Reincarnated As The Villainess's Son-Chapter 518: [When Fallen Fall] [14] [A Perfect Plan]

Azrael’s chest heaved, and his eyes blurred.

A world of unknown was now in front of him.

The hall vanished, and so did his throne.

Azrael felt no ground beneath his feet, no air in his lungs, yet he was not suffocating.

He existed in a place where those things had never been needed.

Light moved around him, not as brightness but as information.

Threads stretched in every direction, crossing, splitting, knotting together.

Those threads intertwined, creating a river of silver light that flowed in the darkness of space.

Azrael steadied himself, still in awe of what he was seeing.

"...So this is it," he said quietly.

The Goddess of Fate did not appear beside him.

Her presence was everywhere instead, woven into the space itself.

As he looked around, Azrael slowly noticed something.

His body moved back, and he could clearly see the river of Fate.

It was flowing in a circle.

The beginning was the end, and the end was the beginning.

Azrael also noticed that the river of Fate was connected to four different worlds.

He couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing.

"....What is this?" he asked himself.

"This is what you refused to see," her voice echoed. "Lumina isn’t the only world where fate works."

The threads shifted.

Azrael saw Lumina...not as land or sky, but as structure. Layers of cause and consequence.

Mortal lives flickered like sparks, brief and countless.

Gods hovered above them, vast and heavy, pressing down without ever touching.

He reached toward one thread.

The moment his fingers brushed it, pain bloomed in his chest.

Azrael let go of it, and the pain vanished.

"....Wait."

Azrael immediately felt his powers...they were not working here.

"Fate sees everything as equal," her words echoed in his mind. "Time and Death have no meaning infront of Fate."

Azrael couldn’t say anything in response as he kept looking down at his hand.

His attention shifted again to the four worlds connected to it.

Each one glowed differently.

One burned with constant motion....wars folding into wars, empires rising only to collapse again.

One was dim, its threads thin and fragile, as if existence itself was struggling to hold.

One was eerily still, its river almost frozen, every outcome locked in place.

And then there was Lumina.

Balanced, yet strained with constant pressure.

"...Four worlds," Azrael whispered. "And all of them are bound by fate?"

"Not bound," Fate replied. "Observed."

Azrael felt something tighten inside him.

"Then the Outer Gods..." he began.

"Do not belong to the river of Fate," she finished. "They are free from the influence of fate."

Azrael finally understood the weight of what he was seeing.

He slowly moved toward the world farthest from Lumina.

The world was completely different from Lumina; it was a world free from gods.

"...What’s this place?" Azrael asked softly.

"It’s called Earth," the Goddess of Fate replied. "A world unknown to many."

Azrael stopped just short of the thread that led to that world.

"A world without gods," he repeated. "How does it still exist?"

The threads around Earth were thinner than Lumina’s, but they were dense.

There were no vast presences looming above it.

Only lives stacked upon lives, choices colliding with other choices.

Azrael moved his hand as he touched a thread.

He felt pain, and with pain came a memory.

A memory of a boy with black hair and blue eyes.

Azrael immediately let go of the thread.

"...Inder," he whispered softly. "Who is Inder?"

Fate refused to respond, making Azrael even more confused.

But Azrael felt something more from the boy than he could understand.

...Like Inder was just a version of him.

"Why him?" Azrael asked quietly. "Why did I see him?"

Fate refused to respond once again, leaving him utterly alone.

Azrael slowly let go of his questions as he looked at the other world beside it.

As Azrael reached close to it, he felt an unexplainable feeling.

Like this world... belonged to him.

Azrael tried to touch the thread of this world, but it didn’t work.

It was like the world was rejecting any advantage from him.

Azrael pulled his hand back slowly.

The rejection was not painful, but it was firm.

"This world..." he murmured. "It knows me."

The threads around it did not recoil, but they did not welcome him either.

They remained tight, steady, unmoved by his presence.

"This world doesn’t need saving," Azrael realized. "It doesn’t need ruling."

The thought settled heavily in his chest.

