Luna let her]
Lunar: You're different
[Lunar said]
Luna: I grew up
[Luna said]
Lunar: Yes, You did.
[Her mother said]
[Something in her voice made Luna cry again]
[Not the same way. Softer]
Lunar: Come inside, I'll make tea. And then I'll explain everything. And then you can be angry at me if you need to be.
[She said]
Luna: I'm not angry mom
[Luna said]
Lunar: You might be after the explanation
[Lunar said]
[They went inside]
[The door closed]
[And the Terra Celestial World held the quiet around that small building carefully, the way places hold quiet when something important is finally being given the time it deserved]
[The tea was warm]
[Luna held the cup with both hands and looked at her mother across the small table and waited]
[Lunar looked at her tea for a moment]
[Then at her daughter]
Lunar: You want to know why I wasn't there
[she said]
Luna: Yes
[Luna said simply]
[Lunar nodded. She set her cup down]
Lunar: When you were born, I was already here. In the Terra Celestial World.
[Lunar said]
[Not by choice. By necessity]
[Luna said nothing. Listening]
Lunar: The God of Lunar called me..
[Not a request. A summons. The kind that doesn't wait for convenient timing]
[She looked at her hands]
Lunar: You came early, Luna. Three weeks early. I was supposed to be back before you arrived. I wasn't.
[Luna said]
Luna: What was so important?
[Luna said. Her voice was even. She was being careful with it]
Lunar: The Infinite Book, It was destabilizing. Something from outside the cosmology was pressing against its seal. Something large.
[She looked up]
Lunar: We didn't know what it was yet. We know now.
[Luna was quiet]
Luna: Voriath
[she said]
Lunar: Even two hundred years ago, before the Great Destruction, his energy was already reaching things it shouldn't have been able to reach, The Book felt it before anyone else did. Books like that are sensitive to things that want them.
[Luna said]
Luna: So you stayed
[Luna said]
Lunar: I stayed, For weeks. Then the Great Destruction happened and the borders closed and— There were years where I tried to get back. Years, Luna. I need you to know that.
[She said]
Luna: And then?
Lunar: And then enough time passed that I didn't know how to cross the distance anymore, Not the physical distance. The other kind.
[Luna looked at her mother]
Luna: That's the part I'm supposed to be angry about
[she said]
Lunar: Yes
[Lunar said]
[Luna was quiet for a moment]
Luna: I'm not angry, Then, softer: I understand it. I don't like it. But I understand it.
[She said]
[Lunar exhaled. Something in her shoulders released]
Lunar: Your father
[She started]
Luna: He was fine, He tried. He wasn't you but he tried. He told me you were somewhere important. He said it like he believed it.
[She said]
Lunar: He always believed better than I deserved
[Lunar said]
[Luna almost smiled]
Luna: Yeah.
[They sat with that for a moment]
Luna: Five years, I've been with the Force Light Guild for five years. Working and training and trying to be useful. I kept thinking maybe one day I'd find you or you'd find me or—
[She said]
Lunar: I know, I've been watching. As much as I can from here.
[She said]
[Luna looked up]
Luna: You watched.
Lunar: Every time you fought, Every time you were scared and didn't show it. Every time you looked after people twice your size who had no idea you were doing it. I watched all of it.
[Her voiced soft]
[Luna pressed her lips together]
Luna: That's both comforting and extremely annoying
[she said]
[Lunar laughed. Short and bright]
Lunar: I know.
Luna: If you could watch, why couldn't you just—
[Luna said]
Lunar: Because watching and reaching are different, And I made a mistake in the difference. And I'm sorry.
[Luna said with a guilty face]
[Luna looked at her mother]
[The apology sat in the air between them. Clean and simple and completely without decoration]
Luna: Okay
[Luna said finally]
Lunar: Okay?
Luna: Okay, I'm not ready to be fully okay. But I'm okay enough to keep talking.
[Luna said again]
[Lunar nodded]
Lunar: That's fair.
[Luna picked up her tea again]
Luna: Tell me about the Book..
[She said]
[Lunar's expression changed. Settled into something more serious]
Lunar: What do you know??
[She said]
Luna : Enough to be worried, The Infinite Book contains every power that has ever existed. Whoever wields it becomes Omniscient and Omnipresent. Infinite abilities.
[Luna paused]
Luna: It can grant any wish. But the soul and the magic of the user have to be connected as one before the Book accepts them. And there are limits. Use too much at once and it destroys your body.
[Lunar looked at her carefully]
Lunar: Where did you learn that.
Luna: I pay attention, And the guild has people who know things.
