On the third and final day, they could remain beyond the timelines, the Oracle Drive stayed unchanged, its rings silent and unmoving.
"Looks like we'll have to find another way," Merita murmured, her voice low with reluctant finality as she stood beside Quintessa.
Quintessa, eyes still fixed on the Drive, replied with quiet certainty. "No need. I have a feeling we're about to be surprised."
She turned to the lead scientist. "Prepare for reentry," she commanded. "We're returning to the timeline, and verify it's ours. I have no intention of stepping into a corroded one."
"Corroded timeline… what does she mean by that?" the lead scientist wondered, a crease forming on his brow. Still, he gave a sharp nod and turned to the others. "You heard her. Get everything ready. We're going back."
Merita focused her consciousness on the Oracle Drive, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't find anything unusual about it.
It just floated there, completely still, emitting no trace of energy. To her, it seemed more like a lifeless object than a powerful cosmic weapon.
Even ordinary mortal weapons displayed more signs of activity than this.
But she didn't say anything out loud. She knew the Oracle Drive belonged to Quintessa, and maybe Quintessa could sense something she couldn't.
The other powerful figures also prepared for the return. Though they stayed quiet, they were clearly curious.
What did Quintessa mean when she said they'd be in for a surprise?
"Get ready for reentry—one, two… three!" the lead scientist shouted.
Everyone braced themselves.
The runes on the chamber walls lit up at once, flaring brighter and brighter until the entire room was swallowed in blinding white light.
Then, in an instant, they were back.
Re-entry into the timeline hit them like a wave. A brief moment of disorientation passed through the chamber. Their heads swayed and their breaths steadied.
But as the light faded and their senses returned, everyone's gaze immediately turned toward the Oracle Drive.
The rings of the Oracle Drive began to rotate slowly and steadily as if awakening from a deep slumber.
"It's active!" one of the scientists shouted, unable to suppress the excitement in his voice.
But just as a flicker of hope began to rise, the mood in the chamber reversed. The air grew heavy, dense with pressure. It was subtle at first, but then—
"Something's wrong with the laws," one of the figures muttered, brows furrowed.
"Why do they feel so… clear?" another added
The ancient robot quickly added, "Correction: They're not just clear. It's as if they've stripped themselves bare, fully exposed and unprotected."
Across the chamber, Quintessa and the other powerful beings narrowed their eyes. They could now see the threads of the universe's laws, these laws are always hidden but now exposed and moving erratically around the Oracle Drive.
Some of the threads flickered in and out of existence. Others twisted unnaturally, bending in irregular patterns.
"What's going on?" the lead scientist murmured, his gaze bouncing between the Drive and the runes still glowing faintly on the chamber walls.
His mind was whirlpool of thought. "Corroded timelines. The Drive acting on its own. And now this—laws unraveling like loose threads."
He clenched his fists, a cold feeling settling in his chest. "I don't know what's coming… but I don't think we're ready for it."
The threads of law began to cling to the Oracle Drive, wrapping around it like strands of reality itself.
Quintessa narrowed her eyes. Among the many threads, the laws of Divination, Time, Space, and Cause and Effect stood out, they were sharper, more vivid, and thicker.
Every second in the chamber felt stretched. Time moved strangely. Even the chamber seemed to expand, as if space itself was expanding.
Then, without warning, the Oracle Drive floated upward.
It rose slowly, then passed through the ceiling without resistance, and reappeared in the palace moments later.
After about several seconds, it hovered silently in the sky, directly above the capital like a second moon.
Quintessa and the others teleported outside instantly, surrounding the palace and staring up at the glowing spherical core of the drive.
"Get ready!" Emperor Vorex shouted.
"If the enemy strikes now, we lose the key to the coming war!"
All eighteen of them moved in sync, activating their strongest defensive techniques. Divine light filled the sky as a vast network of energy shields and layered protections formed above the empire.
High above them, the Oracle Drive's rings began to spin faster and faster, until they blurred, appearing completely still from sheer speed.
Then—everything stopped.
The rings stopped instantly, like someone had hit a pause button on reality itself. Even the flowing threads of law around the Drive froze in time.
Quintessa's heart sank.
"What… is happening?" she mumbled, scanning the sky with growing unease. A wave of fear crawled up her spine.
And she wasn't alone.
The others stood frozen, wide-eyed, unsure whether to prepare for battle or brace for something worse.
The world had gone too quiet.
So quiet, even a pin drop would've sounded deafening.
Then, all at once, they looked up, drawn by instinct.
And what they saw froze them in place.
An enormous eye had opened in the sky above the Oracle Drive. It wasn't just large, it was cosmic in scale, vast enough to eclipse the heavens themselves.
The atmosphere turned cold, reality around the drive rippling like disturbed water.
Even the most powerful among them felt fear settle into their bones. "Is… is this the enemy you mentioned, Quintessa?" Merita asked, her voice shaking.
Quintessa's eyes widened in panic. "LOOK DOWN! Don't look at the eye—look down. NOW!" Her voice boomed across the palace, echoing across the entire continent.
Some obeyed immediately, turning their gaze to the ground without hesitation.
