Chapter 25 — The Question That Stained the World Red
The world did not shake when Max arrived.
It recoiled.
Not violently.
Not explosively.
But like a wound reopening.
A thin fracture of red light split the night sky above an abandoned industrial district—and sealed just as quickly.
Max stepped through.
Five months.
Five months of relentless training.
Five months of devouring divinity.
Five months of carving weakness out of himself.
When his boots touched the mortal plane, the air hesitated.
Not in fear.
In recognition.
He was different now.
Contained.
But terrifyingly quiet.
The First Question
The church safehouse was hidden beneath the ruins of a cathedral scheduled for demolition.
They never saw him enter.
Candles flickered once.
Then went out.
By the time the priests realized something was wrong, they were already kneeling.
Not by force.
By instinct.
Max stood before them, eyes calm, voice steady.
"Where is Victoria?"
No shouting.
No rage.
Just a question.
The eldest priest trembled.
"She… she vanished when the Holy Region was erased—"
Max stepped forward.
The temperature dropped.
"Where. Is. Victoria?"
A younger priest began sobbing.
"We don't know! We swear! The Kingdom disappeared! The angels sealed the record! Even the gods—"
Max grabbed him by the collar and lifted him effortlessly.
"If you know something," he said softly,
"your life will be spared."
Silence.
Only fear.
"No… we don't know…"
A pause.
Max released him.
The priest dropped to the floor.
And the entire underground chamber collapsed inward—
not shattered—
compressed.
As if gravity itself had decided the structure no longer deserved to exist.
Max walked out alone.
He asked the same question in the next city.
And the next.
And the next.
Every time:
"Where is Victoria?"
Every time:
"I don't know."
And every time—
Silence followed.
Church cells vanished quietly across the country.
Not bombed.
Not exposed.
Erased.
The Gods Watch — And Do Nothing
Above the mortal realm, the gods felt it.
Shrines dimmed.
Faith fractured.
Priests vanished.
Did they descend?
No.
Since the death of the Divine Avatar—and Max's assimilation of the Falling God—they had recalculated.
He was no longer suppressible without catastrophic loss.
And none of them were willing to be the first casualty.
So they remained silent.
The Church was abandoned.
Left to rot in the dark.
The Priest Who Knew
It took weeks.
Blood.
Ruins.
Interrogations.
Until Max found one who did not lie.
An archivist priest.
Old. Forgotten. Terrified beyond speech.
Max dragged him from a burning chapel and dropped him against cracked stone.
"Where is Victoria?"
The old man coughed violently.
"You're too late…"
Max's eyes sharpened.
"Speak."
"The Holy Region wasn't destroyed… it was cut from causality. She ran before the erasure completed."
Max stilled.
"Where?"
The priest's lips trembled.
"She crossed into the buffer realm."
The air changed.
"Explain."
"The Underworld."
Silence.
The word did not mean hell.
It meant something worse.
The Underworld
Not a realm of demons.
Not a land of the dead.
A Lower-Origin World hidden beneath divine sight.
A civilization-based dimension.
A place where gods cannot descend freely.
Where SSS-ranked and Unranked beings hide as mortals.
A sealed layer of existence.
The world Victoria now walked within.
The priest whispered weakly:
"She's alive… but if you force your way in… the world will reject you."
Max released him slowly.
Alive.
The word echoed louder than anything else.
She's alive.
The priest continued shaking.
"That world was designed to keep beings like you out. If you tear it open… you'll collapse the balance. The Observers will respond."
For the first time—
Max did not kill the witness.
Because he had what he needed.
A City of Masks
Miles away, beneath towers of glass and steel—
The man in the black coat stood at the window of a high-rise office.
Below him, the city pulsed with artificial stars.
He felt it.
A pressure entering the layer of existence.
He smiled faintly.
"So," he murmured,
"the hunter has arrived."
Behind him, shadows in the room shifted unnaturally.
This city was not unguarded.
It was governed.
Watched.
Balanced.
And now—
Disturbed.
Elsewhere — Victoria
Victoria paused mid-step outside the café.
A plate slipped slightly in her hands.
Her heart pounded suddenly—
As if someone had spoken her name across dimensions.
"Max?"
Golden threads shimmered faintly beneath her skin.
Customers laughed around her.
Traffic moved.
Life continued.
But something had entered the same sky.
Not destruction.
Not yet.
But intention.
And love strong enough to cross worlds.
Restraint
Max stood alone beneath the dark horizon of the mortal realm.
He understood immediately.
He could not rip space apart.
If he forced entry—
Reality would fracture.
And she would be caught in the collapse.
For the first time since absorbing the Falling God—
Max felt something stronger than rage.
Restraint.
He would need a gate.
Not brute force.
Not war.
But a bridge.
And to build it—
He would have to sacrifice something.
The Underworld was watching.
The Unranked were aware.
The black-coated man had noticed.
And somewhere in a city full of hidden gods—
Victoria was closer than ever.
For the first time since the Kingdom vanished—
Hope replaced vengeance.