Altheria The Goddess of Balance, stood frozen in silence, staring at the space where the mortal had vanished.
The portal had closed. The light had faded. And with it… so had her chance.
Her arms slowly lowered as the weight of what had just happened sank in, settling into her chest like a cosmic curse. Her lips parted, but no words came out.
She wasn't just frustrated.
She was devastated.
All she had wanted was to correct a simple mistake — a premature death. It was supposed to be routine. A basic reincarnation. Handled cleanly, quietly, within her private domain.
She never imagined her kindness would cost her everything.
"@#?$@#&&?!" she snarled, spitting an ancient curse in a language so old that mortal minds couldn't survive hearing it.
Her fingers cut through the air, and glowing strands of causality shimmered into view. Threads of fate, tangled but traceable — until now.
She began chanting softly, drawing sacred sigils as she followed the connection between herself and the soul she'd just tried to help.
For a moment, the spell held.
Then her body jerked, and she doubled over, coughing violently. A spray of golden blood splattered against the marble-like floor.
"Ah—" she gasped, her knees hitting the ground. Her divine body trembled as the spell shattered. Her breath came short and ragged.
She had tried to trace him.
But he was gone.
"…He's no longer in this realm," she whispered. "He's crossed into another dimensional layer… beyond my reach."
The realization struck like a blade to the soul.
Tears blurred her vision — not from physical pain, but from crushing loss.
Because that artifact — that cube — wasn't just some trinket sealed in her vault.
It had been her future.
A Fate-Level Artifact. One of the relics from the Divine Era. Forged in the Law-Forges. Inside it were thousands of forgotten skills, magical constructs, lost systems, and divine-class weapon blueprints — entire frameworks of power no longer easily found.
It had the potential to change the fate of worlds.
More importantly, it could have changed hers.
A tool powerful enough to elevate her — a minor goddess, overlooked and overburdened — into the ranks of the Higher Pantheon. To free her from soul-stream management and timeline corrections. To finally step above her role as a low-tier caretaker of cosmic leftovers.
And now?
Now it was gone.
Accidentally absorbed by a mortal teenager… who had probably never even cleared a gacha banner in his life.
She slumped onto a nearby floating cushion that hovered over instinctively, as if offering pity. Her hair fell over her face, hiding the trembling in her jaw.
"…I'm just a mid-tier goddess," she muttered then swallowed hard.
"I've cleaned entropy leaks, patched paradoxes, and untangled causal webs older than some galaxies. That artifact… was my one chance to escape this cosmic dead-end."
Silence answered her.
She looked up again, staring into the void beyond her chamber — the endless veil of divine law and starlight.
"…I just hope wherever he landed, it doesn't cause ripples," she murmured. "If the Higher Order learns a Fate-Class relic slipped out of containment... and that I let it happen..."
She trailed off.
The consequences didn't need to be spoken aloud.
With trembling hands, she pulled up her divine console and opened the reincarnation queue. The interface pulsed quietly, waiting for instruction.
Her gaze hardened.
"No more personal-space transfers," she said coldly. "From now on, everyone gets the default package. No system. No traits. No divine perks."
She hovered over the console's seal commands.
"…And I'm sealing my vault."
The stars above her dimmed, the divine palace falling into quiet stillness.
But Altheria didn't know the full truth.
The boy hadn't landed in any realm governed by her or her superiors.
He had fallen into a place entirely outside the reach of the gods.
***
Kyle felt like a feather caught in an endless breeze, drifting without purpose through a vast and silent dark.
He was aware — but only barely. Just fragments of thought, flickers of memory. A glowing woman.
A flash of violet light. A single, quiet realization.
He'd died.
After forcibly changing his destination, the artifact bound to him had grown unstable. When Altheria tried to trace him through a causal link, it resisted, and in doing so, flung Kyle even further off course. Now unanchored, his soul was drifting faster than light, slipping through dimensions without destination or guidance.
From an outside perspective, it might've looked like a fragile wisp of light vanishing into the void — a flicker no greater than dust, lost to the dark.
And then, he crossed a boundary.
Kyle passed through it like mist, unaware, unconscious. Still drifting.
His soul flickered weakly, and during that time, faint blue light shimmered before him — a familiar interface blinking to life.
[System Activated...]
[Initialization complete.]
[Soul-only form detected. Establishing link...]
[Connection established.]
[WARNING: Host spiritual level critically low.]
[Initiating hidden protocols...]
[ERROR: Permission denied. Insufficient administrative rights.]
[Maximum survival functions Activated]
Then, somewhere far beyond what could be mapped or named, something stirred.
It was unseen.
Unfelt.
A wonder that did not pulse like energy or radiate like divinity. It simply was.
It did not move.
It arrived — like a fact that had always been true but was only just noticed.
Black and gold. Silent and watching. It made no sound, cast no shadow, and yet, as it shifted, the void itself recoiled.
And now... it moved.
In an instant, it was there.
Before Kyle.
Hovering.
And then—
It merged.
No resistance. No violence. It simply became part of him — like it had always belonged there.
Kyle, still barely conscious, couldn't react. But the system could.
And it did.
[ALERT: Unrecognized entity contact.]
[Threat classification: UNKNOWN.]
[Parsing intent…]
[Parsing failed.]
[WARNING: Core interference detected.]
[Attempting emergency quarantine...]
[Quarantine failed.]
[Security breach in framework protocols.]
[Authority Source: Undefined.]
[Attempting Self Destruction]
[Self Destruction Failed]
The interface began to glitch. Once-blue light flickered with veins of shadow, and code unraveled before Kyle's dim vision. The presence wasn't just merging — it was rewriting.
[Ding… Host-soul synchronization at 0.004%...]
[Stabilizing...]
[Compatibility... adapting.]
[Original framework compromised.]
[Legacy system shutting down.]
The screen went dark.
Letters reappeared — no longer blue, but glowing gold against a black backdrop.
For several moments, there was nothing but stillness.
Then—
[System Online]
Kyle, floating on the edge of awareness, could barely make sense of it all. The golden letters flickered softly before him like a quiet joke whispered by the universe.
And with the last thought he could muster, he muttered in his fading mind:
'Did the universe just play a prank on me...?'
Then, darkness swallowed him whole.