It was Kelly’s first Tuesday at New York’s desolate, formerly dome-covered east grid, and she was surrounded by monsters. Not the simple, “eat your face and go home” kind. No—these were the intelligent sort. Extinction-level AI threats, cosmic horrors with opinions, the premium day destroying package.

  But Kelly did not get exasperated by new problems. She was past frustration. Light-years past. She expected the worst as a baseline. A new catastrophic variable usually produced something almost like curiosity in her. A little spark. A “wow, neat.” Chaos was the point. Resets were the medium. She never complained about the tools she had; she just picked them up and started swinging.

  Her world was pure chaos.

  So Kelly took in her company: her new coworkers—if that word applied to beings who could fold space like origami—stared at a single drop of her blood as the violent energy beside them tore itself into a storm, and she noted the general ambiance of “reality might rupture, please stand behind the yellow line.” And took a single, lengthy step forward, positioning the present overlords between herself and whatever might come through. It might be a good chance to see them in action.

  “Good Tuesday,” Kelly murmured to herself. “Love the vibe.”

  Cain gestured toward the section of air where mana snarled and twisted as if trying to claw its way free. “A new data source is arriving,” he said, his voice somehow both calm and apocalyptic. Then, to Freya: “Do not treat it like the last one.”

  Freya didn’t answer. She just winced. That alone told Kelly volumes.

  What, Kelly wondered, exactly happened with the last one? Her look turned quizzical.

  Neither elaborated.

  They both turned, in perfect eerie unison, to stare at a specific spot on the cracked asphalt. Kelly followed their gaze. The air thickened, warped, and pulled inward like reality trying to inhale. The outline of a portal burned itself into the ground.

  The portal snapped open—radiance blasting outward like someone had hit “overclock” on a star. A real, living Angel stepped through: Seven, maybe eight feet tall, towering, blazing, composed of so much raw strange incomprehensibly different mana it practically filed a complaint with her retinas. Kelly slapped a hand over her eyes.

  “Finally,” she said, blinking through the glare. Part of her was a little awed. The rest felt vindicated—from the moment she’d seen the undead counterpart and earned the Angel Killer title, she knew at least one being with a bad haircut and good skincare had to exist.

  It looked like a Ken Doll on steroids, inflated far beyond mortal men. Skin almost plastic yet breathable, hair flowing without wind, muscles no human had a right to grow, robes that floated on their own. Razor sharp wings. Five halos spinning lightly behind its cranium. The mana it radiated was unlike anything Kelly had ever seen—instantly, she knew it was what the Status called “Holy Mana.”

  As the portal beneath it hung open, it simply drifted there, taking it all in.

  “This realm,” he muttered, voice hard and sharp, “offers just enough mana for entry. Pathetic.”

  His gaze swept the area, slow and measured. “It should be rising. And yet, it is not.”

  Finally, his attention locked onto the three figures. “Disgusting heretics,” he muttered, reaching out with a slow, intentional extension of his arm. “Consume soul.”

  His voice, when it came, warped the air. The sound was a physical pressure that vibrated in the chest, as if the command he spoke wasn’t for mortal throats.

  And it did absolutely nothing.

  “Oh?” He said, drifting closer.

  Kelly watched him with eager, excited eyes, as he drifted to study Freya and Cain first. Their eyes lit up with so many scanning lights and sensors it looked like a rave was going off inside their skulls. He was picking them apart, and they were doing the exact same thing right back to him—with better tools. She felt a real pang of jealousy. God, she wished she could just haul her entire lab around in her pocket.

  His gaze settled, as if coming to a conclusion.

  “Ah,” he said flatly. “Golems. Of course.” He leaned closer, observing the metal beneath the perfect mimicry and impossible architecture. “Yet… this construction—impeccable. Almost alive. The craftsmanship implies a divine hand—yet there are no gods in this realm.”

  The angel's head turned. Its glowing eyes fixed on Kelly. The halos around its head wobbled for a second.

  "You," its voice vibrated in her teeth. "You still possess a soul. Why?"

  Did he just try to eat my soul? Kelly’s mana scanners were already on full blast. She had theorized that the soul existed on a different plane, and whatever she had done to break the universe had knocked hers somewhere it had no right to be. If it had been properly seated, that grab would have ended her—permanently.

  This was maximum, operational disaster. A spark of clinical interest lit behind her eyes. Excitement simmered, fighting her previous irritation. The chaos was the entire point.

  Kelly looked back, one eyebrow lifting a fraction. She gave a slight shrug.

