The funeral in Ledatic Siliportem had ended. Everyone was dealing with grief but somewhere else far, far away from all that rain, mud and crushed souls, another nightmare was quietly unfolding.
I was floating above, invisible as always, but this time my attention was on a different corner of Spheraphase... or maybe it wasn't Spheraphase at all. It's Technographia, a literal junkyard realm where everything was mechanical and apparently, these so-called "robots" called themselves sentient.
Leones Richinaria stood there, completely alone. She was panting. Residual Soul Energy still crackled faintly around her. I could see her wounds stitching themselves back together with the help of Body Reconstruction.
She stood upright and spoke to a holographic device.
"I cleared this area."
On the other side of the signal, Milliania's image flickered in. "I'm done."
"Me too," Adelasta added with that same cold tone she always carried.
Leones let out a low whistle, glancing at the ruined scrap towers and derelict metal husks around her.
"These robots are… ridiculous. They're of the Fourth Enlightenment, extremely strong, and so durable."
I had to admit, it sounded exhausting.
Leones walked as her boots kept stepping over shredded circuitry and exposed hydraulics. Then she heard Milliania over the comms.
"If the Second Epoch Cycle is like this, I know why our brother turned out the way he did in the First."
"Wait, what?"
"Calm down," Milliania said. "I'm just saying this is rough, but it's tame compared to Erna Isles."
Adelasta's voice joined the thread. "Exactly. This isn't nearly as bad as what we faced there."
Leones shook her head and muttered under her breath.
"So what about Anamorsia? What's she doing?"
"She's dealing with a giant robot far ahead," Adelasta said. "It's at the Sixth Enlightenment. She's the only one strong enough to take it on."
They all fell silent for a second, just letting that sink in. I could hear the tension radiating even over the comms. They were all measuring themselves against the scale of what they were facing. Leones finally broke it.
"Do we at least know if this Technographia place has Krepsunas?"
"No," Adelasta replied, sighing. "The only lifeforms here are mechanical. Nothing… organic. Except us."
And then—because of course I had to mess with them a little—they all got a notification at the same time. I sent it to everyone connected to my system just for a touch of narrative irony. 320,000 Elves were dead and all laid to rest and sent to the World Tree Mintherenia.
Leones' hand went slack on her weapon.
"Three hundred twenty thousand… what?"
"They… they're all gone. That's genocide."
"And Elyonari must be devastated. She must have personally oversaw this funeral."
Leones spoke to Adelasta. "Wait, hold up. You said this Second Epoch Cycle is tame?"
"Compared to some things we've faced before, yes… but don't mistake tame for easy. Elyonari's still shattered. 320,000 souls in a single day… there's nothing remotely ordinary about that."
Milliania exhaled. "At least for us Dynasty Richinaria, there's a silver lining. We don't have anyone to protect. No Immortal Humans were teleported with us, unlike other Dynasties."
Leones muttered, half to herself, "That's relief, I guess."
But Milliania's next words were grim.
"Yes, but every single Divine of Richinaria is here. No one is left behind. That means in other Dynasties, some were left behind. Some didn't get thrown into this chaos. And unlike those Dynasties, the least powerful lifeform here is already a Fourth Enlightenment Divine. Can you imagine the scale?"
Leones blinked slowly. Her grip on her weapon tightened.
"So we're facing every single one of us, against mechanical entities that are basically designed to annihilate us?"
"Pretty much," Milliania said. "And it's only going to get worse."
This is exactly why Spheraphase isn't fair. It's that kind of hell where even the strongest Dynasties are tested at once and no one gets a pause button.
Leones exhaled and looked out across the scrap heaps and broken gears.
"I get it now. This is why Veneri survived the apocalypse. He had to survive this to understand everything we're walking into."
Leones' voice crackled over the comms one last time before she looked around the junkyard.
"I'll be back at the Richinaria Palace in a few hours. Don't wait up."
Leones isn't like the others.
She's a Fourth Enlightenment Divine and not just her. Leon, Leones and Milliania all reached the Fourth Enlightenment with Nari, Adelasta and Ely after surviving harsh training in Aquamarine and enduring the insane pressure of the Second Epoch Cycle for forty-three straight days. That's practically nothing compared to the centuries it normally takes to climb through the Divine ranks, but this Third Generation… yeah, they're full of geniuses.
