Time no longer moved in seconds.
As Darius and his three consorts stepped through the Gate carved by the Codex's awakening, reality melted like wax around them. There was no ground beneath their feet, no sky above—only a pulsing vastness, red and gold and shifting with every heartbeat. The Heart of the Womb wasn't a place. It was a will—the proto-consciousness from which all gods were shaped, the metaphysical nexus where creation first whispered itself into existence.
And now, it was listening again.
Darius's boots found purchase on a spiral of floating runes—each glyph older than time, speaking in codes only the divine could sense. They spun beneath him, adjusting to his presence, as if welcoming their heir. Celestia gasped beside him, gripping his arm tightly.
"I hear it," she whispered, her voice trembling. "The First Song... it's not music. It's naming. The names of all things, spoken as they were born."
