A wall of water—hundreds of meters tall—stretched nearly from horizon to horizon as it surged toward the coast. Even from this distance, Kiran could feel something wrong inside it, and the anxiety that had been gnawing at her for days hardened into certainty. She clenched her fists and called on her power. It flared around her, answering her resolve—eager to matter.
"Positions!" Priya shouted. "Alright, you two—let's do this. Arjun, now!"
Arjun opened his eyes. With a shout that sounded more like a roar, he drove his will into the earth.
The shoreline trembled like a minor earthquake as the coast rose in staggered segments—massive breakwalls thrusting up at intervals, with deliberate gaps between them to channel the impact. He didn't try to match the wave's height; walls that tall would tear the city apart just as surely as the Tide. Instead, he kept them at half its height and poured everything into their density, rooting them deep—braced, reinforced barriers built to take punishment without crumbling. The goal was to break the front, split it, and force it to waste itself in controlled lanes.
Above him, golden light erupted from Kiran—brighter than she had ever dared to draw. She lifted her hands and the light spilled outward, wrapping Arjun's walls, sealing weak points, stitching every seam. Then it flowed into the channels between the breakwalls, smoothing the stone into slick, frictionless gutters that resisted the soul-stripping water's erosion—surfaces turned to mirrors that redirected force instead of absorbing it.
Meanwhile, Priya stood with her eyes closed, ponytail lifting in the charged wind as she settled into a poised stance, hands locked at her sides. With every breath, heat thickened the air around her until it shimmered and warped. She looked less like a young woman now and more like a waiting champion of flame—blessed by Agni, carrying a faint divine authority—ready to strike the instant she opened her eyes.
All three of them went all out.
They had never held this much power for this long or pushed their blessings this hard. But their homeland—and everyone they loved—stood behind them, and there was no one close enough to rely on. So they braced themselves for the strain they knew was coming.
Jaime fired off nodes, and layered shields snapped into place over Kiran's constructs like extra plates. Gar hovered near Arjun, tense and ready to grab him the moment his connection to the ground wavered.
Then the wave finally hit.
It slammed into the reinforced walls with the weight of a falling mountain. The Tide fractured into sections, forced by the staggered barriers into narrower channels that speared through the gaps like lances.
Arjun's arms buckled. Pain shot through him as the pressure tried to crush the walls he was holding in place.
"Argh—" he snarled, jaw clenched. "HOLD, DAMN YOU!"
He dragged his rage up from where he kept it buried—the fury since his little sister died, the bitterness aimed at gods who never answered—and poured it into his will.
The earth shuddered… and held.
Seeing her moment, Priya bent her knees and launched into the air. High above the broken channels, she raised both hands, gathered heat until the air felt compressed, then drove her arms down and spread them wide.
A roaring blanket of orange fire slammed downward like a falling ceiling.
Superheated air hammered the surging water flat, smashing its momentum back. Steam exploded upward. Across the surface, the corruption hissed and boiled, burning away in ragged patches.
Noticing the effect, the team steadied—gritting their teeth, pushing harder even as the strain climbed.
"It's working!" Priya shouted.
"Push on!" Arjun roared back.
"You can do it, Agni!" Kiran cried, voice raw with effort.
"Woah…" Jaime muttered, staring at his HUD as the corruption levels dipped—proof that, like Shazam's lightning, there were other ways to counter and cleanse it directly. He looked up at the girl suspended in flame, dazed for half a second, and whispered without thinking, "Beautiful."
"Jaime Reyes," the scarab cut in flatly, "I suggest you refocus on the existential threat."
Jaime flinched. "Right!"
His arms reshaped into cannons. He opened fire in a wide spread of modulating frequencies, shredding incoming water and buying Priya time.
But the corrupted ocean didn't stop.
More mass slammed into the coastline. The strain climbed higher and higher on Arjun and Kiran. Kiran felt her power pulling through her in torrents; her body trembled, and blood trickled from her nose.
But she held on anyway—because their plan was working.
Out at sea, the corruption churned under the resonance of the seven formations. The Tide swelled again, merging with fresh mass—rising higher, denser, more lethal—threatening to overwhelm everything they'd built.
As it drew closer, Kiran caught details that turned her blood cold. The taint in the water repulsed her senses like rot on the wind.
The reinforced wave struck again—larger now—and spilled over the edges.
The impact was like being hit by a mountain.
Kiran and Arjun screamed as force hammered into their defenses. Cracks spiderwebbed through the golden light. Arjun's knees buckled. Kiran flared harder, stitching gaps, extending her barrier into a continuous wall across the coastline—forcing it higher, trying to meet the wave head-on—
But it still wasn't enough.
The Great Tide had become too strong. Too massive. Too saturated with corruption.
Priya poured more power into her fire, spreading the blanket attack wider. Yet corrupted water still seeped inland wherever her flames couldn't reach in time. Arjun's connection to the earth wavered as the ground trembled without pause. Gar hovered lower, grim and ready to pull him out. Jaime ramped up his output, pushing the surge back and buying Priya precious seconds.
Kiran felt herself breaking.
Blood ran now—from her nose, her ears, the corners of her eyes. Her body shook violently. Something inside her was tearing, straining past its limits. The barrier was failing—cracks spreading faster than she could repair.
She dropped to one knee, hands still raised, power pulsing in frantic sync with her heart. Her vision began to blur, but sheer will kept her upright.
Still, it wasn't enough.
Through the pain, Kiran's mind raced—her parents, her home, the millions behind her, Vishnu's words, and a destiny she'd never asked for, set in motion by that fateful encounter in Varanasi. Orach's face flashed in her mind, and then the silhouette within his aura… that gentle smile that filled her with impossible peace.
Tears streamed down her face, mixing with blood. Not just from pain. Not just from fear.
From desperation.
"Please," she whispered, her voice swallowed by the roar of the sea. "Please… someone help me. I can't do this alone."
She reached—instinctively, desperately—for the Preserver. For any god who might still be listening.
Yet none answered.
She remembered Vishnu's words: the gods were bound by rules, by covenants, by laws that kept divinity from reaching directly into the mortal plane.
The barrier cracked further. The wave pushed through. Seconds from collapse.
And in that moment—when she had nothing left—Kiran's mind went to the one thing she'd been trying not to touch, the emptiness that met her whenever she prayed to the Destroyer… and the unsettling truth that, lately, it eased only when she stopped forcing the image she'd been taught and instead let herself remember that gentle presence.
It made no sense. Not to her. Not to her faith.
She didn't understand it. She had no proof.
But death was rushing toward her people.
So she made a choice.
She stopped resisting the wild, impossible connection her soul had been reaching for since Varanasi—and, for the first time, she let it pull her where it wanted to go.
"Please," she whispered, and the word scraped out of her like a final breath.
This time, she didn't picture the Destroyer as she'd been taught to picture him. She reached for the silhouette she could barely hold in her mind—the gentle smile, the overwhelming peace—and for the name that, against all reason, fit that presence.
"Please…" Her voice broke.
"Please… help me, Lord Shiv."
Mount Kailash — The Pinnacle of God's Realm
At the very peak of existence—beyond mortal language, beyond even most divine comprehension—Lord Shiv sat in meditation.
His presence could not be measured in shape or scale. To the lower realms, any attempt to describe him would fracture into symbols and stories, metaphors too small to hold what he was. He was stillness itself—the eye of the cosmic storm, the absolute calm around which creation turned.
