Heaven never struck directly.
That was the mistake gods made, and Heaven had outlived them all.
The first pressure point wasn't a demon uprising, or an angelic descent, or even a divine message. It was smaller than that. Cleaner.
A city that should not have fallen… did.
Delta felt it before he saw it — a subtle hitch in causality, like a knot pulled too tight. Somewhere in the mortal planes, an outcome had tipped the wrong way. Not apocalyptic. Not dramatic.
Just wrong.
Nyx noticed him stop.
"There," she said quietly. "You felt it too."
"Yes."
Hell flickered around them as his attention pulled elsewhere. For a moment, the obsidian walls and distant screams blurred, replaced by a fractured glimpse of a mortal world:
Stone towers.
Rain.
Fire where there should have been none.
A city-state protected by treaties, wards, probabilities stacked in its favor — collapsed in a single night. Leadership gone. Infrastructure broken. No god's signature. No demonic corruption.
Just failure, arriving all at once.
Nyx frowned. "That wasn't random."
"No," Delta said. "It was allowed."
Heaven hadn't caused the catastrophe.
It had withheld correction.
Pressure.
A quiet test.
> If you are restraint, Heaven was asking,
how much suffering are you willing to tolerate?
Nyx folded her arms. "They're forcing your hand."
Delta didn't move.
That was the answer.
Minutes passed. Then more.
The city burned.
Not forever. Not completely.
Just enough.
When Delta finally exhaled, the observational pressure tightened.
Heaven leaned in.
> INTERVENTION THRESHOLD NOT MET.
DATA RECORDED.
Nyx's eyes darkened. "They're cataloging pain."
"Yes," Delta said calmly. "And mapping my silence."
She turned on him sharply. "So why aren't we moving?"
Delta looked at her.
Really looked.
"Because if I step in every time Heaven withdraws mercy," he said, "then they've found the lever."
Nyx clenched her jaw. "People died."
"Yes," Delta agreed. "And more will."
That hurt to say.
Which was exactly why it mattered.
The chains on his arms pulsed once — not demanding action, but reminding him of cost. Restraint was not clean. It was not heroic.
It was heavy.
Another vision flickered.
Another pressure point.
A drought extended just long enough to break a kingdom.
A healer delayed by a single misfired omen.
A monster hunt that should have succeeded… didn't.
None catastrophic.
All cumulative.
Heaven was experimenting.
Nyx's voice was low. "They're trying to teach you guilt."
Delta nodded. "They're testing whether I confuse restraint with indifference."
"And do you?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he reached out — not with power, not with violence, but with intent. A subtle shift rippled outward, unseen, unannounced.
One pressure point snapped back into balance.
Not through his presence.
Through redistribution.
A mortal leader made a choice they shouldn't have been able to make.
A scout turned left instead of right.
A storm broke early.
No signature.
No spectacle.
Nyx felt it and went still. "You didn't intervene."
"No," Delta said. "I corrected probability."
Heaven noticed instantly.
The observational lattice surged.
> UNAUTHORIZED ADJUSTMENT DETECTED.
Delta smiled faintly.
"You don't own causality," he said evenly. "You just pretend to curate it."
Silence followed.
Heaven recalculated.
The test shifted.
Not would he act.
But how invisibly he could.
Nyx stared at him. "You just made yourself harder to study."
"Yes," Delta replied. "That's the point."
He turned away from the burning vision, letting it fade.
"Pressure only works," he said quietly, "if you push in places the target is willing to absorb."
Nyx exhaled slowly. "So now what?"
Delta looked outward — not toward Heaven, not toward Hell.
Toward the narrow band where mortals lived unaware that gods argued over their suffering like data points.
"Now," he said, "I become inefficient."
That was the one thing Heaven despised.
Unpredictable restraint.
Intervention without ownership.
Correction without credit.
The pressure eased slightly.
Not concession.
Recognition.
Somewhere, far beyond sight, Heaven marked him differently now.
Not as a solution.
Not yet as a threat.
But as something worse.
An uncontrollable variable with ethics.
Delta closed his eyes briefly, feeling the weight settle further onto his shoulders.
Restraint was no longer theoretical.
It cost lives.
And he would carry that.
He opened his eyes.
"Let's keep moving," he said.
Nyx nodded and followed.
Behind them, unseen, the universe adjusted again — not louder, not sharper.
Just more careful.