"What the hell is that!" Destiny shouted, voice rising over the sound of collapsing platforms and screaming civilians below.

The city around them was chaos—Avvereen's curved buildings bending from the pressure of the expanding orange dome that shimmered over the skyline like a molten bubble. Reality itself twisted inside it, shapes stretching and folding in impossible directions.

Flying beside her were two strangers who did not help her nerves.

One was a stunning woman—graceful. She made Destiny instantly aware of her own hoodie and shorts. Stupid Vari ego, she muttered in her head.

The other was a tall man wearing a white blindfold, with a white X glowing on his forehead. His aura burned calm and cold, like a void pretending to be holy.

And somehow, she thought grimly, I finally met someone as insane as North.

"I have no idea what that orange could be," Ozzy said, squinting down at the dome.

"Captain."

"It's orange!" Ozzy snapped back,"I'm allowed to call it an orange!"

North laughed. "Your friends are in there, right? Let's go—"

Destiny grabbed his cloak mid-flight, yanking him backward. Civilians scattered beneath them as they floated above the chaos; below, law enforcers were shouting orders, setting perimeter seals.

"You were about to charge right in there, weren't you?" she hissed.

North blinked. "I mean…"

"Idiot!" Destiny barked. "That's a reality-warping ability. High Ranker bare minimum!"

North looked over to Ozzy and Tabia, who both nodded solemnly.

"Why didn't anyone say anything!?"

Ozzy grinned, flipping his sword onto his shoulder. "Because I believe in you!"

"OZZY!" North snapped, dragging a hand down his face. "So what are we doing!?"

Destiny clenched her fists. "Not sure—but I'm not leaving Jamal and Crisper in there."

Tabia folded her arms. "Are you sure they're still alive?"

Destiny glared. "They wouldn't fall that easily."

Ozzy whistled. "I thought strong Rankers weren't even allowed in this game."

"They aren't," Destiny said. "I can't explain it… but one way or another, we're getting in."

North floated higher, thinking hard. Ozzy and Tabia were both under orders—they couldn't directly interfere, so it was up to him and Destiny. But if he could just see what was inside the dome, maybe—

See… see inside.

His grin spread. "Aha! Time to use the Sigil Eyes!"

He focused, veins of Ryun lighting across his temples, his pupils warping into concentric rings. Unfortunately, the result looked less like mystic mastery and more like a man trying to hold in a sneeze.

"What are you doing?! How is that helping?!" Destiny snapped.

"Shut up," North barked, still squinting.

"Let him cook!" Ozzy cheered, fist raised.

Tabia sighed.

Destiny dragged a hand down her face. "Next stupid action will equal an equally stupid reaction."

"Noted," North muttered.

Then he grinned.

"Well… time to do something unconventional."

Before anyone could stop him, he jammed his finger into his own eye.

Destiny screamed, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"

North's voice was strained but eerily calm. "Opening the sight the hard way…"

A line of crimson light spilled from his eye socket, twisting into an orbiting sigil that flickered like a broken halo.

"Yeah," Ozzy said with admiration. "Now that's the kinda stupid I can respect."

North's sigil rotated once—twice—thrice.

Each rotation deepened the hum in the air, vibrating through his skull like a tuning fork pressed into his brain. Then the eye grew around it—his iris splitting, the sclera bleeding red, black sigils orbiting a crimson pupil that glowed like an eclipse.

The light refracted through the lens of his mind—reality buckling, peeling away layer by layer until the world wasn't the world anymore. It was stillness given form.

What he saw made his pulse stutter.

The orange dome wasn't one. It was two.

The first layer was translucent—hundreds of figures trapped mid-motion inside. Glass shards refused to fall. Flames bent but never burned. It wasn't death or life—it was paused existence.

But behind that first shell, deeper—there was something else. Another sphere, darker, thicker, pulsing. Its surface was oily and shifting, swallowing the light that hit it. He tried to push his sight through it—tried to pry apart whatever kept it hidden.

Nothing. His sigil scraped against the wall of reality itself. Whatever lay inside refused to be seen.

