It was no larger than a coin.
Weightless.
Shimmering faintly with a color that had no name.
The divine seed, the fragment of the Original Pattern, floated in Kael's palm like a star on the verge of forming a universe.
And it pulsed—not with magic, but potential.
Not a weapon.
Not a key.
A question waiting to be answered.
---
Kael didn't sleep that night.
He worked in silence, in the chamber beneath the Weaveforge. Not even Lyssa was allowed to watch—not yet.
He had once said that power was not given, but understood.
Now, he had to prove it.
Not through defiance.
But through design.
So he did what he had always done, in every world he had lived in.
He built.
---
The new construct was shaped like a circle broken into seven irregular pieces—each representing a known layer of Essence. At its center, Kael embedded the seed. Around it, he arranged strands of the Weave like spokes on a wheel.
But what he did next was what made it dangerous.
He rewrote the function of one of the spokes.
It no longer channeled power from above.
It channeled power from within.
And not just Kael's.
From anyone who could understand the pattern.
He called it:
> The Spark Model.
A fusion of mortal cognition and divine geometry. It would not grant power to the chosen—it would ignite potential in the prepared.
And it would change everything.
---
By dawn, the prototype was complete.
He carried it into the central dome. Learners gathered in hushed silence. Engineers. Wanderers. Even Talents who had once believed they were above everyone else.
Kael stood beneath the rising sun and said:
> "This is the first new Law."
He placed the model into the Weave.
It didn't explode.
It sang.
The sound wasn't audible—it was felt. A gentle hum through bones, through breath, through self.
A girl in the crowd—sixteen, scarred, powerless—gasped as her hand began to glow.
A boy who had failed the Path of Awakening stepped back as symbols formed in the air around him—unique, beautiful, completely his own.
A Talent—once cast out for being "defective"—fell to his knees as he saw the Weave acknowledge his mind for the first time.
Kael smiled.
> "You no longer need permission to become more."
---
High above, in the Divine Hall, six of the Seven stood in silence.
The Sixth—god of war—seethed.
> "He just created a heretic framework."
The Second—goddess of order—was pale.
> "And it works."
The Third whispered, "If this spreads…"
The First Voice said nothing.
Only watched the flickering image of the Spark Model lighting up minds across a continent.
Only the Seventh smiled.
> "He's not building a rebellion," the Seventh said. "He's building an answer."
---
But not all who watched were divine.
In a far corner of the world, beneath a shattered temple forgotten by maps, something else stirred.
Not a god.
Not a man.
Something older.
The Hollow had returned to its cradle.
And it was no longer alone.
Because Kael's design had echoed beyond the gods.
And something had heard it.