For as long as Azrael remembered... wasn’t this the world that he always wanted Lumina to be?

A place where lives moved forward without being weighed by divinity.

"...So it was possible," Azrael whispered.

Azrael stayed there, suspended between threads, staring at that world.

After a long time, he finally moved to the next world.

The world that was unlike the rest.

The world that was filled with war and destruction.

Azrael stared at the world that was ruled by only one God.

"What is this?" Azrael asked softly.

"A world of chaos," Fate responded at last. "The world known as Nasim."

Azrael raised his hand to grab a random thread from the river.

The moment he touched it, the river surged.

The darkness split open, and the world rushed into him.

He saw scorched skies and broken ground.

Cities burned, rebuilt, and burned again.

Armies clashed without end, their banners changing names but never purpose.

The land itself seemed tired, cracked by centuries of bloodshed.

At the center of it all stood a single presence.

A God.

He was ruling the world in a way that only benefited him.

Azrael’s expression froze when he came to understand more about the God.

His mind felt pain from the bombardment of information, but he didn’t let go of the thread.

He finally let go of the thread when he saw it.

...The ritual that the God was trying to perform.

Azrael breathed, even though his lungs were not working here.

He finally looked around as if he were trying to find the Goddess of Fate.

"What was that?" Azrael asked, his voice grim. "What was he trying to do?"

"His name is Amun-Ra," Fate responded softly. "And he was trying to trigger his growth."

A silence lingered between them for a long second.

"...He is trying to become an Outer God."

Azrael’s grip tightened, even though there was nothing solid to hold.

"...Become an Outer God," he repeated.

"Yes," Fate replied. "Nasim was never meant to reach that point. Its path was altered."

Azrael looked back toward the river. The threads around Nasim twisted unnaturally.

"Is he going to succeed?" Azrael asked, still staring at that world.

"No," she responded softly. "But it will have a disastrous effect on every other world."

Azrael looked back at the river of Fate once again.

The fates of the worlds were intertwined with each other.

Every disturbance in Nasim sent ripples outward...small at first, almost harmless.

But they grew as they traveled, bending paths in other worlds.

Azrael finally shifted his attention back to the world of Lumina.

He slowly reached back for his own world, staring at it without saying anything.

Azrael drew in a deep breath again and grabbed the closest thread.

He thought about the plans of the Creator God.

Though Fate couldn’t show him the plans, it did show him the aftermath.

...And he saw it.

The reawakening of the Creator God.

Azrael immediately let go of the thread as he turned completely silent.

"You understand what that means, right?" Fate responded.

"...."

Azrael didn’t respond.

Lumina would not survive the wrath of the Creator God.

It would die and be reconstructed once again after his awakening.

"I need to tell the others," Azrael mumbled softly. "I need to tell Samyaza—"

"Is that what you want?" Fate responded. "If you change his fate, you might accelerate the awakening of the Creator God."

His hand hovered where the thread had been, fingers trembling slightly.

"...Accelerate it," he repeated.

"Yes," Fate replied. Her voice was calm, without judgment. "The Creator God is bound to awareness. The more resistance he senses, the sooner he wakes."

Azrael clenched his jaw.

"If I say nothing," he said slowly, "Lumina walks toward extinction unaware."

"And if you speak," Fate answered, "you turn a distant future into an approaching one."

"Then what should I do?" Azrael asked softly.

"You have the fate of four worlds in your hands," the Goddess of Fate replied. "You have my power, Azrael."

"...."

Azrael remained silent as he looked at the river of Fate.

He slowly drew in a deep breath as he sat close to the river.

"How much time do I have?" he asked again.

"Time has no meaning here."

"Let me ask again," he whispered. "How long before my mind breaks?"

"Ten thousand years," Fate responded. "That’s how long you have to create your perfect plan."

Azrael stared at the river of Fate once again.

He raised his hand and willed the threads to move.

All four worlds trembled violently, and one thread came out of each of them.

Azrael grabbed all four threads, and a sudden influx of information zapped away his consciousness.

The last thing he saw...

...was a young man with six wings sitting in his place.