There is a saying among those within the Silent Court, one I learned after meeting Midir in my past life.
This world is a horny bastard.
It favors certain beings, not because they earned it, nor because they were measured and found worthy. It does so simply because it chose.
Some move freely where others are bound. Some survive outcomes that should have crushed them. Others step away from consequences that erase everyone else.
The world does not call this justice. It does not hide its appetite in philosophy or pretend to balance the scales afterward.
It indulges openly, without shame, its desire plain and unapologetic.
I understood this long before I understood why.
Worlds are expressions.
Earth is the place where those expressions are gathered, held together despite their differences and contradictions.
Within it exist countless ways reality insists on being real. Some are orderly. Some are fractured. All are equally actual in their own right.
Above them stands the Central World.
The greatest way, all the ways, and the only way by which something may truly pertain.
Worlds are whole unto themselves, yet equally deluded in the larger play unfolding beyond them.
Some worlds subscribe to reason. Some deny classical structure. Others drift freely. It matters little to what stands highest.
The Central World alone bears the whole.
It is broken and fixed at once, here and there, before and after. It is a world where nothing is strictly true or false, complex by necessity rather than design.
Concepts unravel when examined too closely.
Contradictions are not errors. They are necessities, weight-bearing elements of reality itself.
Truth shifts when observed. Meaning thins at the edges. Certainty survives only so long as no one insists on it.
If one stares long enough, the seams begin to show.
There are worlds where cause limps behind effect. Outcomes arrive first, and explanations follow after, clumsy and incomplete.
Such places should collapse the moment they are understood. Instead, they endure, persistent and undeniable.
The Central World is a world that holds all ideals and all revelations.
It is not merely the source of worlds, but the condition that allows any world to exist at all.
Law and exception, order and violation, possibility and refusal all originate there.
That is why this world behaves as it does.
Gripping the world itself was a force, and Satire stood as its witness.
Imposed over Satire's form was a presence I could not identify, a being whose nature lay beyond my comprehension.
It wrapped around her without regard for the mortals watching, shielding her entirely from my Dark Alter.
Dark Alter was the ability granted by my Regalia. It was the power to alter anything within this world.
And yet I understood something then.
It should not have been able to reach beyond me.
Which meant something had helped her. Something unseen. Something patient. Something watching.
I set that thought aside, knowing that lingering on it would break my focus.
Instead, I realized that Satire must be far ahead of me, so distant that my Regalia could not even touch her.
To my current self, she may already stand at the ninth wall, as all Saints eventually must.
Her movements were deliberate, almost languid.
Each step carried quiet authority. Still, it was the stillness around her that unsettled me, the absence of time pressing against my chest.
"Demons, you say? So how many do you think shall come?" Mirabel asked.
I could not answer. Blood filled my mouth, and I let it serve as an excuse, just enough to hide the real reason for my silence.
Satire answered smoothly. Her voice was melodic, but beneath it ran a thin, cutting edge.
"As you know, demons hail from Hell. They are greatly weakened here."
She brushed beneath her nose as if the conversation were trivial.
"In truth, I could easily defeat one, even after it regains as much strength as this world allows."
Visitors always suffer restrictions here.
They weaken upon arrival. If they are strong enough, they can recover a portion of their power over time.
But never all of it.
Even those from lower realms, even those who climb within this world's enclosed hierarchy, cannot ascend to the highest world.
They may only fall here. This world is the most complex, the most contradictory, and the most dangerously free.
"That still doesn't answer my question. Unless you mean to say you don't know," Mirabel pressed.
Satire shrugged. A flicker passed behind her silver eyes, an unspoken amusement at what she knew.
"It is unknown. No more than five. Griffin wishes me to stay here."
I raised my hand. "That won't be necessary. Mirabel and I will handle them."
She looked surprised. Then she smiled.
In that single smile, everything froze.
[Nicholas was careless. Few would guess that even his gaze carried such weight.]
I turned my head slowly. Mirabel was frozen mid-breath, held in perfect stasis.
Satire stepped toward me, her movement slow and deliberate, as though the paused world bent around her.
She looked down at me with open delight.
There was sweetness in her gaze, but beneath it lay a precise, predatory calculation.
Every moment she lingered, every subtle shift of her weight, was a warning.
"You reek of time. How amusing. You must have foreseen a future."
She did not know I had lived one.
Her fingers pressed lightly against my chest. The touch was gentle, yet my blood slowed beneath it.
"Don't be too brazen. I don't believe I've done anything wrong, have I?"
I chuckled weakly, masking the tension in my chest. "I've seen worse things. You're not the worst of them."
She clicked her tongue. "I dislike that answer."
She stepped back to her original place. Only then did I feel her magicae coil around my heart.
She allowed me to move because she chose to.
If I showed even a flicker of bloodlust, she would freeze my heart in time.
And I would die.
Time resumed naturally.
"If that is your wish, I shall take my leave," she said cheerfully.
Her smile lingered long after she walked away.
It promised consequence, patient and inevitable.
Mirabel blinked, unsettled, aware that something had happened but unable to grasp it.
Satire departed, laughing faintly, her presence thinning like a shadow that never fully leaves.
[Nicholas was fortunate. His restraint spared him, not as mercy, but as warning.]
The voice was right. I needed greater care.
I had been careless.
Mirabel turned to me, concern plain on her face. "Nicky? What happened?"
[Nicholas knew that speaking would alter this world.]
I cupped her cheeks. "Nothing. Come. We need to prepare."
She frowned slightly. "For what?"
I stood and drew my blade. "To hunt demons. That is our task."
Her eyes widened, but she did not retreat. She understood the weight behind my words.
Demons are beings that, at full power, can devastate entire worlds. Such a feat is nearly impossible from here.
They are immune to natural death within the Central World.
They originate from Hell, yet cannot fully manifest, existing only as rough, incomplete copies.
Never whole. Never absolute.
Confronting a newly fallen demon rivals facing a dragon.
Even fractured, their strength commands fear.
Only the war my father once fought reduced their reach.
Mirabel stepped closer and placed a hand on my shoulder. Her grip was firm, grounding.
"You've become too much," she said softly, awe and warning entwined.
I met her gaze, steady and clear.
"I'm still too little."
The words were not doubt.
They were resolve.
And I meant them.
I'm still too little.