Chapter 6
Magnus stepped out into the cool evening air, the city's neon skyline reflecting faintly across his irises like constellations folded into human form. To anyone watching, he seemed perfectly normal, tall, composed, unhurried. But beneath that calm façade was a tension he carried like a second skin. For someone who had commanded galaxies and rewritten celestial mechanics with a gesture, trying to practice something as deceptively simple as "interacting with people" was more challenging than any battlefield he had ever crushed.
It wasn't fear. It wasn't even awkwardness. It was calibration.
Every step he took, every breath, every subtle shift of expression required conscious restraint. He could feel the ambient psychological echoes of those around him, the micro-fluctuations in dopamine, the invisible tremors of cortisol, the shifting patterns of predictive processing inside their minds. Humans operated through a complex interplay of inherited behavioral algorithms: instinctive survival biases, tribal grouping tendencies, cognitive shortcuts, social bonding impulses. To Magnus, all of these were visible streams, like lines of code running in real time.
And that was precisely the problem.
After living for millions of years, longer than any civilization, longer than some stars, Magnus's mind had evolved beyond biological constraints. His cognition operated at a scale where human psychology felt as fragile and rigid as glass. Even a careless smile from him could accidentally trigger trust responses, activating oxytocin pathways too strongly. A casual glance could misalign someone's adrenaline levels. His presence alone could impose dominance hierarchies without him intending it, because the mind, primitive, patterned, predictable, recognized him as something overwhelmingly higher on the chain of survival.
The hardest part was the perception field around him, something he had developed out of necessity centuries ago. A passive aura that stabilized the way others interpreted him. Without it, humans saw too much: shapes behind his skin, fractal distortions of cosmic geometry, glimpses of a being that existed outside linear time. Their minds would try to translate what they perceived using primitive templates, predator, deity, anomaly, and shatter under the conflict.
But the field was imperfect. Like all adaptive systems, it required constant maintenance.
And today, Magnus was attempting something he hadn't done in a long time: interacting without relying entirely on that field, trying to experience people more directly. Trying to… fit.
He approached a small bookstore café, the kind of place where human noise softened into gentle patterns, pages turning, cups clinking, heartbeat rhythms mingling in an uncoordinated but comforting chorus. As he reached for the door, he forced himself to rehearse what most people did automatically.
Blink less slowly. Don't track all sound sources. Don't predict speech before they speak. Smile—no, reduce the curvature by three percent. Humans get unsettled otherwise.
This, for Magnus, was the true battlefield.
The challenge was not his power, it was how that power altered his perception of humanity. When one can manipulate neural excitation with a thought, or rewrite someone's latent behavioral tendencies by aligning their limbic response cycles, the line between interaction and influence becomes razor-thin. The ethical calculus of every moment became exhausting.
He opened the door.
Warm light brushed against his skin. Conversations buzzed softly. And yet Magnolia of power—Omega, the creator-destroyer, the being who had walked through singularities like doorways—had to remind himself:
Do not adjust their emotional states. Do not alter their internal clocks. Do not perfect their breathing rhythm. Let them be imperfect. Let them be human.
He walked toward the counter.
The barista looked up, her eyes flicking over him with a brief, instinctive hesitation—a primal part of her brain whispering predator before the rest of her mind forced normalcy back into place. Magnus eased the tension in the air, not by altering her brain chemistry, but by adjusting the way his muscles held their weight. A small shift. Mundane. Human.
"Hi," the barista greeted, sounding more relaxed. "What can I get for you?"
Magnus blinked once, normal speed, and exhaled.
This was why he behaved the way he did. Why he acted indirectly direct, why he moved carefully, why he spoke with precision and pauses. It wasn't uncertainty. It wasn't hesitation.
It was discipline, shaped by millennia of navigating beings whose minds he could break by accident.
Every gesture he made was a scientific calculation: a control of output to avoid altering the fragile lattice of human psychological code.
Because Magnus did not fear hurting others with power.
He feared hurting others with presence.
So he gave the only answer that felt truthful, in a quiet voice carefully tuned to human comfort frequencies:
"I'd like to try… something ordinary."
And for the first time in a long time, Magnus felt something unfamiliar ripple through him, something soft, fragile, almost human.
The challenge wasn't interacting with people.
It was learning how not to overwhelm the world simply by existing within it.
The barista smiled in the friendly, default way service workers did, though the faint tremor in her fingers betrayed the instinctive unease she couldn't explain. Magnus approached with carefully measured steps, letting his shoulders relax, lowering the density of his presence the way others might lower their voice.
Even so, as he neared the counter, the ambient chatter in the café softened by a fraction, conversations dipping, gazes flicking toward him without intention, the subconscious animal-brain whispering attention, attention, something's here.
The barista cleared her throat, her pupils dilating a little too wide as she tried to maintain the polite script drilled into her job. "How can I help you today?" she asked, though her tone wavered between politeness and a strange, inexplicable reverence. Magnus offered her a slow, warm nod, careful to pause for human timing.
