The sky didn't split.
The Weave didn't tremble.
There were no horns, no flames, no declarations from on high.
When the god arrived, he came quietly.
Like a scholar entering a library.
He walked barefoot across the threshold of Weavemind, his form cloaked in a simple grey robe, unadorned by any divine iconography. No glowing sigils. No shining skin. No crown of light.
And yet—
Every stone bowed beneath his feet.
Every breath stilled in reverence.
Even the wind forgot to move.
He looked… young. And old. A face that could belong to a boy reading in a dusty classroom—or to a creator who had seen galaxies bloom and wither.
Only Kael recognized him for what he was.
> The Seventh Voice of the Divine Hall.
The god of inquiry.
The god of bridges.
Kael met him at the garden atrium.
"You knew I'd come," the god said, voice calm. Not booming. Not imposing. Simply… interested.
Kael nodded. "Curiosity tends to arrive eventually."
---
Lyssa watched from the second level. Every muscle in her body was tense. She had only ever seen gods from afar—at rituals, in dreams, from thrones. But this god… was walking.
Among them.
Among Learners.
She clenched her fists.
"I don't trust it," she muttered.
Beside her, an older engineer whispered, "We're not meant to."
---
In the atrium, Kael gestured toward a stone bench.
The god sat.
"I watched your demonstration," the god said. "It was elegant."
"Efficient," Kael corrected.
The god smiled. "You're not afraid of me."
Kael looked at him. "Should I be?"
"You rewrote a law written by my kind."
"I didn't rewrite it," Kael said. "I understood it. You just… skipped the footnotes."
The god laughed softly. "The last time a mortal spoke to me like this, he became a legend. Then a heretic. Then dust."
"I'm not interested in legend," Kael said. "Only freedom."
"For whom?"
"Everyone."
The god leaned forward.
"You threaten an entire cosmology."
"I'm improving it."
"You could tear it apart."
"I'll build something better."
Silence.
Then the god said, "What if I told you… some of us want that too?"
Kael's gaze sharpened.
Now that was unexpected.
---
Elsewhere in the sanctuary, Lyssa moved through the hallways like a shadow.
She could feel the strain in the Weave—a pressure coiling in every strand, as if the world itself was holding its breath.
And it wasn't the god that frightened her most.
It was what would follow.
Because where one god walks, others listen.
And not all of them are curious.
Some are cruel.
Some are terrified.
And terrified gods do not speak.
They burn.
---
Back at the bench, Kael asked the question he'd been holding.
"If you believe in change… why wait so long?"
The god's eyes dimmed, just slightly.
"Because divinity calcifies. Even we are not free of inertia. We survive through certainty. You challenge it."
Kael stood.
"I'm not trying to kill gods. I'm trying to make them better."
The god rose too.
Then reached out—not with power, but with a closed hand.
And opened it.
Inside his palm floated a glowing fragment—a piece of the Original Pattern.
A divine seed.
"Then build with this," the god said. "Show us. One world. One proof."
Kael took it.
And the world shifted.
Just slightly.
Again.