I was back at the Academy cafeteria, nursing a delicious affogato at a window-side booth that overlooked the grand vista of the ever-bustling Academy City.
Around , Cadets went about their day as usual, lining up to place orders or taking their food to go.
Nearly all of them were staring in our direction as they passed.
Yes. Our direction.
Sitting across from on the other side of the table was a handso young man who appeared to be around my age. He had leafy green curls and matching eyes, clear and vivid like a pair of polished jewels.
With those genetically gifted features, paired with his lean build, fair skin, tall stature, and the effortless charisma that seed to cling to him no matter what he did, there was no arguing that he was one of the most good-looking Awakened in the entire Academy.
Dressed simply yet elegantly in a dark brown cable-knit sweater and beige slacks, the man occupying the spotlight was Jake l Flazer.
...Or rather, soone wearing his face.
Which would be Asmodeus.
This was a dream, and judging by the fact that everyone’s attention was fixed on him instead of , it was clearly a dream born from Jake’s own delusional imagination as a way to cope with his insecurities.
Because clearly, in reality, no one could steal the spotlight from if I ever stood beside them. Heh.
...Okay, except maybe Juliana.
But you would never catch admitting that out loud. Ever.
"Thanks for killing him," Asmodeus said in Jake’s voice. "Vahn, I an. Thanks for ending his suffering."
"I’m not the one who killed him," I murmured between small spoonfuls of creamy gelato. "You did."
I knew it stung Asmodeus to hear that. I could tell from the way his face fell.
Which was good.
Because I wanted him to feel it.
"You were his friend," I continued, the bitterness of espresso on my tongue and bleeding into my tone. "He supported you and your daughter when the gods descended. He had the chance to betray you, and he didn’t. You, on the other hand..."
My voice trailed off, because I realized I didn’t need to finish the thought.
Asmodeus, still wearing Jake’s face, flinched as if I had physically hit him.
"I warned him!" he snapped. "I warned him to side with . I told him that it wasn’t a fight he could win. I tried to make him understand that he couldn’t fix anything anymore. He just refused to listen."
Unimpressed, I shifted my gaze toward the four-sided holographic jumbotron suspended at the center of the cafeteria, where a rerun of the last ASC (Awakened Sports Championships) was playing on loop.
Asmodeus let out a slow sigh when he noticed my lack of interest in his ramblings.
I leaned back in my seat, finally regarding him properly. "So what is it that you actually wanted to talk about?"
"I’m going to give you the sa offer I once gave my friend," said the Prince of Temptations, quite literally doing justice on his nickna by tempting . "Join us. Save yourself a world of trouble and stand on the right side of the history that is being made. The winning side."
I pushed the now-empty cup aside with two fingers. "Why is the Spirit King even obsessed with Earth? If he just wants to raise an army then there should be billions of planets left for him to conquer. And don’t tell he’s already assimilated the entire universe into his domain, because that surely isn’t possible. So can’t he just... I don’t know, pick so other world and leave mine alone?"
Asmodeus didn’t answer right away.
Instead, he raised one finger and lazily pointed toward the jumbotron.
On the holographic screen facing us, a girl athlete leapt high into the air. Her body was draped in crackling arcs of light as she caught an incoming discus and hurled it back with such speed that the air itself warped around it.
More than half of the cafeteria erupted into cheers as the replay ended.
"That," he said quietly, "is why he can’t."
I frowned at the screen. "That’s... just a girl throwing a disc."
"That," Asmodeus corrected, "is Essence flowing straight through her body."
I followed his gaze back to the display. The athlete landed, and the reinforced ground beneath her feet fractured like glass.
"Earth," he went on, "is the last world that still has access to it."
I looked at him again. "Access to what?"
"Essence," he repeated. "Divinity leaking into flesh. The final spillover of sothing far older than even the new gods."
I scoffed. "You’re telling the entire universe ran out of magic except for my ho planet?"
A faint smile tugged at his lips. "Not magic. Cards."
"Cards?" My brow creased. "You an Origin Cards?"
"No. The True Cards," he said. "From the Table of Worlds."
I went still, my mind imdiately going back to Rexerd’s journals.
Asmodeus leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.
Jake’s borrowed eyes reflected the flickering glow of the jumbotron as he asked, "You’ve heard fragnts of the myth of the Nine Hands, haven’t you?"
"Yes," I replied dubiously. "But remind again what it’s really about."
He chuckled softly. "In the beginning, before anything had aning, there were the Nine Hands — alien beings older than even the First Gods themselves. They were Avatars of the Architects, basically developers of reality. And they gambled creation into existence. On the Table of Worlds, they played a ga using True Cards, divine artifacts of incomprehensible power."