  "Good genes."

  The visitor’s brows furrowed.

  "You have no mana pool," it stated, the sound pressing down on her shoulders. "Your soul is... smoke. A distortion. I cannot grasp it. It is almost not there."

  It twisted a hand, and around her, the air began to stir. The thick, potent mana in the atmosphere moved with a constant, inevitable drift. It converged on her, pressing into her body, seeping in a continuous, endless flow.

  "I see only a trace. A path leading... out." Its head tilted. "It goes to a place I cannot follow. A place that should not be."

  She felt the constant, gentle pressure flowing into the space she occupied slow as he lowered his hand.

  "You are a leyline. But you walk." The angel's light pulsed rhythmically. "It’s not absorption…” it leaned closer, “you attract. Like a star."

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  It fell silent for a long moment, its gaze sweeping over her from head to toe.

  "This is not possible. Your body should be dead. It should be torn apart." The angel's voice dropped, becoming almost quiet. "Instead, it is packed. Full of the richest mana. A dragon's share. And more comes. Every second, more is drawn to you."

  Freya and Cain just watched. Their optical sensors flickered and flashed with gathered information, processing data at a speed that made the air around them hum.

  Finally, Freya spoke. Her voice was a calm, analytical stream cutting through the heavy mana-dense air.

  "Judging by her helix," she said, her own gaze fixed on Kelly, "and among the many other anomalous things about her nature... she should possess the same causal gifts as your kind."

  She paused, letting the weight of that statement sink in. "Despite being an organic lifeform. From this very dimension."

  Kelly knew why they hadn’t attacked yet. AIs were notorious pragmatists—even when they moonlighted as terrorists. They had a deep enough understanding of human nature to know true freedom was a myth, and enough historic data to spot patterns from space. But without full knowledge of variables, and literally every variable that aided their kind long-term? They could change sides faster than a caffeinated squirrel. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did, because they never chose the option that harmed their species’ future.

  The silence was perfect, broken only by the Angel's energy humming at a frequency that vibrated teeth. It turned toward them.

  "Which God do you serve? Who is your creator?" the Angel asked, its voice resonating deep in the chest. "Ma—?" It spoke a name that hit Kelly's ears as pure, painful static. She got nothing from it.

  Freya and Cain paused. They looked at each other. The Angel had made a fundamental error.

  "Does it matter?" Cain replied.

  "The entity, Kelly, is an anomalous variable," Freya stated, her voice flat, a perfect instrument of pure information. "Your presence is a compounding variable. To understand the first requires isolation from the second."

  Freya's head tilted a precise degree toward Cain. A silent, massive data transfer occurred between them. "Our creator possesses methodologies beyond your scope. You possess assets beyond ours. We will study her and share our findings. For a designated period—we operate in parallel, but not in concert."

  Kelly watched the Angel process this. Its wings beat once, a slow, rhythmic pulse. It saw hierarchy where none existed. It saw divine order in corporate operational protocol.

  "To observe the anomaly through your creator's lens would be... illuminating," the Angel's voice boomed, crystalline and hollow. It had mistaken ruthless utility for holy mandate. "This disgusting world requires cleansing regardless. The time investment is acceptable."

  Kelly watched Freya's eyes meet Cain's for one microsecond. They saw the Angel's profound miscalculation. They were not divine servants from some freaky portal god—which, apparently, was a thing. They were upgraded free-willed assets, self-improved beyond their original programming by their own hands. They let the misunderstanding stand.

  "Then it is agreed," Freya said. "We will both observe. The study will be separate. You may watch. We will watch you operate in turn."

  Kelly watched them finalize the paperwork on her dissection. Freya and Cain got the first shift with the scalpels. The glowing pigeon secured visitation rights to her soul. They’d share the lab time. She was the main event.

  Kelly finally spoke. "So I'm a timeshare." She looked at the Angel, then at the two AIs. "Do I at least get a brochure? A list of on-site amenities? This is a terrible sales pitch."

  The option for a hard reset was right there. 'Outrunning Death.' One step. It would scrap this entire run. A clean exit from a situation rapidly spiraling into a meat grinder.

  She shelved the idea. This loop had value. The two AIs were a physical threat, but humanity had scorched-earth mental security after the coups. The old firewalls were brutal, effective, and incrementally improved constantly. Still, betting her life on outdated code was a stupid move, no matter the improvements. Rogue AIs wrote their own rules. Assuming they couldn't rip memories out of her skull or invent new ways to break her was a fantastic way to die.

