Suddenly, a massive pressure descended over the entire realm.
The air itself grew heavy, pressing down like an invisible mountain.
The violet-haired woman gasped, her knees trembling, and even the ground seemed to groan under the weight.
Alex staggered for a second—until the constellation-like symbol on his hand began to glow faintly.
The crushing weight around him was immediately canceled out, as though the light from the mark itself rejected the divine pressure.
'It's shielding me from the pressure. Thank God,' Alex thought, staring at his glowing hand before lifting his gaze upward.
High above, floating in the molten sky, a god revealed himself.
The god of blacksmiths—Hephaestus.
His figure was immense, broad-shouldered and muscular, arms thick with strength honed from millennia of hammering divine steel.
His stance, however, carried a faint limp, and his back hunched slightly as though the weight of eternity bore down on him.