Normally, Divine Beings would take at least two decades just to become a Divine. It also takes two to four hundred years to touch the Sixth Enlightenment. Right now, most of the Dynasties were Fourth. The top Dynasty rulers were sitting pretty at Sixth except Veneri, of course. And yet, Leones… she carries herself like she's already done something most people could only dream of.
She's got this mace with a long chain but don't let that fool anyone. She's a mage at heart. That mace isn't just for show. It's her way of combining her natural strength with her mystical prowess. Her physical body is tougher than anyone else in the family besides Leon, maybe even Milliania. She hits so hard and her endurance is laughable to try to compare it to someone like Veneri or Anamorsia.
Then there's her Divinity.
Everyone knows Leon has the Infusion Divinity. He can pour his Soul and Divine Energy into anything, manipulate it, make it explode or literally turn a pile of junk into a nightmare. Leones, on the other hand, has Inanimate Control Divinity. Everything she touches and focuses on, she can control. It doesn't matter if it's living, breathing, or just a pile of scrap metal. It obeys her.
That's exactly what she did with those robots.
She lifted them into her control, infused them with her Soul Energy as a power source and then used Body Reconstruction on them. Now technically, Body Reconstruction doesn't work on non-living things but to Leones, that didn't matter. Anything inanimate she can manipulate, she can restore. She can fix it, improve it and make it work for her. Every single robot she touched became hers to command.
By the end, of the 43 days, she has a thousand robots under her control that are fully functional, infused with her Soul Energy and ready to obey. She carries them in her inventory.
And all that happened in a single day, on the 43rd day since the Second Epoch Cycle started. While the elves are burying their dead. While Elyonari is kneeling in mud, coughing blood, sending hundreds of thousands of souls to the World Tree. Leones is here, in Technographia, creating a small army out of scrap metal.
It's almost poetic, in a way.
One realm is drowning in grief and death and the other is a junkyard where a single Fourth Enlightenment Divine casually dominates a thousand mechanical soldiers.
I could practically hear the silence when Leones froze. Forty-three days in Technographia with every living soul a robot or a pile of scrap metal… and then suddenly, bam! An organic lifeform. Finally.
I floated there just watching her stare down at him like she found some rare artifact.and… honestly? He was handsome, sure. Blue hair, pale skin etched with golden tech patterns that pulsed rhythmically like a heartbeat, neon blue eyes that could probably see through your soul...
I'll admit, if I was into mortal aesthetics, I might have given him a nod. But let's be real. Veneri is five times better. And that's actually saying something, because this guy is literally good-looking.
Anyway, Leones didn't have time for critiques. He was half-naked, battered and panting like a broken engine. She didn't even hesitate. She used Body Reconstruction, repairing his wounds. And then the guy, barely conscious, managed to say "Thank you" before falling back into unconsciousness.
"Phaenora, is this guy a threat?"
"Leones sweetie, he's not even an ant. If you took him to the Richinaria Palace, he'd probably get lost in the halls."
"I know that. He's a First Phase Ascender. Nothing I haven't handled."
'Still, don't accidentally kill him, okay?"
She rolled her eyes so hard I swear I almost heard them click.
"Phaenora, please. I wouldn't—"
And then it happened. She flexed while lifting him. His arm bent the wrong way like a twig under a boot.
"Ohhh, you wouldn't, huh? You literally just told me you wouldn't kill him and then..."
"I did not break him on purpose, Phaenora! That's… physics! Gravity! Weight!—"
"Leones, come on. You literally called him weak. You lifted him like he was a pebble and somehow… somehow, you still broke him.
"I… that's not fair! I'm literally stronger than him. How is this even possible?!"
"It's Technographia karma. You're allowed one mortal casualty for your day of robot-slaughter."
Leones groaned, clearly hating the fact that I was right, but finally relented.
"Fine, fine. I'll be careful. Mostly."
"Mostly? That's literally the best you could do?"
She scowled, muttering under her breath but in the end, she carried him anyway. The thing was ridiculously light. Honestly, she looked like she was lifting a pebble. And I knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, she was already calculating how to keep him alive without turning him into robot scrap herself.