"North!"

Destiny's voice snapped him back.

"What?" he asked absently, still staring forward—until he saw the golden shimmer under him.

Her hands glowed bright, her aura trembling with panic. "Your eye!"

He looked down. Blood was pouring from his face, running down his chin in steady streams, dripping into the metal platform below.

"Ah," he said, blinking lazily. "That's not ideal."

Destiny's hand cupped his face. Golden Ryun flowed over the wound, sealing it shut with a hiss. The light faded to a faint warmth. She didn't pull back right away—her expression was somewhere between fury and concern.

North smiled despite himself. "Perks of having a past-timeline ex," he said with a wink.

"Don't look at me like that," Destiny snapped, cheeks flushing slightly. "What did you see?"

He straightened, wiping the last streak of blood from his jaw. "Two layers. Everyone in the first dome—frozen. Like a paused video. The second one's darker… can't see through it."

Ozzy whistled low. "That's new."

Tabia frowned. "If even you can't see through, then whoever cast that barrier isn't just strong—they're a reality artisan."

Destiny's gaze hardened. "So what's the move?"

Ozzy cracked his neck, his usual grin creeping back. "The move," he said, "is that I'm going in first."

"Ozzy—" Tabia began.

He waved her off. "Nah, nah, nah. Someone's gotta test the waters. Besides…" he turned, giving her a lazy salute, "if I die, could you, uh… dust off my Jenga set every now and then? It's in my room. Top shelf."

Tabia's lips twitched into a reluctant smile. "Sure thing, Captain."

Ozzy's aura flared—roaring around him as he stepped forward. "Right then. Let's see what's behind door number one."

And with a burst of light, he vanished into the dome.

After a few long, echoing minutes, the wind around the city calmed. The orange dome shimmered, stretching across Avvereen's skyline like a second horizon.

Tabia crossed her arms, eyes fixed on it. "You think he's dead?"

"Damn, morbid much?" North said with a chuckle, though his grin was tight. He squinted into the haze—his eye still faintly glowing from the residual sigil. "Nah. He's alive. And moving around somehow…"

Destiny frowned. "What do you mean somehow?"

North's grin widened. "He's dancing."

Both women turned to him. "He's what?"

"Dancing," North repeated, already stepping toward the dome. "C'mon."

The moment they touched the surface, the world bled sideways.

It wasn't like passing through a barrier. It was like being rewritten—every atom in their bodies translated into another version of itself. The sound vanished first, replaced by a heartbeat that wasn't their own. The air thickened like syrup; the sky bent and inverted, turning the color of molten glass.

Their surroundings stuttered—flashes of movement frozen midair, ripples of time looping in every direction. Every inch was heavy with presence.

Destiny's breath caught.

That feeling—

She'd felt it before.

That suffocating divinity, that weight pressing on her soul until it wanted to fold in on itself. A presence so absolute that reality itself dared not move without its permission.

"This…" she whispered, her golden aura trembling. "This is the power of a Supreme Being."

Tabia looked around, uneasy. "But I thought—"

"No," Destiny interrupted softly. Her eyes gleamed as she stared deeper into the core of the dome. "It's not the same as Vari. But it's close. Like someone borrowed that kind of authority."

North's voice came through the haze, steady and unnervingly calm. "Then let's hope whoever did… ain't in the mood to smite us instantly."

The dome pulsed once—slow and alive—welcoming them in.

And somewhere deeper inside, faintly through the distortion, came the distant sound of Ozzy laughing…

What they found when they fully stepped through was not what any of them expected.

Ozzy stood in the center of a shattered square, spinning his sword lazily over his shoulder like it was an umbrella on a rainy day. His boots slid through still air—each motion fluid, exaggerated, theatrical. Around him, tables overturned mid-collapse, flames suspended in mid-spark, bodies still frozen in mid-scream.

"Oh! Took you long enough," he called out cheerfully, tipping his imaginary hat.

North blinked. "Ozzy—what the hell are you doing?"

