The Goddess Nexa sat at a luxuriously grand table she had conjured out of thin air, its edges woven with golden strands of reality itself. The chair beneath her was sculpted from pure celestium crystal, a material so rare that entire civilizations had waged wars over fragments of it. To her, such things were mundane now. Trinkets. Fleeting distractions.
But even with all her power, she had royally screwed up.
A sensation, one she hadn’t felt since before her ascension, coiled within her, gnawing at the edges of her divinity. Ever since her conversation with that human, Liam, it had only grown stronger. She should have forgotten him already, should have dismissed him as yet another mortal caught in the weave of the System. And yet…
She could do nothing as Earth, his home was slowly being inducted into a rival System. The moment it happened, Liam would know. Once he knew, he would have to return to that world, to fight, to survive an apocalypse engineered by powers beyond his comprehension.
A strange heat stirred in her chest, something close to anger, no, something worse. Concern. A dangerous thing for a god to feel.
With a flick of her foot, she pushed away from the table and sent it hurtling into the void. It spun through the cosmos at immeasurable speed, carving through the very fabric of space like a blade through silk. A moment later, it was gone.
Her fingers flexed at her sides. She could start threading new planets and galaxies into her master’s fold, expanding the reach of the System she served. But to act so recklessly would disrupt the balance, overburden her domain, and most dangerously draw the ire of her master.
Master…
For now, she would watch. And wait.
But when had waiting ever been enough?
Restless, Nexa rose from her seat, her celestial robes billowing as she moved toward the great tapestry of fate. Her fingers traced the intricate weave, following a single thread... Liam’s. A mortal bound to her System, tethered to destiny by choice and by force. He was supposed to be safe under her guidance.
Yet as she peered closer, a chill unlike anything she had felt in eons settled into her bones.
The thread was no longer as she had last seen it, once woven in a vibrant dance of red and blue, its fibers pulsed with something unnatural. A deep, abyssal black had begun to coil around it, threading itself into the very fabric of his being like a slow-working poison.
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Her breath caught.
No. Not this. Not him.
Nexa’s hands hovered over the corruption, her mind racing through ancient knowledge and forbidden truths. She had heard of these before, whispers of legend, of anomalies sent not to kill, but to erase. A punishment dealt only by her master; an executioner’s blade wielded when rival Systems dared to rise unchecked.
And now, that blade had touched Liam.
Her fingers clenched, a silent fury blooming beneath her skin. She could not touch it. To unravel the anomaly would be to unravel him, and not even she held the power to separate the two without consequence. He was marked. Doomed.
She swallowed hard as a single thought took root, a thought that made her celestial form waver for the first time in centuries.
Was this her punishment?
A test of loyalty? A quiet warning from her master that she was stepping beyond her place?
Her mind reeled as she recalled the decree, the doctrine etched into the very foundation of the System:
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When a rival System grows too powerful to infiltrate or corrupt, I will resort to a method that is both precise and devastating, unleashing anomalies that erase key figures and disrupt the System from within.
These anomalies are not mere creatures; they are cosmic aberrations, fragments of broken realities, corrupted data from failed Systems, or entities that should never have existed. Their very presence warps the fabric of whatever world they touch, making them the perfect tool for surgical destruction.
Identifying Key Figures: I pinpoint the architects of the rival System’s power: Ascended Champions, high-ranking administrators, System-bound deities, or even the System’s governing intelligence itself.
Summoning the Anomaly: Unlike a direct attack, which could trigger System-wide defenses, I instead summon an anomaly and redirect it toward the target. This is done with subtle energy manipulations, carefully disguised as natural disturbances in the cosmic framework.
Corrupting the System: Upon arrival, the anomaly does not just kill—it erases. Those caught in its grasp are not merely destroyed but removed from existence, their influence, memories, and even their achievements scrubbed from reality. In some cases, it rewrites history, making it so they never existed at all.
Forcing a Collapse: With its key figures erased and its fabric weakened, the rival System begins to collapse on itself. Planets governed by its laws fall into disorder, its rules become unstable, and eventually, its governing intelligence is forced into shutdown. Then and only then will we take them and make what was theirs... Ours.
Those of you who think you may take planets, galaxies, and universes into our flock without my knowledge—
Will be replaced.
Will be erased.
That is all.
- Master
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The words burned in her mind, but none of them answered the question clawing at her insides.
Why Liam?
Why now?
Had another System declared war, using Liam as a pawn? Or… was this the Master’s will? A silent rebuke of her interference?
Nexa exhaled sharply, straightening.
No.
She had threaded Liam into the Master’s System herself. She had chosen him. He was hers.
And if this was a test, then she would not fail.
With a flick of her wrist, the grand celestium chair she had conjured shattered into stardust. It no longer mattered what she had planned. What mattered now was Liam, and the war that had already begun.