"Who..." Maya whispered, pulling her knees closer to her chest. "Who are you?"

Zen paused at the question, with his hand suspended in mid-air. He retracted his hand and slowly sat down on the glass-covered floor right in front of her, crossing his legs so he was completely on her level.

He looked directly into Maya’s terrified eyes. Instead of using his overwhelming, heavy aura, he projected a gentle and warm version of his magic to help calm her shaking.

"I am the same Zen you know," Zen said softly.

Maya shook her head quickly. She pulled her knees tighter to her chest. "No," she whispered in a shaky voice. "No, you are not. The Zen I know is a Low F-Rank. He was weak. Kaelan beat him up so badly that his core completely shattered. He could barely stand up on his own. He was... he was pathetic."

Zen didn’t get angry at those words. He just smiled a little. "That used to be me," he said calmly. "Until I awakened the consciousness of the Emperor inside me."

Maya blinked. Her fear started to fade, but her confusion grew immensely.

"Emperor?" Maya whispered. She shook her head. "What Emperor?"

"Do you remember your first-year history class at the Academy?" Zen asked. "The lesson about the end of the Second Age?"

Maya nodded slowly.

"Do you remember the story about the man who fought the darkness?" Zen asked. "The man who raised the Five Great Pillars to hold the sky and keep the Void from crushing the world?"

Maya’s eyes went wide. "The First Emperor," she breathed. "But... our teachers said that is just an old myth. It is just a story to explain the old ruins."

"It is not a myth," Zen said. He pointed over his shoulder. "And those Pillars were not made of stone or magic. They were people."

Zen pointed at the red-haired girl picking up heavy steel beams across the room. "Val is actually Valeria. The Goddess of War. She is the Vanguard Pillar."

Then he pointed at the woman in the neon-purple armour. "She is Nyx. The Spymaster. The Shadow Pillar. And there are three other Goddesses ruling the other domains." Zen looked back into Maya’s eyes. "I am the Emperor they served."

Maya stared at him, her mind racing.

The clumsy, quirky girl who most of the time was beside Zen and staring daggers at anyone who came too close was actually the most terrifying woman in the world?

And the boy she had a massive crush on was the ancient ruler of the entire continent?

She shook her head violently. "No. No, I don’t believe it," Maya stammered, pressing her hands against the sides of her head. "That is impossible. That is a fairy tale! The Emperor died five hundred years ago. You are just Zen. You live in the Scrap Dorms!"

She wanted to deny it completely. It was simply too much for her mortal brain to process.

But Zen did not argue with her. He simply kept his eyes locked on hers, letting his warm magic flow steadily.

And then, she felt it.

Because of the Blood Pact tying her life force to his, Maya could suddenly feel his emotions bleeding into her own chest. She searched for any sign of a lie, any hint of a joke or a trick.

But there was nothing.

There was no deceit. There was only the heavy, ancient weight of truth. It bypassed her logical brain entirely and spoke directly to her soul.

She looked past him again. The terrifying, world-ending Goddess of War was silently picking up heavy rubble like a maid, all because Zen had told her to. The evidence matched the feeling in her core. It was too massive to accept but too real to ignore.

She swallowed hard. Her throat felt incredibly dry. Her voice was barely a whisper. "Does... does Jax know?"

"No," Zen said calmly. "Jax just thinks I got a little stronger in the dungeon. He does not know anything else."

Maya looked back at Zen. A deep, awe-struck reverence finally completely replaced her fear and denial. "I am the only one?"

"Yes," Zen said softly. "You are the first person to know the truth."

Behind them, the cleanup was not going peacefully.

Valeria was using her S-Rank strength to bend massive steel support beams back into place. She did it with her bare hands, tossing heavy chunks of concrete aside like toys.

Across the room, Nyx stood with her arms crossed. She did not lift a single finger. Instead, a swarm of twenty little flying repair drones buzzed around her. They shot hot blue lasers, welding what needed to be welded back together.

Valeria scowled as she worked. She glared at the Spymaster.

"Emperor," Valeria called out loudly. "Tell her to move her stupid machines. The soldering sparks from her drones are touching my legs."

Nyx rolled her purple eyes. "Come on, Vanguard. You take zero damage from heavy anti-aircraft lasers. You obviously can’t even feel a tiny spark on your skin."