"Vibin'," Ozzy said simply, stopping mid-spin to point the sword at them like a cane. "You've been gone for, what, a week?"

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Tabia frowned. "It's been five minutes."

He blinked once, then groaned. "Ugh. Feels like forever."

Destiny ignored him, moving past to study the motionless crowd. Her golden aura hummed low, picking up faint signatures of what used to be life. "Their energy signatures are wrong," she murmured.

Tabia crouched beside one of the frozen refugees, holding her hand near the body's chest. "No aura. Nothing at all. It's like it's been stripped out of them."

"Question is," North said, looking around, "who's got the power to do that?"

Tabia turned to Destiny. "You said this was a Supreme Being's ability. Which one?"

Destiny's expression tightened. She could feel it—the pressure in her bones, the echo in her veins. It was unmistakable. But not familiar.

"I don't know," she said finally. "But it isn't Rhan. And it definitely isn't Basingal."

North tilted his head toward the far side of the suspended square. "Then I'm guessing it's whoever's behind that."

They all turned. There, nested inside the larger orange sphere, was a second, smaller dome—its surface opaque and pulsing like a heartbeat.

"I think your team's in there," North said quietly. "And… probably everyone's auras too."

Destiny crossed her arms, muttering under her breath. "Wow. Self-mutilation really improved your perception."

He grinned sideways. "Apparently I learn through pain."

"Not something to be proud of."

"Eh. Still progress." He looked toward the dome again, his tone hardening. "We can go in, but—"

Ozzy raised a hand.

North sighed. "Yes, Ozzy?"

"Me and Tabia will stay behind."

All eyes turned to him.

"What?!" Destiny snapped.

Ozzy spun his sword once and set it against his shoulder, his grin fading for once into something deliberate. "If whatever's in there really belongs to a Supreme Being, then someone needs to hold the exit. Time and space ain't exactly stable in these setups. If it closes while you're inside…" He whistled. "You'd be nothing but a story someone else forgot to finish."

Tabia nodded reluctantly.

North hesitated—half of him ready to argue, half already trusting the madness. "Alright," he said at last. "Just don't start another dance-off while we're gone."

Ozzy winked. "No promises."

Destiny turned, her golden aura brightening against the dome's rippling surface. "Ready?" she asked, not even waiting for a reply.

North drew in a breath, rolled his shoulders, and stepped up beside her. "Lead the way, blondie."

Without another word, Destiny and North pressed their palms against the dome.

It rippled—like skin breathing—then swallowed them both whole. Taking their souls and aura but leaving the bodies.

Tabia narrowed her eyes at Ozzy as the light from the second dome's ripples reflected across his face.

"So," she said, folding her arms, "what was the real reason you wanted to stay back?"

Ozzy gave her that same maddening grin. He twirled his sword once, its tip tracing sparks through the air.

"Because," he said, tilting his head toward the shifting barrier, "someone's gotta watch the story unfold… and make sure the ending's worth reading."

Tabia frowned. "That's not an answer."

Ozzy smiled wider. "Didn't say it was."

———

Inside the second dome, the world changed again.

The first thing Destiny felt was the weight of silence—dense, oppressive, yet somehow orderly. The kind of silence that came before a sermon, or a verdict.

They were in what looked like a massive amphitheater—an impossible one, suspended in a void of amber light. Thousands of chairs stretched outward in perfect concentric rings, all facing the circular stage in the center.

Each chair was filled.

Souls—countless of them—sat upright, unmoving, eyes glazed but focused. They weren't frozen like before. They were waiting.

Destiny's breath hitched as her gaze darted around. Her heart nearly stopped when she saw two familiar figures sitting in the front row.

"Jamal? Crisper!"

Both looked alive—no visible wounds, their auras faint but stable. Crisper gave a small, dazed smile and lifted her hand in a wave, while Jamal mouthed, "Bout damn time."

Destiny's relief faltered when she noticed someone else beside them—a woman with olive skin and hair like flowing ink streaked with purple. She leaned forward in her chair, smiling faintly, eyes too sharp to be just another bystander.