"What do you recommend?" he asked, a simple question, yet his voice, resonant in a quiet, soothing frequency, triggered a ripple of calm through the entire room. A nearby couple stopped mid-argument without realizing it. An elderly man reading a newspaper suddenly felt a strange wave of nostalgia, like remembering a long-forgotten kindness. The barista blinked, breath catching, then exhaled in a shaky laugh.
"Um… caramel latte?" she suggested, cheeks warming in a way she didn't understand. Magnus nodded. "Then I will try that." No energy manipulation, no neural adjustment, just careful, precise softness.
A man who could fracture reality limiting himself to human small talk. As she prepared the drink, he stood still, hands loosely at his sides, attention drifting to the other customers. He could see their subconscious signals as faint colored pulses, fear, curiosity, confusion, attraction, awe—little flares of instinctive response. Not one of them recognized him consciously.
But the deeper layers of their biology, remnants of ancestral pattern recognition, responded to him the way ancient humans once responded to storms, fire, or the vast horizon: with primal reverence.
Far away, in a mirrored office layered with screens, Deng Mei-ling received the update with narrowed eyes. She leaned back in her chair, fingers tapping thoughtfully against a polished armrest. "Send the message," she instructed.
"Global." Her subordinates hesitated, just enough for her to notice, before bowing their heads and dispersing. Within minutes, encrypted channels across continents activated. Silence cracked open into urgency. For centuries, Deng's predecessors had worked to systematically erase all traces of him, the man whose existence once redirected lineage, fate, and power. Families whose fortunes had sprung from inexplicable miracles were taught to forget, coerced where necessary, financially "guided" where persuasion failed. But some refused.
Generations clung to the stories whispered on deathbeds and etched into forbidden diaries. Families that believed their rise to prominence had been seeded by a single encounter with a being who looked human but was far from it.
Across the world, agents and informants received Deng Mei-ling's directive: Identify all remaining bloodlines that still maintain the old memory. Screens lit up red, faint signals, each representing a family line Magnus once touched. Hundreds of dots scattered across continents. Most were weak, fragments of recollection diluted by time. But three glowed vividly when Magnus, in the quiet of his mind, recalled the bloodlines he had once affected. Three families whose memory resonated like an unbroken chord. The descendants of Zhou Yu and Xiao Qiao, still powerful, still deeply rooted in tradition, shone brightest, their ancestral belief in the "silent guardian" unchanged despite a thousand years of modernization.
Another flare pulsed from the Middle East: a branch of the House of Saud whose oldest texts spoke of a traveler draped in celestial light who granted their forebear a survival that changed an entire families fate. And the last, faint but steady, came from England, a royal bloodline whose private archives contained paintings of a nameless figure who never aged, always watching from the shadows of history.
By the time Deng Mei-ling's message reached the world's corners, these families reacted with a speed that suggested they had prepared for this moment for centuries. Private jets scrambled. Hidden satellites activated. Vaults opened. Words were exchanged behind sealed doors:
"The benefactor has returned."
"The old promise breathes again." "We must confirm it ourselves." And deeper still, far beneath public institutions, beneath governments and kingdoms, an organization older than any documented historical record stirred from its slumber.
A group so ancient their founding predated written language. Passed down through oral tradition, carved into bone, woven into blood oaths. A group born from the shared knowledge that a benevolent being once touched their ancestors' lives, asked for nothing, and vanished into myth. They had spent a thousand years searching for fragments of his presence, charting whispers across eras, convinced that he would someday return under a simple disguise: a man trying to live ordinarily.
Now, for the first time in nearly a millennium, one of their members received the impossible: a confirmation signal. A ripple in the old pattern. A sign. In a hidden chamber lit by candles and old-world symbols, several hooded figures gathered, tension thick in the air. One spoke first, voice low, cautious, shaken.
"The pulse… it matches the ancient reading." Another leaned forward, hands trembling slightly. "If this is true, everything changes." A third figure remained silent, observing the others before murmuring, "Proceed carefully. We do not know if he will welcome our presence."
"Then we must not make demands," another replied. "Only verify." "And hope," whispered the last, "that he remembers us at all."
They fell into silence, heavy, ancient, hopeful, knowing that whatever came next would reshape their world, and perhaps the world itself.
And somewhere across the city, Magnus waited patiently for his caramel latte, completely unaware that the past he had long stopped acknowledging now stirred violently toward him, drawn by blood, belief, and a thousand years of silent devotion.
The first envoys arrived in the city before dawn, slipping through terminals and private airfields under different aliases, carrying credentials forged by intelligence agencies older than the nation-states that hosted them. They moved like ghosts, men and women whose blood carried stories whispered across centuries.
As their jets cut through the early fog, Magnus felt the pressure long before their boots touched the ground. A subtle fluctuation in the collective human field, a familiar resonance of belief, lineage, and expectation. He didn't need to see them to know they were here. It was the inevitable consequence of choosing to live inside a human shell. He had agreed to ride the background of a mortal life to taste normalcy, but in doing so, he had reopened ancient paths, old memories, and old debts that were never meant to resurface. While waiting for his drink, he inhaled quietly and murmured to himself, "Of course… it begins."