Around him, Mount Kailash rested in perfect serenity. Not the physical summit mortals imagined, but the true Kailash, the divine domain at the pinnacle of God's Realm, one of the sanctums where the Supremes could reside in physical form.
Time had no meaning here. Lord Shiv had been seated for what felt like eons… or perhaps only a single breath.
Then something changed.
A voice reached him—small, distant, almost lost across the infinite expanse of the myriad realms. Yet it was pure. So pure it cut through layers of reality like a blade of light through darkness.
"Please… help me, Lord Shiv."
His expression shifted by the smallest fraction—a tightening near the eyes, a turn of awareness so subtle it would have been invisible to any lesser being. But for one who was stillness itself, even that was a thunderclap.
He knew this soul.
He had seen it through Orach's eye: untainted, desperate, calling not for herself, but for others.
And she had spoken his true name—not the crude, fearful approximation the lower realm repeated as "Shiva the Destroyer," but Shiv—the Auspicious One. The Benevolent One. Mahadev—who watched creation across its past, present, and branching futures, and whose compassion did not depend on status, ritual, or grandeur.
Lord Shiv had never demanded spectacle. A palace offering meant nothing if the heart was empty. A single leaf, a single grain, meant everything if the devotion was sincere.
One might ask how a mortal from a lower realm could perceive what even many gods failed to grasp.
The answer was simple.
Orach.
Contact with Orach's aura—and the thread of Life God Ki he had left within her—had widened her perception just enough to pierce the veils between realms. Not enough to understand everything… but enough to recognize truth when her life, and millions of others, hung on the edge.
And now she was calling to him—this child touched by Orach's grace—finally accepting what she had glimpsed.
Moved, Lord Shiv's third eye manifested.
It opened.
Light erupted—not the light of creation, not the light of warmth, but the light of absolute ending, the force that returned existence to the primordial void. A power so final that even gave the other Supremes a pause.
In their own sanctums, the other two Supremes opened their eyes, expressions grave as their gaze turned toward the abode of the God of All Gods. For Lord Shiv to release that light, something, somewhere in the myriad realms had crossed a line—and the moment had to be dire.
The radiance of destruction launched from Mount Kailash, tearing through God's Realm like a spear through silk.
Saints and gods froze.
Ancient beings—older than worship, older than names—turned toward the summit as their senses screamed warning.
The light plunged onward, passing beyond God's Realm and into the Higher Realms where beings like Orach dwelled. Even there, entities of immense power went still. Some recognized it and bowed in solemn reverence. Others felt only instinctive terror.
And still the light did not slow.
It followed the thread of that plea—tracking it across the infinite—until it reached the lower realm…
…where Kiran Singh stood on the edge of death.
Diana's and Rachel's Lower Realm - Earth - India - Kanyakumari
Kiran felt it before she saw anything.
A touch—gentle, steady—settled over her like a hand on her head. For a single, terrified heartbeat she thought it was only her mind, starving for comfort as it began to fail. A final hallucination. A last mercy she was inventing for herself.
Then the pain just… vanished.
The strain in her muscles, the tearing sensation in her soul, the crushing pressure of the Tide just gone… erased as cleanly as if it had never existed.
Her power, which had been sputtering and splintering under the strain, suddenly pulsed. Once. Twice. Then again and again. It felt like a second heart inside her chest—wild, thunderous, growing stronger with every beat—as if something was approaching and her very being recognized it.
And then it arrived.
A light that did not belong to the lower realm—silent, absolute, final—tore through reality's barriers. It resonated with the thread of Life God Ki Orach had left within her, found it instantly, and surged down it like judgment given form.
The Life God Ki inside her—already thinning, already dissolving—ignited the moment that force entered her soul and touched it. It flared once, blinding and white-hot, then burned away completely, feeding the surge.
In its wake, something else braided into her.
A trace of the purest and truest Primordial Law of Destruction. Not the crude violence mortals imagined. The true principle, the clean, merciful ending that returned all things to silence.
Golden light erupted from Kiran's body, illuminating the night like a star being born.
Her barrier—cracked and collapsing—locked back into place. Fractures immediately sealed. The ward thickened, then expanded, racing outward in a widening arc—from a single rooftop, to the city, to the entire coastline—until an immense wall of gold stood between the Great Tide and everything behind it.
Kiran rose in the air with it.
She floated above the rooftops, above the screaming wind, above the incoming death from the ocean. The light pouring from her stopped scattering and began to coalesce, gathering with calm inevitability into a shape the world could not ignore.
A vast humanoid form of radiance took shape around her—massive, transcendent—the silhouette from Varanasi made real for this universe to witness. It was still partially veiled, its features shifting at the edge of comprehension, yet certain truths were unmistakable, the serene face, the gentle smile, the unified presence that needed no explanation.
On its forehead, a third eye manifested, then threatened to open. The faint power emanating from its edges made the air tremble.
Kiran realized she wasn't facing it.
She was inside it—cradled within its chest.
She did not know why, but in that moment she understood with certainty… this figure was Lord Shiv.
Not the Destroyer she had been taught about, but the truth, the Supreme at the pinnacle of creation. The one who was both creation and ending, with no beginning and no end.
Around the world—across this universe, and throughout the entire Lower Realm—beings of power felt the manifestation and reacted.
Mortals watching—on the shore or through trembling camera feeds—felt a pressure unlike anything they'd ever known. An overwhelming weight on the soul that made the body want to kneel, to bow, to worship. Many did, tears streaming, not understanding, but knowing—deep in their bones—that this was divine.
Gods across the lower realm felt it too, and their reaction was visceral. Not fear of death—something deeper. Existential terror at the recognition of a presence so far above them it made them feel like insects before a hurricane.
In the sphere of the gods, true bodies turned toward the surge in horror. In the domain of this realm's Trimurti, the three froze.
The Creator—an aspect of the Source tasked with shaping this realm—felt small for the first time.
The Preserver—embodiment of order and logic—felt its systems tremble. This power sat beyond rule, beyond calculation, beyond anything it could contain.
And the Destroyer—the grey-skinned, multi-armed being mortals worshipped as Shiva, the reset function of this lower realm, a demiurgic concept given form—felt something it had never felt before.
Recognition.
And doubt.
Since Orach's arrival, its sight of the timelines had been severed. Whenever it turned its gaze toward Orach, a strange sensation answered—an irritation that grew sharper the day Orach walked the streets of Varanasi, as if something vast had glanced toward their domain and measured it.
Now, confronted with this manifestation, it felt like it was glimpsing a trace of an unknown truth. Like a fleeting, devastating realization of what it was meant to be… and what it could never become. It made it feel like a shadow—an approximation, and a name wearing a borrowed face.
All three crude copies, formed from imperfect understanding of the Presence of the Supremes, suddenly confronted with something real.
Even beings like Lucifer Morningstar and other demiurgic entities of the lower realms paused. This was power they rarely encountered—power that reminded them that, for all their might, there were still heights they could not reach. Power that far surpassed even their creator, the Presence.
Through it all, Lord Shiv's manifestation remained serene. That slight smile never wavered.
Then the third eye opened.
The oppressive aura emanating from it sharpened into a line so absolute it seemed to split the world in two. And the light that had descended through the realms—the light of absolute destruction—shot forth from that eye and struck the wave.
