Isylia's lips curved into a smile. Pride swelled in her chest, vast as the stars. She was smug, radiant, certain. She believed the cosmos itself had bowed to her inevitable magnificence.

But unfortunately, that was it.

The shimmer faded. The breath stilled. The recognition dissolved into nothing. The artifact did not approve of her either.

For a heartbeat, absolute silence reigned. The faint stir it had granted her vanished, leaving only the cold indifference of eternity. The gods looked on, their awe curdling into mocking whispers.

Isylia's pride, vast as the stars, could not bear such rejection.

As short tempered as she was, of course she couldn't accept it. Anger flared in her heart, hotter than suns, sharper than blades. Her divine essence trembled with fury. To be acknowledged but not chosen… to be stirred but not accepted… was worse than denial. It was a tease. It was blatant humiliation, at least in her view.

And humiliation was something Isylia had never endured.

She, who had commanded the exchange of essence itself, who had weighed the worth of stars, was denied? Impossible.

In her fury, she tried to destroy it… If she couldn't have it, no one would. She tried to unmake what would not yield.

Her voice shook the heavens, her power tore at the fabric of reality, her wrath burned brighter than galaxies dying in supernova. She unleashed the full weight of the Law of Exchange to deconstruct the artifact.

But that proved to be a mistake… a massive mistake.

The artifact did not break. Heck, it did not even tremble. Instead, it retaliated. Not with violence, or destruction, but with its own absolute law.

Suddenly, chains of primordial decree erupted from its core, invisible yet all encompassing. They swiftly wrapped around her essence, not just her body, but her very divinity, binding her authority, silencing her voice. They coiled tighter than serpents, heavier than mountains, older than time itself.

She screamed, but no sound escaped the seal. She struggled, but no movement mattered. The Law of Exchange… something she had always been immensely proud of, the power to trade anything for anything… was rendered useless. You cannot barter with a lock that has no key.

And so, she was trapped. A prisoner in a dimension woven from laws she had never seen.

Seeing this, other gods recoiled, horrified, and fled. None dared to share her fate. And so, she remained, locked away, forgotten by gods and mortals alike.

…

After that day, the artifact also disappeared, never to be found again. But that was only in the eyes of the others. As someone trapped inside its pocket dimension, Isylia knew the truth. It was still randomly traveling around the world, drifting through the currents of reality, looking for the Fated One.

But let alone getting its acknowledgement, no one had ever been able to find it, let alone getting inside.

Until now…

When the crack opened and Sol fell through, Isylia had been overjoyed, thinking she would finally be free once again. For the first time in millennials or maybe eons, the door had opened. She thought a High God or a Void Walker had finally found her.

But to her utter, crushing disappointment, it wasn't some god or powerful being.

It was a bug. A mortal. A weak, human male without an ounce of divine power to speak of. His soul was a flickering candle in a hurricane; his body was fragile meat held together by luck.

She knew the nature of this artifact, it would obviously not recognize him, even the gods couldn't get any reaction from it let alone get its recognition, much less a mortal.

So, she devised a plan. A cruel, simple, pragmatic plan.

She would pretend to be the benevolent guardian of this artifact. She would heal him (a small investment) to gain his trust. She would lure him to the artifact.

And when he touched it... BOOM.

The laws of the artifact were absolute. If a mortal soul touched the Core without a divine buffer, the feedback loop would cause an instant, violent explosion. The mortal would pop like a blood balloon.

But that explosion... that sudden rupture of energy... it would create a fracture in the prison's seal. A tiny, momentary crack in the chains.

And Isylia had been saving her power for eons for just such a moment. She would ride the shockwave of his death straight out of this hellhole.

It was a perfect plan. And even though this bug was a bit different from what she had expected… he didn't show the groveling reverence typical of mortals… but in the end, he was still an ignorant mortal. He had swallowed her lie about "destiny" and "rewards" after she showed him a little healing trick.

'Mortals,' she thought, watching him step up to the pedestal. 'So predictable. So greedy. So combustible.'

And now, she was finally about to get her long-awaited freedom.

Sol closed his fingers around the light.

Isylia braced herself for the blood splatter.She gathered her divine essence into a spearhead, ready to dive through the resulting tear in space the moment he detonated.

'Goodbye, little bug. Thank you for your sacrifice.'

And he finally… touched the sphere.

Contact.

AND…

AND…

N-Nothing… Nothing happened.

No pain. No explosion. No scream. No divine thunderbolt to erase him from existence.