By 06:42 A.M., three separate groups had established their first layer of observation around the district where Magnus was rumored to reside, each group unaware of the others' presence, each operating under different interpretations of the centuries-old intelligence passed down the bloodlines.
The rooftop team from the Middle Eastern lineage set up their equipment first, thermal scans, acoustic triangulators, long-distance recorders, moving with a precision that came from generations of training. Their ancestors once worshiped the "Almutabarae," the Benefactor, as a divine traveler who intervened during the birth of a kingdom. Their reverence bordered on devotion, but not all shared such belief.
Down the block, a British team of royal archivists-turned-shadow operatives activated a portable historical pattern analyzer, an archaic machine modernized with forbidden algorithms and ancient symbols etched into its casing. They were skeptics, trained to doubt the myths passed down in royal vaults. Yet now even they felt the tremor of possibility.
The third group, the descendants of Zhou Yu and Xiao Qiao, who is somewhat connected to Deng Mei-ling .they worked with silent, near-military efficiency. They did not speak unless necessary. Their approach was analytical, grounded in the thousand-year stewardship of texts that chronicled a "Patriarch" who guided their ancestors through a time of impending collapse. They did not worship Magnus.
They honored him as one honors a force of nature, inevitable, incomprehensible, and deserving of caution. They placed motion detectors in alleyways and mapped escape routes not for Magnus, but in case their own people needed to vanish without a trace. Their leader murmured in Mandarin, "If he senses us, we retreat. No contact unless he permits it."
but time changes everything , like the rest generation wither and a new one blossom, each transition dilutes the belief , attention , and relevance. soon what what seen as the truth becomes a myth and just a story created a fictional backdrop , nothing more nothing less. but remnants of these truth has a peculiar way of coming forward and the moment it present itself, it like a lingering feeling that needs to be address , just to gain a good night sleep without worrying about something nobody can comprehend .
But even if the world changed since their ancestors' time. Not every group seeking this so called being came with loyalty. When Deng Mei-ling's message spread beyond her intended channels, it collided with modern intelligence networks, religious extremists, black-budget military units, and clandestine coalitions built on fear rather than reverence. Some whispered that the Chuàngshǐ rén, the Founder, the First Architect, threatened their authority. Others believed he was a myth weaponized by cults.
And some feared he was real, because a real being capable of shaping civilizations at will meant that every empire, every religion, and every power structure built on manipulation could be undone by a single thought from a man who never wanted a throne.
By 08:10 A.M., the city was a quiet battleground of observation posts. Apartments had been rented under false names, and cameras disguised as delivery drones drifted through the air. Agents disguised as tourists took strategic positions in cafés and bus stops, while encrypted radio channels crackled with clipped codes.
"Team One in position." "Perimeter secure." "Visual grid established." In a nondescript van parked two blocks from Magnus's chosen café, a woman wearing an earpiece scanned the live feeds and whispered to her partner,
"The signatures match the old records… but they're faint. He's suppressing himself." A man behind her asked quietly, "Do you believe it now?" She hesitated, remembering the stories her grandfather forced into her memory, the man of light, the impossible presence, the silent guardian. Her voice shook. "I don't know. But something is here."
Magnus, meanwhile, sipped the caramel latte with practiced human rhythm, his appearance relaxed, his expression soft. But beneath that surface, he felt the observation nets tightening around him, threads of human intention, fear, hope, greed, devotion, and confusion converging from across the globe. He sensed the rooftops, the vans, the alleys, the disguised operatives. He sensed the ones who came with reverence and the ones who came prepared to kill what they could never understand. He sensed the pulses of ancient belief awakening in the city like dormant embers rekindled after a thousand years.
"It was only a matter of time," Magnus whispered, placing the cup gently on the countertop. The barista noticed the slight tension in his eyes and asked, "Is everything okay, sir?" Magnus smiled with a warmth that concealed a universe of calamities. "Yes. Everything is…" He paused, glancing out the window, where a man pretending to read a newspaper failed to hide the micro-adjustments of a trained operative. "…complicated."
Outside, the city breathed with an undercurrent of suspense—an invisible ring tightening around a single man whose true existence had shaped myths, faiths, cultures, and secret histories. And now dozens of agents representing different factions, different ideologies, and different interpretations of the legend converged unknowingly toward the same point.
The hunt had begun, not for a monster, not for a god, but for a being who walked quietly among mortals, hoping for normalcy, while the world slowly remembered him.
Deng Mei-ling hoped for the best, though she knew hope was a fragile thing to hold when dealing with someone like Magnus. She had made a promise decades earlier, to share any sign of him with those whose bloodlines still carried the echo of his touch, and that vow, spoken as a dying woman at eighty-nine, had been honored the moment Magnus restored her body to sixty. The shock of youth returning to her bones, the smoothness of her skin, the quiet realignment of her memories in everyone who knew her… it was the ultimate proof that the ancient stories were real.
