The word hung in the air—not a demand, not a plea, but something quieter. Softer. Dangerous only in the hands of the woman who spoke it.
Luthar stared at Freya for a moment.
Even standing still, she moved. Her presence carried its own gravity. There were those who mistook her beauty for gentleness. They didn't understand how sharp a thing could be while wrapped in silk.
Luthar took a breath, fingers pausing over the activation panel of the device.
"Because I can," he said finally. "Because someone like you—who is made of energy and driven will—if I take you without understanding how, your divine energy might react to the new world. If the world completely rejects your divinity and magic, it would be over for you."
A subtle twitch touched her brow, but before her words could cut loose, another voice broke through the rising tension.
"He's not going out to play," Hephaestus said, stepping into the light of the workshop's upper ring. Her tone was steady, pragmatic. "This is a test. He's not going to another world yet. He's heading into a place where nothing exists. No rules. No space. No time. A true null zone."
Freya's gaze did not leave Luthar. "And then?"
"Then," Hephaestus continued, "he creates a passage for us so we can travel more safely." She crossed her arms and added, pointedly, "And I don't think you should be the first one to go. I believe I could provide better help to him in the new world."
Freya's lips curved, but it wasn't a smile. "But I think you're the one who should stay behind. There are plenty of important projects in Orario—someone needs to supervise them."
Luthar exhaled and turned back toward the platform—its polished rings glowing faintly with a cold blue pulse. Servo arrays clicked into position, drawing a wide circle around the ignition point.
In a few minutes, the machine would bore a path through unreality.
At a little distance from all three of them, half-shrouded in shadow, Liliruca Arde watched.
She wasn't meant to be there—not officially—but no one had asked her to leave either. Freya's voice echoed like silk drawn over steel, and Hephaestus answered with her usual, even-tempered fire. The two goddesses clashed in words, not volume—but their meanings cut deep all the same.
Luthar stood between them, silent once more. Always measured. Always prepared. Always distant.
Liliruca gripped the edge of the small knife.
He was preparing to cross into an unknowable realm, and these goddesses—powerful, unpredictable, immortal—were already staking claims. Subtly, yes. But it was there.
And where did that leave her?
The girl who had once cowered in alleyways. The support that no one looked twice at unless they needed something carried.
Her fingers flexed, knuckles tight.
She wouldn't let this moment pass her by.
Freya could charm. Hephaestus could forge. But Liliruca was the first follower of Luthar—she had spent more time beside him and adapted to the logic and madness of his machines. If anyone deserved to be the first through that gate, it wasn't someone blessed by divinity.
It should be her. Her mind sharpened; she couldn't let these goddesses steal her first place.
If Luthar opened that gate today, even if he only tested its edge, she would be prepared—and she would be the first to accompany him to the other realm.
Luthar, unaware of what stirred in Liliruca's mind, turned back toward the control dais. There would be no more debate. The test demanded his full attention. He ignored everything else—conversation, presence, emotion—as his focus narrowed to calculations, circuit alignments, and energy flow stability. Time became a background process, unnoticed. Without realizing it, morning gave way to evening, and then quietly, into night.
Silence settled over the workshop. Not an awkward pause or the hush of uncertainty—but something deeper. Reverent. As though the chamber itself understood what was about to happen and had chosen to hold its breath.
Even the sound of machines had disappeared. The air had changed. Not in temperature, but in texture. Thicker. Heavier. Charged with something neither magical nor divine, but older, colder—mechanical purpose made manifest.
Luthar stood at the center of the platform.
He had been there for minutes already, motionless, as the final calibrations resolved around him. The circular mechanism responded to his presence—anchor points engaging with a mechanical hiss, telemetry beacons pinging silently in confirmation. The luminous rings beneath his boots brightened in sequence, feeding data into the rotating core above him. Around the chamber's perimeter, servo-skulls hovered in formation, awaiting the final signal.
Above him, coils began to turn—slow, deliberate, ancient and new at once. The gate was aligning.
Below him, beyond the radius of the platform, they all watched.
Hephaestus. Freya. Liliruca. No one spoke.
No ceremony. No blessing.
Just breathless silence.
And the soft whisper of machines preparing to open a path through the impossible.
The machine's pulse deepened.
Light bent. The chamber around him distorted, folded, collapsed inward like a dying star collapsing upon itself. In a blink—and without sound—the workshop was gone.
When Luthar opened his eyes, he wasn't in Orario anymore.
No stone floor beneath his boots. No humming machines. No voices in the air. Instead, he floated within a boundless, colorless expanse—the same place where everything had started. Time did not flow here. The rules of the world held no power.
Swirls of iridescent mist pulsed around him, alive with impossible color and direction. It wasn't a place. It was an absence. And yet, it remembered him.
He straightened his stance. His robe drifted without wind. A low resonance—too deep to be called sound—trembled across his frame.
"Normally, people would try to go back to their original world. But instead, you come here."
It was the same presence. Ancient, vast, and terribly calm. Not divine. Not human. Something else.
"Since you've arrived here, I'll allow a few questions. But you have to go back soon—this isn't a place for you."
Luthar narrowed his gaze, the crimson lens of his mechanical eye flickering. "Do you think now it's time for you to explain what actually happened with me? Is there any reason I got a system and a second chance?"
"No, there is no reason. You're forgetting—if your soul hadn't accidentally gotten involved with that universe, I wouldn't have granted you the system. As for your current thoughts… you're overthinking."
"Looks like I can only believe you for now," he said.
"Suit yourself," the being replied.
Luthar's eyes narrowed. "Can you tell me—will my plan work?"
A pause. Then, simply: "Yes. If you just want to use this place as an anchor."
A faint grimace tugged at Luthar's lips. "One last question—if I establish this place as an anchor, can I ensure that whenever I return to a world, I arrive at the exact moment I left it? No lost time. No drift."
"You can do that," the voice said, calm as ever. "But I would not recommend returning to the exact moment you left. You already know why. Two instances of the same presence, occupying the same flow of time… It never ends well. Not even for those born in nightmare."
And then, the entity disappeared.
Luthar remained in the void, letting the silence settle around him. Then he moved. He restarted his work within that strange, weightless space—finishing the calibration, reinforcing the anchor, gathering one last set of readings. It took time—maybe minutes, maybe hours.
Then the pull returned.
His body jolted, yanked backward by a force without shape.
The colorless void fractured. Then shattered like glass, and—
He gasped as his boots struck solid metal once more.
The hum of the machine returned. Servo-skulls hovered in place, flickering as if nothing had happened. The others were still watching.
Only a second had passed in the workshop.
But Luthar knew is work was done.
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