Ragan opened his eyes and saw pavement.
Cold, cracked, and a little wet from whatever garbage water had seeped out of the alley's busted pipes.
He blinked.
Once.
Twice.
The sky above him was gray and unbothered, like nothing had happened. Like the universe hadn't just collapsed in on itself.
He stared up at it for a moment, not moving. His body hurt in all the right places—ribs, back, shoulder, the faint pulsing pain in his face where that smug bastard had elbowed him.
There was a moment where he wondered if maybe he had imagined the whole thing. Maybe the concussion was worse than it felt. Maybe he blacked out and dreamed it all.
The woman made of moonlight.
The throne of swords.
The sky full of broken stars.
The giant cosmic blade erupting from the earth.
Felt a bit much for a fever dream, though.
His fingers twitched. That's when he realized he was still holding something.
He sat up slowly, his muscles protesting every inch, and looked down at his hands.
The sword was still there.
But it wasn't the same as before.
It had changed.
It was smaller now, lighter, more compact. The black iron of its body still shimmered faintly with a kind of deep, rippling energy, but it no longer looked like a world-splitting artifact. It looked like something a human could actually wield. Like it had been scaled down to match the size of its owner.
Ragan stared at it.
Then, very calmly, he set it down on the concrete beside him.
"Okay," he muttered. "Let's just… let go of the murder-sword."
He backed away a few steps, hands raised like it might jump up and bite him.
For a second, it sat there. Still. Perfect.
Then it flickered.
A pulse of light shimmered across its surface, and in the next instant—it was gone.
No sound. No explosion. Just a quiet distortion in the air. Like it had been erased.
Ragan stood there, blinking again.
"…Right," he muttered. "It teleports now. Of course it does."
He looked around the alley.
There was no crater. No blood. No sign of the fight. The place was eerily clean. Like someone had gone back in time and erased the last hour.
The gang members were gone.
The damage was gone.
Even the weird crack he remembered forming in the wall behind him was perfectly intact.
The only thing left was him.
And the knowledge that something impossible had happened.
He staggered toward the street, brushing dust off his clothes, his mind racing.
Maybe it had been a drug trip.
That was the only logical explanation, right?
Except he hadn't taken anything.
Hadn't eaten anything weird. Hadn't touched anything except that sword.
And now it was gone.
But it had been there.
He touched it. Felt it.
He remembered the sound it made when it split the ground open. Remembered the impossible weight of it. The way it hummed against his skin. The way it looked at him without eyes.
That woman.
Vael'thari.
Whatever she was.
That had been real.
He couldn't convince himself otherwise.
That kind of fear, that kind of presence, it couldn't be made up.
Even his worst dreams never felt that solid.
He stumbled across the street and made his way toward his building, one hand pressed against his ribs. They were still sore, but he could tell nothing was broken.
Maybe the sword healed him a little. Or maybe he was just too full of adrenaline to notice.
The sun was just starting to rise. Pale orange light filtered through the cracks between the buildings, painting long shadows across the sidewalk.
The city didn't care what happened to him.
Didn't care what he saw.
Didn't know that some guy who barely made rent was now apparently a chosen avatar of some cosmic entity who couldn't kill people herself.
He reached his apartment door and fumbled for the key. His fingers were still trembling slightly. He pushed it in, turned the lock, and stepped inside.
The room was exactly as he left it.
Cluttered, dim, pathetic.
The same broken chair. The same half-eaten instant noodles on the counter. The same pile of unopened letters he refused to look at.
He closed the door, locked it, and leaned against it, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor.
For a long moment, he just sat there. Breathing.
Everything was quiet again.
No swords. No gods. No glowing runes.
Just the flicker of the ceiling light and the distant sound of traffic.
He ran his hands down his face and tried to focus.
Tried to process.
He hadn't died.
He hadn't hallucinated.
He had been chosen.
Not because he was special. Not because he was powerful.
Because he didn't break.
That's what she said.
And now?
He didn't know what came next.
He needed time.
He needed sleep.
He needed—
His phone buzzed.
Ragan blinked and pulled it from his pocket, the cracked screen lighting up with the same dumb photo on the lock screen.
Him and his ex. Both smiling. Both pretending.
He unlocked it, expecting some overdue notification or bill reminder.
But his thumb hovered.
Because his banking app was still open.
Right where he'd left it.
Only the number wasn't the same anymore.
He stared.
He blinked.
He rubbed his eyes.
The number remained.
There were too many digits.
Too many zeros.
At first he thought it was a glitch. Then he thought it was a virus.
But the app was real. His bank was real. His name was still there.
Ragan Hart.
And beneath it, a balance.
$4,921,376.45
His mouth went dry.
His thumb hovered over the screen like it might catch fire.