Lunar: The guild, Force Light??
Luna: Yes...
[Lunar was quiet for a moment. Something moved behind her eyes]
Luna: Voriath broke the seal..
[Luna said. It wasn't a question]
Lunar: Three days ago
[Lunar said]
[Luna set her cup down]
Luna: He has the Infinite Glass.
[Lunar looked at her daughter with an expression that had concern layered under a deeper concern]
Lunar: You know about the Glass??
[she said]
Luna: it's pieced it together, Two hundred years ago he shattered it to unseal himself. Each shard is a timeline. A parallel version of him. Some of them don't even know they exist.
[Luna said]
Lunar: Interesting my daughter, great history knowledge...
[She looked at her mother]
Luna: And the God of Lunar couldn't see his future even with the ability to view all timelines and realities.
Lunar: No, His future has always been defied. Something in his nature makes it unreachable.
[Lunar said]
Luna: And now he's free again, "He has the Glass. And he wants the Nexus. And the Book.
[Silence]
Lunar: If he gets both, The cosmology is gone, The Nexus reshapes the multiverse in the image of whoever controls it. Bends physics. Bends time. Bends reality to their will.
Lunar: It got to a point where Voriath will become strong, strong enough to batter the entire multiverse
[She looked at her mother]
Luna: And the Book gives infinite power on top of that. There's no recovering from both. Not for anyone.
[Her voice was steady but her hands on the cup were tight]
[The room felt heavier]
[From outside, the light of the Terra Celestial World continued its quiet brilliance, unaware or uncaring of the weight of what was being discussed inside]
Lunar: Who can wield the Book
[Lunar said. Not asking. Testing. Seeing how much her daughter knew]
[Luna looked at her]
Luna: The soul and the magic have to be one, That's not common. Most people have power that sits outside them. Something they use. Something separate.
Lunar: I think, that's how it supposed to work to manage the coordination between the links.
[Luna said]
[As Luna continued as she thought carefully]
Luna: But someone whose identity and their magic are the same thing. Someone where the power isn't something they have but something they are. The Book would accept someone like that.
[Lunar nodded slowly]
Lunar: I already know that part
Luna: There are very few in the history of the cosmology. Very few, I know one.
[Luna said]
[Lunar looked at her]
Luna: Leo Sebastián, he is my crush
[Luna said as she blushed]
[The name landed quietly]
Lunar: Really, so you have a crush on him, intresting
[Luna smirked]
Luna: His source is Satanael, Not a magic he learned. Not a power he was given. It's fused with his soul at a level that most beings never reach. The Hyper Soul. The Hyper Core.
[She looked at her mother]
Luna: His magic and his soul aren't connected. They're the same thing. They've been the same thing since before he fully understood what he was.
[Lunar was very still]
Lunar: You know him well, afterall you are his crush, so i wouldn't be surprised
[she said]
Luna: Mother...
Lunar: Alright, alright
[She said as she stopped teasing]
Luna: I've watched him fight for five years. I've watched what his power actually is. He has a chance with the Book. More than a chance.
[Her voice stayed steady]
Lunar: The limitations—
Luna: He'd have to be careful, He can't use everything at once. The Book would destroy his body if he tried. But Leo has never been reckless with power. Chaotic sometimes. But not reckless.
[Lunar looked at her daughter for a long time]
Lunar: Where is he?
[she said quietly]
Luna: The Afterlife Reincarnation World, He's been there for five weeks. Training under Ereshkigal herself. Isaac is with him. Fire magic. Source Twilight. They've been there since they disappeared from the Chaos Universe.
[She said with a pile of information topping her head]
Lunar: You knew this whole time...
[Lunar said]
Luna: I figured it out, Took me three weeks. But yes.
[Lunar looked at her hands]
Lunar: Ereshkigal, If she's training them directly. She knows what's coming.
Luna: Everyone knows what's coming,
The question is whether anyone is ready.
[The door to the small building opened]
[Neither of them had heard footsteps. There were none]
[The God of Lunar simply arrived the way fundamental things arrive]
[Present, then more present, then fully there]
[She was younger looking than most people expected a being of her authority to be]
[That was the first thing that struck Luna. Not old. Not ancient in the way that made something look tired]
[Ancient in the way that made something look finished. Complete. Like every edge had been worn into exactly the right shape over an unimaginable amount of time]
[She carried the Infinite Book at her side.
