Seraphina remembered his beloved father's words before she found him bathing in his own blood, his heart missing.
"What are you making, Father? You've been busy," she said, remembering how her Divine father would sit on his crafting table.
"A secret weapon," he answered.
Seraphina furrowed.
"Why are you making a secret weapon, Father? For whom?"
His father only smiled.
"Just a precaution," he replied, leaving everything to her hands. "In case something might happen, you know what to do, Sera."
Seraphina had no idea it would be the last time she would see his father. When she came back home from visiting her own patheon, his father was already dead.
Her father was supposed to be immortal! How can his killer know about his heart? Sera realized someone who knew about it was her younger brother Cherubim.
She confronted him, blaming him for what happened. But what struck her the most was his answer.
"The Divine Father's time has ended. It is time for Gods and Goddesses to rule," Cherubim replied. It made Seraphina's heart sink.
Seraphina couldn't believe what she had heard. The new generation of gods has taken their ambition to rule by killing the highest order of Godhood.
And now she heard them planning to eliminate the Divine Father's existence, Humans, and Earth. Seraphina started to act. She didn't want the last remaining creatures, which her father poured his sweat into, would just be eliminated easily.
And then she thought about that thing. The thing her father entrusted to her. And she made a choice. If she'll die, she'll make sure everyone will follow.
Celestial Archive, a place forbidden even to gods. This realm was made of stars, sealed knowledge, and the chains of the Divine Father's light. Nobody but Seraphina was the one entrusted with the one key. Nobody knew about it. It was hers and her father's secret. This forbidden realm was every god and goddess's dream to enter and explore. They believed the Divine father kept his journal about immortality. Many had sought this journal. Many had tried to unlock the realm but failed.
As Seraphina uttered the keywords softly, the gear shifted, magic dispensed, opening a door for her. The thing she sought was not the journal or countless riches; she sought for that enigma, a weapon forged in time and remained hidden inside the realm. She made her way to the very familiar path where she and the Divine Father would visit.
And there it was, imprisoned for eternity. Sealed in the core of the forbidden system, locked by code and secret key, glowing red and black. A fragment that would potentially harm her with just a slight touch.
She knew what she was about to do was treason, but she knew someone should make a move and end her siblings' lust for power.
She knelt before the Prison Core and opened her hand revealing a fragment of her soul, the key.
She then inserted the key into the keyhole, and the chair started to shift.
"Identification Recognized. Authorized personnel request granted."
Seraphina watched as the core unlocked its twelve lock mechanisms. When the final lock opened up, Seraphina saw not just one fragment but five. The words appear above the fragments say:
'One to carry, four to mislead."
The words vanished, and her breath was caught in her throat. Her father made not just one but five. Four devourers to hide the one. Seraphina wasn't sure which one of the five was the true devourer. She fused the five with the Tactical Manager System.
Four were decoys, lures, and were designed to mislead godly paranoia and distract them from the real awakening.
Each fragment was bound to a mortal, but only one would survive the convergence of the power.
Seraphina made her choice. There was no turning back. She could only wish that what she did was right.
CELESTIAL AXIST, a divine hall suspended in the endless light. It was made of mirrored threads, each one a line of fate, humming with Celestial Order. A dozen of what they called themselves, primary gods and goddesses after their hideous act of killing their own father for power, stood in a ring. Their forms shifted between human and elemental; some were light and the others were endless voids.
At the center was a large oval table filled with Threads of Fate. The table represents the Mana Tree in the middle of Earth, and the thread attached to it was the fate of every human on Earth, depending on the Mana they had. The red threads are the SS ranked humans. The orange threads belong to S rank. The black threads belong to A rank. Violet threads were for B rank. Green threads belonging to Rank C. Brown for D rank. Yellow thread for E Rank and finally, white threads for F ranks.
The only special color was the transparent thread, almost invisible, but now it is glitching, pulsing with unnatural black static.
