The effect was instantaneous and profound.

The Primordial One’s hand halted its motion completely.

Slowly, unnervingly, her head turned to regard the Goddess of Equivalent Exchange, who visibly crumpled further under the intensified focus but doggedly pressed her advantage.

"She oversees his mission in the mortal world! Their relationship, once rocky, is now strong! She has even given him her blessing!"

The Goddess’s eyes suddenly lit up with inspiration as she announced,

"She is also going to be the godmother of his future child!"

Shock jolted through Lumiel. She knows about that?

And she’s spending that favor now...to save me?

And what shocked her even more was the fact that, the outstretched hand withdrew a fraction!

The mere name ’Luca’ had made the Sovereign of all Creation pause!

Seizing the fragile opening, the Goddess of Equivalent Exchange bowed until her forehead nearly touched the floor.

"I implore you to let them go. Not for our sake, but for his! Would it not grieve him to find his chosen companion erased and replaced?"

"So please, for Luca’s sake, grant them mercy!"

Lumiel wondered if this was really going to work.

Even a Goddess of the caliber of her own sister, who was so much more powerful than her had to cast herself at the Primordial One’s feet.

The entity had barely acknowledged her existence, treating her like an ant, just like the rest of the Goddesses out there.

For her to actually acknowledge a mortal out there just seemed so unlikely.

Especially Vera, who had already signed her own death warrant in her mind.

She thought for sure that she was going to pass away right now.

She felt so much regret, so much despair, because she wanted to do so many things that she would never get to do.

But to her utter bafflement, it actually worked!.

The hands that were extended out slowly started to pull away.

They settled down next to the Primordial One’s body, almost as if the finger on the trigger had finally been released.

The Primordial One had decided not to make a move!

The moment Vera noticed this, she completely collapsed.

Tears streamed down her face, but she didn’t even dare to make a noise. She just silently cried to herself, her body wracked with silent sobs.

Lumiel felt an overwhelming sense of relief wash over her.

She saw the entire world in a completely new light now that she had received a second chance at existence.

The Goddess of Equivalent Exchange also felt a massive relief deep in her heart.

She herself had gambled right now, and she hadn’t known if using Luca’s name would either get all three of them killed instantly or work out in their favor.

But it seemed as if it had actually worked.

The Primordial One apparently didn’t want to harm anyone who was close to Luca.

She felt as if a massive burden had been lifted from her shoulders—

But then the pressure suddenly increased even more!

BOOM!

It intensified so dramatically that both Vera and Lumiel smashed themselves against the ground.

They couldn’t lift a single bone in their bodies. They felt as if they were being crushed, forced to grit their teeth against the overwhelming weight pressing down on them.

Even the Goddess of Equivalent Exchange herself was on the floor now, prostrating before the Primordial One.

And then a voice came...

It was devoid of emotions, almost as if it had come from the depths of chaos itself

A voice that carried the weight of eternity and the promise of annihilation.

"This better be the last time you dare to use his name to threaten me...or else."

The moment the words were uttered, blood started coming from all three of their noses and dripping onto the ground.

Lumiel and Vera were shocked!

They were Goddesses who ruled over the world. They didn’t have mortal bodies at all.

Bleeding like this should have been impossible for them.

But despite all of that, they felt blood leaking from their noses right now just from hearing those simple words alone.

The Goddess of Equivalent Exchange immediately nodded her head frantically.

"Yes, my lady!" She said, her voice trembling with genuine fear, "I wouldn’t dare use such tricks against you. I swear it on my very existence!"

Finally, the pressure subsided a little bit. The crushing weight lifted just enough for them to breathe again.

And then, click-clack, click-clack—the sound of footsteps echoed through the room.

But this time, the Primordial One was slowly walking away. She seemed to have lost all interest in this mess, as if it was beneath her concern.

Lumiel felt such overwhelming relief that she wanted to turn her head and thank her sister so much.

Without her, her life would have definitely been lost.

She slowly began to turn her head, her body still trembling with residual fear—

And that’s when she caught a glimpse of one of the mirrors in Vera’s bedroom.

It was set at an angle where, despite her face being pressed against the floor, she could actually see a faint reflection.

The image was blurry, distorted, like a world seen through water. Everything was muted shades of grey and black, as if the very concept of color had been drained from the reflection.

But despite the blurriness, she could actually see the Primordial One’s face.

The first thing that came to her mind was purity.

Complete, absolute, unblemished purity.

The Primordial One looked like she was the Incarnation of Purity itself.

