I had always understood Earth has more than a single, great world. I simple did not know of its vast nature, until now.
It was a vast expanse of worlds, layered without end, where every possibility and impossibility existed.
Logical worlds, illogical worlds, worlds that made sense and worlds that broke all reason, every variation of reality had its place here. Nothing was excluded.
Each world contained countless dimensions, but not in a way you could measure.
These layers were based on value transcendent to all numbers, not spatial; they were ordered by being rather than by length or size.
Some worlds had clear hierarchies, others did not. Midir's claim about the structure was not wrong.
Each world kept its own rules, its own architecture, its own private laws.
To grasp even one of them, you had to see how it fit inside the whole.
Time moved differently in every world. Space could feel negligible in one place and absolute in another.
Every world carried threads, countless threads, running parallel, weaving an infinite tapestry of what was, what could be, and what could never exist.
And I saw it all.
When I broke through the seventh wall, something inside me shifted. The world no longer felt uncertain.
I realized I was not simply witnessing one story among countless others.
I was seeing the framework beneath them, the full breadth of existence, without restriction.
This is where Dark Alter became clear.
My earlier understanding had been partial. Dark Alter had to affect the totality of worlds by its nature.
It did not nudge threads or tilt probabilities. It did not favor one timeline over another. It erased them.
Dark Alter does not manipulate reality through force or persuasion. It does not bend possibility to will. It makes a single outcome absolute.
Every possible, impossible, logical, and illogical future becomes null. Only the outcome it chooses persists.
Nothing else survives, not fragments, not echoes, not shadows. The world compresses into a single truth.
When I wielded it fully, I did not merely return from a future I had seen.
I negated every other outcome, leaving only the one I remembered. My memory became law. My choice became absolute.
The world could not contain the magnitude of what I attempted. It rejected me, flinging me from apex to root, from summit to foundation.
And yet, even cast out, the shape of all worlds had been reshaped.
Every other thread persisted in name alone, pale echoes orbiting a reality that would no longer recognize them. Because I stood in it. Because I chose it.
That is why Kivana could see every path except mine. My future is not a possibility. It is truth.
All others are now echoes, empty of authority or substance. The world I inhabit is the highest, the definitive reality, the one that supersedes all others.
This became starkly clear when I entered the seventh wall; I felt every other world and, with horror and clarity, felt their subsequent weakness and futility.
Mirabel's brow furrowed. "So you're saying… it's all predetermined?"
I exhaled slowly. The thought sat heavy in the room. This world was not merely the highest; it must not be subject to the ideals of lower worlds.
Because I think it can be concluded that all these worlds surely exist, mainly because of such to my thoughts.
Thoughts which I could define as perfect, only if I were within that world, in such a case, all things are predetermined.
Though, Mirabel should only know of this world, and it's own freedom, even within this cradle of destiny.
"It is more so that all things were negated by my thoughts, which is surely a terrible event."
I have seen too much to doubt it: the re-emergence of the western continent, the collapse of the angels, the clandestine rise of the Golden Authority.
They no longer whisper from the shadows.
They move openly now, confident and deliberate, as if the world already belongs to them.
But their purpose is not conquest. It is preparation, in which they call preparation for the descent of their god.
And that god is not the true God. They serve something else, something older, something real and capable of annihilation.
Even Gabriel, standing silent among them, proves the point. They are imposters. Heretics. Those who defy the divine by design.
Mirabel asked, quietly, "How could you have accomplished such a feat?"
The honest answer is the simplest. "I did not do it alone, nor wholly. Dark Alter is tied to a will like mine, but its reach is something that exceeds a single hand."
She mulled that in silence, a trace of recognition on her face, the sort of look that knows there are things one must not ask aloud.
"So," she asked finally, "how long do we wait?"
I scoffed, humorless. "They will not wait for us to act. We must be ready at all times."
Mirabel stood and sighed. "I suppose there's no reason to hide anything from you anymore."
I chuckled. "I told you my secret. And I already knew yours. What is left?"
Then she turned to me with a softness I had not seen before and removed her shirt.
The air changed, dense and suffocating, raw and ancient. My instincts screamed. My soul recoiled. Everything in me wanted to flee.
But I looked.
On her upper right chest burned a sigil: a lion split in two, one head crimson, the other black.
It radiated a fury older than kingdoms, older than the pantheon of false gods themselves.
"You see," she said, calm and unwavering, "unlike Nicole or Malachi, I carry something deeper. A sin greater than anything else. I was born… with Wrath."
To surrender wholly to a single obsession, to let an emotion consume all reason, is to have it carved into your very soul.
I swallowed, hollow with awe. "To bear a mark like that, you must have embraced a wrath so vast it surpasses the limits of this world."
She smiled and replaced her shirt. "I assumed you bore a mark as well."
It was true. In Anstalionah the marks were many. Mine was sloth. My sister's, envy. Malachi, lust. Ouroboros, greed.
Mirabel's was absolute: Wrath. Pure. The kind that could reshape nations in a heartbeat.
"My mark," I admitted, rising slowly, "grips me more viciously than you could imagine."
I exhaled. "We should prepare. It is time I show you the name of my sword."
She tilted her head, curiosity sparking. "You mean you are actually going to reveal it?"
I grinned. "Do you not want to see how far I've grown?"
Her lips curved. "Perhaps I will show you a few things as well."
I extended my hand. My sword shimmered into being, flickering into my grasp like a recalled memory.
"Cool trick, right?" I said.
She scoffed. "Is that all you've learned?"
Looking down at Sotergramma, I smiled. "No. I now command a far vaster sea. A sea that will drown every last one of those gold-toothed bastards."
I could endure them killing me. I could endure them killing others. I could stomach their hypocrisy, their cruelty, their lies.
But if they harmed my family, then the world itself would burn for it.
Nicole and I may have our differences. My mind may twist itself to forget her. But my limits remain. I know what I will not tolerate.
"Really?" I muttered, half-laughing, half-broken. "No, I suppose it is right. I've already become what I feared. And yet… I continue."