In the next instant, the wave ceased to exist—completely unmade. The corruption, the twisted power Orm had infused into the water through the formations, and the millions of tons of sea itself were gone in a blink, returned to the void as if the ocean had never dared to rise.
Beyond the coastline, the sea calmed. The sky cleared showing the clear starry sky.
Kanyakumari—seconds from annihilation—stood untouched.
A profound silence fell over the scene.
Kiran, still cradled in the manifestation's chest, kept her eyes closed.
Even as the third eye opened, she didn't move. The moment stretched, leaving her with an unreal, weightless feeling, as the last remnants of Orach's Life God Ki inside her blazed and burned itself out completely. The light didn't fade so much as it completed—a final flare of purpose before dissolving into nothing.
In its place, a new power settled into her bones. It wasn't just energy. It felt like a law taking root.
And with that law came change—deeper than strength. Something in her soul shifted, as if an inner architecture was being rewritten. Not merely awakened, but reorganized—like an inner universe coming into existence within her.
As these changes unfolded, her consciousness slipped.
In one breath's time she was inside golden radiance—then, in the next, she was falling, silently, into pure darkness.
"What… what is this?" Kiran whispered as awareness returned.
A suffocating void held her suspended. Pure black stretched endlessly in every direction—no sound, no warmth, no horizon. It wasn't the emptiness of space. It had weight, like she'd been submerged in a deep, stagnant ocean of ink that hadn't stirred since the beginning of time. Only after a frantic moment did she notice faint specks of light scattered impossibly far away, glimmering like distant stars seen through thick fog.
"Where am I?" Her voice sounded small, swallowed by the nothing. "Is this… outer space?"
Before panic could fully take hold—before she could even acclimate to that crushing, unnatural stillness—one of the distant specks brightened.
It swelled. It rushed closer.
"WHAT—? Oh no!"
Kiran recoiled and threw her arms up as the light sharpened into a spear of crystalline brilliance. It struck something unseen—like a thin membrane stretched across the void—then punched through.
The darkness shuddered.
Light spilled into the void, not gently, but with the certainty of something that believed it had the right to exist anywhere it touched. A blinding spike of radiance lanced down from impossibly far above—pure, piercing, and unsettlingly alive.
Kiran stared, frozen, horror rising as instinct told her this wasn't merely energy.
It was authority.
She didn't know it yet, but this wasn't just light invading the dark. It was a being, a budding, true god of creation—an initial awakening form of the Presence—driving its understanding of the Primordial Law of Creation into the void as if writing the first line of creation.
But just as the radiance struck, the darkness stirred.
A howl tore through the void—so immense it made her awareness tremble. Kiran clapped her hands over her ears on reflex, but there was nowhere for sound to go. No air to carry it. No distance for it to fade across. The scream didn't echo; it simply existed, vibrating through her like a truth too large to contain.
She turned and saw the darkness rise.
It was as if the void itself gathered into shape, giving rise to a colossal entity of pure shadow that recoiled where the Presence's light touched it. Vast beyond measure. Not absence, but something alive, like rage and pain given form. It towered over her perception, impossible to fully process, and then it surged forward.
It fought back.
A cold, immense will pressed against the invading radiance, refusing to be pierced, refusing to be erased. For a fraction of an instant, the light trembled—startled, as if it had not expected resistance here.
Then the clash became absolute. Light and dark collided, and neither yielded.
The Presence pressed outward, eager and searing with creation's first command. The darkness held its ground with an ancient refusal. Where they met, they did not soften into gray. They ground against each other, churning violently—and the boundary between them became visible, a vast twilight seam where friction turned nothingness into something.
Kiran hung frozen at the center of it all, a silent witness as a Lower Realm began to take its first breath.
High above, beneath the Presence's relentless onslaught, the radiance began to cool and organize. Layer by layer, structure assembled from raw brilliance—an intricate, multi-layered mechanism, like cosmic clockwork crystallizing into existence piece by piece.
Then it locked into place.
Fifty-two distinct spheres of reality formed and began to spin in perfect synchronization. They hummed with clean, mathematical harmony—stable, ordered, precise—like islands of existence floating in a calm, illuminated sea.
But creation needed a foundation.
And every structure cast a shadow.
Beneath the neat geometry of the fifty-two, overflow cascaded downward into a vast, roiling sub-ocean of dark matter. It had none of the clean lines above. It was heavy, fluid chaos—restless, hungry, unfinished.
The Dark Multiverse.
Kiran watched as loose fears, half-formed possibilities, and failed what-if timelines drifted down from the stable worlds above like ash. They gathered into twisted shapes the moment they touched the dark—worlds forming too fast, too unstable—then cracked under their own incoherence and melted back into the churning ocean to be recycled.
Above was harmony—realities that spun with order and certainty.
Below was collapse—volatile realities closer to the chaotic void that, unless something strong enough imposed stability, would eventually break and sink back into nothing.
And along the great equator—where burning light and heavy dark met—something else took shape.
A massive protective barrier wrapped around both sides, a dense atmosphere of swirling gold and violet plasma, storm-cloud thick. Within it, colossal silhouettes aligned—mythic thrones, divine architectures, the scaffolding of pantheons—forming a cosmic buffer that shielded the fragile spinning realities from the raw pressure of the void beyond.
Kiran remained suspended at the center of it all.
A point of equilibrium.
A breath between absolutes.
"Is… this… the moment of creation?" she whispered, shock making her thoughts feel distant and unreal. "If this is real… then the stories… the myths…"
Her voice faltered.
"Doesn't that mean they're all wrong?"
Doubts arose from the sights she was witnessing, but in the next instant her consciousness jerked. She was yanked backward as if caught on an unseen hook. The entire engine of light and shadow shrank in her vision, growing smaller and smaller as she was dragged away. She felt herself pass through another thin membrane, and suddenly she could see more.
Not one creation structure, but many—similar, yet wildly different—each shining with its own signature energies, each floating in what felt like a vast cosmic sea beyond comprehension.
Scenes flashed past her eyes, seeing vast star-systems and alien heavens; strange realms; planets the size of myths. Civilizations so advanced they made Earth feel painfully young—some purely technological, some steeped in ancient magic, some so dreadful her mind tried to refuse them.
She couldn't tell how long she was falling. Time didn't behave here. Her thoughts dulled under the sheer scale until numbness became the only way to endure it.
And then, through the torrent, she began to perceive a pattern.
The innumerable worlds weren't scattered at random—they were arranged into immense regions, each a galaxy-wide dominion, each crowded with countless civilizations, each governed by different laws. The visions hit faster, heavier, stacking until the pressure mounted behind her eyes and she felt—truly—that she might splinter.
Yet even as everything started to blur, she caught it, thirteen realms that shone brighter than the rest, like fixed stars in the storm.
Still the pull carried her onward—until she felt a threshold ahead, a pressure shift like crossing into deeper water.
And then she entered a realm that could only be called divine.
Structures rose in the distance unlike anything she'd imagined: temples carved from concepts, palaces that resembled legends but made legends look childish. And moving within that realm were beings whose presences felt closer to real gods than anything she'd ever been taught to worship.
Kiran trembled—though she had no body—because she felt her awareness straining, as if it might shatter in the next instant.