North didn't speak. His reawakened sigil eye spun slowly as he took in the rest of the crowd. The souls—thousands, maybe tens of thousands—weren't just sitting. They were linked. Fine threads of light stretched from each of their chests toward the center of the stage.

And at that center sat the speaker.

An elf—tall, lean, with skin the color of pale bronze and eyes like cut emeralds. A long coat draped from his shoulders, and each word he spoke rippled through the air like a stone dropped in water.

"Welcome," he said, voice calm and melodic. "I apologize for the delay in starting. The last of the guests have finally arrived."

North and Destiny froze.

The elf smiled faintly, meeting their gaze.

"Now," he continued. "Let us begin."

The elf stood tall in the center of the circle, hands clasped behind his back, emerald eyes gleaming with intelligence—and old, bitter rage.

"My name," he began, voice cutting clean through the murmuring crowd, "is Cale Varics."

The name carried weight, even for those who didn't recognize it. It rolled across the air like thunder.

"I was once of the Varics Line," he continued, pacing slowly. "A family of operatives. Artists. Architects of law and language. But that… that was before I was banished."

His tone turned sharp, his calm mask cracking with venom. "Before my name was stripped from record, before my work was burned, before my bloodline was spat upon."

Cale's hand tightened into a fist. His voice rose.

"All because I dared to speak out—against a Jafar princess who accused me of theft. Theft!" His laughter was sharp, hollow. "She lied, she knew she lied, and yet I was the one condemned! My home turned to ash, my family executed for treason, all for a royal's wounded pride!"

He turned, eyes locking onto North like a blade drawn from its sheath.

"And for what?" His voice cracked with fury. "For you? For Jafar?!"

The room stirred. A whisper passed through the crowd like a wave.

North blinked, brow furrowed. "I don't know what kind of fever dream you've been living through, but that has nothing to do with me. I'm not him."

Cale sneered. "Not him? You carry his aura, his blood, his damnation. You reek Blood Prince."

"I'm North!" he snapped. "Not Jafar—get it through your head! And I smell good!"

Cale's smile turned cruel. "And she—" he pointed suddenly at Destiny "—you expect me to believe you are not Vari's spawn? You wear her scent like perfume."

Destiny's eyes flared gold, the glow spilling through the seams of her hoodie. "You've got a lot of nerve saying that when you're the one who kidnapped hundreds of souls."

But Cale was no longer talking to them—he was talking through them.

His voice rolled across the amphitheater, dripping with conviction. "See how they deflect? How they pretend ignorance? These two are heirs of ruin! Carriers of gods' sins, masked in mortal flesh!"

The crowd began to stir again, twisting into anger. Some made annoyed faces. Some pointed. Some clenched their fists. The threads of light connecting them to the stage pulsed—brighter, hotter, syncing to Cale's words like a rhythm.

Destiny's jaw tightened. "He's riling them up."

North sighed. "No kidding." He rolled his shoulders, muttering, "Guess I'm doing this again…"

Before she could stop him, he lifted his hand and—poked his other eye.

"North—!" Destiny grabbed him immediately, golden light spilling from her palms as she healed the wound. "You have to stop doing that!"

"Instinct," he grinned through the pain. "Can't help it."

Blood dripped onto the floor as his eyes ignited again—sigils unfolding, orbiting in perfect symmetry. The glow spread outward, cutting through the web of manipulation. The threads around the crowd shimmered—and suddenly, he saw it.

Cale wasn't channeling them. He was feeding on them.

Each soul's anger, grief, and confusion was looped through him like a circuit, amplifying his voice and will. Their hatred for North and Destiny was manufactured—stitched into their memories, their emotions rewired.

North tilted his head, a small smile playing at his lips. "Ah. That explains it."

"Explains what?" Destiny hissed.

"Why they're all pissed at me and you—but not the guy who's been holding them hostage." He looked back at Cale. "Classic projection loop. Makes sense."

Destiny glared. "Stop analyzing the psycho and do something about it then. Since you now have all seeing eyes!"