For a heartbeat, it was almost disappointing. His finger pressed against the surface, and it felt… ordinary. Smooth, cool, like polished glass.

But then, the swirling chaotic light within the relic slowed, as though noticing him. The storm inside stilled, collapsing into a single rhythm. It pulsed once… a soft, welcoming thrum that vibrated through the floor of the temple, through the marrow of his bones, through the silence of eternity itself.

The light didn't burn, nor did it destroy him. Instead, it… welcomed.

The artifact began to stir. Its surface rippled like liquid stone, reshaping itself at Sol's touch. Shapes flickered in rapid succession… a jagged fang, a hollow ring, a broken crown, a spiral pillar… each a symbol of passage, each a fragment of law.

And finally, it settled. The chaos froze into a single, fixed shape: a four‑pointed compass, cracked down the center.

Sol's breath caught. For a moment, he admired it, entranced by its impossible perfection. But admiration turned to horror as the compass shivered, then dissolved. Its edges liquefied, flowing like molten glass. The relic collapsed into a stream of light and shadow, pouring over his hand like water.

It seeped into his skin, threading through his veins, merging with his soul. He felt it burrow deeper, not into flesh but into essence, branding him with its law. His vision fractured… stars, paths, endless doors opening and closing… until all of creation seemed to breathe with him.

And in that instant, Sol was no longer merely touching Orphos.

He became one with Orphos.

…

On the other hand, Isylia's massive jaw dropped.

The divine spear of energy she had prepared… the one meant to ride the shockwave of his death… sizzled and died in her hands, sputtering like a paper straw in a drink.

"What?" she whispered, her voice trembling, stripped of its usual grandeur. "That's... that's not supposed to happen. You were supposed to pop."

She watched, horrified, as the impossible unfolded before her eyes. The artifact did not reject him. Instead, it merged with him. She felt the shift in the air pressure, the subtle rearrangement of law itself. The Void, which had been her prison for eons, suddenly felt... different. The locks changed. The walls shifted. And the keys were no longer missing; they were in the pocket of the ant standing in front of her.

He was the Owner now. The Owner of Orphos. The Owner of this dimension.

Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through her arrogance like a blade. For the first time in countless ages, Isylia felt fear.

"No!" she shrieked internally, her voice cracking into desperation. "Reject him! He is a bug! He is mud! He is nothing!"

But, of course, the realm didn't listen to her, it didn't even listen before, much less now.

Instead, the suppression field of the temple, which had merely contained her before, suddenly clamped down with the weight of a collapsing star. The chains of silence she had endured for eons tightened, now empowered by Orphos's new master.

POOF.

There was a cloud of golden smoke, accompanied by a sound like a deflating balloon.

When the smoke cleared, the hundred-foot Goddess was gone and the throne was empty.

…

Sol blinked, shaking his hand as the last of the light absorbed into his skin. His veins glowed faintly, then dimmed, leaving only a lingering weight in his chest. He felt… heavy, powerful, and impossibly connected to this space. The walls of the dimension were no longer walls… they were threads, and he could feel them tugging at his will. He could control everything inside it.

He looked up at the throne, expecting to see the giant woman looming over him to ask her what was going on.

"Where did she go?"

"Down here, you idiot!"

A high-pitched, squeaky voice came from the floor.

Sol looked down.

Standing on the first step of the dais, looking absolutely horrified, was a girl. She was about 5'5", with the same pure white hair and solar eyes, but she was... bite-sized.

She was wearing a miniature version of the celestial peplos, which now looked less like a divine garment and more like a sundress. She honestly looked like a cosplayer who had lost her way.

"Whaaat?" Sol gaped, looking from the massive empty throne to the tiny figure. "What is happening? Why did the 100-foot almighty goddess become a... a chibi brat?"

Isylia looked at her hands. They were small. She looked at her legs. They were short. She touched her face.

"No! No, no, no!"

She instantly had a meltdown, stomping her foot like a petulant child.

"Why is this happening?! My stature! My glory! I am a Primordial! I am the Weaver of Nebulae!" She grabbed a handful of her own hair. "I look like a mortal teenager! This is undignified!"

Sol watched her tantrum with a mix of confusion and amusement. His lips twitched, but before he could laugh, his voice thundered out, unbidden.

"Hey!" he shouted, and the sound was not his own. It was deeper, resonant, layered with the authority of Orphos. The temple shook, the air rippled, and even Isylia froze mid‑tantrum.

"What is going on?" he asked simply, but his voice thundered, as if carrying the weight of law itself.

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