Then a voice entered her mind—calm, infinite, warm, and unbearably gentle.
"Child, that's enough."
The words settled, like a hand soothing a racing mind, like a gentle palm resting on her head.
"Any more truths, and you will not be able to carry them."
Kiran turned—and for a fraction of a moment her awareness was flooded with brilliance. Not harsh. Not punishing. Warm light, soothing light. Healing light.
And within it, she finally saw.
She was sitting—tiny, impossible—upon a colossal cosmic hand.
Above her, within that radiance, a silhouette flickered into view. Vast, familiar, just beyond full comprehension.
Before she could speak—before she could even shape the question—she saw the smile.
The same warm smile she remembered from Varanasi.
The smile she remembered from the silhouette within Orach's aura.
"Child," the ethereal voice said, softer now, "what you do with this opportunity you've been given from this point onward… is up to you."
A pause, as though all creation bowed to the blessing being bestowed on her.
"Thathastu."
Kanyakumari — Aftermath
The next instant, Kiran found herself back into her body.
Her eyes fluttered open—and immediately she knew something was different.
Her power didn't just feel stronger. It felt steadier, deeper. If her power had once felt like a river, now it felt like a vast ocean. For a second her mind refused to cooperate, still crowded with the visions she'd just witnessed… but then she realized something even stranger.
The memories were already slipping.
Not fading the way dreams did, but sealing—details turning foggy the moment she tried to grip them, like an unseen hand was gently pushing her away from truths she wasn't meant to carry yet. She didn't understand why, but she understood the mercy in it. She remembered herself on the brink of breaking in that divine realm.
Somehow, whatever had spoken to her had protected her from her own mind.
And then she realized she was still floating.
Suspended in open air, held inside the golden manifestation like a living world wrapped around her. She drew in a breath, bracing for panic—for pressure, suffocation, the crushing feeling of being trapped but she could breathe normally.
More than that, inside this presence she felt untouchable. Not merely strong but invincible. As if invincibility had briefly become a physical sensation lodged in her bones.
She turned her head.
On the horizon, the wave was gone.
The threat was over.
Her people were safe.
As that understanding dawned, Kiran pushed gently outward, drifting free of the manifestation's chest. She looked up at the serene face above her—and even now she couldn't truly hold its features. They shifted at the edge of comprehension, refusing to be pinned down by her mortal perception.
But the smile remained.
And the presence behind it was unmistakably gentle, compassionate, infinite.
Then the manifestation began to fade, dissolving into drifting particles of golden light carried on a breeze that didn't belong to the weather. As it disappeared, Kiran could have sworn the smile widened—just slightly.
Approval?
Acknowledgment?
A blessing?
She didn't know.
And then it was gone—its last fragments thinning into the air before she could even grasp what it meant.
"Was… that all real?" Kiran whispered, still dazed, still trying to stitch her mind back together.
She descended slowly to the rooftop, her golden aura dimming but not disappearing. Her feet touched solid ground, and for a moment she simply stood there—shaking, breath shallow—trying to process what had happened.
The power she'd felt.
The name she'd called.
The manifestation that had answered.
And the theory she'd been dismissing—suddenly it didn't feel wild at all.
The Destroyer she'd been taught about—detached, terrifying—didn't match what she had just experienced. That presence had been beyond comprehension, yes… but it hadn't been cold.
It had been kind.
An impossible question formed, sharp enough to hurt.
Was the Lord Shiva her family prayed to… a falsehood?
Not a lie—something worse.
An approximation. A crude copy, made by beings who didn't fully understand what they were copying.
Had she, through Orach's gift—touched the truth?
The real Lord Shiv.
The Supreme at the pinnacle of creation.
Her breath hitched. Her hands trembled. If it was true, then everything she'd ever been taught about the divine order—about creation itself—was incomplete at best, fundamentally wrong at worst.
"I need to meet him again," she muttered, the words spilling out before she could stop them. "If anyone can answer this… only Uncle Orach can."
She looked up at the sky, as if making a promise to herself—unaware that her eyes now shone with a soft, steady golden hue.
"S-SOLSTICE!"
"Are you okay?!"
Shouts shattered her thoughts. Kiran lowered her head and turned toward the voices.
Priya reached her first, flames already out as she landed, her face caught between relief and disbelief. "Kiran—are you—" Priya cut herself off, breath catching. "What… was that?"
Beast Boy dropped in a heartbeat later, shifting midair and stumbling on the landing. Arjun came with him, jaw tight, eyes sharp with worry.
"You're bleeding," Arjun said, stepping closer, nodding to the dried blood at the corner of her mouth.
Kiran touched her lip absently and stared at her fingers, remembering how close she had come to death. She was healed now. The pain was gone. And with the power thrumming inside her, she felt strong.
Yet even though her body was no longer on the verge of collapse, what replaced it felt worse in a different way, an unfamiliar heaviness in her bones, like she no longer fit inside herself. Like something fundamental had changed, and she had not yet learned how to stand within it.
She knew she would need to retrain herself to adjust to the changes. She took a deep breath, then faced Arjun.
"I don't know," she said quietly. "I think I'm… okay."
At a slight distance from the three, Beast Boy stared at the calm horizon, then looked back at Kiran and swallowed hard. He turned subtly to Blue Beetle, who had landed beside him in silence. "Dude," he breathed. "Dude. What the hell was that?"
Blue Beetle's helmet retracted. Jaime's expression solemn. "I don't know. But, the scarab's freaking out," he said. "It keeps repeating: threat assessment—impossible. Over and over."
"I'm not a threat," Kiran snapped, the words coming out sharper than she meant. She didn't have the energy to be gentle. Not right now.
Stunned Priya and Arjun too turned their narrowed gazes towards Beast Boy and Blue Beetle.
"Not you." Jaime's lips twitched, startled that Kiran had heard their quiet words. He spoke quickly, gaze lifting to the empty sky where the manifestation had been. "I was talking about whatever came through you. The scarab's database has never seen anything like that. So, it's freaking out a bit."
Hearing that, Priya turned back to Kiran and lowered her voice. Doubt crept in. "Kiran… you called out to Lord Shiv. We all heard it on the comms. And then…" She gestured toward the calm ocean, toward the impossible absence of the wave. "But that wasn't the Destroyer from our stories. That was… something else."
"I know," Kiran whispered.
Arjun's eyes flicked to her hands. They were trembling, not from fear—more like aftershock.
"You're in shock," he said.
"I'm fine," Kiran shook her head.
"You're not," Arjun replied, his expression serious. "You need rest."
Before Kiran could respond, sirens wailed from a distance, reminding them that their assistance was still required.
Priya glanced that way once, then turned back to Kiran. "Alright. We can dissect this later. People still need help. There will be injuries from the panic. But, Solstice, I agree with Kala-Dhara. You need rest."
Kiran opened her mouth to respond, then closed it again. She steadied her breathing and nodded once. "Go," she said. "I'll rest a bit and then be right behind you."
Beast Boy shifted into a hawk and dove forward. Blue Beetle's armor sealed over his face as he lifted off. Priya reignited her flames and shot toward the sirens.
Arjun lingered, eyes still on Kiran. "You sure?"
Kiran met his gaze and nodded. "Yes. Go. People need help. I'm just tired, and I can still defend myself. That's enough for now."
Arjun nodded once, trusting her, then moved to lend a hand.
