"Who are you?"

The question echoed in the vast temple, bouncing off pillars that seem to have stood since the dawn of time.

She blinked, her massive eyelashes literally creating a draft. "How curious… say it again?"

Sol cupped his hands around his mouth, shouting up at the hundred-foot-tall beauty. "You're so big! You're glowing! You have magic fingers! But who are you, beauty? Are you a Titaness? A stone spirit? Or are you some grandpa in a ring like character?"

She stared at him. For a moment, she looked genuinely baffled. Most mortals would be prostrate on the floor, weeping with gratitude, offering their firstborns. This one was daring to ask for her identity, even after she had just pulled him back from the brink of death.

Then, she laughed.

It was a sound like wind chimes in a storm… beautiful, kinda dangerous, and most importantly absolutely overwhelming.

"Hmph," she huffed, a smile playing on her lips. The sound was soft, but it carried the weight of mountains. She sat up a bit straighter, adopting a high and mighty posture that made the throne creak, as though it feared her. The Stellar Crest on her forehead flared briefly, a pulse of light that rippled through the chamber like a heartbeat of the cosmos.

"You are bold, little bug," she said, her voice dripping with regal arrogance, each syllable echoing as if the void itself repeated her words. "Very well. Since you ask."

She spread her massive arms wide. The void behind her seemed to shimmer,folding back like a curtain, revealing glimpses of galaxies and nebulae swirling in the deep dark. Stars flared and died in silence, constellations twisted into shapes no mortal eye had ever seen. The air trembled, heavy with the scent of creation itself.

"I am Isylia," she proclaimed, her voice resonant, vast, and utterly majestic. "One of the Primordial Goddesses. The Weaver of Attributes. The Primordial Arbiter of Exchange. The One Who Barters Fate."

Her words pressed down on Sol like a mountain settling onto his shoulders. The name itself echoed in the void like thunder, as if the whole world was resonating with it, a truth too immense for human lungs to carry, and for a moment he felt like a child staring into the sun. Primordial. That was high-tier. That was endgame content.

"As for the other things," Isylia waved her hand dismissively, the galaxies vanishing like smoke. "You, mortal, do not need to know. Your brain would leak out of your ears. Your skull would crack like an eggshell under the weight of it. Knowledge is not always a gift. Sometimes it is a burden, and you are far too fragile to bear mine."

She lazily pointed a finger the size of a tree trunk at the glowing sphere hovering on the pedestal.

"Now," she said, her tone shifting from majestic to tired. She rubbed her eyes. "Go and get your prize. And leave. I have been awake for five minutes, and I am already exhausted. I have to take my nap."

Sol stared at her.

"You... you just want to sleep?"

"Being a goddess is tiring," Isylia complained, slumping back into the cushions. "Eternal vigilance takes a toll on the complexion. Now, shoo. Take the loot. Get out."

Sol looked at the sphere. Then at the sleepy, hundred-foot-tall beauty who just wanted him to leave so she could catch some Z's.

His paranoia cracked. All of this stuff was just so... absurd.

"Okay," Sol muttered, stepping toward the pedestal. "If it's a trap, so be it."

He moved toward it. But alas! Old habits die hard. Even though she had proclaimed herself to be a goddess and showed him a lightshow of the universe,it wasn't like he had never seen galaxies before. In his past life, they were plastered across wallpapers, documentaries, and free internet streams. Nebulae in 4K, supernovas on demand. So, he hesitated, extending a cautious finger to poke the light, like the same instinct that made him poke glowing buttons, test hot stoves, or prod suspicious jellyfish washed up on the shore.

"Oh, for the love of the Void," Isylia sighed, her voice dripping with disdain. "You humans really are cowards. Just grab it."

Sol coughed due to embarrassment, hearing the blatant disdain in her voice. "I'm just being cautious, who knows if you are tricking me or something?"

"Trick you?" She laughed, a sound of genuine amusement. "A mortal? That is the biggest joke I have heard in an eon."