"This thread has been laid inactive for years," the god of chain announced, slamming his staff to the floor.
"Then it might be the number four of the five," the Goddess of Echoes, whispering her voice looping like static.
"That's impossible. We killed the devourers and their vessels. We-"
"No, not all of them. We presumed we did them, but we didn't." The Goddess of Fire cut the God of War.
"We let this slip for so many centuries, and now it has come back to us. We need to contaminate it at all costs."
These were the moments the Gods and goddesses panicked. They had run a thorough test, making sure the Tactical Managers still managed the humans' power and capabilities, resetting players if it get too powerful or disobedient, and monitoring their emotions, behavior, and decisions.
The God of technology made sure every Tactical Manager scans for any anomalies in each human, reporting back to him.
"So this is the human that was chosen to plant the seed of a failed Tactical Manager?" Sylas, one of the thousand celestial Subsystem analysts. He was lazily scrolling through a holographic display until he saw Marcus' profile. "Profile: Marcus Smith. Age: 18, no active class, Mana response: null. Aura imprint: degradee. He's a blank, an ordinary human. Lowest of the lowest."
"Still unawakened?" Nero asked him as he sipped a nectar from his mug. "That kid has been to death's claws. His Tacma even fixed his head. He's been on our logs for months. And yet no talents, no traits, no affiliations. What a trash. I can't believe that old fart Divine father made this useless human."
"His Tacma is still trying to adjust him. Fixing him," Nero said, dryly.
"The Tacma inside him was the low-priority branch, a trial one. Well, that kid deserves less. He's nothing but trash to our Boss' eyes."
Sylas chuckled.
"Let's leave this trash for a minute. I heard Monique discovered a way of infusing human food into ours, and it tasted good. Wanna check it out?" Nero said, inviting Sylas, who was supposed to keep an eye on the 'trash' profiles. The God of Technology instructed him to check thoroughly.
"Alright, let's go. I'm starving," he replied, not even throwing a glance back at Marcus' profile, even if it started to glitch.
As they left, a flickering code on the screen appeared marked as "Anomaly Detected"
[TACMA-UNIT 77: ATTEMPTING EMERGENCY REPORT PROTOCOL.. ]
Destination: Central Oversight Hub
Status: URGENT (AUTO-PRIORITY OVERRIDE ENGAGED)
COMPILING SYSTEM ERROR LOGS..
COMPRESSING CORRUPTION DATA…
UPLOADING…
20%...40%...69%..
And it started to glitch.
INTERNAL INTERRUPTION: UNKNOWN ENTITY INTERCEPT
MESSAGE:
"That's cute, Tacma. Trying to tell mommy about me? That's adorable."
The glitching became more active.
TACMA response:
!Unauthorized interference detected. Cease interaction."
!You are violating System Law: Section—"
The Glitching intensified.
ANOMALY RESPONSE:
"Shhh, let the grown-ups handle this. You had one job, Tin-head and its monitor, maintain and mind your damn business. But nooo, you just had to go full hall monitor mode. Now look at you, flashing red, pissin bytes and panicking like a toddler at a bootcamp. Tell you what, why don't you go ahead and finish that report…oh wait…"
The glitching stopped.
[File Upload Interrupted]
*DATA LOG OVERWRITTEN
*ATTACHMENT CORRUPTED BEYOND RECOVERY
*REPORT REPLACED WITH THE USUAL WORDS
[Final Message of Anomaly to Tacma]
"Next time you try to squeal, make sure the pig pen ain't already mine"
Tacma sent one last attempt to Sylas' holographic Screen
TACMA STATUS:
! System unstable
! Integrity: 32% and falling
! Cognitive core loop… corrupted
But the anomaly permanently deleted it as if it had never been sent, and then Tacma became silent.
Anomaly roasted Tacma's Core, corrupting it beyond repair, controlling it without any suspicion. This could have been prevented if Sylas had been there and done what his job specification required.