"Greeting me with such intense animosity… have your manners gone lost the moment you became something similar to us, little light?"

Trisha's tone was silk laced with poison, each word a tease and a test.

At her words, Riley only stared at her—his cold, pale-blue eyes unwavering.

His expression didn't flinch; his stance didn't shift.

"Why are you here?" he asked, voice low and devoid of warmth.

"Hmm, straight to the point as always…" Trisha tilted her head, her crimson eyes glowing faintly with amusement. "But I suppose that's one of the things I like about you."

Before his eyes could even track her movement, her figure blurred—disappearing from in front of him and reappearing at his back.

Her arms draped lightly around his neck, her touch deceptively gentle, her breath brushing against his ear.

"You've become awfully courageous since the last time we talked," she whispered, her tone laced with mock affection. "Pray tell… did ascending make you think you were of equal status with me?"

Her last words slipped out like a spell—carrying with them a crushing force.

The ground beneath them cracked.

A wave of pressure, heavy and suffocating, fell upon Riley.

The air trembled, colors warped, and even light seemed to twist under her dominion.

Around them, the forest began to die.

Leaves shriveled mid-air before they could touch the ground.

The trees turned gray and brittle, their trunks collapsing inward as their life force was devoured.

The soil blackened, the grass burned away to dust, and even the wind itself seemed to halt—choked into silence.

In an expanding radius of death, all that remained standing were the two of them.

And still, Riley did not move.

He stood within that silence, his body faintly shimmering under the distortion of her power.

His own aura flickered and resisted faintly, like a faint light trying to breathe within an endless abyss.

Trisha smiled.

"Though," she continued softly, "I am impressed by your choices so far…" Her fingers trailed lightly down his chest as she spoke, each word deliberate, taunting. "To think you would take a path no one dared—between two pointed roads, you chose the one that led to nowhere. A loose end that shouldn't exist."

Her voice darkened, a faint vibration of excitement in it.

"You truly are an anomaly, Riley. I can't tell how much of what you are is mere coincidence… or perhaps," her lips curled into a knowing smile, "the grand design of something—or someone—who dared to deny fate itself."

The silence that followed was thick. The dead forest around them felt like a still painting—life erased, time paused.

Riley had no proper reply.

Because even he himself didn't know the full extent of the plans his other selves had set for him—nor what they truly expected him to become.

How much of his life had been real?

How much of it had been nothing but a fabrication born from something—or someone—else's design?

The thought lingered like poison.

Were his choices ever truly his own, or were they the echoes of decisions made by versions of himself he didn't even remember?

Versions that might've already walked this same path before him?

Deep inside, doubt gnawed at him. It always had.

But even with that uncertainty, one thing never changed.

He was still Riley.

Not a construct, not a shadow of something greater—just Riley Hell.

And every decision that brought him here, every loss, every fight, every path chosen in defiance or in pain—those were his. No one else's.

That was the truth he accepted the day he passed Eris's trial.

That was the belief he carved into his soul.

"Erebil…" he murmured quietly.

His gaze shifted back to Trisha, who still held him, her arms loosely wrapped around him, her smirk unmoving.

But this time, it was different.

The air trembled.

From within him, a distorted hum began to resonate—low, deep, and unnatural. Shadows flickered across his form, bending light itself.

A pulse. Then another.

Darkness spilled out from him like an expanding ripple, wrapping his frame in chaotic, glitch-like fragments that twisted and reshaped themselves constantly.

The pressure that once crushed him shattered instantly, replaced by something else—something older and unrestrained.

His body became a paradox, flickering between states that couldn't exist together—light and dark, divine and abyssal, stable yet distorted.

Black tendrils unfurled from his back, soft in motion but heavy in power.

They danced like liquid shadows, weaving a shape reminiscent of wings before dissolving into a cloak that pulsed with shifting hues—blue, gold, and red—interlaced with an impossible depth of black.

The world around him distorted further, as though reality itself rejected what it saw.

The title whispered through existence itself—no voice, no sound, just an undeniable truth echoing from the divine and the forbidden alike:

[Heaven's Anomaly]

His divinity surged.

Authority spread.

Every atom of his being demanded recognition.

Trisha's eyes widened just slightly—a flicker of curiosity and thrill mixing with the faintest trace of caution.

Riley's voice came out calm but sharp, the tremor of power still vibrating through the air.

"Enough with the mind games," he said, cold and certain. "Tell me—why are you here?"

Trisha—no, Erebil—smiled at the sight before her.

The transformation was incomplete, yes, but it was enough. Enough to confirm what she'd suspected since the very beginning.

What kind of existence Riley had become.

Truly… how delicious.

Her excitement bloomed quietly within, a thrill that rippled through every inch of her being.

She wanted to laugh, to taste the anomaly in front of her—yet she restrained herself.

Her expression remained calm, playful even, as her crimson eyes softened.

Letting go of him, she stepped back a little, clasping both hands behind her back in that deceptively elegant manner of hers.

"This forest won't last if we stay here for long," she said casually, her voice smooth, almost teasing. "So, why don't we move venues for a bit…?"

