Mortals noticed the gaps before gods ever did.
They always had.
At first it came as rumors — contradictions in history that didn't feel like lies. Battles that should have been lost but weren't remembered as victories either. Disasters that almost happened, leaving behind scars without clear causes.
A city rebuilt faster than logic allowed.
A tyrant dying quietly in their sleep the night before a purge.
A plague that ended without miracle or cure — simply… stopped.
Priests couldn't explain it.
Scholars couldn't model it.
Prophets argued violently over it.
And somewhere between superstition and certainty, a new word began to circulate.
Interference.
Delta observed it all from distance.
Not through scrying pools or divine sight — those were compromised, monitored, politicized. Instead, he listened the way he always had best: by absence. By noticing what didn't escalate.
Nyx leaned against a broken arch beside him, gaze drifting across a mortal plane where torchlight glimmered faintly like fallen stars. "They're starting to talk about you," she said.
Delta didn't answer.
"Not by name," she clarified. "They don't have one for this version of you."
He exhaled slowly. "Names would make it easier for Heaven."
Nyx smirked. "You really did make yourself annoying."
"Yes."
Below them, a small council gathered in a rain-soaked courtyard. Not kings. Not heroes. City officials, exhausted and frightened, arguing over records that refused to align.
"We were saved," one insisted.
"No," another snapped. "We just weren't destroyed."
That distinction mattered.
Delta felt Heaven watching closely now — not in sweeping judgment, but in social analysis. Tracking belief formation. Modeling dependency.
> INTERFERENCE CORRELATION INCREASING.
MYTHOS FORMATION LIKELY.
He felt the pressure not as threat — but accusation.
You are being worshipped accidentally.
Nyx felt it too. "They're framing you as a silent guardian."
"No," Delta said quietly. "They're framing their survival."
That was the dangerous part.
"Mortals don't need gods," Nyx said. "They need explanations."
"Yes," Delta replied. "And Heaven supplies them."
As if summoned, the pressure shifted.
Not catastrophically.
Institutionally.
A new doctrine spread through several worlds simultaneously — subtle changes to prayers, teachings, and angelic interpretation. Not denial of interference.
Contextualization.
> "Salvation comes through patience."
"Suffering is unseen mercy."
"Intervention is the highest sin."
Nyx's eyes narrowed. "They're blaming restraint."
"They're reframing it as neglect," Delta agreed.
Complicity, the accusation whispered.
If you could stop it — and didn't — you are responsible.
The chains on his arms tightened faintly.
Not demanding violence.
Demanding decision.
Delta watched another near-disaster resolve itself messily — saved lives, broken futures, uneven outcomes. No clean ending. No miracle.
Mortals would argue about this for generations.
Heaven would let them.
That was the play.
"If you push back," Nyx said, "they escalate."
"If I don't," Delta replied, "they control the narrative."
Silence stretched between them.
This wasn't a combat problem.
This was legitimacy.
Delta turned his gaze not upward — but inward.
He thought of Lyrieth.
Of choice under observation.
Of restraint being misread not as discipline, but as weakness.
"I won't correct belief," he said finally.
Nyx blinked. "You're letting them rewrite you."
"No," Delta replied. "I'm refusing to become an answer."
He took a step back from the edge of observation.
"If I fight Heaven over meaning," he continued, "I validate the framing. I become another authority struggling for dominance."
Nyx crossed her arms. "So you do nothing?"
Delta shook his head slowly.
"I make complicity visible."
As he spoke, he reached outward again — quietly, carefully — not altering fate, not intervening in crisis.
Instead, he removed certainty.
A prophecy failed without explanation.
An angel's message contradicted another.
A doctrine fractured internally.
Not dramatic.
Just… messy.
Heaven noticed.
Not anger.
Concern.
> BELIEF COHERENCE DEGRADING.
Nyx let out a slow breath. "That's nasty."
"Yes," Delta agreed. "So was letting mortals think silence meant guilt."
He turned away fully now.
"Chapter Seven ends here," he murmured — not aloud, but with intent.
Nyx glanced at him sharply. "What?"
He smiled faintly.
"Nothing," he said. "Just acknowledging the hinge."
Behind them, belief systems shuddered.
Ahead of them, something far heavier than surveillance began to move.