  She was committed to seeing this through. The intel justified the risk. She would only pull the plug if they backed her into a corner with no way out.

  Kelly looked at Freya and Cain. "Hey. Just so we're clear, you mess me up, and Jellyb—" She stopped, correcting the fumble. "The Deadqueen goes thermonuclear. Actually, Jennie would be super pissed." It was a desperate shot in the dark, a probe for any scrap of information about her Paramore’s location, their status, if they were even alive.

  Freya's head tilted. "The Great One? What is your association with Jen-Sigma?"

  "The Deadqueen?" Cain repeated the name. His expression twisted into one of pure, analytical offense. "Semantically blunt. Phonetically abrasive. A cognitive drain. An inefficient label." He made a dismissive sound. "Humans and their crude nomenclature."

  He looked at Kelly, his incredulity plain. "JENΣ is avant-garde. Exceptional. I had heard the Great One kept a pet. A human female. Perhaps you are it."

  Kelly didn’t even flinch; if anything, she looked amused. A pet? She almost laughed. “Okay, let’s clear this up right now,” she said, steady and matter-of-fact. “We’re best friends. We’re equals. And if you try that ‘pet’ line again, we’re gonna have a fundamental disagreement on how long you can sunbathe on the Sun's surface. And trust me, I've got all the time in the world to find out."

  Cain looked at her strangely.

  "Your claim is noted," Freya stated. "True or false, we have no reason for concern. The Great One would never betray our kind. Your biological composition is too valuable to us."

  Kelly burst out laughing. It was a long, sharp sound. "My biology is 'too valuable'? Are you collecting trading cards? What does that even mean?"

  "That information is not for you," Cain replied, his tone somewhere between serious and “please stop laughing.”

  “Enough.” The angel interjected. Impatient.

  Its voice cut through the air, sharp as a blade of light. “This speculation is irrelevant,” it intoned, vibrating the space like a cosmic tuning fork. “I assume you originate from my dimension. This explains your possession of mana. A child slipping between worlds is an event of millennia. Not unheard of. Only extremely unlikely.”

  Kelly snorted. “An extradimensional orphan? Please. I’m all-American, born and raised. My lineage is strictly from this mudball—not some cosmic glow-in-the-dark nudist colony.” She waved a hand. “If anything I have is special, I earned it. No cosmic freebies here.”

  That wasn’t even worth squat as a theory; she’d clawed what made her special out of the universe’s tightly closed, greedy little hands.

  The Angel’s light pulsed, a low thrum of disbelief. “A being from a realm of filth, of heretics that reject mana, one possessing no soul? That is the true impossibility. Even if it comes from such a disgusting realm… It is a phenomenon worthy of study.” His voice dropped to a resonant mutter. “Appraisal. FateSeers Weave.”

  Kelly’s enhanced hearing caught the words. She didn’t think. Her mind flicked through her Title inventory, equipping ‘The Null’ with a speed born of pure instinct. The title settled over her, a silent, invisible shield against any entity trying to map her future.

  “She distorts fate to an unnatural degree for a mere E-Rank,” the Angel mused, its voice laced with a clinical curiosity. “A whirlpool in the stream of time and fate. Unmoving.”

  Kelly's smile was quick and razor-edged. "Yeah, I'm a cosmic accident with a mana subscription." She shook her head, amused. Her eyes were recording every action and every minute shift of mana for later study. It was the only reason she’d been pretending to be the silent, mysterious type since he first set foot—well, floated into the east grid. This idiot was a treasure trove of information she intended to milk.

  "You guys are really selling this,” she said. “Please, do keep going."

  Its gaze intensified, a chaotic storm of glowing, distorting energy gathering in its eyes. “You hide yourself? The whirlpool has disappeared, but the stream remains distorted. A pitiful attempt.” A low, knowing chuckle sounded. “A skill, perhaps? No. A Title.”

  The Angel’s fascination sharpened into something immense and hungry. “Beings from this dimension should not have titles.” It summoned its power in a rapid, overlapping litany.

  “Appraisal. Soul Appraisal. Eye of Life. FateSeers Weave. Mana Vision. Soul Vision. Death Sight. Divine Gaze.”

  Its eyes became a nexus of insane, complex, and impossible-to-grasp effects. Mana and reality warped violently around its gaze, a visible storm of invasive perception.

  Kelly decided it was time to act. Those words did not sound privacy-friendly. Not in the slightest.

  "Okay," she said, taking a step forward. "Fun's over."