The Divine Hall was a construct older than most stars.
It wasn't a palace.
It was a consensus—a metaphysical axis where the gods of this world gathered, not by distance, but by will.
Seven Thrones.
Seven Voices.
Seven Minds that shaped the world by thought alone.
Until now.
> "The Hollow failed."
The words echoed like falling stone across the vaulted space.
> "It withdrew," said the Second Voice, tone clipped. "Without full nullification."
> "Because it was challenged," said the Fourth, disbelief sharpening. "By a mortal. A Learner."
> "Not a Learner," corrected the First Voice. "An anomaly. A foreign intellect. His thoughts breach the Codex of Inheritance."
> "An error."
> "A threat."
> "A… possibility," murmured the Seventh Voice.
That paused them all.
The Seventh rarely spoke.
They were the youngest of the gods. The least worshipped. The quiet one whose followers built bridges, not shrines.
> "You propose mercy?" the Second spat.
> "No," said the Seventh. "I propose curiosity."
---
Back in Weavemind, Kael stood in the sky-dome amphitheater, looking down at an assembly of Learners, engineers, lost Talents, children, and thinkers. Some held quills. Others held nothing.
They had gathered because of a message he'd sent across the Weave:
> "Power is not given. It is understood."
Today, Kael would prove it.
---
He tapped the center node of a new Weave array.
The air shimmered—not with magic, but math. The Weave didn't explode into light. It curved, subtly, as if realizing it could now do something it never thought possible.
Kael spoke plainly.
"I'm going to create a Talent-class effect," he said. "Without a Talent core."
Gasps.
Skepticism.
Even Lyssa stared with brows raised.
He lifted a sphere of raw, inert glass.
Then traced five lines in the air.
The pattern looked wrong.
No symmetry. No elegance.
Just logic.
He whispered:
> "Re-fracture. Split. Invert causality vector."
And the sphere—
—levitated.
Not through divine will.
Not through Essence.
But through reason.
He didn't stop.
The Weave shifted again.
Water condensed in air.
Fire danced between cold metals.
Gravity twisted sideways—just for a moment.
Then he stopped.
And silence thundered through the hall.
---
A young girl stepped forward, trembling.
"How did you do that?"
Kael smiled.
"I showed the Weave what it wanted to do, if it weren't being told not to."
More silence.
Then cheers.
Then fear.
One man, an exiled priest, stood and whispered, "You're going to break the world."
Kael nodded. "Yes. The wrong one."
---
Far above, the Divine Hall burned with tension.
> "He has reached the Fifth Thread."
> "Impossible."
> "No mortal has ever breached the Fourth without divine heritage."
> "He's not from this world."
> "Then he is outside the Codex."
> "Then the Codex is flawed," said the Seventh.
Gasps—divine, furious, horrified.
The Second rose from her throne.
> "Then we must rewrite it."
But the First leaned forward.
And for the first time in three thousand years, he sounded uncertain.
> "Or… we must speak to him."
The gods, infinite in pride, began to fracture—
Not in war.
But in philosophy.
And the world beneath them shuddered at the thought.