She then, by nature and curiosity, began to control what that being did, and when the Gamer used a spell to delay time in the Resonance.

Lilithine could then feel the Gamer’s energy, clear and unmistakable.

In that short delay, she remembered Haru teaching her to knock on doors to escape. Haru smiling at her. Haru calling her Lilith.

"It’s clearly him..." the voice said in her head, no longer mocking, just confirmation.

"It can’t be..." Lilithine thought, unwilling to believe it.

"I can’t lie to you, Lilithine. Remember my curse? I can only speak the truth."

Haru and Genius ran towards the horizon, jumping platforms, time returning to normal.

"They won’t get there..." Lilithine thought.

"I have to help..."

She looked at the mental voice.

"Lend me your strength..."

The voice smiled, the sensation was warm in her mind.

"You don’t need to ask, Lilithine... Especially since..."

Lilithine then intervened in the Resonance, celestial power bent the rules of sacred space, she broke them, didn’t destroy them, only... moved them.

A platform appeared below as Haru and Genius ran, gliding through the void, fitting their trajectories.

And when they jumped...

She fitted them onto that platform and carried them to the horizon, throwing them out of the Resonance.

Lilithine knelt, exhausted.

"Especially since..." the voice continued, smiling, "...the heavens have rotted. And the prophecy has been fulfilled. Just as it said."

Lilithine was the first angel to lose her light in the heavens.

Her Light went out, replaced by darkness and spreading corruption.

When she looked, the heavens were corrupting from her, black stains expanding like ink in water.

"What have I done...?" She whispered before fainting...

The Priest stopped focusing on Seline, looking at the corrupting sky.

The heavens were too rotten, gold turning black, angels losing their shine one by one.

Gamers began to be released, chains disappearing, platforms vanishing.

They ran to escape.

Some couldn’t, for they were too weak, drained, fallen.

Seline ran too, with the Codex Veritas in her hands, leaping towards the horizon.

When she looked behind her...

The Priest didn’t stop staring at her, while the heavens fell, while everything collapsed, but he didn’t chase her.

He just stood there, watching the Resonance crumble, watching saints fall from the sky like dying stars.

And in the center of it all... Lilithine falling unconscious.

Holiness destroyed... by a boy who called her Lilith.

<>

Haru and Genius fell out of the Resonance, landing hard on the ground, rolling.

They lay there for a while, breathing heavily, their bodies aching.

Silence, and then... they started laughing.

They got up and started running, laughing loudly, adrenaline still coursing through their veins.

Genius laughed even louder than Haru:

"TOKYO! WE GLITCHED A RESONANCE! HOLY SHIT, WE GLITCHED IT!"

"Son of a bitch, I almost died! Hahahaha!"

"WE ARE SPAWN POINT!" Genius shouted to the sky.

The two fell silent.

"What kind of shitty name is that, Haru? Couldn’t you think of another name?"

"I didn’t even name it!" Haru replied. "I don’t remember naming it... Actually, I thought ’nobody goes back to the spawn point,’ and the moment I said ’spawn point’ coincided with me touching your hand. So the system must have understood that..."

"We’ll change it later..." Genius said. "Let’s just hand this over to Flavius. I’m tired."

They ran to get out of there as quickly as possible.

They started climbing the stairs, three at a time, hands on the walls for support.

"It’s calm..." Haru thought. "I think everyone got out of here..."

When they got outside... They were faced with too much destruction.

"What the hell happened here...?"

They stopped for a moment to observe the field:

Craters. Bodies. Blood. Collapsed walls. Burnt trees. The smell of burning and death.

They started walking slowly, stepping on rubble.

"Maybe there’s some loot left for us..." Genius murmured.

Genius’s HUD marked a body with loot. Then another. And another. And another.

"Man... it’s full of loot!"

Haru saw that scene, was happy, but with a pang in her heart. "And in the end... we’re loot for others..."

"Is everything alright?" Genius asked, noticing the pause.

"Sure... let’s grab the loot and get out of here before things get messy."

They ran to the body of a Gamer, a masked woman, broken armor, still holding a sword.

System notification.

```

[LOOT AVAILABLE]

◊ XP: 3000

◊ Gold: 450

◊ Items: Iron Gauntlets (damaged)

```

"I think we’ll split it..." Genius said.

"By the way, how do you split it?" Haru asked.

"Do we need something special? Squad configuration?" Haru kept asking and talking and talking...

Until she noticed that Genius had become too calm.

"What’s going on...?" Haru asked slowly.

When Haru turned to Genius... she looked at his face, and it looked like she had seen a ghost.

"Tokyo..." his voice trembling. "...we must escape now."

"What...?" Haru looked where Genius was looking.

On the roof of a building was a man in golden armor, squeezing a Gamer’s neck with one hand, her body hanging off.Legs kicking in the air.

**CRACK.** broke Gamer’s (Blandina’s) neck.

He dropped the body, which fell three stories, hitting the ground without moving.

"Good! There are two of us, we can finish him off..."

Genius grabbed Haru hurriedly, pulling him back.

"What! We can..."

"We can’t!" Genius whispered desperately. "That’s a warrior in golden armor! We’re not on his level! Let’s run before he sees us!"

No sooner had Genius finished speaking... Eugen was already ahead of them.

Not running, not jumping. Just... there.

"I think it was good to have you as a duo..." Genius murmured, trembling.

"Is the guy really that dangerous?!"

For the first time, Haru saw Genius afraid. Considering everything they had seen so far, everything they had faced, Genius was genuinely scared.

This was indeed dangerous.

"No one will die..." Haru murmured to Genius and took a step forward.

"When this guy appeared in front of us... it didn’t even seem like he had moved..." Haru thought, staring. "It was as if he had already been there."

