I ignored Knight’s comment and looked toward the system notifications still floating in front of me.
"Hey, System," I said, "is there a way to restore the cities? Just the infrastructure."
There was a brief pause before the response appeared.
[The restoration protocols already in place will repair damaged infrastructure across Oriel.]
[The Authority Holder is not required to intervene.]
"Oh."
I stared at the message for a moment before exhaling quietly. It made sense. A conflict system designed on this scale had probably seen worlds destroyed far worse than this before, and if entire civilizations were meant to continue afterward, then rebuilding protocols were obvious.
At least the people returning wouldn’t be forced to live in ruins forever.
Then my gaze shifted toward the divinity resting inside my soul.
"System," I asked again, "what exactly am I supposed to do with all this divinity now?"
The response appeared immediately.
[Stored Divinity may be utilized in multiple ways.]
[Current Recommended Option:]
[Use Divinity Within the Crimson Treasury]
[The Crimson Fortune Key may be upgraded through divinity investment.]
I looked down at the crimson key resting in my hand.
"Upgrade it how?"
[Higher divinity investment increases treasury access level.]
[Improved access allows selection from higher-ranked artifacts, inheritances, authorities, and restricted vaults.]
Another notification appeared before I could ask further.
[World Stabilization Phase Initiated]
[As the recognized victor and current Authority Holder of Oriel, the system requests a world declaration.]
Knight immediately grinned.
Lyrate crossed her arms. "Please don’t say something insane. Make it decent so that they remember you."
"They will remember this prince whose body I am occupying, not me Lyrate." I chuckled.
Before I could respond, the system activated on its own.
A massive projection of me appeared across the skies of Oriel.
Every returning human across the planet suddenly saw the same thing, my figure standing beneath the fractured golden skies while system light spread around the world.
I sighed softly before looking upward toward the projection.
Then I spoke.
"If you’re hearing this," I said calmly, my voice spreading across the entire planet through the system itself, "then the tutorial is over."
All across Oriel, millions of people stopped moving.
"You’ve probably already seen the destroyed cities, the changed world, and the things waiting outside the safe zones," I continued. "And some of you are probably wondering what happens next."
I looked across the sky quietly for a moment before continuing.
"The answer is simple. You survive. You grow stronger. And you decide what kind of future this world is going to have."
The projection behind me shifted slightly as the golden sky continued glowing above Oriel.
"A lot of people spent their lives believing gods decide fate," I said. "That stronger beings stand above everyone else and the rest are supposed to kneel. But after everything I’ve seen..." I said slowly, "gods really aren’t that special."
"Goldius," I continued, "wasn’t some all-knowing divine existence. He was just a human who became stronger before everyone else."
The entire world remained silent listening.
"There’s no reason you can’t do the same."
The pressure around me shifted slightly as fragments of laws moved unconsciously through the air.
"So stop waiting for someone else to decide your future for you," I said. "This world belongs to us now. Not to gods. Not to believers. To the people living in it."
I looked directly toward the sky.
"Your destiny is your own problem now."
The system projection slowly faded afterward while silence settled across the world once more.
Knight stared at me for a few seconds before grinning. "You know," he said, "that was actually less insane than I expected."
Lyrate nodded slightly. "Surprisingly decent speech."
I looked down at the crimson key again.
Then another notification appeared.
[Teleportation to Crimson Authority Evaluation Grounds will begin shortly.]
I let my perception spread across Oriel once more and quickly found the Heavens family gathered together inside one of the ruined cities, all of them talking over each other loudly after hearing the system announcement, still trying to process the fact that their lost prince was alive.
A faint smile crossed my face before I shook my head slightly.
"Hey, Lyrate," I said while looking toward her, "why don’t we leave something behind?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Something?"
"Yeah," I replied. "Something that tells the world we were here."
Lyrate looked at me for a moment before asking, "And what exactly do you have in mind?"
*********
[Random Person PoV]
I was still staring at the sky long after the projection disappeared.
Around me, people had started talking all at once, everyone trying to process what they had just seen and heard, but my mind was stuck on only one thing.
I looked toward my friend standing beside me.
"Did you see that?" I asked.
He looked just as stunned as I felt. "Of course I saw that."
"No, I mean... that was him, right?" I said, lowering my voice slightly even though there was no reason to. "That was the prince."
His eyes shone slightly after hearing that.
"The one from the Heavens family?"
I nodded quickly. "Ryan Heavens. The prince who disappeared before the tutorial started." I swallowed once before continuing. "And now he just stood in the sky and basically declared war on gods."
My friend stared into the distance for a moment before muttering, "That’s insane."
"Yeah," I replied quietly. "But did you feel that pressure from him? I thought I was going to stop breathing."
Around us, people were still arguing and shouting over one another, some terrified, some excited, some still trying to understand what had happened to the world while others were already talking about the name the system announced.
Then suddenly, the ground trembled.
At first I thought it was another system event, but the shaking grew stronger almost immediately, enough that several people around us stumbled while distant buildings rattled loudly.
"What now?" someone shouted nearby.
The trembling intensified again.
Then another voice suddenly yelled from farther down the street.
"Look there!"
Everyone turned at once.
Far in the distance, beyond the ruined outer sections of the city, something enormous was rising into the sky.
A tree.
No, calling it a tree almost felt wrong.
The trunk alone was larger than entire buildings, thick roots tearing through the ground for miles while the structure kept growing higher and higher before our eyes. Branches spread across the sky like giant rivers while glowing green leaves lit up the atmosphere around it.
It didn’t stop.
The thing just kept rising upward endlessly, pushing through clouds while the sheer scale of it made the mountains near it look small.
People around me had gone completely silent.
Even from this far away, I could feel life energy pouring from it in massive waves.
Then finally, the growth stopped.
The gigantic tree stood there connecting earth and sky together, its upper branches disappearing into the clouds while glowing particles drifted down around it like falling stars.
"What the hell is that..." my friend whispered beside me.
Nobody answered him.
Because nobody knew. Then someone suddenly shouted, "We should go see it!"
That broke the silence immediately.
People started moving after that, curiosity overwhelming fear as groups began heading toward the giant tree from every direction, and after exchanging one look with my friend, both of us started running too.
The closer we got, the more impossible the scale became.
The roots alone were larger than roads, glowing faintly with green-gold energy while the trunk towered above everything around it like a pillar holding the world together.
Then I noticed something glowing on the bark itself.
Golden letters.
Massive enough to be read even from far away.
I slowed slightly as my eyes moved across the words carved into the trunk.
"I came."
"I saw."
"I conquered."
Below it – Billion Ironhart, Founder of Order Of Absolute.