They arrived without ceremony.
No flash. No trumpet. No divine announcement.
Only the sound of a cosmology breathing its last breath.
Aethryx Null-Veil stretched before them—once a stabilized discard-realm, now a failing structure bleeding meaning from every layer. The sky had darkened not into night, but into philosophical absence. Clouds twisted unnaturally, heavy and low, as if gravity itself had grown tired of pretending to obey laws.
Below, people prayed.
Some knelt in the open, hands clasped so tightly their fingers trembled. Others ran through fractured streets, screaming names of gods that no longer listened. Temples burned—not from fire, but from irrelevance. Their symbols flickered, losing definition, as if the ideas behind them were being quietly deleted.
There were those who simply sat.
Staring at nothing.
Faith had abandoned them before destruction ever arrived.
Leo walked beside Nyxara Eirene in silence.
His footsteps made no sound. Not because the ground absorbed them—but because the concept of footsteps was no longer consistently registered by the cosmology.
Nyxara glanced around, emerald eyes reflecting collapsing belief structures.
"They're losing their philosophy," she said softly.
Leo nodded.
"Yeah," he replied. "Not hope. Not fear. Philosophy."
A temple ahead cracked vertically, splitting an ancient doctrine carved into its walls. The words did not crumble—they forgot what they meant and slid away like meaningless symbols.
"This cosmology isn't being destroyed," Leo continued. "It's being judged as unnecessary."
Nyxara's jaw tightened.
"That's why it's being thrown away."
They continued forward.
The sky shifted again—dark clouds tearing open to reveal a higher layer of reality, where discard protocols shimmered faintly. This was not an apocalypse. It was an administrative process.
At the center of the cosmology, rising impossibly intact despite everything else collapsing, stood the Celestial Castle.
Its walls were carved from white-gold stone etched with ancient equations of balance. Around it bloomed countless green sakura trees, their petals glowing faintly like emerald embers.
But they were dying.
One by one, the sakura petals fell—not drifting gently, but breaking apart mid-air, dissolving into meaningless particles.
"The sakura represented equilibrium," Nyxara whispered. "When Aethryx Null-Veil stabilized itself… this was the proof."
Another tree cracked at its trunk.
Petals vanished.
Leo stopped.
"…They're falling because the cosmology no longer believes in its own reason to exist."
Nyxara said nothing.
They reached the base of the castle.
The doors loomed before them—immense, tall enough that entire pantheons could have passed through them standing. Symbols engraved upon the surface shifted constantly, rewriting the justification for divinity again and again, desperately searching for something that still mattered.
Nyxara halted.
"This is where I stop you," she said quietly.
Leo turned toward her.
"…What."
Nyxara lifted her hand.
The air changed.
Not violently—but structurally.
Narrative threads tightened around Leo's position, weaving a boundary. A story constraint. A localized rule.
She spoke, carefully.
"Leonidas Guestamos," Nyxara said, her voice becoming measured, deliberate."This is the point in the narrative where you wait."
Leo felt it.
A story was being written around him.
Not controlling him—but requesting compliance.
For a moment, the rule trembled—on the verge of collapse, like everything else that tried to bind him.
Nyxara's expression grew tense.
"If this fails," she said honestly, "you'll walk in with me. And the cosmology will register you as an external annihilation vector."
Leo exhaled.
"…So you're writing a story where I stop."
"Yes," she admitted. "And I know you can break it."
Leo looked at the massive doors.
Then back at her.
"…Fine."
Nyxara froze.
"What?"
Leo stepped closer to the boundary—and instead of tearing it apart, he acknowledged it.
He lifted his hand.
Words appeared—not glowing, not divine.
Just… written.
He wrote a single line into the narrative she had formed.
Leonidas pauses here. Not because he is bound—but because he chooses to wait.
The rule stabilized.
It worked.
Nyxara stared, stunned.
"…You obeyed."
Leo shrugged.
"Doesn't mean I was forced."
She smiled faintly—relieved, grateful, and afraid all at once.
"Thank you," she said softly.
She turned toward the doors.
Leo nodded once.
Nyxara stepped forward—and the doors opened.
The moment she crossed the threshold—
Something attacked.
No warning.
No declaration.
A violent pressure slammed into Nyxara from above, sharp and absolute, carrying the authority of a cosmology that refused to die quietly.
Nyxara reacted instantly.
Emerald light erupted around her as telekinesis snapped into place, catching the strike mid-impact. The force bent, compressed, screamed against her control.
She slid backward half a step—but did not fall.
From within the castle descended a figure.
Wings unfolded—vast, radiant, carved from layered heaven-matter. Feathers shimmered with holy inscriptions that overwrote doubt itself. The air rang with laughter—clear, melodic, and utterly cruel.
A female angel hovered before Nyxara, eyes glowing with delighted malice.
"Well, well," the angel said, grinning. "So the traitor finally returns."
Nyxara's gaze hardened.
"You're still guarding it."
The angel laughed again, wings flaring.
"Of course I am."
She tilted her head, smiling wider.
"After all—this cosmology still belongs to us."
She raised her hand, light gathering.
"My name," the angel said sweetly,"is Seraphiel Vaelora."