Eugen’s golden armor was marked with blood, splatters on his chest plate, stains on his greaves. An eerily calm aura, no anger, no emotion, just absolute efficiency.

Eugen watched them in silence, his T-helmet gleaming, his heavy breathing echoing.

"I could swear I felt a wave of Resonance here..." he thought. "These two were the first to get out of there..."

Then he asked, his voice distorted by the helmet: "And who would you be?"

"Gamers. Lower Maestro Tier 1. Squad Spawn Point... newly formed." Genius said, shitting himself with fear.

Eugen looked. "...bad name." Grabbing his sword and slowly raising it.

`

`[GENIUS]: On three we escape, Haru!

``

Haru took a step forward, ignoring the message.

"Nobody needs to die here."

Eugen tilted his head slightly, interested.

"Interesting."

The eyes behind the armor focused on Haru.

"You have good energy..."

Genius was already mentally preparing his escape, routes, wreckage, where to use Kimyo, and everything seemed ineffective.

```

[GENIUS]: Tokyo... he killed entire Squads single-handedly...

```

Eugen began to walk slowly, his steps heavy and metallic.

"If you were the first to escape the Resonance... that means you at least have the Codex/Veritas."

"It’s not with us." Haru replied.

"Liar..."

Eugen’s HUD glowed, scanning.

```

[PLAYER ANALYSIS]

◊ Name: ??? ◊ Squad: Spawn Point

◊ HP: 89%

◊ Mana: 1547

◊ Name: ??? ◊ Squad: Spawn Point

◊ HP: 78%

◊ Mana: 764

```

Eugen continued walking.

"I see you’re exhausted."

"...so you really depend on him..."

"Hmm?" Eugen didn’t understand.

Haru slowly opened his hand, not aggressively, just a subtle movement.

✧♅ HUD DESYNC ♅✧

Nothing exploded, nothing flashed, there was no visual effect, no sound.

And then...

Eugen saw Haru’s stats begin to rise.

```

[...]

◊ HP: 12% > 34% > 67% > 89% > 156%

◊ Mana: 1547 > 3204 > 7891 > 15,443 > 29,776

```

The numbers were so numerous, rising so fast that they obscured his vision.

Eugen stepped back, purely by instinct.

"Damn... the guy has a skill to conceal strength!? Who is this!?"

He stood there frozen, for the first time since entering the Cathedral. But the numbers didn’t stop; there were so many that they completely obscured his vision.

```

ERROR ERROR ERROR

MANA: 1,245,667 8,903,221 > ∞

HP: 4,512% > 89,034% > ∞∞∞

THREAT LEVEL: ■■■■■■■■■■

```

"What!?" Eugen exclaimed in astonishment.

His vision was obscured by the sheer number of errors, nothing but distortion.

He turned off the HUD, blinking rapidly. And when it returned to normal, Haru and Genius weren’t there.

When Eugin looked around, he saw them running towards the wall.

"STOP!" he shouted, drawing his sword and slashing in a burst of light.

The cathedral wall ahead split open in a perfect cut, stones falling, dust rising.

Genius and Haru froze, ten meters from the cut.

``

[GENIUS]: Tokyo... whatever you did, it went wrong.

``

"Whoever moves... dies."

Eugen approached them, sword still raised, point aimed.

"You saw something wrong, didn’t you?" Haru said too calmly.

"I need to show this guy... that I can be a threat." Haru thought. "Alpha only respects Alpha."

He disobeyed the order and moved, looking at Eugen.

Haru pulled down his hood and mask, revealing his full face.

A clear act of someone who has nothing to lose. Willing to do anything.

Genius didn’t know what to do; he’s good at many things, but not at improvising.

"This guy isn’t stronger than me..." Eugen thought, "...but he could make me make the wrong mistake."

Eugen remained silent, because he saw.

"Veterans survive because they trust the system’s readings." Haru thought, keeping his gaze fixed.

Eugen immediately began recalculating and turned on the HUD.

The HUD corrected itself.

```

[ERROR CORRECTED]

◊ HP: 89%

◊ Mana: 1547

```

Haru smiled, because the goal was only to create that hesitation.

Eugen now looked at Haru differently, no longer as prey.

As an unknown threat.

"You..." Eugen said slowly, "...hacked my HUD?"

Genius was shocked.

"WAIT, YOU!? WHAT!?"

Haru ignored him, focusing on Eugen.

"If I can affect your HUD..." he paused, "...imagine what happens if I touch your armor."

"That’s a lie," Haru thought. "I wouldn’t be fast enough to catch him." "Still."

But Eugen didn’t know, and more importantly: Eugen was intelligent. So he realized something immediately:

"If this guy can really interfere with the system... fighting near him without information is suicide."

Eugen began to laugh softly, not mockingly, but with interest.

"Finally..."

"...an interesting Gamer."

He started walking.

"...huh?" Genius thought, confused.

"Not today." Eugen said, walking and sheathing his sword.

"You’re too weak."

He stopped for a moment, without turning around. "But next time... I want to see how far this hack works."

And then he left through the opening he made in the wall, disappearing into the night...

Genius remained in absolute silence.

Then he slowly turned to Haru, who was already wearing his hood again.

"...you were bluffing, weren’t you?"

Haru started walking, her legs trembling slightly.

"...80%."

"HOLY SHIT, TOKYO!" Genius exploded. "WHAT’S GOING ON!? LIKE, WHAT WAS ALL THAT!?"

Haru wanted to answer, but he just fell to the side and passed out...

"Damn it, Tokyo!!!..." Genius’s voice grew fainter and fainter.

...

...

and when he opened his eyes he was in the neon void... and in front of him Chronia was staring at him with a smile.