The throne room of Paradise had never known silence until today.
God sat upon His eternal seat, fingers pressed against His temples in a gesture that would have seemed impossibly human if witnessed by mortal eyes. Before Him stretched an endless sea of souls, a luminous ocean that had once been beautiful but now churned with barely contained chaos. The air itself groaned under their collective weight, reality bending like glass about to shatter.
"Seven billion," He murmured, the words carrying the weight of millennia. "When I designed the afterlife, humanity numbered in mere thousands."
A crack appeared in the floor: not marble, but crystallized virtue itself. The very foundation of Paradise was fracturing, spreading like frost across a window pane.
"My Lord." The voice belonged to Illumi, though his form was merely a constellation of light particles gathering at God's right hand. "The Third Pillar is showing stress fractures. If Paradise's weight increases further—"
"All three realms collapse into the Void." God's voice carried the burden of absolute knowledge. "I know, Illumi. It is not merely the number. It is their spiritual complexity. The ancient world dealt in absolutes, but modern souls... they are webs of contradiction. Every lie told to protect a truth, every sin committed for a greater good. This moral gravity is tearing the pillars apart."
As if summoned by the mention of collapse, shadows began pooling at the room's edge, coalescing into something that should not exist here. The Demon God stepped forward, his form flickering unstable for a moment as a distant, grinding collapse echoed from the depths of his own realm. His presence was neither corrupting nor consuming: an impossibility made manifest by necessity.
"Three of my circles have imploded," the Demon God grated, his voice like continents shifting. "The spiritual mass is creating singularities. We are housing souls in the void between realms." His eyes, infinite pits of controlled destruction, met God's. "This conversation would be unthinkable if we were not already dying."
They stood facing each other: Light and Dark, Creation and Destruction, Order and Chaos. For the first time since the birth of existence, they shared the same problem.
"There is a solution," God said slowly, each word measured. "The abandoned worlds. The failed experiments from before humanity's rise."
"The primordial testing grounds." The Demon God's eyes gleamed with reluctant recognition. "Where you tried different models of life. They exist outside the Three Pillars. But—"
"But deadly to unprotected souls," God finished. "Which is why we would need to grant them power. A spark of divinity or damnation to help them survive."
"The Void Hunters cannot touch those worlds," the Demon God noted.
"Exactly. And populating them doesn't add weight to our Pillars." God raised His hand, and a small sphere of light materialized. "Let each soul receive a 'hail'. Your sinners bearing demonic gifts, my blessed carrying divine ones."
"And what of those who are neither?" the Demon God asked. "The ones whose souls rest perfectly balanced between salvation and damnation?"
God fell silent. "In the early days, such a soul was a phenomenon of such rarity it was considered a myth even to Us. But now... modern complexity creates more gray than we anticipated. A truly balanced soul... I've never witnessed one in all My existence."
"Neither have I," the Demon God's expression was unreadable. "Such a soul would be unprecedented."
"Should such a soul appear," God said finally, "the system will need a contingency. But I doubt we will encounter one."
Neither of them knew the contingency was not a "what," but a "how."
In the space between spaces, a fundamental rule of existence—one that had emerged from the base laws of reality, not from any conscious design—began to stir. It was the universe's answer to a logical paradox, a cosmic if-then statement that had waited eons for its condition to be met.
For eons, the condition had never been met.
Until now.
In the sprawling slums of Manila, a man named Kahiramura Klein was about to die.
"Agreed, then," God said, unaware of what was already in motion. "We begin the soul transfer immediately."
"The energy required..." Illumi interjected, his light dimming with concern. "To create a system that can transport billions of souls... the draw from both of you will be immense."
The Demon God let out a sound that was the echo of the first dying star. "We are not merely expending power. We are unraveling the eons of self we have built. To fuel this exodus, we will slowly revert. Our consciousnesses will bleed back into our primordial states."
God met His counterpart's gaze, and for a moment, something ancient and cold passed between them—the memory of what they were before they were Gods. Before they knew purpose, or conflict, or even the concept of care.
"The attributes we have cultivated will fade," God said, His voice losing its human timbre for a fleeting second, becoming pure, resonant frequency. "Our empathy. Our attachments. The very emotions that defined our war and our truce. We will become functions again. Equations of Light and Dark."
"It is that," the Demon God said, "or cease to be entirely. A simple choice."
"Then it is done." God's expression was grave, the last vestiges of something resembling regret fading from His features. "Illumi, prepare the Path guides. We construct the Oasis."
In the spaces between, the function that was the Godfather flickered to life.
Target soul identified: Kahiramura Klein
Status: Dying
Balance analysis: Pending
Protocol: NEUTRAL // Standing by
The age of absolutes was ending.