"If you're a transmigrator, then there's no way you lived long enough to finish the Hidden Citadel naturally. Ten thousand years doesn't happen by accident. Which means Vasreveilder must have—"
"Yeah," Reynolds said, cutting in gently. "He made me immortal."
Vastarael nodded once. No surprise there.
"He didn't just patch me up or slow my aging. He turned me into an Aeterium. A lesser one sure, but still Aeterium. My body changed. Time stopped mattering. Funny thing is, I was still thinking like a human for the first few centuries. I kept counting days. Then one day I realized I stopped keeping track entirely."
Vastarael leaned back. "Sounds familiar."
Reynolds glanced at his arms. "Yeah. You get it."
He shifted, settling more comfortably before continuing.
"The Supreme Entities noticed us eventually. Spheraphase and Mintherenia were observing patterns. They saw the Aeterium and the Omniscient doing something no civilization had ever done before. They judged and their verdict was simple. His Omniscient and Vasreveilder weren't anomalies. They were necessities. So they elevated them and made them Supreme Entities as well."
Vastarael exhaled slowly. "That's why there are four."
"Yes. That is why there are Four real Supreme Entities. Mintherenia the Verdarite, then there is the unnamed Omniscient, Vasreveilder the Aeterium and Spheraphase, the World. The Primordials saw this balance and they approved. They granted them authority over concepts. Vasreveilder still wanted to bring Earth's knowledge to the world," With the unnamed's knowledge and Mintherenia's stability, they could implement those ideas without collapsing reality."
"And that's when the Minor Supreme Entities were created."
Reynolds smiled faintly. "You're following well. They created them by choosing individuals from all corners of Spheraphase. And from them came the First Generation Deities."
"The First Nexuses."
"Yes. But they were too powerful."
There was a pause before Vastarael asked the question he kept asking himself since coming to the Hidden Citadel.
"Then why is the Hidden Citadel full of monsters?"
"There's a reason I'm called the Forgotten Architect."
He stared out into the void again.
"All civilizations end, sometimes peacefully. Sometimes screaming. During the centuries after the construction, after most of Earth's knowledge had already been stabilized, they discovered something else. Dimensium."
Vastarael's eyes narrowed. "The realm of Krepsunas."
"It was a place that should never have been touched. The Supreme Entities decided to explore it. Not all of them agreed though. Vasreveilder and Mintherenia warned them repeatedly. They said Dimensium wasn't empty. But curiosity outweighed caution. When Dimensium was breached, it didn't just open. It expanded. It spread into Spheraphase's layers and the first place it touched was the Hidden Citadel. The tens of millions of descendants were exposed to the Krepsuna Virus."
Reynolds sighed deeply as if remembering the chaos he experienced long ago.
"The Supreme Entities had no choice. They sealed the Hidden Citadel away from the rest of the world. Permanently. But, the damage was already done. The First Generation Deities also turned on their creators. They killed the Minor Supreme Entities, escaped the Citadel and created a realm of their own."
"Mopheria," Vastarael said quietly.
"Yes. It's a realm built from stolen authority and unfinished concept. Not everyone died, though. For reasons we still don't fully understand, transmigrators are immune to the Krepsuna Virus. So we survived. We fought to liberate the main city. I was there. So was Vasreveilder. We drove the Krepsunas out of the core but we couldn't eradicate them. There were too many so Vasreveilder made a decision. He sacrificed himself and burned his existence down to raw Soul Energy and forged an eternal barrier. It's strong enough to keep the Krepsunas out forever."
Vastarael stared at the ground for a long time before finally speaking.
"So… the transmigrators. They're still around?"
"Yes, they exist. They are still living in the city."
"They survived all of that?"
"They did and not just survived. They adapted. The barrier Vasreveilder created doesn't just keep the Krepsunas out. Anyone who passes through it gets cleansed of the Krepsuna infection completely. The Krepsunas can't even get close without being destroyed."
"So the city is safe."
"As safe as anything sealed away from the universe can be. And yes. The transmigrators can leave if they want. Most don't."
"That figures," Vastarael muttered.
There was another pause, then Vastarael asked something else.
"What about the um... unnamed?"
Reynolds didn't answer immediately.
"No one knows. She disappeared near the end. She betrayed her master."
That made Vastarael sit up.
"What?"
"She turned against Vasreveilder's suggestion not to explore Dimensium. She tried to undo the sacrifice."
"Then what happened to her?"
Reynolds shook his head. "No one knows. She vanished leaving no trace."
"We have an Omniscient. Axia. Could she be—"
Reynolds cut him off immediately. "No."
The firmness in his voice left no room for debate.
"The Hidden Citadel exists outside the jurisdiction of the Supreme Entities. Axia doesn't operate here. If she were active in this place, we would know."
"So she's either dead," Vastarael said slowly, "or hiding."
"Most likely one of those. And if she's alive, she's not the same. Vastarael. There's something you need to understand about Omniscients."
"What about them?"
"When an Omniscient bonds with someone, that bond becomes their purpose. Omniscients are beings of knowledge. They don't need emotions. They function perfectly without them. But once they care, everything they are collapses inward. When the being they bond with dies, the Omniscient loses their anchor."
"So you mean..."
"When you died, Phaenora didn't handle it well. She was breaking. She was drowning in grief she didn't understand how to process. She was going to kill herself."
"..."
"She wanted it to stop. If I hadn't forced her into collapse and brought her here, she would have succeeded."
The words landed harder than any blow Vastarael had taken in the Citadel.
"She looks fine. That's the scary part. She feels everything you go through tenfold. Every injury. Every near-death. Every moment you think, 'I'll just push a little further', she feels it as well."
Vastarael clenched his mechanical hands.
"You think Miss Asenane is suffering more? She's angry. She's hurt. But Phaenora…"
He shook his head.
"She's terrified."
Vastarael felt like the air had been knocked out of him.
"Omniscients don't love lightly. Once they do, it becomes absolute. If you die again, Miss Phaenora won't just break. She'll destroy everything. Everyone you care about would be caught in it."
Vastarael stared at the ground. He remembered Phaenora feeding him, smiling, teasing and acting normal. And beneath it—
"She never said anything," Vastarael muttered.
Reynolds stood up slowly.
"They never do. That's why I'm telling you. Being selfless is admirable but recklessness disguised as sacrifice is still recklessness. So instead of saying you'll not stop risking your life for your loved ones, try choosing paths that don't require you to die in the first place."
He turned away.
"Talk to her. She's hurting more than Miss Asenane is."
Then he stopped.
"And Vastarael?"
"Yes?"
"Phaenormecria went insane after Vasreveilder died. If she's still alive, she's proof of what happens when an Omniscient loses their anchor. If you'll meet her in the far future, you'll understand just how your actions cause consequences to those around you."
With that, he walked away. Vastarael didn't move.
"Damn it..."