North grinned wider, aura flaring around his hands. "Oh, I'll do something. But first—remind me to apologize to my elf later for what's about to happen to this one. I think their family."

Cale slammed his foot into the ground, orange light erupting across the stage. "You dare mock me, Blood Prince?!"

North raised his head, both sigil eyes spinning now, lightning cracking across his body. "Mock you? Nah." He smiled. "I'm about to teach you manners."

His smirk froze mid-rise. He felt it first in his knees—a stiffness, a quiet resistance, like the air had turned into concrete around his legs. He shifted his weight instinctively—and nothing happened.

His grin faltered. "…Huh."

Destiny glanced at him. "What?"

He tried to step forward. His upper body leaned, but his feet stayed locked to the ground. It was like his lower half had been bolted into the floor. He flexed again, harder—Ryun flared up his calves and thighs—but his body didn't budge an inch.

"That's… new."

Destiny frowned and tried to move too, but the same invisible weight crushed her in place. She could move her arms, turn her head, even summon faint glows of her aura—but her legs refused to obey.

"North," she said, her voice tightening. "I can't—"

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Me neither."

They both turned toward Jamal and Crisper. Still seated, motionless. Their eyes followed the scene, awareness in their gaze—but they couldn't rise either. Every soul in the amphitheater sat frozen to their chairs.

Cale stood on the stage above them, hands folded calmly behind him, watching their struggle with the kind of satisfaction that only comes from seeing a long plan finally work.

"Ah," he said softly, "you feel it now, don't you? The weight."

The emerald light flared faintly around his feet, tracing the floor in elegant spirals of script.

"This place," he continued, gesturing around them, "is not bound by your crude concepts of time or gravity. It is built on command. My command."

North gritted his teeth and forced his hands together, summoning lightning between them. "You really love the sound of your own—"

The sparks flickered and died instantly.

Cale's grin widened. "Go on. Try again."

Destiny's aura burned brighter—pure gold light swallowing her arms as she pressed her palms against the floor, trying to destabilize it. The ripples beneath her fingers, mocking her.

"It's useless," Cale said, strolling leisurely around the circle. "Every seat, every thread, every stone in this place obeys one voice. Mine."

He stopped, emerald eyes gleaming.

"You think yourselves special? You—fractures of gods, play-acting mortals—will kneel here like the rest."

Destiny's hands trembled as she forced golden energy up through her arms. "I don't kneel to anyone."

Cale smiled serenely. "Oh, you already are."

North tried one more time to break free—sigils flaring, muscles tensing—but all he could manage was a frustrated exhale and a glare that could cut stone.

"Yeah," he muttered under his breath. "This is very annoying."

"You claim this power," Destiny shouted, her golden aura flaring bright enough to stain the still air, "but this—this is the power of a Supreme!"

Her voice cracked through the amphitheater, cutting above the eerie silence of the unmoving crowd. "If it was truly yours, you wouldn't be standing here—talking, gloating. You'd have already killed us!"

For a heartbeat, Cale's grin faltered. Just a fraction. But it was enough.

North caught it too.

His sigil eyes spun slowly, and though his body was still bound from the waist down, his focus sharpened. The way the energy moved in this place wasn't singular. There were fluctuations—tiny delays in Cale's command, ripples of instability beneath the surface. Like an echo of a greater voice hiding behind his.

"Yeah," North said, forcing his tone casual even as blood dripped from the corner of his eye. "She's right. You're powerful, sure—but not the one holding the pen here."

Destiny turned her head toward him, a spark of realization flashing in her eyes. "Exactly. This place—this entire setup—it's not a throne. It's a holding."

Cale chuckled lowly, tapping his foot once against the floor. "You really think flattery disguised as insight will help you?"

"No," Destiny said, smiling now. "But truth might."

She glanced toward North, who was slowly moving his hands again—testing, measuring. Every motion he made drew faint ripples in the surrounding air, mapping the contours of the binding. He wasn't escaping yet. He was learning.