And now, with the sun rising over City X, a neutral zone christened by the various factions to avoid political entanglement, she watched the world's secret ghosts slip into place like chess pieces being quietly arranged on a board no government even knew existed. By dawn, every team had established their operational bases with ruthless precision. City X became divided into invisible sectors, each belonging to agents representing nations older than written history.
West Country X, the official nation-state hosting these movements, had no idea they were outmatched; they were modern, yes, but their roots were shallow compared to the factions now walking their streets, descendants of empires, kingdoms, and secret orders that predated modern diplomacy by a thousand years.
By mid-morning, the agents were already threading themselves into the fabric of the city, slipping into roles designed to make them invisible. A man from the British faction became a bookstore owner, sweeping dust from shelves he would never truly read.
A woman from the Chinese lineage worked at a teahouse, her eyes scanning every newcomer while her hands brewed jasmine with a calm that hid centuries of inherited duty. A pair from the Middle Eastern bloodline blended into a construction crew, hiding surveillance nodes inside safety cones and anchor points. Others disguised themselves as delivery drivers, taxi operators, university researchers, bar staff, and office workers.
They had integrated so seamlessly that no local would ever suspect that these unassuming strangers carried ancient texts in their minds and the weight of civilizations on their backs.
But even as they moved, observed, calculated, and reported, Magnus had already been there.
He walked past the bookstore an hour before the agent opened its doors, drifting like a morning shadow. The man never felt the presence. His scanners, tucked behind classic literature, registered no anomalies. Magnus simply stood beside him for a moment, watched the way the man straightened his tie, how he tested his radio connection, how his eyes carried both skepticism and duty. Magnus smiled faintly and whispered, barely audible, "Your ancestors would be proud." Then he stepped away, leaving no trace.
At the teahouse, Magnus leaned briefly against the doorway as the woman wiped down a table. She paused for a moment, feeling a strange warmth on her shoulder, as if someone had rested a hand there in silent encouragement. But when she turned, no one was there. She told herself it was nothing—just nerves, just anticipation—but deep inside, a memory she never knew she carried flickered, like an old flame rekindling for a breath.
On the construction site, Magnus stood beside the youngest operative—only twenty-six, earnest, ambitious, and unaware of the sacred role he held. The man checked his wrist device, frowning at a static reading. Magnus glanced at the equipment with a mild curiosity before murmuring, "It won't detect what doesn't want to be found." The young operative glanced sideways, sensing movement, but the scaffolding beside him was empty. Still, for a moment, he felt oddly reassured.
And so it went. Dozens of agents, dozens of stations, dozens of surveillance grids. Magnus visited every one of them, simultaneously. He didn't split himself, not in the human sense. He simply existed in multiple places at once, the way light filled every corner of a room without effort. His omnipresence was not a display of power. It was a courtesy—a silent greeting. A recognition that these watchers, these descendants, were simply doing their jobs. And he saw no reason to interfere.
By noon, the whole city hummed with a quiet tension. Each faction believed they had the upper hand, unaware that all their preparations had already been gently observed by the very man they sought. Their drones passed harmlessly through air he had already stepped out of. Their sensors reported nothing. Their intel logs remained frustratingly empty.
Magnus walked through City X with a soft smile, hands tucked into the pockets of his coat, blending with the crowd as naturally as a man heading to lunch. He felt their presence, but he held no anger, no impatience. Only understanding. Let them search. Let them confirm. Let them fulfill the ancient duties their ancestors swore. They were merely threads in the vast tapestry he had woven long ago, threads he had no desire to cut.
He passed by a café window where one agent sat pretending to scroll through his phone. Magnus paused outside, watching the man rehearse coded phrases under his breath. The agent looked up instinctively, sensing someone near the glass, but saw only the reflection of the bustling street.
Magnus turned away, whispering, "Do your work. I do have all the time in the world."
And City X continued breathing, alive, unaware, watched by operatives who thought themselves hunters, never realizing they moved under the gentle eye of the very being they sought.
It happened late in the afternoon, when the sun dipped low enough to cast long golden slants between the narrow streets of City X. Magnus, blending perfectly with the crowd, stepped into a small convenience store—one of those cramped neighborhood shops that smelled faintly of instant noodles and cold bottled tea. He moved with deliberate human rhythm, selecting a few things he thought Alexa might enjoy: a citrus soda, a pack of those strawberry biscuits she mentioned once, and a small phone charm shaped like a cat, something he had seen her glance at days earlier but never buy.
Her phone was already fixed; he had repaired it effortlessly the moment he touched it. But this small errand, this attempt to mimic the motions of a normal man doing a normal favor, it mattered to him. The store was busy, but unremarkably so, people weaving around one another in the cramped aisles, except for one man who entered moments after Magnus.