"…What the actual hell," he muttered.
He checked it again.
Same number.
He closed the app. Reopened it.
Still there.
He stared at it like it might vanish. Like it might admit it was a joke.
Then, louder this time—
"How the hell did this happen?"
The words weren't even fully out of his mouth before a voice answered.
"Consider it a gesture of acknowledgment."
He froze.
The phone slipped from his hands and hit the floor with a soft thud.
The voice was smooth, cultured, and female. Calm, but not gentle. There was weight behind it. The same kind of weight he'd felt in the sword realm, like space itself took a breath when she spoke.
His eyes darted toward the center of the room.
Someone was sitting on the folding chair across from his makeshift mattress.
She hadn't been there before.
He would have noticed.
It wasn't every day an immortal entity just popped into your garbage-stained apartment like she lived there.
Her posture was relaxed, one leg crossed over the other. She rested one arm casually on the back of the chair like it was a throne.
Vael'thari.
Except she looked different now.
Less goddess, more woman.
Still unreal, though. Her skin still had that faint shimmer, and her eyes still burned faintly like dying suns, but she was dressed in something simpler—tight black pants, a high-collared jacket, hair pulled back in a loose braid. No blades, no floating metal, no radiant armor.
She looked… almost normal.
Like someone too attractive to be real.
The kind of woman who made reality feel like it had a lower frame rate just by existing.
He blinked at her.
She tilted her head slightly.
"You have questions," she said.
"No shit I have questions," he said, voice catching in his throat. "You're in my apartment."
"Yes," she said. "And judging by the state of it, not for long."
He rubbed the bridge of his nose and exhaled. "How are you even here?"
"I'm not," she said. "Not fully. This is a projection. A tether, built from the bond we now share. I occupy many realms. This is merely a piece of me. Consider it a… monitoring presence."
"So you're like a divine Alexa now."
She blinked slowly. "I don't know what that means, but I assume it's something beneath me."
He gestured toward his phone. "And the money? You know. The millions of dollars in my account?"
She nodded.
"I had it transferred through mortal infrastructure, adjusted through several shell networks and temporary conduits. It is real. It will not be traced. It will not vanish."
His mouth opened. No sound came out.
"I thought," she continued, "it was only fair. You've been walking uphill your entire life, Ragan Hart. Even gods recognize that kind of will. This is not payment. It is recognition."
He stared at her.
"Soooo, this a bribe?"
"Is it working?"
"…Yeah. A little."
She smiled faintly and looked around. Her eyes moved over the peeling paint, the broken furniture, the stack of unopened mail near the sink.
"This space is unfit for a vessel of divine inheritance," she said.
"This space is all I can afford," he muttered. "Or… was."
"You can afford a far better place now."
He looked back at the phone on the floor. Still unlocked. Still sitting there with a number bigger than he ever thought he'd see.
"Jesus," he whispered. "You're serious."
"As I always am."
He ran a hand down his face, then through his hair. He needed to sit. He was already sitting. He needed to sit harder.
"This is insane."
"This is real."
He looked at her again, eyes scanning the faint glow around her fingers. "You don't feel real. You're still glowing, by the way. Little tip—normal people don't glow."
"I am not normal."
He sighed. "Yeah. Figured that one out."
There was a beat of silence between them. The soft hum of the broken light above.
Then she said, "Clean this mess."
He blinked. "What?"
She gestured at the room with one graceful flick of her hand.
"The wrappers. The mold. The smell. If you're going to carry my blade, you will do it with a shred of dignity. You now represent more than yourself."
He squinted at her. "You showed up in my apartment uninvited, looked around, and your first decree is that I'm messy?"
"Yes."
"This is not even the top fifty things I thought you'd say."
"Do you think gods only speak in riddles and ultimatums?"
"I mean—kinda?"
"Then your standards are low," she said, standing up in a single fluid motion.
She stepped forward, and her presence didn't feel like it belonged in the room anymore. The ceiling was too low for someone like her. The walls too close. The air too stale.
He didn't move. Just stared.
Her voice softened, only slightly.
"This room is the final piece of your old life," she said. "And that life is already gone. You are not a cashier. You are not a victim. You are the bearer of Will, and the blade you carry will change everything it touches—including you."
He wanted to argue.
Wanted to say something clever.
But nothing came.
So he just stared.
Still stunned.
Still trying to catch up.
And before he could speak, before he could even blink, she was gone.
No sound. No flash.
Just… gone.
Like she'd never been there at all.
The broken chair sat empty again.
The air felt heavier.
The room smaller.
He glanced down at his phone, still blinking with numbers he didn't understand.
He looked around at the half-eaten cup noodles. The pile of clothes. The smell.
And then, softly—
"…I think I have a new crush."