Godslayer's Legacy: THE PATH TO SUPREMACY

Kovar stood motionless beside the slab, his glass dome dimmed to a faint amber hue, diagnostic data scrolling sluggishly across its surface. His eyes, hollow with exhaustion, stayed locked on Rui's sleeping face.

The god's words still echoed in his mind.

"He is mine. My Champion."

Champion. The word carried weight—an expectation, a purpose—but what did it mean in this context? What was Rui supposed to do?

"AI," Kovar said quietly, his voice hoarse from hours of tension and shouting. "Run a predictive analysis on Rui's projected core recovery timeline."

"Processing…" The AI's voice chimed back, its usual cold precision softened by the bay's stillness.

Lines of translucent data flickered across the medical slab.

Mana Core Integrity: 32% (Projected increase to 57% within 12 hours).

Stabilization Thread Activity: Stable. Foreign energy presence detected—unidentified origin.

Projected Core Recovery: Partial stabilization within 24 hours. Full recovery… insufficient data.

Kovar let out a slow breath, his gloved hand running down his faceplate.

"Foreign energy… unidentified origin."

The god's thread. It wasn't something he could measure, explain, or replicate. Whatever had been done to Rui went beyond mortal comprehension.

Kovar turned away from the slab, crossing the grated floor toward a narrow terminal embedded in the bay wall. His boots clanged faintly against the metal as he activated the interface, streams of crystalline light spreading across the glass panel.

[MANUAL COMMAND OVERRIDE]

He hesitated for only a moment before typing a sequence into the panel. The airship's AI chirped in response.

"System override acknowledged. Manual stabilization protocols unlocked."

This wasn't standard procedure. It wasn't safe. But Kovar needed more control over Rui's recovery. He needed to understand what had happened to the boy.

"Begin slow-cycle stabilization infusion. Minimum output. I want every fluctuation logged."

"Command confirmed. Slow-cycle stabilization active."

The conduits feeding mana into Rui's core dimmed faintly as their flow slowed to a controlled drip. Kovar monitored the data streams cascading across his glass dome, his brows furrowed as numbers and diagrams filled his vision.

A sound—soft, faint—caught his attention.

Rui was… murmuring.

Kovar turned sharply, stepping back to the boy's side. Rui's head shifted slightly on the slab, his brows furrowed, lips moving as if caught in a dream.

"Threads… light… rivers… flowing…"

The same words he'd spoken earlier. But now, they came with a faint tremor in his voice.

"Rui." Kovar's voice was sharp but steady. "Can you hear me?"

Rui's breathing hitched slightly, his fingers twitching again before his silver eyes snapped open.

For a moment, the glow in his irises flared bright—too bright—etched with faint runes dancing like reflections on water. Then, it softened, flickering back to their usual silver glow.

"…Kovar?" Rui's voice was faint, but clearer this time.

Kovar leaned closer, gloved hands gripping the edge of the slab.

"I'm here, Rui. You're safe. You're on the ship."

Rui's gaze drifted upward, blinking slowly as if trying to focus on the ceiling lights above.

"It's… quiet now," Rui said softly. "The noise… the threads… they're gone."

Kovar's throat tightened. "What did you see, Rui? Back there, in the chasm… during the fight?"

Rui's eyes unfocused slightly, staring past Kovar into some distant point beyond the walls of the medical bay.

"There was… something beneath it all," Rui murmured. "It was like looking at the veins of the world. Threads… endless threads. But they weren't just lines—they were alive. They were moving, flowing… like rivers of light."

Kovar's gloved hand twitched faintly. No mortal should see such a thing.

"What happened then?" Kovar pressed gently.

Rui's lips trembled faintly, as if speaking the words would tear something fragile in his chest.

"I… pulled on one. I don't know how. I just—knew. I pulled, and everything collapsed."

The air felt heavy between them, silence pressing in from all sides.

"You shouldn't have survived that, Rui," Kovar said softly. "No one should have."

Rui's eyes slowly refocused on Kovar's face, and for a moment, there was something ancient in the boy's gaze—something sharp and piercing, a clarity that shouldn't exist in someone his age.

"But I did."

The simple words hung between them, fragile and undeniable.

Kovar straightened, stepping back slightly from the slab. His glass dome flickered faintly, casting shards of amber light across the sterile walls.

"You need rest, Rui. Whatever happened down there… whatever you did, it's over for now. You're alive. That's all that matters."

Rui closed his eyes again, his breathing soft and steady.

Kovar turned back to the diagnostic panel, his gloved hands hovering over the controls as streams of data flowed in a never-ending cascade.

But in the back of his mind, he couldn't shake the weight of Rui's words.

Threads… rivers… flowing.

He glanced back at Rui one last time. The faint golden thread—the god's touch—still shimmered subtly in Rui's chest, hidden deep within the fractured light of his mana core.

Whatever had happened in that moment, in that chasm, was far from over.

Outside, the distant glow of dawn bled faint streaks of lavender and gold across the sky, its light glancing off the Abyssal Scar far below—a wound that would never fully heal.