Destiny kept talking, buying time. "A Supreme doesn't manifest like this. They don't need domes, or bindings, or audiences. When they move, worlds break just by existing too close. So either you're a puppet…"

"Or a parasite," North finished, his voice calm but sharp.

Cale's eyes flashed. "Careful, boy."

Destiny tilted her head, watching him closely. "And if you are holding us here, then why? What's the point of the performance? Why not just kill us?"

The crowd stirred again, but this time confused and fractured. The threads connecting them to Cale flickered faintly, their colors dimming as his composure slipped.

Why indeed?

Because he couldn't.

Destiny's heart hammered as the realization set in. He wasn't killing them because he wasn't allowed to. A Supreme's power was present here, yes, but only in fragments. He probably had to follow a certain condition.

Cale's jaw tightened as he looked away for the first time. His voice came out quieter, almost reverent.

"Won't be long now…."

North's grin returned, slow and knowing. "Why are you talking soft now?"

Destiny's smile matched his, faint but defiant. "Good," she said softly. "I love a challenge."

———

The silence in the first dome layer was almost heavy enough to taste. All around, the orange light shimmered faintly—rippling like heat mirage over still water. Ozzy sat cross-legged on the fractured marble floor, one hand resting on his sword, the other drumming idly against his knee.

He watched the distorted reflections dance along the dome's surface and let out a low hum. "Body and soul split that clean…" he muttered. "That's not brute-force binding—that's surgical."

He tilted his head, frowning. "Why go through the trouble? If you just wanted to trap a bunch of people, lock the bodies down and seal the auras in one go. Easier. Quicker. So what's the point?"

For a moment, there was no answer. Just the faint sound of the dome humming around them. Then—a shimmer at the edge of his vision. Something moved in the light, just barely, like oil swirling in water.

"Ah," he whispered. "There it is."

Tabia caught it too. She was already standing, eyes narrowed, her aura whispering against her skin.

"You think you can handle that?" He asked.

"Wouldn't it be faster if we teamed up?"

"Probably," he admitted. "But—"

"You got a feeling," she interrupted.

Tabia sighed. Ozzy and his feelings. Half the time they were inconvenient, the other half they saved lives. Unfortunately, there was never a good way to tell which half it would be until after the fact.

She studied him for a moment, then nodded. "Fine. Don't get killed."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Ozzy said, flashing a wink.

Raising her hands, Tabia wove her coral aura into a dome around North and Destiny's still bodies—pale, translucent layers hardening into pearlescent armor. "That should keep them safe from stray hits," she said.

Ozzy gave an appreciative whistle. "Nice! That's craftsmanship, that is. Go on, then. I'll keep the kettle warm."

Tabia rolled her eyes but smiled. "Good luck, Captain."

She blurred—her form vanishing into motes of sea-green light as she pursued the flickering shadow deeper into the distortion.

And just like that, he was alone.

Ozzy leaned back on his hands and sighed, letting the dome's glow reflect off his sheathed blade. "Well," he murmured to himself, "things out here aren't going so bad. And my hunch…" He glanced toward the still forms of North and Destiny, frozen mid-stride. "My hunch was right."

He let his hand drift toward his sword, feeling the faint tremor in the air—the subtle pulse of power threading through the dome.

"Now," he said softly, smiling to himself, "it's their turn. Let's see if the kids finish their end of the dance."

He felt it now.

That low, pulsing vibration that crawled up from the soles of his boots and coiled through his chest like a slow drumbeat. The bubbling aura in the pit—the one that had been gnawing quietly beneath all the chaos—had finally risen and entered the dome.

"Ah," he muttered, his hand resting fully on the hilt now. "So the guest of honor's finally here."

He stood slowly, rolling his shoulders, and exhaled a thin stream of vapor. "Been a while since I felt something like this."

The coral dome behind him vibrated faintly, reacting to the energy. Even unconscious, North and Destiny's bodies twitched.

Ozzy tightened his grip, his aura flaring around him in a white surge. "Alright then," he said quietly, a grin creeping back onto his face. "Let's make this a jolly good show!"

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.