Her gaze shifted upward.

The sky above them trembled faintly as her eyes turned darker—no longer the glowing red of a temptress, but the endless black of the abyss.

And she felt it.

That faint golden shimmer beyond the clouds.

A holy radiance, watching, waiting, piercing the heavens—her ever-annoying sister, observing from on high, ready to intervene the moment she went too far.

The corner of Erebil's lips twitched slightly, part amusement, part irritation.

"Still the same as ever… can't even let me play without meddling," she muttered.

Then, her attention returned to Riley.

It really was a shame.

A small part of her wanted to test him—to see the limit of this newly awakened god standing before her. The anomaly born of heaven and defiance.

But she could wait.

No, she wanted to wait.

It would be far more satisfying to taste him later… when his light burned bright enough to rival even them.

With a snap of her fingers—

The forest dissolved.

Reality bent, folded, and vanished into darkness, like ink swallowing a page.

A moment later, wind brushed gently against their faces.

The pressure faded.

The air grew light and open again.

They now stood in a wide, sunlit meadow—grass swaying softly, the horizon endless and clear.

Before them, a pristine white table sat between two chairs, perfectly set as if waiting all along.

Two cups of tea steamed faintly, their aroma blending into the breeze.

The same table. The same arrangement.

Just like the last time they talked.

Erebil smiled again and gestured gracefully toward the seat opposite her.

"Now then, Riley Hell," she said softly, almost like greeting an old friend. "Why don't we play a little game?"

Riley didn't answer.

He stood still, his eyes scanning their surroundings.

The last time he'd been here, he hadn't thought much of it—just a strange, dreamlike place wrapped in Erebil's power. A warped reality bent by her will.

But now… now that he had ascended, he could see it for what it truly was.

Every detail, every breath of air, every blade of grass shimmered with a subtle falseness.

His divinity pulsed in quiet alarm, whispering the truth he could no longer ignore.

He was standing in another god's domain.

On the surface, it appeared gentle—an endless meadow of green under a painted sky, sunlight spilling softly through clouds that didn't exist.

But beneath it all, his senses clawed at the deeper layer hidden behind the illusion.

Darkness.

Endless, suffocating darkness.

An infinite void veiled by beauty and color.

A graveyard of forgotten realms and dead divinities, their echoes buried beneath this false light.

This wasn't just a domain—it was a cage built from the remains of countless souls.

And he was standing in the center of it.

He had realized now… this place was the End.

Erebil chuckled softly as if amused by the tension rolling off him. "Hmm, don't be so nervous, little light," she said, brushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "Yes, I interfered directly this time… but don't worry. No one else will interrupt us."

She tilted her head, eyes glowing faintly as a shadow passed across the field.

"Any more interference from above will be cut off from now on," she continued, her tone both playful and absolute. "At least… until after we finish the small game I've prepared for you."

Riley's hand twitched slightly by his side. His eyes, once calm and focused, now glowed faintly with a cold blue light.

He didn't speak—but his silence was sharp enough to make the wind still.

Erebil only smiled wider.

She lifted one hand—slow, deliberate—and the air around her shimmered like fractured glass.

A faint chime echoed, soft but unnerving, as a frosted crystal began to form in front of her hand.

It pulsed faintly… once, twice… and then began to beat like a living heart.

Riley's eyes widened.

He recognized it immediately.

[Conceptual Oblivion]

In an instant, his divinity surged outward—raw, unstable, uncontainable.

BZZZZTTT!!!

VOOOOOSHHH!!!

The entire field bent under the pressure as light and shadow twisted violently around him.

His presence cracked the air itself; the skies above darkened into a chaotic swirl of white and black, where heaven and hell clashed without form or direction.

Reality glitched.

Even Erebil's eyes flickered for a brief second—her smile wavered, her hair fluttered in the turbulence of divine interference.

A piece of her domain warped and then rewrote itself around Riley's form, struggling to process the contradiction that stood before it.

It wasn't just divinity.

It was something deeper. Something wrong.

A being that should not exist.

He stood at the center of the storm like an unmade truth—his form flickering, fragmented, divine and profane at once. His existence screamed both life and death, creation and denial.

Even Erebil, one of the oldest beings in existence, found herself hesitating.

Truly, he was an anomaly.

Riley's eyes glowed like fractured glass—shifting between gold, blue, and red—as he fixed his gaze on the beating crystal.

His voice, calm yet trembling with suppressed rage, broke the silence.

"What did you do to her?"

Erebil's expression softened into something playful, though her eyes betrayed the faintest trace of unease.

"Fufu… don't worry," she said, tone teasing but careful. "I haven't done anything to her yet."

She paused, and the crystal heart pulsed in rhythm with her words.

"Ultimately, what happens depends on her—and you, little light. That's why…" she smiled, placing a finger to her lips, "…we'll make a small bet. A game, if you will."

Riley's energy flickered again—like a storm barely held back.

Erebil tilted her head, voice carrying the weight of amusement and cruelty intertwined.

"So," she whispered, eyes glowing with abyssal red, "are you ready to play the game now?"

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