The walk back from the Jade Pavilion felt miles longer than the journey there.
The sun had fully set, plunging Scale-Iron City into a gloom illuminated only by the angry orange glow of the magma below and the harsh mana lamps lining the streets.
Judas kept his hands buried in the pockets of his black robes. His fingers brushed against the cool surface of the Platinum Token, but his mind was lightyears away.
Valerian's revelation sat in his gut like a swallowed stone.
Iscariot.
The name wasn't just a label for a disgraced noble house. It was a title. Administrators of the System. The gatekeepers of divinity.
For centuries, his "family" had regulated the distribution of power across the multiverse. They ensured that Systems—those reality-breaking interfaces that turned peasants into gods—only went to the chosen few.
It was a mechanism of control, a way to maintain order across the planes.
Then He arrived.