Her solar eyes flared, pink and orange swirling like storms. "I am a Goddess. Why would I need to trick you? If I wanted you dead, I would simply stop imagining you exist. One thought, and you would vanish… erased, as though you had never been born. That is the scale of my power."

She leaned forward, her massive form casting shadows that swallowed the floor. Her smile was lazy, terrible, and beautiful all at once. "Go on. Touch it. Claim it. Or cower, and prove yourself unworthy of even being remembered."

Sol paused.

She does have a point.

If she truly was what she claimed… a goddess, a primordial force who could erase him with a thought… then hesitation was laughable. What was a poke, a touch, compared to the scale of her power? If she wanted him gone, he wouldn't even have the luxury of doubt.

His chest tightened. The human part of him, the part raised on caution and suspicion, screamed at him to stop. To never trust a smile that dripped with arrogance. To never trust a hand that could crush worlds.

But another part… the part that had seen her eyes flare like dying stars, the part that had felt her will burn the venom out of his veins… whispered that this was not trickery. This was inevitability. What if he missed a world changing cheat just because of cowa—cautioness.

Sol flexed his healed hand, staring at the pink flesh where rot had once been. He swallowed hard, his throat dry.

"Well! She does have a point," he muttered under his breath, almost as if admitting it to himself was more dangerous than saying it aloud.

He finally stepped in and cautiously extended his finger…

High above, Isylia watched with bated breath, her internal monologue racing.

'Finally,' she thought, a cruel spark lighting up her solar eyes. 'That is Orphos, a primordial divine artifact. Foolish mortal… if you touch it, you will explode instantly — flesh scattered, soul unmade, erased from the ledger of existence. The sphere does not tolerate fragile flesh. It is no mere trinket, no conjurer's bauble. It is a divine artifact, a relic of the First Dawn, law itself, forged by the very universe when the cosmos was still raw and screaming. Even gods have bled for it, clawed at it, shattered themselves against its silence. Much less fragile mortals. Mortals are less than dust before its gaze.

But now… now it is weakened. Fractured by time, dulled by the endless wars of gods who clawed at it and failed. Its vigilance is not what it once was. And in that weakness lies my chance.

Yes… let the sphere taste your touch. Let it stir, let it awaken. It will not grant you power, it will not spare you, but it will open just for moment. And when it opens, the chains of law will loosen, the bindings of eternity will falter. I will escape and step free from this cage of silence, while you crumble into ash. Your death will be the key, your fragility the offering.

Such is the irony of fate: the smallest insect may unfasten the lock that even me the goddess could not break.

…

As for how she was trapped here in the first place?

Long ago, when the strongest gods still walked openly among the world, and hadn't created their own divine realms, the artifact was revealed. It was no mere relic, but a shard of the primordial weave itself… a thing older than suns, older than law, older than even the gods who coveted it. It was said to hold the power of passage and exchange: the ability to cross the infinite world in a single step, and more importantly to bypass every restriction, every binding, every decree.

None of them wanted war, yet all were tempted. Even she, Isylia, who despised conflict, felt the pull of its promise. One by one, gods and titans hurled their strength against it. They unleashed storms that split the heavens, burned skies until they bled, shattered mountains into dust, and poured their strangest techniques into its surface.

But the artifact remained unmoved.

At last, they agreed: brute force would not claim it. Instead, they would seek its acknowledgement. One by one, they stepped forward, invoking their divine authorities, their laws, their truths. But without exception all of them failed to get its acknowledgement.

Of course, she… Isylia also got a chance too. When her turn came, she did not hesitate. She invoked her divine authority… the Law of Exchange, the primordial authority that had bent attributes and values across the cosmos, that had bartered fate itself… and for the first time, the artifact finally stirred.

A faint shimmer rippled across its surface, subtle yet undeniable. A breath, a recognition. The silence of eternity broke, if only for a heartbeat. She alone had drawn a reaction.

The gods trembled. Titans whispered. Could it be? Could she, the Weaver of Attributes, the Arbiter of Exchange, be the fated one? The one chosen by the relic of the First Dawn?

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