Kiran drew in a breath. Then another.
Her legs felt weak.
"Rest, huh?" She let out a wry breath and turned toward the now-calm ocean—the clearest sign yet that the enemy had pulled back. The smile drained from her face. Her hands curled into fists.
"Whoever you are," she said, voice low and steady, "prince, god, or demon… I'll find you."
A beat later, she added, "And I'll stop you."
She then sat down cross-legged. "Might as well use this time to examine myself." She closed her eyes and reached inward, tapping into her power.
About five hours later — Justice League comm channel — debriefing after the two Great Tide attacks
"…That's the end of my report," Jaime finished, with Gar nodding beside him as the last of their footage from India went dark.
Silence swallowed the virtual meeting.
Across the feed, heroes leaned back as if the air itself had thickened. League veterans, the magic division, the Titans, and even cleared personnel sat motionless—caught between disbelief and something closer to dread. Jaime's scarab stills were disturbing enough, but what unsettled them more was what wasn't there, sensor overlays crowded with warning boxes, blank telemetry, and repeated "ERROR" messages whenever the scarab tried to analyze the instant the "manifestation" struck the Great Tide.
They had witnessed Higher Realm power before—Orach, Orach's echo, and the handful of beings who descended during the invasions. A few had endured something rarer still, the pressure of Orach's mother—the Ancient Empress, Captain Gula's soul shard—on Themyscira. That memory had carved itself into them.
But this was different, even they could barely keep their composure now.
Around them, support staff went pale. Team Flash, Generals Swanwick and Lane, and WayneTech personnel with special clearance—Lucius Fox, Victor Freeze—were equally stunned. No one joked. No one theorized. Faced with power that felt absolute, language failed.
The irony was brutal, for the first time since the first Great Tide, they had finally won a real victory today.
At the Celtic Sea front, the new approach worked. They hit the Tide in disciplined waves—strike, withdraw, stabilize, strike again—until the corrupted wall finally buckled and collapsed. The Vindicators arrived mid-engagement. It hadn't been the plan, but their presence bought precious seconds to recover. The fight was still punishing—each major attack carved stamina and reserves down to the bone—but in the end, they held their ground.
Then, in the middle of the battle, the alert came through, another event was forming—this time in the Indian Ocean.
Panic landed fast. Multiple simultaneous Tides had always been on the table, but they did not expect it this soon, not with this kind of aggression. And while they understood the event on the other side was stronger, they couldn't abandon the Atlantic position. Even weakened, the corruption on their end still churned; pulling away risked a rebound catastrophe.
So they stayed, grim and guilty, holding the line off Europe while imagining what India was enduring without them.
Hours later, a message arrived that stunned them all, the Indian front had been "handled."
No one believed it at first—not until they reached the two Titans already in-country, Jaime and Gar.
And then they heard what happened during the debriefing.
At first, the report was almost encouraging. Agni's fire, especially, showed the same counter-corruption signature as Shazam's upgraded lightning. People leaned forward, already thinking about recruiting, analysis, replication, new tactics, and deployment.
Then the footage reached the moment the manifestation appeared.
And everything after that became… this.
Minutes passed before anyone could speak.
"Wh… what… what the hell are we dealing with?" Arsenal's voice finally broke the silence, trembling.
Bumblebee leaned in, expression grave. "Beetle—are you sure that girl… Solstice can be trusted?"
Miss Martian swallowed hard. "Yeah. If she can do that at will, and she turns… hostile… there's no winning against it."
On the feed, Jaime shook his head slowly. "I confirmed she can't reproduce it." He hesitated, then chose his words with care. "It wasn't her power. It was… something acting through her. An entity, lending aid by way of her."
He stopped—plainly weighing whether to say more.
Superman, Batman, Cheetah, and Batgirl all caught on and understood the implication at once.
Superman's expression hardened. "Jaime. Is there more?"
"I…" Jaime looked troubled but, after a moment, continued. "I don't know what it was. But if Solstice is to be believed…" He swallowed. "That was a god."
"A god?" Superman repeated, frowning.
Flash leaned forward, expression grim. "Could it have been another Higher Realm being? That manifestation looked like Orach's aura-body—the one he once used in his God form."
"Unlikely," Cheetah said, lifting her head from where she'd been massaging her temples. Her voice stayed controlled, but her eyes flickered with worry. "Higher Realm power presses on the world. There's always an environmental response—a pressure descending, reality distorting. It's a presence you feel in your bones." Her gaze returned to the frozen golden silhouette on-screen. "If something like that had descended, we would've felt it…. I would have felt it."
She paused, drew a breath, and chose her words carefully.
"But I felt nothing," she said, slower now, her gaze settling on the blurry silhouette beneath the error messages. "Whatever that is… it's like it was there and not there at the same time. Like it wasn't visiting creation rather… like it was an intrinsic part of it." Her voice turned grim. "Solstice's claim may have merit. We may be looking at a god… possibly tied to the God Realm Orach mentioned, and that my… nominal master hinted at. And a very powerful one."
Silence returned—heavier, and more complicated.
Superman broke it after a few breaths. "Even if we accept that… why her?" He expanded the still frame of Solstice on his screen. "What makes her important enough to draw that kind of attention?"
"And more importantly," Dinah added, "what does it want? We haven't exactly had good luck with gods."
Nobody needed to say Darkseid out loud.
Green Arrow nodded. "That's right. It could be an entity using her."
John Stewart cut in. "Do we have background on the girl—maybe a character profile?"
"We've reviewed everything Blue Beetle sent over," Miss Martian said. "It's clean."
Hal leaned forward. "I'd rather err on the side of caution. Power on that scale needs a thorough evaluation—and ongoing monitoring."
Zatanna's eyes flashed, her expression hardening. "You've got to be kidding. She's a kid with no record." She tapped the screen, voice tight with anger. "Look at what she did. She held the line against certain death to protect civilians. How is that different from any Titan? Isn't that the entire point of the Titans program—find young heroes early and help them grow into the responsibility?"
Laira's steady voice came through. "Zatanna's right. Every Titan—like any of us—has the capacity for catastrophic harm. Supergirl still struggles with control. Raven—" She exhaled once. "Raven is her father's child. We don't treat them like ticking bombs just because their ceiling is frightening. We train them, and we trust them to choose who they become."
Aquaman nodded once. "I'm against treating her as a danger, too. The girl did good. We need heroes like her—and the other two."
Cyborg's gaze stayed locked on Priya's footage. "I agree. Solstice aside, Agni's fire matters. That flame is a natural counter to the corruption—like Shazam's new lightning. I want it studied."
"I agree," Shazam chimed in, almost too eager. "And if the intel is right, we'll be dealing with Earth's gods soon. Having more allies with divine aspects on our side can only help when the calamity hits."
Cheetah nodded once her voice quiet but decisive. "All three are strong candidates. Bring them into the Titans program. Train them. Nurture them. If they're meant to become the next generation of champions, they need guidance—not just to master their powers, but to master themselves, no matter the pressure."
General Lane still didn't look convinced. "And if Solstice turns hostile—what then?" He met Cheetah's gaze without flinching. "Without Mr. Orach, we don't have a counter for that level of power. And we don't know when—or if—he'll return."