A waitress arrived to wipe down the table and jot down our next order. I just waved her off.
Asmodeus paused until she finished and walked away, then continued, "Each True Card that was played birthed a concept: ti, death, will, fla, mory, and countless others. Those cards established the rules of our universe. Reality spiraled outward from every play, every shuffle, and every wager. But here is where it becos interesting."
His voice dropped into a conspiratorial whisper, as though he were sharing sothing both amusing and horrifying. "There were nine Hands... but ten Cards. The Tenth Card was drawn at the end of every ga. It was made to reset the play. It was designed to call back the other Nine Cards so they could be used again to create new concepts in a new round."
I stayed silent, but the curiosity on my face must have been obvious, because he smirked at . I did not like that smirk.
"But then," he continued, "all of a sudden, before they could reset the ga for what must have been the billionth ti, the Nine Hands vanished. In their absence, all Ten Cards shattered. The fragnts of those Ten Cards dissolved into what you people now call Essence and flooded into the worlds. Mortals beca sensitive to that Essence. Over ti, they subconsciously began crystallizing tiny droplets of it — forming incomplete and miniscule shards of the True Cards."
My breath caught despite myself.
So this was what Rexerd had ant when he wrote that Origin Cards were not manifestations of the soul, contrary to popular belief.
They were divine artifacts, entangled with the soul on a taphysical quantum level.
We did not awaken Origin Cards.
We crystallized Essence.
Essence that ca from the shattered True Cards.
Which ant that what we manifested was only a very, very small portion of sothing once infinitely greater.
As if reading my thoughts, Asmodeus continued, "So you see, Little Puppet, what you call Origin Cards are rely incarnations carrying a faint trace of the bigger divine code they once belonged to."
After several seconds, I found my voice. "Where did the Nine Hands go?"
Asmodeus snapped his fingers once. "That is the best part. They didn’t go anywhere. The Spirit King killed them."
My jaw dropped before I could stop it. "He did what?"
"He killed the Nine Hands," Asmodeus repeated, clearly amused. "And when they died, the True Cards broke."
I slowly rubbed the bridge of my nose.
"Anywho," he went on calmly, as if he hadn’t just dropped a bombshell at my face, "the Tenth Card was never ant to be played like the others. Like I said, it was a reset key. You understand what that ans, don’t you?"
My voice ca out quieter than intended. "Let guess. The Spirit King wants the Tenth Card so he can draw all the Essence back and restore the original Nine Cards."
"Exactly!" Asmodeus clapped like a proud teacher indulging a particularly dumb student. Then he gestured vaguely, as if scattering dust into the air. "When the Ten Cards shattered, their fragnts dissolved into Essence and flooded the mortal realm. The Spirit King conquered every world where Essence still flowed. All but one."
A cold weight settled in my chest.
"He already possesses all the fragnts of the final TrueCard— all except the last eight. Once he acquires them, he can reassemble it. Then he can reset the deck and rewrite the rules. He can take dominion over all of existence itself. Perhaps he can even create new concepts or delete old ones," Asmodeus’ grin widened. "He... can beco a true god."
And wage war on the other gods, I thought.
Silence stretched between us, filled only by the roar of the cafeteria and the distant voice of an announcer shouting about stats and world records.
Finally, I breathed, "Wait. If all Origin Cards are fragnts of the True Cards... then there must be people whose Origin Cards co from the Tenth Card, right? Why doesn’t the Spirit King just kill those people and leave Earth alone?"
"There are two problems with that," Asmodeus said, lifting one long finger. "First are the Chosen Ones."
"The... Chosen Ones?"
"Destined Ones. Chosen Ones. Fated Heroes. Whatever you want to call them. They are the lock and the key he cannot touch."
I frowned. "That makes no sense."
"In simple terms," he explained, "only the shards of the otherNine Cards manifest as Origin Cards. As weapons and powers, as you already know."
He tapped his chest once. "The shards of the Tenth Card hide. They reside inside souls chosen by fate itself. They do not awaken. They do not shine. They simply exist, buried so deeply in their soul that even the Spirit King cannot extract them without destroying what they protect."
My throat felt dry. "So destiny chose random people to guard the shards of the most powerful object in existence?"
"Yes," Asmodeus nodded. "They were chosen to stand where gods dare not. To be the final obstruction between the Spirit King and the end of everything. Fate bends around them. The world favors them. Life gives them unfair advantages. If I must sound cliché... they are what you would call protagonists in a story."
Aw, fuck.
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