The hallway stretched endlessly forward, its walls made of sothing that was neither stone nor tal but so smooth, luminous material that pulsed with a faint golden light from deep within its surface.
The ceiling arched high above, impossibly high, lined with intricate patterns that shifted and rearranged themselves whenever you stopped looking directly at them.
Everything about the space scread divinity, from the pristine white floor that reflected her heels with perfect clarity to the ornate pillars that lined both sides of the corridor at perfectly equal intervals.
A woman walked through the center of it, her dark suit impeccably tailored, her posture rigid and professional while the sharp click of her shoes echoed through the hallway. She carried a thin, translucent tablet in her right hand, its surface glowing with lines of data that scrolled endlessly across the screen.
She arrived at a set of two massive white doors at the very end of the corridor.
Each one easily stood thirty feet tall, their surfaces carved with symbols that seed to breathe with a quiet, ancient power. She paused for a brief mont, straightening her collar before raising her hand and knocking twice.
The doors opened on their own, swinging inward without a single sound, revealing the room beyond.
It was pristine, impossibly so, every surface bathed in the sa soft golden luminescence that filled the hallway. A large desk sat near the far end, carved from sothing dark and polished, its surface completely clear except for a single glass of water that had not been touched.
And behind the desk, sitting with his hands folded neatly on the surface, was a being that made the air in the room feel heavier just by existing.
His form was more defined than any mortal’s, sharper, more deliberate, as if every line of his body had been carved by sothing with absolute precision. His features were regal and cold, carrying an ageless quality that made it impossible to tell if he was young or ancient, and his eyes burned with a calm, quiet light that seed to see through everything they settled on.
The woman bowed her head as she entered.
"My Lord Jion," she greeted, her voice steady and controlled despite the weight of the room pressing down on her shoulders, "I apologize for the unscheduled visit, but I have urgent news that requires your imdiate attention."
He did not respond verbally, just raised his chin slightly in acknowledgnt while his burning eyes settled on her with patient interest.
She tapped the translucent tablet, pulling up a set of data visualizations before placing it on the desk between them.
"Our monitoring division has detected suspicious magical activity originating from Earth," she said.
Jion’s expression shifted for the first ti. It was subtle, barely perceptible to anyone who had not spent centuries learning to read divine body language, but the woman caught it imdiately. His fingers, which had been perfectly still on the desk, twitched a fraction of an inch.
"Earth," he repeated, his deep voice carrying the sa quiet authority that Hajin had heard echoing through an empty chamber in a mory that was never ant for him, "Earth has no magic."
"Correct, my Lord," she said, her composure holding firm while she swiped through the data on the tablet, "which is precisely why it was flagged. The anomaly was faint at first, barely detectable across dinsional barriers, but our analysts confird a persistent magical connection broadcasting from that world."
She paused, pulling up a new screen showing a web of traced mana pathways.
"We traced the connection back to its source," she continued, "and it terminates in Ouro."
Jion went completely still.
The already-heavy atmosphere in the room suddenly intensified, the golden light along the walls dimming slightly as his divine presence pressed outward in a wave that made the woman’s legs feel weak beneath her.
Ouro was the Goddess of Reincarnation’s domain. The world they had stripped from her thousands of years ago after the betrayal, the one they had dismantled and rebuilt with the shard system to keep the souls flowing into their control.
Nothing on Ouro should have been connecting to Earth. Nothing on Ouro even knew Earth existed.
"Continue," he said, his voice dropping lower.
The woman swallowed, her composure cracking for the first ti as she scrolled to the next section of the report. Her fingers trembled slightly against the tablet’s surface while she tried to keep her breathing steady.
"After further investigation into the nature of the mana signature," she said, and her voice wavered just enough to betray the fact that she was genuinely afraid of what she was about to say next, "our analysts confird that the magical energy being transmitted matches... it matches the exact divine frequency of the Goddess of Reincarnation."
The heavy, crushing pressure of the room imdiately magnified, making the air itself feel like it was collapsing inward.
"There is soone in Ouro carrying her fragnt," she finished, the words leaving her mouth quickly as if saying them faster would sohow lessen their impact, "a human, based on the mana density. A single human host."
Jion’s hands slowly unfolded on the desk.
The calm, patient expression that had been sitting on his face since she walked in was completely gone now, replaced by sothing cold and sharp that made the golden light in the room flicker violently. His jaw tightened, the muscles in his face shifting as a quiet rage settled behind his eyes.
She had been with him for centuries, and she had never once seen him lose his composure. But right now, standing in front of his desk while the divine pressure in the room made it hard to breathe, she could feel the fury radiating off him in waves that made her bones ache.
"That is not possible," he said, his voice perfectly level despite the storm behind his eyes, "we shattered her. Every piece was accounted for, every fragnt was tracked and extinguished through the bloodline."
"I know, my Lord," the woman said, her head still bowed, "but the data is undeniable. The signature is hers, exactly hers, and it is active."
He went quiet for a long mont, the pressure in the room slowly stabilizing as he reined himself in, forcing the rage back behind the mask of divine composure.
"Is there more?" he asked and the woman’s face went pale.
This was the part she had been dreading since she first read the full report, the part that had made her hands shake when she walked through the hallway.
She had almost hoped he would dismiss the first piece of information outright so she would never have to say the next part out loud.
"Yes, my Lord," she said, her voice barely above a whisper now while she gripped the edge of the tablet tighter, "this human with her fragnt... they sohow have access to the Goddess’s sealed Veil."
Jion stood up.
The movent was slow, deliberate, and completely silent, but the effect it had on the room was catastrophic.
The golden light along the walls went dark entirely for a brief second before snapping back, the glass of water on the desk cracked down the middle without being touched, and the woman felt her knees buckle as the sheer weight of his presence slamd into her.
The Veil was supposed to be permanently sealed. The Goddess had locked it herself right before she fell, cutting off the reincarnation cycle and trapping billions of her purest souls inside where the other gods could never reach them.
For thousands of years, they had been desperately trying to break into that domain to harvest those untouched souls, but every single attempt had failed against her final seal, and now a human was casually pulling souls out of it?
"How," Jion asked, the single word carrying enough weight to make the floor beneath the woman’s feet vibrate.
"We do not know yet," she answered, her voice cracking, "the connection appears to be functioning through a system interface of so kind, one that our division has never encountered before. It is broadcasting to Earth while simultaneously drawing from the Veil, creating a dual-dinsional link that should not be physically possible without divine authority."
He stared at her for a long, terrible mont, and then he turned toward the massive windows behind his desk where the endless divine landscape stretched out beyond the glass.
"Find this human," he said, his voice quiet now but carrying a finality that left absolutely no room for failure, "and bring everything."
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