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“Where the hell are you, you man-whore?”

Likely to her annoyance, the divine manifestation of knowledge was met with several seconds of cold stale silence. It was a chilling absence of acknowledgement that seemed to swell completely against the interior of the infernal citadel. Was it worth it? Was touching that repulsive, and potentially lethal, connection that blossomed after their tangling really going to grant her with nothing but neglect? The quietness was deafening at this point, nearly thirty seconds had gone by without any sort of answer. Then, one by one, golden threads strewn all over the castle like an ethereal web suddenly shimmered to life. It was as if they had always been around her, invisible and dormant until that very moment. The awakening of these strands came with a warmth that washed over her like a soothing balm, one that was both familiar and yet…wounded. The threads ran through walls like phantasms and split randomly before parting in varied directions-some even out of the Hells. One of these strands even found itself ending right at the god’s chest. The sight of the glimmering web faded as soon as it appeared, as did that invisible blanket of comfort as if they were all part of an ebbing tide.

“G-good to see you too, nerd.”

His voice, far more tender than her earlier rebuke, captured her mind with a deep clear resonance. It rang through the stain-like connection she had called out to him with and it became undeniably clear that The Devil was either wounded or worse-but she was well aware of that already. Each reverberating telepathic syllable suggested that he was amidst some distant struggle or even agony. Before she could further digest the connotation of his tone, however, her sight was consumed by a blinding white curtain of oblivion that stole the footing beneath her and ripped the familiar air of the reality she knew from around her…and in its place…came something entirely alien. This…whatever this was… surely was his realm-or what was left of it. While she could not see anything beyond the painted nothingness before her, she soon felt the familiar texture of bladed grasses beneath her feet…the delicate wisp of a fragrant wind that carried the smell of water and flora that belonged to a time long forgotten…

Then, for the first time in this existence, the blank canvas of the dimension she found herself in began to fall away to vibrant colors mingled with insurmountable chaos. Beautiful broad landscapes of foreign vegetation, distant waters, and an unfamiliar sky were eroding as ripples of charged divine energy beyond even her understanding rolled through the entirety of this alien vivarium-like realm in destructive waves. Knowledge stood amidst a chunk of fractured earth, where the deepest of the fissures- opened up to a depthless black beneath. Though the breaks didn’t last long as weakened arcane forces pulled the pieces back together only for them to eventually split apart again when the next pulse of that energy washed over everything again. Further out to her left she could see the carcass of what was likely a large lake, with moist terrain in the shape of a large reservoir that was also caught into the fracturing loop that had drained it before she arrived. Some of the water hovered above the land, disjointed and suspended in an unnatural state that spoke to how even the physics of this world was broken. The violet sky above her cracked like shattering glass before the jagged broken veins. Even the watchful moon appeared as if it were…melting…

Perhaps she would have found herself in similar straits as well, victim to that radiating arcana that washed over this place, if it weren’t for a thin membrane of energy delicately draped over her like some impenetrable shawl…more than that was the fact that it wasn’t just her being protected. Behind her, perhaps a mile out…was a small wooden house…fortified by an unquantifiable amount of the same magical shielding protecting her, layered one over another. The arcane code bringing these phenomena to life were also designed by theories of magic beyond the knowledge of even gods…and even then…it wasn’t perfect. She could still feel how unsettling and nauseating each destructive pulse was.

Then…further out before her…was the source. A large crater superheated from the radiating destruction and at its center was a singular man who was on his knees. He wore fragments of tattered robes, revealing the charred flesh underneath as golden flames cackled across body. The black sores of the burns bled a thick viscous golden ichor, which pooled beneath him at the center of the basin in a small molten puddle of truly divine ambrosia that shimmered with mysterious energy. There was a heterochromatic glow to it as well…and peering into it was to glimpse into the incomprehensible framework that tied all existence together.

At one point, as Knowledge grew closer to the crux of this disarray, she could see that each pulse of the Omniarch energy radiating from Levi also brought into view those webs of golden strands…all of which reached out from the Devil’s torso. It brought the one ending at her chest back into view for a brief moment, but this time, she could see a fiber of that arcane strand fray and, in that moment, she had lost a memory of Levi. She would feel the sudden absence of information where there once was something…and then the fiber drifted back to the main strand ending at her chest, guided by the weak mana that was repairing everything else around her, and melted back into it. The Memory was back now…and with it came the true nature of what was happening…this was Levi’s punishment for dawning such power when he didn’t have the capacity to wield it…and normally it would have killed…no…completely ’erased’ anyone else…and yet here he was surviving it.

If it weren’t for Levi’s protection, it was possible that the energy might have lashed out at Knowledge and attempted to do the same to her for just being near the unstable anomaly that Levi had become…though…her arrival would pull at the corners of Levi’s mouth. He was tired, his blue and green eyes dull…but he was doing his best to make it seem that fighting off oblivion was easier than it actually was. He barely lifted his head to welcome her, his eyelids fluttering as the flames cackled louder. “Long time no see, Ţ̷͇̥̪̲̞̪͙̠͙͋͒̔͗͜͝r̸̝̫͚̘̘̣̬̙͎̙̮̱̯̭̎̃͒̽̐͝͝ư̶̯̪̭̥̹̌͒̏̈́͘͠t̶̗̰͍͕̳̋̆̀̾͗͐̾̈́̇͐͝h̴̘̿͆̋ ̸̛̺̭͎̯͎͍̼̖̖̟̖̙̒̀͒̃̌̿̀͠Ș̵̼̱̖̓͒̈̾̋̂̓͋͒̒͛̅̚̚͝ë̵̢̟͓̮̼̬̃̊͠ͅề̶̢͕̺̝̭̙̳̗̩̭̬̂̆̀͑͠k̵̮͎͚̲͈̮̉͗͂̄̈́̚ͅȩ̵̡̬̼̖̖̺͚̘̍r̸̰̻̤͚̙̯̰̣͈̓̍̄̓,” Levi’s voice sounded so very fragile…but…but at some point his lips…they kept moving…but no sound came from it. In its place was nothing auditory…no, it was so much more than that. What Levi spoke was deep and intrinsic to Knowledge, like it was a fundamental that her very genesis blossomed from. She felt it as a piece of her that she always had and never knew of-something that solely belonged to her.

“It's a Beautiful n-name isn't it? One of the reasons I was so drawn to-,” another vile pulse erupted from him and echoed across the dimension, forcing a strangled groan from the Devil as he momentarily dedicated himself to keeping everything from crumbling. After several moments, he continued. “To you…It’s why you’re here as well…Isn’t it? I’d like to think you were here to check in on me…but I know better.”