The cosmos lay still.
It was not a silence of emptiness, but a hush born from reverence—like the breath of a choir held at the climax of a sacred hymn. At the very end of all motion and meaning, where time itself dared not stretch, Aevion stood alone.
The stars had long since given up their light in this place. There were no heavens here. Only the edge—where all stories ended, and none began.
Behind him, nothing remained. No corridors. No academy. Not even the weight of the moment he left Yui's side. He had stepped away from the known, and with a breathless calm, arrived at the impossible.
Before him, rising like a monument carved from the bones of eternity, stood the Celestial Gates.
Twin monoliths of concept and code, they shimmered—not with color, but with existence itself. Each rune etched upon their surface pulsed with the echoes of forgotten gods. They bore no lock, no chains, no barriers. They did not need them.
Because they never opened.
Not to mortals.
Not to gods.
Not to time, nor fate, nor will.
And yet, Aevion took another step forward.
Two figures stirred from either side of the gate. Guardians—though the word felt too small for what they were. They had no form in the traditional sense; rather, they were shaped by truth. One radiated with the severity of unbroken law—an aura of crystalline finality. The other dripped with ceaseless judgment, like a blade forged from justice itself. Neither bore weapons. They were weapons.
The air between them and Aevion bent—bent, and then screamed, as reality strained to accommodate their rising intent.
Still, Aevion said nothing.
He moved not with defiance, nor arrogance—but with inevitability. As if this path had been laid for him before language was born.
The guardians responded.
In unison, they launched forward, faster than thought, faster than the collapse of collapsing time. One reaped the laws of motion itself—carving pathways that reversed cause and effect. The other struck with an impact that nullified dimensionality, folding the multiverse into a single line of destruction aimed at Aevion's heart.
But before either could touch him—
He raised his finger.
Just one.
The motion was slower than theirs, quieter than theirs, but it did not matter. The universe flinched. The air, if it could be called that, twisted in a spiral of pale violet and pure white. With the gentlest touch of that single finger, Aevion traced a line through space.
A slit tore across the barrier of everything.
The moment his fingertip dropped—
The guardians vanished.
No explosion.
No clash.
No cry.
Only absence. They were not defeated. They were not destroyed. They were erased. Their pasts, their power, their names—lifted clean from existence. The universe, in its terrible stillness, simply accepted this. As if their non-being had always been.
Aevion stepped forward.
The gates, which do not open, opened.
No heralds. No horns. No fanfare. Just the soft breath of understanding, like the universe finally remembering him.
Before stepping through, he paused.
His eyes, calm.
His steps, silent.
His will, unshaken.
>"If an ability can be imagined… then it is already mine."
He entered the light beyond light.
And the gates closed.
The Celestial Realm was quiet.
Too quiet.
Aevion stood at the base of a marble stairway that shimmered like glass under the starlit expanse. The fractured light of cosmos trickled down, painting halos in every puddle and crack along the divine road. Cities of clouds and crystal floated high above him—immense thrones drifting on invisible winds, each crowned by towers that scraped eternity.
The air was impossibly still.
Even without his power, he could feel the pressure of this realm, like it was pressing gently into his bones, asking him why he had come.
He walked.
Each step left no sound.
The citizens of the Celestial Realm—gods adorned in embroidered robes and living armor—watched him from balconies, from shadows, from reflections in fountains that whispered ancient hymns. Their eyes were like sun-forged mirrors, curious but cautious.
He didn't belong here.
They all knew it.
But no one moved.
Until the 33rd bell tolled across the silver sky.
It sounded like a scream trapped in honey. Every head turned. Every divine gaze snapped toward the boy with the silver hair and purple eyes.
Then, like wolves descending from glass mountains, they came.
First one.
Then five.
Then twenty more.
By the time the third divine echo resounded, thirty-seven gods encircled the road, stepping through space itself. Some flew on wings made of planetary dust, others walked as titans of gold and starlight. Their weapons were calm, sheathed. But none had come peacefully.
Aevion stopped walking.
A hand—larger than a house—slammed into the path behind him. He didn't flinch.
A chain of pure oathlight wrapped around his arms. Another god clasped a rune-scepter to his chest, binding his feet to the road with laws older than death.
Aevion only blinked.
"State your lineage," came the voice of a six-eyed god draped in scrolls of fate.
Aevion tilted his head. "...I'm just a student," he replied, softly. "I got lost."
They didn't believe him. They didn't need to.
One of them stepped forward—tall and veiled in robes that flowed like scripture itself. "We know what stirs beneath your silence, child. You should not exist in this form."
"I'm aware."
"You will come with us."
He gave no resistance.
As they lifted him into the air—each god forming a circle of divine containment around his floating form—he stared up at the sky.
The stars were shaking. No, bowing.
Toward what?
The procession began.
They soared across bridges of pure law, spiraling toward the Celestial Palace, a structure so vast it could house continents, carved from materials no mortal mind could name. Its gates alone were the height of worlds, adorned with murals depicting the First Singularity and the End That Will Never Be.
Aevion was silent, his expression unreadable.
And yet, something inside his chest trembled—not in fear, but familiarity.
As the gods escorted him up the final path, thunder cracked across the clouds, and th
e palace gates—engraved with the lost name of the First Architect—began to shudder.
A deep hum filled the world.
The gates began to open....