The room went still again. Orach's disappearance—and Supergirl's—still weighed on them. If not for this threat to their world, they would be out searching—not just for them, but for the missing-in-action Nightwing and Starfire. Still, they believed in their comrades—and in Orach's power to keep both himself and Supergirl safe until they found their way back.
Then Batman spoke, quiet and absolute. "Batgirl. You're the deputy leader of the Titans. Recruitment falls under your purview. It's your call."
All eyes shifted to her feed. She sat in a hotel room, fingers steepled, expression unreadable. She looked up, met Batman's gaze, then turned to Jaime and Gar.
"Do you trust the three?" she asked.
Jaime and Gar exchanged a glance, then nodded together.
"Yes," they said in unison.
Batgirl held their gaze a moment longer, then nodded once. She looked back to Batman, unflinching.
"I trust their judgment," she said. "I endorse inducting them into the Titans program."
Batman nodded. "Fine. I approve." His gaze swept the channel. "Let's move to vote."
One by one, the answers came in.
"I agree."
"Agreed."
"I have reservations," Superman said after a beat, "but we need the numbers. Agreed."
"I have reservations as well," John Stewart echoed. "But, agreed."
"Same," Hal said. "Agreed."
"Agreed," Flash.
"Agreed," Cyborg.
"Agreed," Shazam.
"Agreed," Zatanna.
The votes kept coming until the outcome was inevitable.
Cheetah spoke last. "Agreed." Then her gaze returned to Batgirl. "When it comes to training Solstice, call on me. I have a feeling only a cultivator like Wonder Woman… Raven… or me can guide her safely."
Batgirl blinked—caught off guard—then straightened as something clicked in her mind. She recovered quickly, nodding once.
"Understood," she said. "I'll meet them personally."
"Alright," Superman said, exhaling moving the agenda forward. "What about the other candidates?"
Batgirl nodded. "Flash and I met Fire and Ice. They agreed." She hesitated, then added, "I'm concerned about Ice—she's… a bit naive. But effective. With training on our tactics and protocols, both can be fast-tracked."
"I agree," Flash said. "They are rough around the edges. But possess real capability."
The votes followed quickly.
"Good," Superman said, scanning the list. "Then we're down to Vixen and the Wonder Twins."
"With John and my father holding the field—supported by Cheetah—I can leave with Lantern John to meet Vixen," Zatanna said.
John Constantine and Zatara nodded in agreement.
"We've got you, Zee," Constantine said.
"Go," Zatara added. "We'll hold the line."
"Then Miss Martian and I will follow up afterward to assess the Wonder Twins," Dinah said with a nod.
"Actually," Batgirl cut in, "there's been a change. I need Miss Martian with me. I'd like you to take Static—and, if possible, Lantern Laira—with you, Black Canary."
Dinah raised an eyebrow and glanced at Laira. Laira nodded once.
"Alright," Dinah said.
"Thank you," Batgirl replied, returning a brief nod.
J'onn spoke next, voice calm but edged with fatigue, eyes moving across the grid. "Alright. Today's engagement left everyone depleted, and we still need to keep monitoring the scene. With the recruitment plan settled for now, let's discuss what we learned."
Later, as the call began to disconnect and screens winked out one by one, Batgirl messaged Miss Martian privately.
Within minutes, Miss Martian was en route to pick her up.
And the Titans' deputy leader was already moving toward India.
Meanwhile in China — Forward Operating Base — Underground Bunker — Shandong Province
Ten figures sat around a round table, faces drawn and solemn after a day that had felt like a week.
On the surface, they were China's newest state-issued hero unit—the Great Ten, celebrated on screens across the nation for appearing "just in time" as the world faced a grave threat from the oceans.
In truth, each of them bore the weight of the divine decree from the Jade Emperor. They were champions of the Celestial Bureaucracy—agents of the Heavenly Court walking in the mortal realm.
At first, the government believed the Great Ten were under its command.
That belief however, didn't survive contact with reality.
Quietly and methodically, the Ten pushed the most ambitious officials aside, "corrected" the most stubborn, and tightened their grip on the government behind the scenes. The state still issued statements and held press conferences. The ministries still stamped documents.
But the real authority now sat in the hand of these ten.
At the center of the room, the tactical display did not show roads or borders. It showed spiritual degradation—a spreading bruise of dark violet radiating from Mount Tai.
A week ago, the corruption had accelerated so quickly it looked like the start of a total collapse.
Somehow, they'd contained it.
A perimeter ring nearly sixty-four kilometers wide now encircled Mount Tai and the poisoned foothills. It wasn't a single wall, but an integrated formation—built and maintained by four champions of the Great Ten.
Number Most Sacred, Fang Zhifu—blessed by Fuxi—first mapped the exact boundary where dead soil met living ground. Then he projected a localized spatial grid across the entire ring and anchored its fold-points through the logic of the Eight Trigrams. The result was a non-Euclidean loop: anything that tried to cross outward—whether by air or through the earth—was mathematically redirected inward, turned around again and again, forced back toward the mountain.
Shaolin Robot—a high-speed military automaton originally designed to patrol lethal red-zones—ran that perimeter with great speed. At every calculated coordinate, it drove heavy alloy containment rods deep into bedrock at precise five-hundred-meter intervals. Each rod housed a weatherproof, high-output subwoofer assembly. The machine linked the entire array through a closed local network, all of it routed through its own core.
It had not been built holy.
But it had become something close.
To give it ethical structure, its engineers had loaded it with the Buddhist Tripitaka. And when the corruption surged—when evacuation stalled, when mortals faltered—something ancient took notice. The Luohan gambled on the purity of unfeeling metal acting with selfless clarity, and a fragment of divine soul descended into the robot's processor, turning cold code into living scripture.
Yao Fei, the Accomplished Perfect Physician—blessed by Shennong—integrated his vocal modulators into Shaolin Robot's sound network. He recorded Shennong's purification and agricultural scripts into the system, establishing a baseline cleansing resonance along the ring. Shaolin Robot then automated a modulation loop, a constant subterranean thrum that shifted every millisecond, cycling through distinct scriptural wave-patterns faster than any biology could adapt.
And that mattered—because the corruption didn't merely spread.
It learned.
When the pathogen struck the acoustic mandala, it tried to mutate. But the frequency changed faster than it could rewrite itself, keeping the expansion in check.
For now.
Finally, Wu Mei-Xing, the Mother of Champions—blessed by Nüwa—secured the perimeter. The corruption warped wildlife first, animals driven mad by pain, briefly animated by something that wasn't life, hurling themselves at anything that moved. When whatever "soul" powered them burned out, they didn't stop. They simply became battering rams.
Wu Mei-Xing answered with earth. She condensed the surrounding soil into ten-foot terracotta sentinels—non-organic constructs without living tissue, immune to infection and soul-stripping. Shoulder to shoulder, they locked stone shields into an unbroken defensive wall, keeping corrupted beasts away from the rods and speakers.
Zhifu folded space.
Shaolin Robot carried the ring.
Yao Fei's scripts sterilized the boundary.
Wu Mei-Xing's constructs protected the hardware.
Together, they made a quarantine zone—half high-tech, half divine formation—holding back a disaster they still didn't know how to cure.
In the briefing room's center, a wall-sized monitor rendered Mount Tai's ley lines showing as veins of light overlaid with a spreading stain.