But there are always those too slow, or too stubborn, to listen.
The ones who continued to look skyward began to bleed from their eyes and their ears, their bodies swelled unnaturally, skin stretching grotesquely before bursting like balloons, spraying flesh and blood across the surroundings.
Pieces of them rained down on those who had looked away, some screamed when they saw the pieces of flesh of their kin, and others became too stunned to even move.
A few, strong enough to resist death, still couldn't escape corruption after looking at the eye.
Their bodies twisted, reshaped into formless, mindless beasts, shrieking as they attacked anything in sight.
Before they could cause chaos, Quintessa acted and erased them instantly with a single motion.
Then came the sound as soon as she finished killing them.
A mechanical voice echoed from the eye, cold and emotionless:
[Analysis Complete. Artifact Classification: Cosmic Weapon — Oracle Drive.]
[Status: Advancement sequence initiated.]
[Catalyst identified: Origin Energy infusion.]
[Request: Authorization for Tier Advancement— Designation Upgrade: Cosmic Fate Weapon.]
[Awaiting directive from Central Law Protocols.]
[Permission granted. Reason: Exceptional parameters.]
Everyone else heard only a strange, eerie sound, garbled and impossible to comprehend.
Only Quintessa understood the words from the eye. She stood frozen, her mind reeling.
Just hearing the voice caused her law comprehension to surge, an overwhelming rush of insight she could barely process.
But the words from the eye shocked her more than the comprehension.
"Requesting upgrade."
"Permission granted. By who?"
She had prepared for many things when attempting to repair the Oracle Drive, but this?
She never expected the drive to seek its own evolution. And even less… that something out there had the authority to grant it.
The air around the Oracle Drive vibrated with invisible force. The sky, already darkened by the eye's presence, now twisted into a vortex of stars and lightless void.
The eye slowly closed, then vanished without sound, however, its traces remained as if reality itself still remembered being watched.
Then, the Oracle Drive began to change. Its fractured rings lifted away from the core, glowing with pure energy.
The law threads that had once clung to it now wrapped tighter on to the core and the rings, forming layered runic patterns.
The surrounding space cracked from the pressure as the energy intensified.
The Drive's core, pulsed once; then again, each time stronger, louder, and deeper.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Each pulse was like a cosmic heartbeat, and with every beat, a ripple of law energy spread outward across the empire, touching everything; beasts, mortals, bio-warriors, stars, and even space itself.
Many dropped to their knees, unaware of what was happening, but still, some sensed something had changed in the fabric of the universe.
In the sky the Drive reached its climax. The rings spun again, but this time in perfect harmony, they spun faster and faster until they blurred into a sphere of golden light.
Then—silence, followed by a flash. And then the rings collapsed inward, fusing into the core.
What hovered in the sky now was no longer the Oracle Drive but a Cosmic Fate Weapon.
Quintessa stared at the spherical core unable to look away.
She had aimed to repair a tool. But instead…she had awakened a god-tier artifact
She floated upward, rising slowly until she stood before the newly transformed Drive. It hovered in silence, radiant and imposing, but familiar in a way only she could comprehend.
"Good… the connection is still intact," she thought, a quiet sense of relief washing over her.
"If it had severed completely, bonding with it again would've been nearly impossible."
She reached out her hand. The drive responded instantly, as it glided toward her as if drawn by instinct.
Its massive form compressed, and shrunk in size until it fit neatly into her palm.
The other powerful figures appeared beside her, still stunned by everything they'd witnessed.
"Quintessa… what was that eye?" Merita asked, her voice still laced with curiosity.
Only she had been directly connected to the Drive when the eye had appeared. Only she had truly felt it.
"I don't know," she replied calmly.
"But I have a feeling… whatever it was, we were never meant to see it. Not unless the universe was under pressure like this. Not unless the Drive was forced to evolve."
"Then… to what tier did the drive evolve?" asked the gene fanatic, eyes wide with anticipation.
Quintessa looked down at the drive in her hand and replied, "Cosmic Fate Tier."
There was a brief silence.
Then Vorex gave a short, thoughtful nod. "Cosmic Fate... judging by the title alone, I believe a weapon like this has the power to rewrite the course of the universe itself, right."
"What are we waiting for?" said the Ancient Robot, his mechanical voice sharp. "Let's use it now, while our enemies are still blind."
"Agreed," said another figure, cloaked in shadow. "If it truly advanced to that tier, its abilities must be vastly enhanced."
Without another word, the group vanished, reappearing at the top of the palace, where the Oracle Drive was always used during large-scale divinations.
Quintessa stepped forward and released the drive into the air.
Immediately, the drive flared to life, responding to the change in intention. The spherical white core pulsed, and the rings detached and spread outward from the core.
The number of rings was different; there were more than nine. Eighty-one rings emerged, arranged in complex layers, each engraved with glowing runes and orbiting the core in perfect, measured rhythm.
Quintessa closed her eyes and extended her consciousness toward the drive.
She gasped; not only had the Drive's original abilities grown stronger, but two new abilities had also appeared—abilities that didn't exist before its evolution.
And both of them…were terrifying