The Emperor looked at Neo with unreadable eyes.

A moment later, the palace shook.

The battle that followed was nothing like Neo had imagined.

He was overwhelmed.

Every move he made was anticipated.

Every attack deflected or redirected.

His power was suppressed, twisted, crushed by an authority that felt absolute within this domain.

Neo was slammed into the ground, then through walls, then into the depths beneath the palace.

By the time it ended, he was bound in chains.

He was thrown into a prison beneath the palace, deep underground.

The door sealed shut behind him, and layers of formations activated one after another.

He was scheduled to be present in the court tomorrow, and likely be executed after that.

Neo tested the chains.

They didn't budge.

The suppression was terrifyingly thorough.

"…This doesn't make sense. Even if Heaven is strong, everyone else in this world is weak. How did someone make chains strong enough to hold me? Where did the knowledge for this come from?"

As he grumbled under his breath, a familiar presence asserted itself.

A screen appeared in front of his eyes.

[Question: How to avoid surveillance of Heavens?]

[Primogenitor slot available.]

[Would you like to receive an answer?]

"…Huh?"

Neo froze.

"Primogenitor? How is this still working?"

This shouldn't have been possible.

The Witch of Greed had fed him answers through the Great Net of Life.

But that network no longer existed for him. He could feel it clearly.

He was completely disconnected from his previous Great Net of Life (Sea of All Consciousness) when he came to the past.

Then—

'Did you come to the past with me?'

Neo frowned.

If this screen was still functioning, there was only one explanation.

The Witch of Greed was here.

With him.

'Now that I think about it… I never really understood why this Primogenitor Trait was so strange.'

'And…'

His eyes sharpened.

"If I recall, weren't you the one who told Zeus to kill the Devil of Cruelty? Were you trying to sabotage Cole's plan?"

There was no response.

"What game are you playing, Witch of Greed?"

The unease in Neo's chest deepened.

Why had she acted like the First Child of Mana?

Why had she helped create the Akashic Record on Earth?

Why had she interfered with Cole's attempt to create the Devil of Cruelty?

And most importantly—

Had she tampered with Neo's Life Flame so she could bind herself to him through his Trait?

"What's your goal?" Neo asked coldly. "No… are you even a Witch? Or are you something else entirely?"

[…]

[Confirmation received]

[Answer: Heavens watch from above. All that is beneath the sky is visible to Heavens. Hide in a location where no sky or light is visible to hide from the vision of Heavens.]

Neo stared at the message.

His trait had answered on its own.

'So she's saying… I need to avoid Heaven's eyes before we can talk.'

Neo exhaled slowly.

If this was true, then Heaven had been watching him the entire time.

And he hadn't even known.

Darkness began to seep from Neo's body.

It spread, swallowing the prison room and cutting off every source of light.

The chains suppressed his power heavily, but small actions like this were still possible.

The darkness settled.

Then—

Something stirred inside him.

Energy flowed outward, coalescing into a familiar form.

The Witch of Greed stood before him.

Neo's eyes hardened.

'She's been inside me for so long that I didn't even realize she came to the past with me.'

He kept those thoughts to himself and maintained a calm, serious expression.

"Well?" Neo said. "What are you waiting for? Start talking."

The Witch of Greed looked at him.

"I'm Earth."

Neo blinked.

"…What?"

"I had all my powers taken by Heaven. Then I was killed. After that, fragments of my soul drifted through the True World."

She paused.

"When I was revived, I realized I had reincarnated in Mu De's Elemental Cosmos. I became a Witch. It was coincidence… but also opportunity."

Neo stared at her.

"So you interfered and blocked Cole's plan," he said.

"Yes. He never looked closely at me. So I moved behind the scenes and became a roadblock."

"Why?"

"…Because he wants to kill my children."

Neo's brow furrowed.

"You are…"

"The Empress. The wife of Emperor Heavens. The mother of the children who would become Dao Emperors. Or, at least… a fragment of her."

Neo nodded slowly.

He was beginning to understand her motives.

"Why did you help create the Akashic Record?" he asked.

"It allowed me to keep watch over the utopia Hades created. Through the Akashic Record, I could observe everything without drawing Cole's attention. It was surveillance disguised as preservation."

Neo's eyes narrowed slightly.

"And you ordered Zeus to kill me because I was what Cole wanted."

"Yes."

"And? Why explain all of this to me?"

She looked at him for a long moment. Her lips pressed together, then trembled slightly.

Slowly, she lowered herself to the ground.

She knelt.

Then she bowed fully, forehead touching the stone floor.

"….What are you doing?"

"Please," she said, her voice muffled against the ground. "Save my children."

"I'm here to kill them."

"If I raise them correctly, they won't become monsters like they did before. In the first place, if I had known Cole had the ability to send someone to the past, I would have helped him. Please. Trust me."

Neo stayed silent.

Seeing that he wasn't responding, she lifted her head slightly and began to speak again, her words spilling out faster now.

"Heavens will eat all my children in a few years."

"…What?"

She clenched her fists so tightly her hands shook.

"He will kill me," she said, hatred seeping into every word. "Absorb everything I have. And then he will eat all of my children to take their potential and rank up.

"The reason he protected them from you wasn't because he loved them. It's because he wants them intact. Their talent. Their future. Their potential."

Neo felt something heavy settle in his chest.

"Then…" he began.

"Yes," she said sorrowfully. "That's the reason Dao keeps reviving through cultivators. That's why Daos won't truly die until Heaven is killed. They want revenge."

She took a shaky breath.

"They knew they were weak compared to him. So they created their Daos in a way that allows them to return again and again. Through vessels. Through cultivation. Until one day, they could kill their father."

Neo was quiet for a long time.

"…Tell me everything," he said finally.

She did.

To become stronger, Heaven devoured his own children.

All thirty-three of them.

At the final moment, one child sacrificed himself, using everything he had to revive the others.

The remaining thirty-two survived, and hid.

They wanted revenge.

They created thirty-two Daos.

But Heaven was still too strong. They would be killed. So they designed their Daos to anchor themselves to the world, to people, to Paths. Anyone who cultivated would unknowingly become a vessel.

They would return.

Again.

And again.

Until Heaven fell.

Until they had taken the revenge for their mother, for their thirty-third sibling, for themselves.

"Please," she whispered, struggling to keep her voice steady. "Help me save them. I don't want my children to suffer through endless eons again, driven only by hatred."

Neo closed his eyes.

His own words echoed back at him.

There's always someone still suffering somewhere.

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