Sealed. Closed]
[The seal on it was visible even to Luna's eyes — layers of light compressed around the cover that hummed with a frequency that made the air near it feel significant]
[Luna stood immediately]
[Lunar was already standing]
[Both of them bowed]
[The God of Lunar looked at them both. Her eyes moved to Luna specifically]
God of Lunar: Luna Roseveltie
[she said. Her voice was the kind of quiet that filled the whole room without trying]
Luna: Yes
[Luna said, Still bowed]
God of Lunar: Rise, Both of you.
[She said]
[They rose]
[The God of Lunar looked at Luna with an expression that was warm and careful at the same time]
God of Lunar: You've been looking for your mother for a long time
[she said]
Luna: Yes
[Luna said]
Lunar: I kept her longer than I intended, That is my responsibility. Not hers.
[God of Lunar said]
[Luna blinked]
[She looked at the God of Lunar. Then at her mother]
[Lunar had a small expression on her face]
[The expression of someone who had been waiting for that sentence to be said for years]
Luna: Thank you
[Luna said carefully]
[The God of Lunar sat down at the table as if she had always been part of the conversation]
[As if the small room was exactly the right size for her]
God of Lunar: You were discussing the Book..
[She said]
Luna: Yes, I was telling my mother about Leo Sebastián.
God of Lunar: I know who he is, I've known for some time that it would come to this.
[the God of Lunar said as she looked at the sealed Book at her side]
Luna: Can you see his future?
God of Lunar: No, His future moves. It doesn't settle. But I can see the shape of what the cosmology needs. And I can see what the Book needs.
[God of Lunar said]
Luna: A soul fused with its magic
[Luna said]
God of Lunar: Yes, and something else.
[She looked at Luna]
Luna: What is the something else??
God of Lunar: Willingness. The Book does not accept ambition. It has rejected beings of infinite power because what they wanted was for themselves.
[She looked at the cover of the sealed Book]
God of Lunar: Leo Sebastián fights for other people. That's not a small thing.
Luna: Voriath wants it
[Luna said]
God of Lunar: Voriath wants everything
[the God of Lunar said. Her voice didn't change. Still calm. Still that quiet that filled the room]
God of Lunar: He has the Glass. He will find the Nexus. And then he will come here.
[The weight of that sentence sat on all three of them]
Luna: Then we need Leo to get here first
[Luna said]
God of Lunar: Not here, The Book cannot leave the Terra Celestial World until it has accepted its user. If we move it before that moment, the seal breaks and the chaos it causes would be worse than Voriath.
[She paused]
Luna: What.... I mean, ohhh sorry your highness
God of Lunar: Leo must come to it.
[The God of Lunar giggled as she said]
Luna: He's in the Afterlife, He'll be coming back soon. I don't know when but soon.
God of Lunar: I know, Ereshkigal has already sent word
[the God of Lunar said]
[Luna looked at her]
Luna: She has?
God of Lunar: We are old friends
[the God of Lunar said simply]
[Luna filed that away]
Luna: What do I do?
[Luna said]
[The God of Lunar looked at her]
God of Lunar: You go back, You find him when he returns. And you bring him here. He has to choose to come
[A pause.Not by force. Not by urgency. By choice]
Luna: He will..
[Luna said]
God of Lunar: You're certain
[the God of Lunar said]
Luna: I've known him for five years, If you tell him something important is here that can help the people he cares about, he'll walk through anything to get to it. That's just who he is.
[Luna said confidently]
[The God of Lunar looked at her for a long moment]
[Then she looked at Lunar]
[Something passed between the two older beings. Something that had no words]
God of Lunar: Your daughter, is exceptional
[the God of Lunar said]
[Lunar looked at Luna with an expression that had tears behind it but didn't let them through]
Lunar: I know
[she said]
[Luna looked at the table]
Luna: Stop, Both of you.
[The God of Lunar almost smiled]
[Luna looked up]
Luna: I need one more day with my mother. Then I go back.
[Luna said]
God of Lunar: Of course
[he God of Lunar said]
[She stood. The Book moved with her. The seal humming quietly]
[At the door she paused]
God of Lunar: Luna!
[She said]
[Luna looked at her]
God of Lunar: The Book will remember that you came here, That matters more than you know.
[She left]
[The room settled back into its quiet]
[Luna looked at her mother]
[Lunar looked at her daughter]
Lunar: One day
[Lunar said]
Luna: One day, Tell me everything. All of it. The years I missed. Starting from the beginning
[She picked up her tea]
[Lunar sat down]
[And started talking]
[Outside, the three moons of the Terra Celestial World held their light over everything, and the Infinite Book sat sealed in the God of Lunar's hands, and somewhere across the cosmology a seal had broken and something ancient was free and moving]
[But inside that small room, for one day, none of that was the most important thing]
To be continued...