"The corruption is adapting to eighth-tier modulations," Shaolin Robot reported, voice flat. Micro‑sutras etched across its chassis caught the monitors' blue glare. Behind its optics, the Luohan‑fragment weighed binary probability against ancient spiritual geometry. "The northern-pass subwoofer array has cycled four thousand scriptural frequencies in the last six hours. Mutation rate has accelerated by 3.4%. It no longer retreats from the acoustic mandala. It is probing the gaps between pulses."
Yao Fei dropped a stack of digital slates onto the table. His eyes were bloodshot; his throat was raw from hours of calibration.
"It's matching our patterns," he muttered, dragging a hand down his face. "Shennong's mantras stabilize living matter. But this corruption isn't merely alive—it's an inversion of life." Disgust and awe tightened his stare. "Every time I shift the sonic frequencies, it rewrites its outer membrane. As it stands, we don't have a way to cure it. We're only teaching it."
"The physical line is holding," Wu Mei‑Xing said, exhaustion thinning her voice. Her skin carried the gray cast of illness, but Nüwa's creation‑spark still burned behind her eyes. "But the cost is unsustainable. My terracotta sentinels are shattering by the hundreds. The corrupted wildlife is getting stronger. They don't have souls left to strip, so they just throw themselves at the speakers."
She swallowed, then forced the next sentence through.
"If one subwoofer goes offline for even twelve seconds, Zhifu's geometric vacuum collapses. And if that happens…"
"Then we have a major problem," Socialist Red Eye, Yao Dan said, frowning—her cybernetic lens pulsing as it processed the data.
"Major problem?" Xu Tao barked a harsh laugh. His voice sharpened, almost feral. "That doesn't cover it. They're like zombies—until they finally drop. I'm thankful humans collapse and die instead of turning. If people transformed the way the animals do, we'd be staring at an actual apocalypse."
It hadn't been long ago that Xu Tao was a street kid in Tai'an—brilliant, quick, a lookout for an underground crew. When corruption first seeped down the mountain, a pack of strays—after eating tainted fruit—became ravenous husks and trapped his gang in a collapsed warehouse. Running for his life, he broke into a sealed museum vault and snatched an old jade bow no one had ever been able to string.
The moment his fingers closed around the grip, Houyi recognized desperation honed into lethal focus.
The bow strung itself with pure solar light—choosing a thief to shoot down the dark.
Number Most Sacred didn't look up from his screen. His fingers twitched through a waterfall of probability lines.
"The models are clear," Fang Zhifu said quietly. He didn't blink. "Absolute systemic failure in forty-eight hours. If we don't have a solution by then, we're looking at an outbreak."
Silence settled over the Great Ten.
Then Yang Kei‑Ying—Seven Brothers in One—snorted, contempt thick in the sound. "Ha. Those damn gods should descend and do their jobs."
His eyes reddened as memory surged.
He had been one of seven identical brothers born to a poor farming family on the plains of Shandong. When corruption reached their village, infected animals swept through like a plague with teeth. Six brothers stacked their bodies over the youngest to shield him. Even their dog fought until it, too, broke and turned.
After Shaolin Robot rescued the survivors, Yang had wept over his ruined home.
And the brothers of Nezha had answered.
They bound the souls of the six dead brothers to the surviving seventh. Now Yang could split into seven bodies—carrying the skills, lives, and memories of a brotherhood that had died to save him.
The gift didn't feel like mercy.
It felt like a reminder.
"What good are gods?" Yang spat. "They sit in their palaces drinking immortal wine while mortals suffer and die. Why are we fighting their battles while they hide in their domain?"
"Yang—" Wu Mei began, the familiar steadiness in her voice.
"Sister Wu, I can't—" Anger finally surged past his respect for her. "Why must mortals fight this? They're gods. So why don't they protect us?"
Wu Mei's expression tightened—troubled, not offended.
Thundermind, Zou Kang, answered with measured firmness. "I understand your pain. But be careful. These are gods you're insulting. Surely there are laws—reasons that prevent them from—"
"Spare us the preaching, Zou," Yao Fei cut in, irritation flashing. "Do you still think you're a teacher? You may be older, but you're not above us. We're equals here—all champions."
Zou Kang had once been a humble history teacher in Jinan, known for an unyielding moral compass. When corruption threatened his school, he stood at the gates with nothing but a prop guandao from the drama department, buying his students time against charging beasts.
Guan Yu's spirit had approved.
Lei Gong had lent him thunder.
He hadn't merely survived—he had shattered what came for them.
"And why stop Yang?" Yao Fei continued, bitter. "He's right. The gods don't care. They drink, they watch, and they let mortals bleed."
Yang's expression darkened. He turned and pointed—straight at Wu Mei.
"And if they cared," he said, voice trembling with fury, "why don't they heal her?"
Wu Mei stiffened.
"Sister Wu is dying. They chose her anyway. Why? Why make her toil for them—fight their war—while she runs out of time?"
"Little brother—" Wu Mei tried, gentle.
A fist slammed into the table.
"Enough."
Chen Nag—the Immortal Man in Darkness—stood, his solemn gaze silencing the room by force of will alone. His eyes swept each face, then settled on Yang.
"What matters is not what the gods want," Chen said, low and final. "What matters is that we end this threat." His tone hardened. "Do not derail us with this again."
Then, after a breath, his expression softened—only slightly.
"But I also know doubt rots a team from the inside," Chen continued. "If your minds aren't settled, you won't operate at full strength." He glanced at Shaolin Robot. "So I'll answer you the only way I can."
He nodded once.
"Show them."
Shaolin Robot's eyes flashed, then it obeyed—pulling up Chen's encrypted investigation folder.
Chen Nag had been an elite forensic investigator for the Ministry of State Security, specialized in occult crimes and metahuman anomalies. During the first Mount Tai incidents, he'd uncovered something feeding souls into the ground like fuel. His team had been torn apart. He alone survived—bitten and contaminated.
In the hospital, experimental treatments failed. His body began to hollow into a living husk.
And as he hovered between death and corruption, Zhong Kui descended into his mind—grafting underworld smoke over the infected parts of his flesh, trapping him between life, death, and rot.
He was immortal now—but only because he couldn't truly die—condemned to endure, carrying a ceaseless sting in his soul.
After becoming one of the Ten, Chen hunted answers in ancient fragments, cross-referencing what he could recover against the Luohan knowledge embedded in Shaolin Robot. Piece by piece, a disturbing narrative emerged about an ancient divine war.
One that made his stomach turn whenever he thought of the Indian subcontinent.
Now, as the monitors displayed his hypothesis, shock rippled through the room—then tightened into grim solemnity.
Yao Dan spoke first, clipped. "How sure are you?"
"Eighty to ninety percent," Chen said, leaning back.
"Explains a lot," Zhifu muttered.
Wu Mei nodded slowly, eyes shadowed. "No wonder the gods don't descend," she said. "They dare not."
Xu Tao gave a hollow laugh. "If this is real, then the gods are nothing but losers—cowards before the strong, tyrants over the weak."
Hu Li Jing—the Ghost Fox Killer—spoke at last, voice controlled. "True or not, it doesn't change what we have to do."
Born on the southern coast near the edges of the spiritual realms, her clan was wiped out when a localized corruption surge swept through their valley in the aftermath of the first Great Tide. Though she escaped as the only survivor, she was drained and injured—and later died at the hands of criminals. Her soul, heavy with rage and regret, refused to pass on. Yanluo Wang bound her spirit into a fox-body and sent her back as a weapon with a mission: hunt the architects of her family's death.
