********* [Billion PoV]
The transfer happened without warning.
One moment the three of us were still standing beneath the skies of Oriel while the next the entire world folded away like a distant illusion, space collapsing inward around our vision before everything suddenly opened again into an entirely different place.
Blue sky.
That was the first thing I noticed.
An endless clear blue sky stretched in every direction above us while thick white clouds drifted beneath our feet like an ocean, so vast that even mountains could have disappeared within them unnoticed. The air felt strangely calm here, and scattered across the open sky stood enormous structures built from crimson stone and gold-veined marble, floating peacefully above the clouds.
Bridges stretched between them without visible support while giant banners carrying unfamiliar symbols drifted softly in the wind.
"This..." Knight muttered quietly beside me, "is a treasury?"
"It looks more like heaven," Lyrate replied.
Then I realized something else. I looked down at my hand and immediately understood that we weren’t standing here physically at all. The forms we carried now were our true soul forms, stripped away from the bodies we had been using inside Oriel.
’Interesting.’
"You noticed."
The voice came from ahead of us.
An old man stood there smiling calmly. His white beard flowed all the way down near his waist while deep crimson robes covered his body, intricate patterns glowing faintly across the fabric. But what stood out most were his eyes.
Dark green and deep.
The moment my perception brushed against him, instinct screamed at me immediately.
Danger.
Not hostile danger.
But overwhelming strength.
This old man stood far beyond Saint rank.
Yet despite that terrifying realization, his expression remained warm and amiable, more like a friendly grandfather welcoming guests into his home than someone powerful enough to erase worlds.
"Welcome," he said pleasantly while looking at the three of us. "Billion Ironhart. Knight and Lyrate."
Knight blinked. "Okay that’s unsettling."
The old man chuckled softly. "You three have caused quite the disturbance recently."
Lyrate narrowed her eyes slightly. "You know who we are?"
"I know many things," the old man replied casually before looking toward me again. "More importantly, how is the Prime Universe doing these days?"
That question made all three of us go silent.
I answered carefully. "Still existing last I checked."
The old man laughed softly at that. "Good. That place tends to become troublesome whenever nobody watches it for too long."
I stared at him for a moment before finally asking, "How exactly do you know about the Prime Universe?"
The old man smiled pleasantly.
Then completely ignored the question.
"Now then," he said while extending his hand toward me politely, "may I see the key?"
Lyrate snorted quietly beside me. "Professional dodging."
I took out the Crimson Fortune Key and handed it over.
The old man examined it briefly before nodding with visible approval. "Very good. And I assume you wish to upgrade it using your stored divinity?"
"Yes."
The moment I answered, the divinity resting deep within my soul suddenly stirred before getting pulled outward forcefully, streams of golden energy flowing directly into the crimson key. The engravings across its surface lit up one after another while the entire key began glowing brighter and brighter, the pressure leaking from it increasing rapidly until even the surrounding space distorted slightly around it.
The old man watched the process calmly.
"Excellent," he murmured softly.
Once the transfer finished, he stepped forward and casually pushed the key into empty space.
The space reacted instantly.
The air rippled outward like disturbed water before a massive golden gate slowly materialized in front of us, ancient patterns spreading across its surface while countless mechanisms inside it shifted and locked into place with deep metallic sounds.
Creak.
The gate slowly opened inward.
Golden light spilled through the opening while a completely different pressure leaked from beyond it, ancient and immeasurably vast.
The old man stepped aside politely.
"You may enter now," he said with a small smile. "The Crimson Treasury awaits."
The moment we stepped through the gate, the blue skies and floating crimson structures vanished behind us as the golden light swallowed our vision for a brief instant before reality settled again into something entirely different.
I stopped walking almost immediately.
The Crimson Treasury didn’t look like a treasury at all.
There were no shelves. No weapons displayed proudly on walls.
Instead, the entire place resembled an endless cosmic expanse stretching infinitely in every direction, a dark space filled with drifting crimson mist and rivers of starlight flowing through the void like currents in an ocean.
Beneath our feet existed a transparent crystal pathway suspended over absolute darkness while enormous structures floated impossibly far away, fragments of ancient ruins, shattered pillars, broken gates, pieces of worlds themselves drifting silently across the treasury.
And scattered throughout that endless void were stars.
Or more appropriately Orbs.
Thousands upon thousands of glowing orbs floated everywhere around us, suspended at different heights across the treasury like a giant galaxy trapped inside a dream. Some were as small as fists while others rivaled mountains in size, and within every single one, entire miniature galaxies spun endlessly.
I slowed my steps unconsciously while staring at the nearest orb.
Inside it, countless stars rotated around a glowing center while fragments of something deeper moved within the spiral, shapes too vague to fully understand.
The orb drifted slowly past us while faint crimson symbols rotated across its surface, but no matter how hard I focused, I couldn’t properly see what was hidden inside it.
The old man’s voice echoed calmly behind us.
"The Crimson Treasury does not display treasures directly," he explained. "Doing so would be... problematic."
Knight looked toward another massive orb drifting far above us. "So all these things are treasures?"
"In a sense."
I extended my perception toward one of the orbs instinctively.
The moment my awareness touched it, pain stabbed into my mind.
I pulled back immediately while the orb continued floating peacefully as though nothing had happened.
The old man chuckled softly. "I would advise against attempting to comprehend them directly before selection."
"What are they exactly?" I asked quietly.
"Potential," the old man replied.
That answer somehow explained absolutely nothing.
We continued walking deeper into the treasury while more and more orbs drifted around us in complete silence, each one carrying entirely different pressure. Some felt calm and ancient while others radiated overwhelming violence strong enough that even standing near them became uncomfortable.