Sephyr’s mystical pressure flowed through the contact point, her divine blessing creating warmth that was supposed to feel reassuring.

"The Holy Spirit Ancient doesn’t grant power to corrupted souls. Her blessing recognizes purity even when the recipient doesn’t understand their own capabilities. Your power is a divine gift, not a manifestation of corruption."

Rey allowed appropriate relief to surface in his expression while internally his mind catalogued every aspect of her theological rationalization.

’Perfect,’ he calculated. ’She’s constructing an explanation that preserves Church doctrine while accommodating my unexplained capabilities. I couldn’t have designed a better cover story if I’d written it myself.’

"You really believe that?" Rey asked with a voice carrying hope mixed with lingering uncertainty.

"I know it," Sephyr replied with absolute confidence. "I’ve studied theology for many years, trained under Angels who’ve served the Holy Ancients for centuries. Divine blessing has a specific signature that can’t be replicated by corruption. Your techniques carry that signature."

She smiled with an expression mixing warmth and determination.

"I understand your fear. But you don’t have to face this alone anymore."

Sephyr’s hand squeezed his shoulder with touch suggesting genuine commitment.

"I’ll watch over you. Protect your secret while you develop your capabilities further. When we both become recognized as Angels—you through continued demonstration of divine blessing, me through ascension evaluation—we can seek answers together."

Her red eyes blazed with conviction that transcended simple mentorship.

"You’ll search for your lost memories, discover the source of your power. And I’ll—"

She paused, expression shifting to show vulnerability Rey hadn’t seen from her before.

"I’ll get to the bottom of my sister’s death. There are still things about it I don’t understand. Questions the Church has never adequately answered."

Rey seized the opening with calculated interest that appeared genuine.

"What don’t you know?" he asked carefully.

Sephyr’s mystical pressure flickered with emotion barely controlled beneath her composed exterior.

"Seraph visited a False World and died there," she stated, voice carrying pain mixed with confusion. "Which should not be able to kill an Angel. Not permanently."

Rey’s enhanced perception sharpened despite his efforts to maintain appropriate confusion in his expression.

"False World?" he asked, allowing curiosity to enter his voice.

Rey already knew about False Worlds.

They could be created using a Divine Artifact or Special High Sequence Techniques.

But Seraph had perished on Earth.

That was clearly different.

’This reality exists higher than Earth and H’Trae, but it doesn’t mean our world is false, right?’

Sephyr nodded, clearly assuming his memory loss explained unfamiliarity with fundamental theological concepts.

"The False Worlds are reality layers that exist below the True Realm," she explained. "The Five Holy Ancients created the True Realm—this existence, where we live, where power operates according to divine principles they established. Everything here is real in an absolute sense."

Her expression shifted to show something approaching disdain mixed with theological certainty.

"But False Worlds are lower-dimensional spaces that branch off from True Realm like shadows cast by light. They’re illusory—fictional realities that have no true substance. Entities born in False Worlds aren’t real in the way that matters. Their existence is... temporary. Insubstantial."

’What?!’

Rey maintained appropriate confusion while internally his mind worked through implications with speed that threatened to overwhelm his practiced emotional control.

"Seraph was deployed to eliminate singularity in one of these False Worlds," Sephyr continued, pain entering her voice again. "An entity that shouldn’t have existed—a transmigrator from somewhere called Earth, which itself was a False World even lower than the one he’d been transported to."

She met Rey’s eyes with intensity suggesting the next words carried weight she struggled to articulate.

"Angels can’t die in False Worlds. Not truly. The power differential is too vast—like comparing the ocean to a droplet of water. A False World entity harming Angel from True Realm should be conceptually impossible. Their reality isn’t substantial enough to affect ours."

Sephyr’s hands clenched into fists, her mystical pressure spiking with barely controlled emotion.

"But Seraph died. Permanently. Her connection to the Holy Ancients was severed. Her soul was damaged beyond normal resurrection. And the Church’s explanation—that the singularity possessed unexplained capabilities that transcended False World limitations—doesn’t make sense within established theological framework."

She took breath, centering herself through practiced discipline.

"So when I ascend to Angel status, I’ll have authority to investigate directly. Access restricted records about what really happened in that False World. Discover why my sister died when she should have been invulnerable to anything a fictional reality could produce."

Rey maintained appropriate sympathetic expression while internally his entire worldview was fracturing.

False Worlds.

Earth—his original home, where he’d lived for sixteen years before nearly dying and transmigrating—was a False World.

A lower-dimensional illusion with no true substance.

H’Trae—the reality where he’d been sent to, where he’d spent several years as one of its heroes before eventually dying and reincarnating—was also a False World.

A fictional existence according to True Realm theology.

Everything he’d experienced, everyone he’d known in both those lives, all the struggles and victories and losses...

According to Sephyr’s explanation, according to Church doctrine, according to the cosmological principles that defined this reality—

None of it had been real.

Not in a way that mattered to entities from True Realm.

He was...

’No!’

Rey’s mind struggled to complete the thought as existential horror threatened to overwhelm his practiced emotional control.

If False Worlds were illusory, if entities born there possessed no true substance, if their existence was temporary and insubstantial compared to True Realm natives—

Then what did that make him?

Was Rey real?

Or was he just shadow cast by light from reality that actually mattered—a fictional character playing a role in a story that would eventually dissolve back into nonexistence when True Realm authorities decided his False World had outlived its purpose?

’But... that explains why I as well as all of H’Trae were eventually eradicated...’ His mind churned.

In the eyes of those Devils, his world was never real.

The training field seemed to spin despite his enhanced perception normally preventing such disorientation.

Sephyr was still talking, explaining something about investigating her sister’s death, but Rey couldn’t process the words through the existential crisis consuming his consciousness.

’Am I real?’

The question echoed through his mind with weight that threatened to shatter everything he’d built since his reincarnation.

’Is anything about me real?’