"We don't need to worry about the gods," Wu Mei said quietly. "Not right now. What matters is stopping the corruption poisoning our land."
"Speaking of," Fang Zhifu said, leaning forward, "you all need to see this."
He tapped his screen and pulled up global reports: one Great Tide at the border of the Celtic Sea, and another striking India's southern tip in the Indian Ocean.
"While we were busy," he said, "the world endured two more attacks."
They watched the League's footage first. Expressions shifted from grim to stunned. Some of the Ten even rose—unable to stay seated as the Justice League's power—discipline, scale, ruthlessness—forced the Great Tide back.
"Powerful," Chen said softly, face grave. "I knew they were strong. I didn't expect this."
Xu Tao's bravado drained away. "Yeah. I thought… after we awakened, we could rival them." His jaw tightened. "Not like this."
"We underestimated them," Yao Dan admitted.
"Yes," Wu Mei said, troubled. "But look—the corruption is faltering. The Tide is breaking." Her voice dropped. "They found a way to counter it."
Yao Fei's eyes narrowed. "Those attacks cannot be allowed to reach our shores. If something like that hits here…" His gaze cut to Mount Tai's pulsing wireframe. "We'd be inviting them to destroy the mountain."
Clap.
Zhifu brought his hands together once—sharp, a command for focus.
"That's why I'm showing you this," he said, and switched feeds again.
Indian news channels.
There was no clear combat footage from Kanyakumari—but the light was unmistakable. From far away, cameras had caught a vast golden manifestation on the horizon. A beam. Then the Great Tide vanished as if it had been unmade.
"What… in the name of heaven…" someone breathed.
"What is that silhouette?" another whispered.
Alarm rippled through the room.
Zhifu turned carefully to Chen. "Immortal… is that figure connected to your hypothesis? A Hindu entity?"
Chen's expression tightened. "No." He shook his head slowly. "If my research is right, they don't descend. And certainly not like that."
He looked to Shaolin Robot. "Your assessment?"
"Low probability," Shaolin Robot replied. "Additionally, our satellite instrumentation cannot resolve the energy reading. The signature exceeds scan capacity."
"Wait," Yao Dan cut in, red lens pulsing brighter. "There's something more useful than a silhouette we can't even capture clearly." She brought up a frame‑by‑frame overlay. "Look at the scans before the golden figure appears."
The feed rewound.
A black wall of corrupted water slammed into India's coast—and did not breach. Bedrock rose into narrow choke points, channeling the surge. Then came the golden photokinesis: precise, angular, like a lens array built out of light.
Zhifu stared at the vectors. "The light is traveling in perfect lines," he muttered. "It's as if the water's molecular resistance is dropping to zero. How—"
Then the thermal spike hit.
Priya's atmospheric fire blanket fell over the channels.
In Yao Fei's eyes, the violet corruption signatures on the screen didn't seemed like it faded. Instead as they seemed to cleanly dissolve.
"A perfect harmonic purge," Yao Fei whispered, voice trembling with awe—and envy. He looked up, eyes fever‑bright. "The photokinetic girl functions like a geometric lens. The thermal wielder provides a localized subatomic reset—breaking the corruption down to the fundamental level and destroying it."
"We need that frequency," Yao Dan said, lens flaring. "If we capture their energetic signatures, Zhifu can map the wave‑functions. We can replicate the purge here." Urgency sharpened her voice. "We can save the heart of the Middle Kingdom."
"They are sovereign champions of a neighboring nation," Thundermind warned, divine honor weighing each word. "And don't forget—they could be agents of their gods, same as us."
"Then we maneuver carefully," Zhifu replied coldly, projecting his model again—mutation curves crossing the threshold of total domestic collapse. "Mount Tai is the anchor of heaven and earth. We have forty‑eight hours." He tapped the timeline. "We cannot act openly hostile. That would read as war."
He leaned back, eyes like ice.
"So we use diplomatic channels. The Ministry of State Security invites them as guests. Officially. Respectfully. Firmly." His voice dropped. "If their powers naturally counter corruption, then we need their help."
"And if they refuse?" Ghost Fox asked quietly. "Or if India refuses to release them? China–India relations have been… strained."
Brows furrowed. They all understood this was the residue of old egos, old borders, old resentment.
But they also remembered invasions from the stars—how nations had joined hands when extinction loomed.
And now, with China's leadership effectively under their control, they could shape the board.
"We can't let politicians ruin this," Wu Mei said, voice turning serious. "If we had time, the UN would be the proper route. Since we don't." She met their eyes. "Order the diplomats to give way. Offer concessions. Apply leverage. Whatever it takes. We need them here before time runs out."
Chen nodded once. "Agreed."
Then he added—quieter, and far more dangerous—"But if they still refuse… we can ask forgiveness later."
"You mean kidnap them?" Zou Kang snapped. "That would be a diplomatic nightmare."
"So what?" Xu Tao shot back. "We're out of time. They have what we need." His mouth twisted. "I say we expose their cleansing ability to the world. Let global pressure crush India's refusal. They'll have to help."
"No."
Wu Mei's voice cut through the room.
For the first time, chill entered her gaze as she stared at Xu Tao.
"Listen to me, Tao." Her words were slow, absolute. "We are not gangsters. And neither are you—not anymore. We do not operate like that."
The room went still.
"And if their power is divine," Wu Mei continued, quieter but sharper, "do you really want to risk provoking whatever stands behind it—especially if Chen's hypothesis is even half true?" Her eyes narrowed. "We start with diplomacy. We should trust in humanity."
Silence fell over the chamber.
Then Chen let out a long, weary sigh.
"Wu Mei, don't strain yourself," he said gently. "I respect your views. I do." His tone hardened again. "But we're on a countdown and nearly out of options."
He looked around the table.
"So here's my proposal. We lead with diplomacy—but we keep a covert contingency in reserve. We send an official delegation to negotiate." His gaze moved to Yang, then Yao Dan, then the others. "At the same time, we deploy a small team alongside them.
"If India can't—or won't—produce the girls, we find them ourselves. If they won't come willingly, we apply pressure. And if they still refuse…" He let the silence do the work. "Then we decide for them. We bring them here—and we ask forgiveness later."
"I agree," Yao Dan said coldly. "Two lives to save a billion souls. There's no comparison."
Wu Mei's jaw tightened.
After a long moment, she shook her head. "I understand your logic," she said softly. "But I can't support it. I can't be part of this."
"Neither can I," Zou Kang said, steady. "They look like honorable defenders. I won't sign off on taking them by force."
A heavy quiet followed—because everyone understood both sides, and understanding didn't make the choice easier.
At last, Zhifu spoke.
"Then we have a plan." He turned to Shaolin Robot. "Initiate the diplomatic invitation. Apply every ounce of political and economic leverage we have on New Delhi. We need those girls here."
He looked at Chen, Yang, and Yao Dan.
"You three go."
They exchanged glances, then nodded.
Wu Mei and Zou Kang bowed their heads and closed their eyes as the mission details finalized—because even if they refused to endorse it, the clock did not care, and neither did Mount Tai. And when all was said and done, their hearts would choose their nation anyway.