Suddenly, another notification jumped.
[Divinity Detected]
[The Empire of Heavens has accumulated Divinity across countless generations]
[Imperial Authority Holder recognized]
[Would the host like to distribute Divinity across the Empire?]
[Alternative Option Available:]
[Absorb Divinity Into Self]
I could feel it already.
Somewhere deep within the empire an enormous amount of accumulated power had been sitting dormant for generations, waiting for someone capable of claiming it.
And now it belonged to me.
I selected the second option. The reaction came instantly.
The sky split apart above us.
A massive golden beam descended from the heavens without warning and crashed directly onto my body, swallowing everything around me in blinding light as the accumulated divinity of the empire flooded into me all at once.
The pressure was beyond anything I had experienced before.
It didn’t feel like energy and more like fortune or combination of fate and laws itself. My body disappeared beneath the light.
Then suddenly everything vanished. I found myself standing in complete darkness. Just an endless black void stretching infinitely in every direction.
And there something enormous floated before me.
I froze.
It was my soul.
The gigantic figure drifted silently within the void, over 333 feet tall, its eyes closed while immense pressure radiated from it even in complete stillness. It looked exactly like me and yet nothing like me at the same time, a presence so vast it made my current existence feel insignificant beside it.
Then I noticed the restraints. Three crimson runes.
One floating above the soul.
One beneath it.
One directly in front of its chest.
Each of them pulsed slowly with deep crimson light, chains of energy extending from them into the soul itself, locking it down while only a tiny thread stretched outward from the massive figure toward me.
Toward the small fragment of consciousness I currently existed as.
I understood it instantly.
The Crimson Authorities.
When they reincarnated me into this world, they didn’t just send me here. They sealed me.
Limited me.
Restricted almost everything.
The divinity flooding into me from the empire surged harder at that realization, pouring endlessly into the void around me like golden flames, and without hesitation I reached toward the nearest rune.
The moment I touched it, resistance exploded outward. The crimson symbol pulsed violently as if trying to reject the divinity itself, but I pushed harder, forcing the golden energy into it while cracks slowly spread across the surface.
The void trembled. The giant soul remained motionless behind it, eyes still closed.
I kept pushing.
More divinity surged into the rune. The cracks spread wider.
Then it shattered.
The moment the first rune broke, the entire void shook violently as a pulse erupted from the giant soul behind it, the pressure increasing so suddenly that space itself seemed to bend around the figure.
I moved immediately toward the second rune.
This one resisted harder. The crimson light intensified as if aware of what was happening, chains tightening around the soul while the divinity pouring into me began burning through my body from the inside.
But I didn’t stop.
I forced everything into the rune.
Golden light collided against crimson again and again until finally the second restraint cracked apart and exploded into fragments.
The effect was immediate. The giant soul stirred.
Its fingers twitched slightly for the first time. The pressure flooding through the void multiplied several times over, enough that even standing became difficult as waves of ancient comprehension began leaking outward from the soul itself.
Laws.
Fragments of understanding.
Space.
Lightning.
Force.
Existence itself.
Memories I had forgotten flooded through my mind in broken pieces. Then my eyes locked onto the final rune. The one floating directly in front of the soul.
This one felt important and different.
The core restraint.
I gathered every remaining trace of divinity and slammed it into the rune. The entire void erupted. Crimson and gold collided violently while cracks spread across the final seal inch by inch, the resistance so intense that even the surrounding darkness fractured apart under the pressure.
Then it broke.
The final rune shattered and with it the chains vanished instantly.
The giant soul opened its eyes. White flooded everything in my vision. For a moment there was nothing else.
Then my vision snapped back. Reality returned violently. I was standing in the real world again beneath the fractured sky, but the moment consciousness fully returned, an enormous ripple exploded outward from my body.
The air shattered. Space itself cracked around me in jagged fractures as pressure erupted outward in every direction, throwing Knight and Lyrate away instantly while the ground beneath me collapsed into an enormous crater.
Mountains in the distance trembled. Clouds vanished from the sky.
The empire itself shook.
And inside my mind everything returned. Comprehension of my laws flooded back endlessly. Understanding far beyond what this world should have allowed me to hold all at once. The sheer amount of information crashed through my consciousness like a tidal wave as pieces of myself that had been sealed away began reconnecting again.
I stood at the center of the crater breathing slowly while cracks continued spreading through the air around me.
I looked down at my hands for a few moments, expecting to feel some overwhelming increase in raw strength after everything that had just happened, but there wasn’t one.
My level hadn’t changed. My stats remained exactly where they had been moments ago. Yet something fundamental had shifted so deeply that comparing it to simple strength felt meaningless.
It felt like the rules themselves had changed.
I took a slow step forward and stopped resisting my perception for the first time since arriving in this world.
The effect was immediate.
My awareness exploded outward from me in a massive wave, crossing mountains, oceans, forests, cities, and continents within seconds as the entire world of Oriel unfolded inside my mind with terrifying clarity.
Every movement of energy, every safe zone, every living presence, every distortion in space itself became visible all at once, the sheer scale of it so familiar that for a brief moment it almost felt like I had returned to the Prime Universe again.
A faint smile formed on my face.
"Now that’s more like it."
The sensation was intoxicating.
Not because it was new.
Because it was mine.
"What else..." I muttered quietly to myself.
I raised a finger and tapped lightly against the empty air in front of me.
Space rippled instantly.
Then tore open.
A crack spread outward from the point of contact before splitting completely apart, revealing the dark void hidden beneath reality itself. Cold blackness stared back from within the fracture while unstable currents twisted along its edges.
Knight’s eyes widened slightly somewhere in the distance.
I waved my hand casually and the space sealed itself shut again as though nothing had happened.
Then I took another step.
The world blurred.
One moment I stood at the center of the crater.
The next I appeared directly beside Knight and Lyrate without crossing the distance between us at all.
Both of them immediately stiffened.
Lyrate narrowed her eyes at me carefully while Knight instinctively took half a step backward.
"Something changed," Lyrate said slowly. "I can feel it."
The pressure leaking from my body had become different now, less violent than before but infinitely heavier, like standing near something that no longer belonged entirely within the same world.
"What happened?" she asked.