A delivery driver by disguise, but an operative by blood, the young agent wore a bright courier uniform that made him look harmless, almost cheerful, carrying a bulky insulated bag strapped across his shoulders. Yet behind his smile was festering frustration. He believed this entire mission was a waste of time. He saw no god, no benefactor, no ancient being. Only a man buying snacks. In his arrogance, he convinced himself he could expose this "Magnus" as a fraud.
And so he drifted closer, pretending to check his phone, pretending to browse shelves, his eyes watching Magnus's every move. When Magnus approached the counter, the agent made his decision. In a single fluid motion, he bumped into Magnus hard enough to jostle him, muttering a fake apology as his hand swept across Magnus's jacket. A pickpocket's move. Clean, practiced, fast. The agent's fingers slipped inside the pocket and closed around the phone. Alexa's phone, pulling it free without hesitation. To him, this was proof.
This was how he would show his superiors that the target was just a man, inattentive and unimpressive. But as he turned away, adrenaline spiking, something unexpected happened. Magnus didn't react, didn't tense, didn't speak, didn't even look surprised. He simply glanced down at the empty pocket with a faint, almost amused exhale, as though watching a child attempt a magic trick he had seen a thousand times.
The agent didn't notice the subtle shift in air pressure, the faint hum of something vast stirring beneath Magnus's borrowed humanity. He only felt a surge of triumph. He had taken the device without triggering a single alarm from the legendary being's supposed senses. And for a brief, fleeting second, he believed he had proven everyone wrong.
Magnus paid for his items, thanked the cashier, and stepped out into the fading afternoon light, his expression calm, patient. He knew exactly who took the phone. He had known the moment the young man stepped into the store. But he let him do it. Because sometimes, the fastest way to expose arrogance… was to let arrogance expose itself. Magnus walked slowly down the street, hands in his pockets, giving the agent enough time to discover what he had just invited into his own hands. And the city around them continued its quiet hum, unaware that one reckless decision had just tilted the delicate balance of every faction watching.
The late afternoon settled into a warm, honey-gold haze as Magnus walked down the familiar road toward the university, moving with that unhurried, grounded pace he had practiced so well. Students streamed past him in loose clusters, laughing, stressed, half-asleep from exam week, but he moved as if he existed slightly outside their rhythm, watching, listening, noting the little human textures he had grown to appreciate.
He knew exactly where Alexa would be: the long administrative hallway lined with plastic chairs where seniors queued up to finalize registration. She had been worrying about this day for weeks, calculating every peso, saving every extra coin from overtime shifts, skipping lunches just to build the exact amount she needed. Magnus could already feel her presence even from afar, her voice, her careful polite tone, the soft but determined beats of her heart.
Inside the administration wing, Alexa stood with her bag hugged close to her chest, a folder full of neatly organized documents pressed against her ribs. Her hair, still slightly damp from the commute, fell over one shoulder. Beside her stood her friend and classmate, Mia Cruz, who was mid-rant about the school's ancient computer system.
"You know what they need?" Mia groaned. "A budget. A real one. Not this… museum setup."
Alexa laughed softly, shaking her head. "Mia, we're lucky they even accept online forms now."
"Lucky? Girl, the portal crashed twice while I was uploading my clearance!"
Alexa opened her mouth to reply—
, when a cold, overly sweet voice cut through the hallway like a blade dipped in honey.
"Well, well… if it isn't Miss Half-Scholarship herself."
Alexa's shoulders stiffened. Mia muttered under her breath, "Here we go…"
Vanessa Du Pont—perfect hair, expensive perfume, nails that looked like they cost more than Alexa's monthly rent—stepped forward with her three-person entourage. They moved like a flock of glossy predators, each one grinning as though the air itself bent around their privilege.
Vanessa's heels clicked sharply on the tiled floor, announcing her approach as though the entire hallway existed solely to witness her entrance.
Alexa didn't lift her chin, but she did straighten her spine—a tiny, unspoken refusal to shrink.
Vanessa smirked. "I didn't think they'd allow you to register this late. Isn't the payment deadline today? Or did they give you an extension because, you know…" She waved her hand in a loose, pitying circle. "You're their little charity case?"
Alexa swallowed but kept her voice even. "I saved enough. I'm fine, Vanessa."
"Oh, I'm sure you think you are."
One of Vanessa's friends chimed in with a fake whisper, loud enough for the entire hallway to hear. "Maybe she found extra coins under her bed."
Another snickered. "Or maybe she begged the office again."
Mia stepped forward. "Back off, Vanessa. Go bother someone who actually cares."
Vanessa raised a brow. "I'm just curious how she keeps up. You know… some rules say scholarships can be revoked if certain… financial gaps aren't met."
Alexa's chest tightened. "I paid the full amount."
"Really?" Vanessa's smile widened in cruel amusement. "Then you wouldn't mind if we check?"
Before Alexa could react, Vanessa reached out and snatched the receipt envelope from Alexa's hand with practiced speed—almost the same way the agent had stolen Alexa's phone earlier.
"Hey!" Mia grabbed for it, but Vanessa danced back a step.