"It is annoying!" Valeria snapped. She dropped a heavy steel beam on the floor with a loud clang. She ignored the drones and walked straight over to Zen.

She stopped right next to him, giving him a fake, innocent look.

"Zen," Valeria said softly, holding up her hands. "My hands are very dirty from all this rubble. It is disgusting. Should I go wash them in your private bathroom?"

Nyx scoffed loudly from across the room. "It is not his bathroom, it is mine. And you literally burn dirt off your body with Aegis magic. You just want an excuse to stand close to him."

"Shut up, digital whore!" Valeria hissed.

"Keep cleaning, Valeria," Zen ordered flatly. "Both of you."

Valeria pouted immediately. "Yes, Emperor," she whispered, turning around and walking back to the steel beams.

Zen turned his attention back to Maya. He reached out to help her stand up.

But as Maya reached for his hand, she suddenly gasped.

Her eyes rolled back. She grabbed her chest tightly and fell forward. She coughed violently, and dark, thick blood splattered onto the broken glass.

"Maya!" Zen caught her before she hit the floor. Her skin was burning hot. It felt like she was on fire from the inside.

Valeria looked over her shoulder. "The Blood Pact," she said, her voice turning serious. "I told you earlier. It mutated. When you took the Spymaster’s fragment, your power spiked too fast. The extra mana transferred through the pact."

Zen cursed under his breath. Maya was only a High F-Rank. Her mortal body simply could not handle the heavy, crushing influx of ancient S-Rank Emperor mana. Her core was starting to crack under the immense pressure.

"Nyx!" Zen shouted, picking Maya up in his arms. "Open the cultivation pool! Now!"

Nyx swiped her hand quickly in the air. A hidden metal wall slid open at the back of the penthouse, revealing the large, circular pool filled with glowing, light-blue water. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

Zen ran into the room and carried Maya right to the edge of the water. Maya was crying in pain. Her veins were bulging, glowing with a dangerous mix of purple and gold light.

"I have to cool your core," Zen told her quickly. "I am going to take your outer clothes off."

Maya was in too much pain to answer. Zen quickly unzipped her academy jacket and pulled her shirt over her head. He stripped her down to just her undergarments.

He gently placed her into the glowing water. The cool nutrient liquid instantly hissed as it touched her burning skin.

Zen stood at the edge of the pool. He held his hands out, guiding his own mana into the water to help her.

"Listen to me, Maya!" Zen commanded loudly. "Your High F-Rank core is breaking. You are trying to hold the energy inside to protect it. Stop holding it in!"

"It hurts!" Maya screamed, thrashing in the water.

"Do not fight the pain!" Zen ordered. "Let the core break! Push all the pent-up energy out of your body right now!"

Maya nodded weakly. She closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and completely let go of her control.

BOOM!

A massive, violent shockwave of pure mana exploded out of Maya’s chest. It blew the glowing blue water high into the air, soaking Zen’s clothes.

Maya screamed as the energy violently tore through her natural bottlenecks.

Her aura spiked instantly, breaking past High F-Rank and shattering the barrier into Low E-Rank. It then rapidly climbed to High E-Rank, completely blowing away all her old limits. Finally, the glowing light around her body flashed bright blue and settled at Mid D-Rank.

Maya stopped screaming and floated in the center of the pool, panting heavily. The burning heat in her veins was gone. She slowly lifted her wet hands out of the water and stared at them in pure shock, feeling the massive, steady flow of her new power.

She had just jumped two entire ranks in less than a minute.

Zen let out a breath of relief. He grabbed a towel from a nearby rack.

But before he could say a word to her, a loud, sharp beep echoed from the main room.

Zen turned around. Nyx’s newly repaired terminal was flashing with a blinding gold light. It was a high-priority, heavily encrypted transmission.

Nyx walked over to the screen. Her face turned completely serious.

"Zen," Nyx called out. Her voice was tense. "The continental alarms triggered a direct line. It is her."

Zen walked out of the pool room, leaving Maya to rest. "Who?"

"Aurelia," Nyx answered, staring at the golden flashing screen. "The Empress. She saw the S-Rank shield breach in my city. And she is demanding an answer."