The throne room of Lyers Mand was the kind of place that made you feel like you shouldn't breathe too loudly, let alone exist.
Phaser walked ahead like he owned the place—well, he kind of did, in that second-in-command, zero-sweat-on-his-forehead way. Dryad stayed close, arms folded, giving off the energy of someone who didn't want to be there, but would claw someone's eyes out if they so much as touched me wrong.
I, on the other hand, was basically dragging my boots. I didn't want to be here. I was starting to really hate how much attention I was getting. Just a few days ago, I was the Ennéa that people ignored or whispered about behind my back. Now? I was "the girl who survived the Unknown Zone." The same damn place that had a survival rate of literally zero.
And I didn't just tiptoe around the edges. I stayed there for four days and walked out with a bag of Synsiline and half my clothes missing.
So now, here I was, walking into a god-tier political mess with bedhead, sarcasm, and the reputation of a miracle.
And at the center of the chaos stood Suprema Gamma.
I had seen her on screens before. But nothing prepared me for seeing her in real-time. She was standing tall in the middle of a whirlwind of officials, reports, floating data, and chaos. She wore authority like a second skin, her robes billowing around her even when there was no wind. And the second her eyes met mine?
Yeah. She was not happy to see me.
"You," she said, voice flat and sharp like a guillotine blade. "Of course it's you."
I blinked. "Hi…?"
"You just had to do the impossible, didn't you? You couldn't just fail like a normal person. No, you had to survive a literal death zone and flip the entire diplomatic sector into a circus."
She pointed to a floating hologram.
"Do you know how many factions are screaming about 'unprecedented anomaly protocols' now? Concord reps won't shut up, the press is frothing at the mouth, and three treaties are being re-negotiated because of you!"
I looked at Phaser, silently begging for a save.
"You sound stressed."
Gamma's voice rose. "I am stressed! Fix it!"
"No," he said without even blinking. "You're Suprema Gamma. You should act like it."
Oh, the way she glared at him. If looks could kill, we'd all be pancakes on the floor. She groaned and snapped her fingers at the crowd.
"Everyone out. I'm going to deal with this... miracle."
The room emptied fast. Apparently, no one wanted to be within a hundred feet of whatever the hell was about to go down.
And then, everything changed.
The second the last doors hissed shut, the power display dropped like a curtain. The air got thick. Dryad shifted beside me. Even Phaser's shoulders twitched slightly, and that man doesn't twitch.
"Relax," Gamma said to me.
Right. That was never a good sign.
She walked up to me. I froze. She was studying me, eyes flickering like scanning for secrets only she could see. Then she reached out and gently touched my neck.
"Uh—wait, what are you—"
Her head tilted. Her lips brushed against my skin. And then she bit me.
"Ah—!"
I slapped my hand over my mouth before anything more humiliating came out, but by the gods, it was so weird. There was no pain, no blood. Just this insane feeling like she was drawing something out of me. Like... threads? Energy? Steam? I don't know, I could barely breathe.
Dryad snorted. "Did you just moan?"
"I swear to God, I will kill you," I whispered behind my hand.
Phaser rolled his eyes.
"Every time we're in public..."
I couldn't move. I was frozen in place, blushing like an idiot, while Gamma drank my essence or soul or whatever this was. I wanted to die right then and there.
Finally, after what felt like a hundred years of awkward heaven, she pulled back and exhaled deeply, like she'd just tasted something... fine. She looked at me again. But this time, there was something else in her eyes.
"She has an Alteration Flux. Only at the First Awakening."
Dryad's face twisted in confusion.
"Then why all this weird sucking drama? What's the catch?"
Gamma looked directly at Phaser. Her voice was low.
"Because... the one who awakened her was a god."
Phaser's hand stopped mid-lift.
"...Say that again."
"A god awakened her. Not a proxy. Not a false signal. A god."
Dryad blinked. "That's not... possible. They're dead. They've been dead for centuries."
Gamma nodded. "So you tell me, how the hell did one touch her?"
All eyes turned to me. I stood there, still covering my mouth, half-numb and half-horrified.
"...I don't know," I whispered. "I was just trying not to die—wait."
My voice felt small, like I shouldn't be speaking at all in this room—but it was too late. They were all staring. Gamma's brows lifted. Phaser tilted his head.
I swallowed and nodded slowly, the memories returning in flickers of sound and blood and dark silk.
"There were voices. Not one but many. They were calm, soft but ancient. Like stone grinding against stone but gentler. I couldn't make out all of it, but some of the words… stuck. They said something like knowing the truth and saving my life. Then I felt warmth. But it wasn't from inside me. It felt like... something put a hand on me. Like I was touched by something vast and infinite and terrifying, but—safe."
Gamma groaned and actually put her hand to her temple.
"Oh great. We really are just milking the chaos cow dry today, huh?"
Dryad looked like she was chewing on her thoughts.
"So she was called to. Not just awakened. They chose her."
"Exactly," Gamma muttered, "which is a thousand layers of problematic. If this gets out to the Concord, they'll demand a rewrite of protocol. She's proof that the deities were never gone. They were just silent. And now the silence is over."
"This world was never meant to be without gods," Phaser said. "Erae wasn't born from chaos. It was built by design by them. And it wasn't just made for humans. It was made for the Flux."
I blinked. "Wait. What?"
He turned to me with that unreadable look he always had, like he was five steps ahead and waiting for the rest of us to catch up.
"The gods made this world as a crucible. Not for worship, but for evolution. Every city, every faction, every inch of terrain, it was constructed to test, refine, and accelerate humanity into something new. The Flux is their gift. Their blueprint."
Gamma crossed her arms. "And that's not even the biggest truth."
He nodded. "The five Flux types—Alteration, Psyche, Concept, Elemental, and Combat—they aren't just classifications. They're names of the goddesses who made them."
My mouth went dry. "...Excuse me?"
He raised one finger at a time as he counted off.
"The Goddess of Alteration. The Goddess of Psyche. The Goddess of Concept. The Goddess of Elements. The Goddess of Combat. Five Eresnae, five divine architects, five crucibles of transformation. Reversal Cradlepoint is built upon the remains of their presence."
"Which means," Dryad muttered, "that Reversal Cradlepoint, our base, was created by the Goddess of Alteration herself."
"And if Permonelle was touched... if her Awakening is real…" Phaser looked at me now, eyes sharper than I'd ever seen them. "Then that means the Goddess of Alteration isn't dead. She's still alive. And she chose you."
The silence returned, like thunder waiting to strike.
Gamma stared at me, like she was trying to piece together an equation that shouldn't exist.
"We've been debating for decades whether the gods truly died. All we had were scriptures, residual Flux anomalies, and old folklore. This? This is divine confirmation. You were chosen by a being that has been missing for two thousand years. You didn't just survive the Unknown Zone, Permonelle. You woke something up."
I sat down, mostly because my knees decided they weren't reliable anymore. My heart was doing a tap dance in my chest.
"Can someone please tell me what's going on? I'm confused."