Students nearby turned their heads. Some stayed silent, too used to the hierarchy. Others whispered. The hallway buzzed with that uncomfortable electricity that came before humiliation.
Vanessa held the envelope up by the corner. "Let's see what poor looks like on paper—"
"Put it down."
The voice that entered the hallway was calm, low, and devastatingly controlled.
Magnus had arrived.
He stood at the far end of the corridor, framed by the setting sun pouring through the glass doors behind him. His silhouette stretched long across the tiles, his expression unreadable—not angry, not surprised, only quiet and immeasurably still.
Vanessa froze for a second, her smug expression faltering. "Oh. It's you."
Magnus walked forward with the same slow certainty he had used in the convenience store, his presence bending the atmosphere around him until whispers turned into silence. Even the hum of the old fluorescent lights seemed to soften.
He stopped just a few feet from Vanessa.
"Give her the envelope," Magnus said softly.
Vanessa lifted her chin. "Why? She can speak for herself."
Magnus' eyes, too calm, too ancient behind the human disguise, held her without force, without heat… but with something that made her breath shorten.
"She already did," he answered. "You just didn't listen."
The entire hallway felt heavier. Not threatening, just real, like the air had suddenly remembered gravity.
Vanessa's fingers twitched. For a moment, she tried to hold her ground. But her confidence cracked under the cold, unblinking weight of Magnus's gaze. Slowly, stiffly, she extended the envelope back toward Alexa.
Alexa reached for it with quiet dignity. "Thank you," she murmured, not to Vanessa but to Magnus.
Magnus looked at Alexa, softening, subtle, like sunlight breaking through cloud. "You ready?"
Alexa nodded, though her cheeks burned. "Yeah… I just need to pay."
Magnus smiled faintly. "Then let's finish this."
Behind them, Vanessa seethed silently, her group whispering furiously among themselves—but none dared take a step closer. Something had shifted, and everyone in the hallway felt it.
As Magnus walked beside Alexa toward the cashier window, the golden light trailed after them—two figures moving forward, one steady and one still trembling, unaware that a stolen phone in the hands of an arrogant operative was about to ignite something far bigger than petty university cruelty.
The registrar's office was buzzing with shuffling papers and tapping keyboards, but the moment Magnus and Alexa stepped up to Window 3, the middle-aged staff member behind the glass broke into a warm, almost relieved smile.
"Oh! Mr. Magnus!" she exclaimed, pushing her glasses up. "Your documents finally came in. I was worried they got stuck in the international verification queue again. You just need to sign the final forms."
Alexa blinked.
Magnus offered a polite nod. "Thank you for preparing them."
Alexa slowly tilted her head toward him, giving him that look she always used when she caught him saying something that didn't quite add up. The look that was half suspicion… half playful challenge.
"Huh?" she whispered teasingly, leaning a bit closer. "Papers? Documents? What is she talking about, huh?" Her lips curled in a smirk. "You enrolling here? Secret student Magnus? Taking night classes in, what? Ancient Cosmic Studies?"
He exhaled through his nose, amused, but she could see it. The confusion was real. And he knew she saw it.
Magnus turned toward her with that soft, patient look he used only when she was trying to poke holes in his calm. "Alexa," he said quietly, "it's not as mysterious as it sounds."
"Yes it is," she shot back immediately, crossing her arms. "Explain."
Before Magnus could answer, the registrar staff leaned slightly over the counter, happy to clarify—clearly assuming Alexa was a friend or a girlfriend.
"Oh! He's actually listed under the university's new international exchange and guest-research program," she said, flipping through a stack of printed forms. "We received his credentials last week. Very impressive, by the way."
Alexa's eyes widened. "Guest… research? Program? Magnus, what?"
Magnus gave a small shrug, as if this were all perfectly normal. "I told you. I needed a reason to stay near the city for a while."
"That doesn't explain anything!" Alexa whispered sharply. "You didn't even apply for"
"He didn't have to," the staff member added with a proud smile, completely unaware of the cosmic absurdity she was standing next to. "His background cleared every requirement on record. Some of the fastest approvals we've ever seen. And the dean personally fast-tracked his acceptance."
Alexa stared at Magnus, her confusion now full-blown.
Magnus finally gave her the truth… or at least the human version of it.
"I needed access to the university library," he said calmly. "And parts of the campus. This was the simplest path."
Alexa blinked. "You're telling me… you enrolled in a university, MY university, just so you could use the library?"
Magnus tilted his head slightly. "Is that unusual?"
"Yes!" Alexa hissed. "Magnus, normal people don't just"
"Mister Magnus Zhou ," the registrar interrupted, sliding a pen and the final papers across the counter, "please sign here. Once processed, your campus ID will be ready by tomorrow."
He took the pen effortlessly. "Thank you."
As he signed, Alexa pressed her hand over her mouth in disbelief.
"Magnus… you're seriously going to be a student here."
"A temporary one," he corrected calmly.
