"If you lose, you walk away. You leave Seraphina's side, and you never look back."

Kairon wasn't a hot-headed teenager. He was an ancient entity, a Demigod of the deep. So why was he spewing threats like a jealous high school quarterback? It was beneath his station.

Orion didn't underestimate the Dreadfin Demigod. Kairon wasn't stupid. Which meant this tantrum was calculated.

A test, Orion realized. He wants to see what I'm made of. He wants to know if the new guy is all hype.

Beside him, Seraphina stayed silent. She didn't intervene. In fact, her eyes shimmered with anticipation. She wanted to see this too. Even Evander, usually the peacemaker, watched with keen interest.

This was a hazing ritual. A vibe check by the old guard.

"She belongs to me."

Orion didn't shout. He simply leaned down and kissed Seraphina on the forehead. It was a stamp of ownership, calm and absolute. She was with him. Unless she decided to leave, no one would take her.

Seraphina flushed, a flicker of genuine shyness breaking through her composure, but she quickly recovered. She hooked her arm through Orion's, leaning into him and shooting Kairon a look that was pure, unadulterated smugness.

"As for your challenge..." Orion turned his gaze to Kairon. "You aren't my match."

He said it with the casual indifference of stating the weather. No killing intent. No flaring aura. Just a fact. It was dismissive in the worst possible way—he didn't even consider Kairon a threat worth posturing for.

Kairon's face darkened. "Listen here, rookie. You might want to check your ego before—"

"You're only a freshly ascended Demigod. How do you expect to—"

The sentence died in Kairon's throat.

Orion stared at him.

The void around them didn't just get heavy; it solidified. A pressure far exceeding the First Stage of Demigodhood slammed into Kairon like a collapsing star, locking him in place.

Orion had touched the Fourth Stage—the Divine Calling—and had garnered insights into the Sixth. He hadn't fully mastered these realms, but he didn't need to. The raw power he commanded was leagues beyond what Kairon could withstand.

The Divine Calling stage was the pursuit of the infinite within the finite. It was the gestation phase of a true Divine Kingdom. Every strike, every breath Orion took was backed by the weight of his newly forged Abyssal World.

"Even at the peak of my time as an Arch Lord, I was an Over-tier combatant. I could stand toe-to-toe with gods," Orion said, his voice echoing with a terrifying, layered resonance. "Now that I have ascended, that gap has not closed. It has widened."

He looked at the frozen Kairon, ignoring the slack-jawed expressions of Seraphina and Evander. He wasn't bragging. He was simply reading the stat sheet.

"My focus is not on petty squabbles within the Titanion Realm," Orion continued, adopting a tone of supreme authority. "I am here to lead a unified front. The foreign world approaching us isn't a disaster; it's a free meal. It's a sitting duck waiting to be carved up."

He deliberately pitched his voice to dominate. If he wanted to lead this coalition, he couldn't just be an equal. He had to be the alpha. He had to be the raid leader.

The pressure vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

Kairon doubled over, gasping for air, clutching his chest. The sensation of total helplessness was something he hadn't felt since he was a mortal.

"Are you..." Kairon wheezed, looking up with eyes full of fear. "Are you a Second-Stage Demigod?"

Orion shook his head.

He glanced at Seraphina and Evander, ensuring they heard him clearly.

"A Second-Stage Demigod? I could crush one with a single hand."

It was a bluff—mostly. But with Seraphina gazing at him like he was the center of the universe, and his power clearly established, nobody was going to call him on it.

Silence stretched between the four deities. The hierarchy had been reset.

"Let's talk business," Orion said, breaking the spell. "These world tunnels appearing... they aren't natural evolution. This was an inside job."

He was confident. As a creator who had forged his own world, he understood the source code of reality better than they did. World Trees didn't just crash into each other unless someone messed with the gravity.

"Sir Orion," Evander said, his tone respectful now. "We've been asleep. We genuinely don't know who triggered this mutation in the Titanion Realm."

Orion frowned. If the locals didn't know, the rot was deep. A collision this massive should have set off every alarm in the pantheon.

He closed his eyes, extending his senses. He didn't just scan for magic; he scanned for the structural weak points of the realm itself.

Fifteen minutes later, his eyes snapped open.

"Follow me."

He didn't wait. He dissolved into light.

Utessar Continent, the Frozen North.

The air shimmered as four figures materialized inside a massive, cavernous space. It was the same mysterious cave where Lokiviria had once sacrificed himself.

The atmosphere was heavy, cloying. Even the gods wrinkled their noses.

"The signature is strongest here," Orion said. "This is ground zero."

When it came to sensing the nuances of world rules, the combined experience of Kairon, Seraphina, and Evander couldn't match Orion's instinct. That was the perk of being a Maker.

"There's an Insectoid statue ahead," Seraphina noted, stepping past Orion. "And markings on the ground. Remnants of a formation."

She walked to the center of the cave, sensing the lingering psychic residue. "There's so much resentment here... utter despair. This was an altar."

She raised her trident and slammed the butt of the shaft into the stone floor.

Ping.

A bubble of iridescent light expanded from the weapon, encompassing the entire cavern. It was a Chrono-Bubble, a localized reversal of time.

The air in the cave shimmered, and ghostly images began to rewind. The dust settled, the shadows danced backward, until the scene paused and began to play forward.

A figure stumbled into the cave. He was ragged, broken, his face twisted in a mask of absolute hopelessness. He fell to his knees before the insectoid idol and began the chanting of a sacrificial ritual.

It was the catalyst. The moment the door was opened.

Orion watched the playback, his eyes narrowing into dangerous slits.

He knew that face. This mess... it was tied directly to him.

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