Her long, straight hair flowed down gracefully, and it was pure pristine white of freshly fallen snow.

Her skin itself was so white that it seemed transparent and hollow, almost as if you could see through her.

But not in the sense that she was unhealthily pale.

Instead, she seemed as if her skin just had no impurities at all.

No blemishes. No imperfections. Just a flawless, radiant white.

The robes that she wore, loosely hanging over her body, were as white as snow.

They seemed to glow with a soft, internal light, as if they were woven from moonlight itself.

The only thing that was not white was her lips, which were a faint pinkish color, the palest blush, like cherry blossoms in early spring.

And her horns. Curved atop her head, giving her a demonic appeal that was at odds with her ethereal beauty.

They were white as well, as if carved from bone and looked like they had always been there, since before the concept of ’bone’ existed.

That was the sense of pureness Lumiel felt at the moment.

Unblemished. Untouched. Set apart from the rest of the universe, which now seemed so dirty to her. So tainted. So flawed.

Even Heavenly Realm, the realm she had called home for eons suddenly felt disgusting.

Compared to the Primordial One, it was a cesspool of imperfection.

It was in that moment, Lumiel realized what it meant to be so absolutely ravishing that it literally made her unable to think or breathe.

She just stared at the reflection in a daze, her mind empty, her heart racing.

But she stared too long.

The Primordial One stopped.

She turned her head.

And she looked straight at Lumiel.

Through the mirror. Through the distance. Through the veil of reality itself.

Their eyes met!

Lumiel saw the Primordial One’s eyes—pale, grey, irises devoid of any colour.

Just endless, empty grey. Like the sky before the first sunrise. Like the void before the first thought.

And the moment they made eye contact—

BOOM!

A flood of images crashed through Lumiel’s mind.

She was no longer in Vera’s chamber.

She was everywhere!

She was at the birth of the cosmos, watching as the universe tore itself apart in a cataclysmic explosion of light and energy.

She saw the first stars ignite, the first galaxies spiral into existence, the first planets cool and form.

She saw the Heavenly Axiom, the fundamental law that governed all of existence spread across the cosmos like a web of golden light.

She saw everything. And it was too much.

Her eyes began to flash. She felt as though her mind was being torn apart, stretched thin across the fabric of spacetime.

A million visions. A billion voices. An infinity of moments, all crammed into her skull at once.

She thought she would lose her mind.

Then—

CRACK!

The Goddess of Space grabbed her head and smashed it against the ground.

The visions stopped.

Lumiel’s vision swam. She tasted blood as her forehead hit the floor.

But the pressure in her mind receded, the flood of images fading like a nightmare upon waking.

The Goddess of Space bowed her own head, her hands trembling. She prayed deeply in her heart—prayed that the one before her did not take offense.

For a long, agonizing moment, nothing happened.

Then, the Primordial One gave one last glance.

A look so cold and indifferent that it could have frozen the sun.

And then she turned away.

And vanished, as if she had never been here at all.

The room, which had been grey and black and devoid of life, slowly began to revert.

Color seeped back into the walls, into the furniture, into the air itself.

The pressure that had been crushing them lifted, slowly, like a fog dissipating in the morning sun.

"Haaah—! Haah—! Haaaaah—!"

Lumiel and Vera lay on the ground, gasping for breath.

They heaved like dogs that had run for miles, their chests rising and falling in frantic, uneven rhythms.

The air tasted sweet, so sweet because it was air and they could breathe it.

The Goddess of Equivalent Exchange, who also realized that they had survived, let out a big sigh of relief. She slowly stood up, her legs trembling slightly, before pulling up her sister as well.

The moment Lumiel looked up with her teary eyes at her sister, she couldn’t hold it anymore.

Tears immediately started forming on her face. Her expression contorted into a look of sadness and grief, and she jumped into her sister’s embrace.

"Big Sis!" She wailed, burying her face in her sister’s deep, massive cleavage. "I-I was scared! I was so scared! I thought I was going to die!"

She sobbed uncontrollably, her words muffled by the soft flesh of her sister’s breasts.

"I thought I was going to disappear forever! I thought everyone would forget me...that no one would even remember I had ever existed!"

"I thought my entire existence was going to be erased forever!"

She clutched her sister even tighter, her fingers digging into the fabric of her robes.

"Thank you, Big Sis! T-Thank you for saving me!"

She had completely lost all dignity of a Goddess in that moment and she just seemed like a little sister crying in her older sister’s embrace after suffering through something traumatizing.