"You're going to attend classes?"
"It is required."
"You're going to walk around campus with a" she choked, "with a student ID?!"
Magnus offered the smallest, most infuriatingly calm smile. "It will make things simpler."
Alexa's voice cracked between incredulous laughter and exasperation. "This is NOT simpler!"
The registrar handed the completed documents back and smiled brightly at both of them.
"Welcome to our university, Mr. Magnus Zhou And you" she looked at Alexa, knowingly warm, "you're lucky to have such a diligent friend."
Alexa stared at Magnus, cheeks slightly flushed, caught between embarrassment and amusement.
Magnus leaned down just enough for only her to hear.
"You asked what the papers were," he murmured. "Now you know."
Alexa nudged him with her elbow. "You're impossible."
"And yet," Magnus said softly, "here I am."
The registrar stamped both their paperwork, unaware of the operatives, the factions, the stolen phone, or the cosmic pressure building just beyond the university gates.
Unaware that the world was shifting, and Magnus had just enrolled himself right into Alexa's life.
Vanessa Du Pont hadn't meant to linger in the hallway. She never lingered—people lingered around her, orbiting like lesser moons admiring a brighter star. But as she and her clique drifted past the registration windows, pretending they weren't still stinging from Magnus' quiet dismantling of her ego, something pulled her attention back.
Window 3, the notorious one, was open.
And the infamous registrar, known as the "Dragon of Window Three," the same woman who had once reduced a senator's son to tears with a single raised eyebrow, was smiling. Smiling.
Not polite-smiling .Not customer-service-forced-smiling. But glowing.
At him.
Vanessa slowed, one foot faltering in her designer heel as she watched Magnus hand back the pen. She saw the registrar bow her head slightly, an absurd sight in this place, and she saw the neatly stamped papers slide across the counter.
Then the whisper rippled through the staff behind the glass." He paid in full?"
"That fast?" "International verification passed on first try?" "Dean approved immediately?"
The words stabbed at Vanessa like needles. It wasn't just money—everyone here had money. This was about recognition, status, access. And this… stranger… had stepped into the most elite university in the region and been welcomed without even blinking.
But what detonated inside her chest wasn't envy for Magnus.
It was the way Alexa looked at him. And worse, the way he looked back.
That quiet softness. That subtle attention. That warmth she had never seen given to anyone in this hallway.
Vanessa's jaw tightened.
Because Alexa wasn't important. She wasn't wealthy, she wasn't powerful, she wasn't even socially relevant. She was the type of student nobody remembered being in the room, quiet, hardworking, invisible unless someone needed help with notes or group work.
A shadow. A background character.
And yet Magnus, the most striking man Vanessa had seen in months—had walked straight to her.
Her stomach twisted, a feeling she hated because it was too close to insecurity.
No. Impossible. There had to be a reason.
In Vanessa's mind, attention, especially male attention, was a currency, one she controlled with precision. Her beauty, her confidence, her family name, these were weapons she wielded effortlessly.
So how could someone like Alexa, someone who wore thrifted clothes, someone who shied away from spotlights, someone who didn't come from wealth, receive even a fraction of admiration that should have belonged to her?
She replayed the scene in her mind: Alexa standing beside him. Magnus leaning close to her, speaking softly. Alexa blushing, The registrar calling them "lucky to have each other."
And then, Magnus' steady gaze, stopping Vanessa cold earlier.
A man who could shift the atmosphere of an entire room with a single look…had chosen to stand next to Alexa.
Why? Why her?
Vanessa's lips curled into a tight, brittle smile as she watched them leave the window and walk side by side toward the cashier.
Her friend leaned in. "Vanessa? What's with that face? We're leaving, right?"
Vanessa's eyes stayed locked on them, thoughts turning sharp and precise like polished glass.
"It's nothing," she finally muttered, But that was a lie even her followers didn't believe.
Because for the first time, Alexa wasn't insignificant anymore, For the first time, Alexa had something Vanessa wanted, something she didn't understand, something she couldn't control.
And that was enough to turn boredom into fixation.
By the time Vanessa turned away, her decision had already settled like cold metal in her chest:
Alexa, the girl she barely noticed for three years, was suddenly a problem. A threat.A loose thread in Vanessa's perfect tapestry.
And Vanessa Du Pont never allowed loose threads.
Not even if Alexa only had one year left. Not even if she had never meant to target her before.
Now?
She would make sure Alexa felt it.
Back at the operations base, the atmosphere was tense but methodical. The agent who had stolen Alexa's phone from Magnus entered, sliding the device across the desk to the technical team. "Here," he said, voice tight with a mix of pride and anticipation. "Let's see what's on it."
The analysts leaned in, keyboards clicking, monitors flickering with incoming signals. Every protocol they had drilled for was followed with precision: data extraction, virus scans, encryption bypasses. They were the best at what they did, and yet a slight undercurrent of unease threaded through the room.
