The portal, woven from pure faith, was a stable, shimring gateway that defied the chaotic energies at the heart of the Realm of Advancent.
The mont Sunny stepped through, he felt it; a colossal, invisible hand reaching into his very soul and squeezing, draining his power at a rate of twenty billion faith points per second.
His reserves of one hundred eight trillion, a fortune that could build a thousand empires, would last him a little over ten minutes here.
"But this is more than enough ti for ," Sunny said to the void. He let his own aura flare, not as a violent explosion, but as a calm, unstoppable tide of cosmic authority that washed over the entire garden, silencing the rustling leaves and stilling the flowing rivers of mana.
"Who... are you?" The voice, once a whisper that was everywhere, now coalesced into a single point, its tone no longer one of amusent, but of pure shock. It felt a presence that was not just powerful, but absolute.
"I am just here to take my children away. Don’t mind ," Sunny said. With a casual wave of his hand, a gentle but irresistible force enveloped Nova and Mammon.
Before they could even blink, they were lifted and passed back through the shimring portal, disappearing from the realm.
"Give my token back!" the voice scread, a childish, furious shriek that shook the very trees. Sunny looked down at the green jade token in his hand, the na ’Adam’ glowing softly.
"Why would I?" he replied, casually tucking the token into a pocket of his cosmic robe. "It has my friend’s na on it. It is only right that I return it to him."
"Your friend? Adam is dead! How can you give it to him?!" the voice sneered, certain it had caught him in a lie.
"No, he is alive and well, Freya," Sunny said, deliberately speaking the na, a calculated probe to test the nature of the entity he faced.
"You know my Master?" The reply was not what he expected. It was filled with confusion, not recognition. ’So, not Freya’s ghost,’ Sunny thought.
"Your master? Yes, I know of her," Sunny lied smoothly. "This entire realm was built before my very eyes."
"Then how do you not know who I am?" the voice shot back, its suspicion palpable.
"That is not the important part," Sunny countered, his voice taking on a sharp, accusatory edge. "I am here on behalf of Adam. He has been trapped in this realm for a million years, injured and cursed. Why did you not help him?"
"I don’t know," the voice replied, its tone now laced with a genuine, childlike confusion. "I only gained true intelligence a century ago. The huge influx of life into this realm awakened far sooner than my Master expected."
A new piece of the puzzle clicked into place. "So... you are a world spirit?" Sunny mused aloud. "Or should I say, the spirit of this entire Realm of Advancent?"
Just then he also got the information that he wanted with the God’s eye, as the entity in front of him was also a god thus the description ca a little bit delayed, but it still ca tily.
"Yes," the voice affird, its tone shifting from confusion to a sudden, arrogant pride. "This entire realm is under my control..."
In that instant, the beautiful garden twisted into a nightmare landscape. The very ground beneath Sunny’s feet rose up, forming colossal stone fists.
The air itself solidified, attempting to crush him in an invisible vice. Storms of acid rain and soul-slicing wind erupted from nowhere, all converging on his position.
"Oh, aren’t you a fierce child," Sunny said, his voice filled with a calm, paternal amusent. "So arrogant, with only a hundred years of experience."
He raised a hand, and a serene bubble of his own reality surrounded him, a space where the realm’s apocalyptic fury could not reach.
"Haha, can’t reach outside of your realm?" Sunny said, as he stood inside but at the sa ti outside of the realm of advancent.
"Give back my token!" the Realm Spirit scread, its fury intensifying the storm outside Sunny’s newly created reality.
"I think this token is very important to you," Sunny laughed, enjoying the child’s tantrum.
In the Citadel of Veridia, the grand hall of the Cosmic Empire trembled. Colossal chandeliers swung wildly, and cracks spread across the stone floor.
"Thalorax, did you feel that?" Anaske shouted, his hands braced against the shaking council table.
"Yes," the massive Dragonborn leader replied, his deep voice a low rumble. "The entire realm is shaking, as if it is about to break apart."
"Should we return to Veridia?" Anaske asked the assembled leaders.
"No. The tremor is caused by God Cosmos. Do not be scared," a new voice, calm and powerful, echoed in the hall.
A figure materialized from a tear in space. It was Nova. The assembled leaders imdiately bowed. "Greetings, Demigod Nova."
Nova simply nodded. "Umbra, let’s go. We have a task at hand."
From the shadow of the throne, a darker patch of darkness slithered out and coalesced into the silent, humanoid form of the demigod of shadows. "Greetings, Sister Nova."
"Greetings, Umbra," Nova replied. With a flick of her hand, both of them vanished into thin air.
In Sunny’s God space, the strike team assembled. They were the five pillars of his strength. Nova, the Commander. Umbra, the Assassin. Loki, the Trickster. Mammon, the rchant. And Shenlong, the Saint.
"Sister, where are we going?" Umbra asked, her voice a soft whisper.
"We are going to secure an SSS-Grade treasure," Nova stated, her voice sharp with purpose. She led them through a newly manifested portal into the God space of Reflection. From there, they stepped through the portal into the Realm of Advancent.
The two demigods guarding Reflection’s outpost felt their presence and nearly suffocated under the sheer, combined pressure of the five, especially the draconic aura of Nova.
But their fear was quickly replaced by relief. Because the reinforcents their God has been talking about had arrived.
They now knew for certain that the treasures were traps. They had felt the distant, psychic echo of Sparrow’s death, a grim warning that had spread among all the demigods in the region.
Their master had been right. And now, the Emperor’s own elite guard had arrived to spring the trap on the hunters.
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