The morning sun rose over the village of Arkonos, bearing promises of a life these mortals had never dared to dream of in their wildest imaginings. The village was in a state of beautiful mobilization; everyone had gathered in the main square at Zuo's command. The morning air carried a refreshing chill, but hearts were warm with the naïve certainty that the "god" who fell from the sky yesterday had decided to turn their land into a paradise.
Zuo stood in the center of the square, wearing his straw hat which shaded half his face, while his horse, "Pebble," stood behind him with an eerie dignity, looking like an ebony statue. Zuo looked at the faces trembling with hope, and that smile—the one that never quite reached his eyes—played upon his lips.
"As I promised you, mortals," Zuo began, his voice flowing through the square like poisoned silk, "I do not care for debts. You have hosted me, and now I shall shower upon you my inexhaustible blessings. Prepare to witness the birth of a new world."
Zuo knelt slowly, placing his flat palm upon the parched earth. In that moment, everyone felt a slight tremor beneath their feet. "Absolute Touch" did not merely change matter; it whispered to the earth what it ought to be. Suddenly, the cracks left by the horse the day before began to fill with deep greenery; grass sprouted with maddening speed, colorful flowers erupted from between the rocks, and the soil turned black and fertile, its scent of life so potent it was nearly intoxicating.
Zuo did not stop there. He walked with confident strides toward the old water well—the one that had long dried up in the summer and exhausted the villagers. He touched its stone rim, and suddenly, the roar of subterranean waters echoed from deep within the earth. The water rose to fill the well to its brink—water so clear it seemed to spring from heaven, glowing with a faint blue light that suggested an eternal magic.
"Look above you," Zuo said coldly.
From the center of the square, a tiny seed began to grow with terrifying speed. The trunk swelled, and the branches fanned out to cover the entire village in lush shade. It was a massive tree, its leaves resembling green gold, and from its branches hung enormous, glistening apples, unlike any created in beauty or scent—a fragrance that seemed to restore youth to whoever inhaled it.
At the height of their wonder, Zuo gestured toward the violet sky. The clouds parted, and a majestic being emerged: a divine dragon with golden scales reflecting the sun and eyes like miniature suns. The dragon descended onto the village wall and let out a roar that shook the surroundings, yet it was not frightening; rather, it instilled peace in their hearts, as if announcing that Arkonos was now under absolute divine protection.
The villagers all knelt, weeping and laughing, kissing the ground Zuo had touched. But what no one realized—not the villagers, not the three Sovereigns watching from their dimensions, nor even the "Mediator"—was that everything they saw was nothing but a "mental farce." The land was not fertile, the water was not magical, and the dragon was but a thread of smoke Zuo had manipulated within their minds. Zuo had touched their very concept of "perception," creating a collective illusion indistinguishable from reality.
Zuo bid them a cold farewell, mounting "Pebble." "Enjoy your paradise," he said as he departed toward the forest, leaving behind a village living in a hallucinatory ecstasy.
Zuo rode for hours until the landmarks of the village faded behind the trees. The world around him was quiet, and the wilderness began to reclaim its savagery. Zuo stopped at a rocky ledge and decided to pitch his small camp for sleep. As he was undoing his horse's bridle, he felt a vibration in his pocket.
He pulled out the small glass bottle. It was no longer transparent. It had begun to turn a deep violet, vibrating violently like a beating heart.
"The plan succeeded," Zuo muttered with a malicious grin that revealed his bright white teeth under the moonlight.
He raised his hand in the air and snapped his fingers sharply. "The show is over."
In that moment, back in the village of Arkonos, the curtain fell.
The golden dragon vanished like smoke in the wind. The massive tree that had shaded them melted, turning into black ash scattered by the breeze. The magical well was no longer a well, but a parched pit filled with barren dust. And the fertile land? It returned more desolate than it had ever been.
But the worst part was not the disappearance of the blessings, but what happened to the inhabitants. They did not die a normal death; they simply... "vanished." Nothing remained of them but their clothes strewn upon the ground, as if their bodies and souls had been sucked away by an invisible cosmic vacuum. The village that had pulsed with life seconds ago was now a "Throne of Ash" and a silent ruin.
In the Dimension of Sovereigns... The Shock of the Gods
A terrifying silence reigned in the palace of the Sovereigns. The cosmic mirror displayed the scene of the empty village, and the "Mediator" stood frozen, his yellow fire nearly extinguished by the sheer weight of his astonishment.
"What has he done?" Lilith shrieked, striking the throne with her hand, her voice trembling with rage. "He deceived us all! He made us believe he was building, while he was performing a total 'extraction'! How did we not feel the manipulation in the fabric of reality?"
Mordred stared at the village erased from existence. "He didn't just manipulate reality; he used 'illusion' as a cover to strip every 'essence of power' from the villagers. He has turned them into fuel for something."
As for Orion, Judge of Souls, his face was as pale as death. "The bottle... look at the bottle in his hand now."
In the Wilderness... The Toast of Power
Zuo watched as the bottle filled with a dark, thick liquid—so dark it seemed to absorb the light around it. This liquid was the distilled essence of the souls, powers, and histories of every living being in Arkonos. To Zuo, the village had been nothing more than a "laboratory" and a "power cell."
Zuo smiled, patting the neck of his horse, Pebble, who neighed softly as if understanding his master's victory. "Do you see, Pebble? Humans love beautiful illusions so much that they offer their souls as payment for them with a smile."
Suddenly, the air behind Zuo rippled. The stillness that wrapped the area was torn by a powerful, furious presence.
The "Mediator" appeared out of nothingness. His yellow smile was gone this time. The black smoke around him churned violently, and the fire in his head burned a deep, crimson red.
"Zuo..." the entity spoke with a voice like the cracking of mountains. "You have overstepped your bounds. The Sovereigns are furious, and the game is no longer amusing to them. You have caused a disaster that was not in the calculations."
Zuo did not move. He remained sitting by his small fire, holding his black bottle, looking at the entity with complete coldness. He did not utter a single word, did not offer a justification, and did not flee.
Silence filled the space. A silence so heavy that one could hear the pulse of the black liquid inside the bottle.