Meanwhile, the janitor-turned-agent stationed at the university tapped into his earpiece, voice low but urgent. "Priority X just handed a smartphone to a student. The sound transmitter is active, but they're asking to boost the receiver."
One of the communication officers frowned, glancing at the console. "We're already at maximum gain. Everything is recording nonstop, since we deployed the temporary base. Cameras, microphones, the works. I don't see how we could increase it further."
The team leaned back, reassured, or at least, outwardly confident. The feeds from the university flowed into their monitors: corridors, hallways, snippets of conversation. Nothing unusual. Everything appeared routine. Their translation software ran in parallel, picking up and decoding language in real time. Nothing seemed off. Every word, every gesture, every sound registered normal.
But the agent holding the stolen phone froze, staring at the device in his hand. Something was wrong. This… wasn't right.
The phone in his hand felt solid, familiar, yet wrong in subtle ways. He could still feel the weight of the original phone the moment he had taken it from Magnus, the cool metal and glass pressing against his palm. Yet now, what he held wasn't a phone at all, it was a piece of cheap, thick plastic, molded to mimic the shape of a smartphone. The screen was inert, the buttons immobile.
He shifted uncomfortably, forcing his hands to remain steady. "Did… he have a second phone?" he whispered to himself, barely audible. His voice trembled, not from fear, but from disbelief. How could the device have transformed the moment he removed it from Magnus' pocket?
Around him, the team continued their work, unaware of his silent panic. Monitors displayed live feeds from hacked cameras, audio streams piped from the university, translations scrolling across screens. Nothing abnormal. No hint of trickery, no sign that anything extraordinary had occurred. To all appearances, the mission was proceeding flawlessly.
He wanted to speak up, to report the anomaly, to demand verification, but he had nothing tangible to show. The phone was plastic now, useless, and Magnus was out there, seemingly human, seemingly ordinary. Any mention of what had just occurred would sound insane.
So he stayed silent, forcing a professional mask back onto his face, letting the analysts run the usual checks, letting the feeds scroll. He instructed himself to continue, record, monitor, intercept, translate. The mission must go on.
And yet, deep in the pit of his stomach, unease festered. Something had happened, something beyond protocol, beyond technology, beyond his understanding. The agents around him carried on, confident in their systems, confident in their methods. He carried doubt, growing heavier with every passing second. And with the fake plastic phone lying in his hand, he realized that for now, he could only watch, record, and wait, because the truth of what had just occurred was something he could not yet admit… not even to himself.
In the gleaming command deck of the High Imperial Probe Station, Captain Lysar, Lieutenant Kaelen, and Ensign Tira stood at attention, their eyes trained on the holographic display projecting the star systems they had been scanning for weeks.
The trio's report had been thorough, rehearsed even: signal stability nominal, atmospheric readings within expected parameters, no anomalous energy signatures detected, no unusual gravitational fluctuations, nothing out of the ordinary. Their voices were calm, precise, betraying nothing of the unease that had begun to creep into the officer corps after weeks of silence from this sector. Yet their commanding officer, Admiral Serrath, remained seated behind the central console, his eyes narrowing as they followed the same readouts.
There was a subtle shift, one the three subordinates had completely missed. The probe itself, their precision instrument of interstellar observation, was no longer where it had been launched. A light-year away, almost impossibly distant given the time frames involved, the probe's position had shifted as if some unseen hand had plucked it from space and set it down elsewhere. Serrath leaned forward, the soft hum of the station's engines and the distant chorus of starlight passing through the viewport barely registering as he fixed them with a measured stare.
"You're missing something," he said, voice low but carrying the weight of authority that made the air around the trio feel heavier. Lysar swallowed, trying to steady himself. "Sir, all systems report nominal," he said, hesitantly, the words rehearsed but now inadequate.
Serrath's gaze sharpened. "Nominal doesn't account for a probe being relocated across a light-year as if it were a child's toy. That isn't science. That is a being, a powerful being." The realization hung in the air like static electricity. He gestured sharply toward the communications console. "Prepare another probe," he commanded. "This time, a combat probe. Outfitted for full defense and capable of rapid extraction.
We do not know what moved the first one, and we are not sending an unarmed scout into the unknown again." Lieutenant Kaelen's fingers danced across the controls, already pulling up schematics and mission parameters, while Ensign Tira's eyes widened in a mixture of awe and apprehension. Captain Lysar nodded, the tension in his jaw betraying the gravity of their orders. "Yes, commander . We will launch immediately."
Serrath's gaze lingered on the distant stars beyond the station windows, where the first probe had vanished, a whisper of light and motion that no ordinary force could explain. "Track everything," he added, his voice dropping into a murmur meant only for them, heavy with unspoken implication. "Every signal. Every trace. We're dealing with something beyond anything we've catalogued. And this… this being… is aware of us."
" and the possibility is still there, we need make sure"
Outside, the stars shimmered coldly, indifferent yet almost sentient in their beauty, as the station's crew began the meticulous preparations for a probe unlike any that had ever been sent before, armed, alert, and ready for a presence that defied reason itself.