Agatha looked at Clyde with disbelief, a deep frown carving across her face.
Spies? In the circle of higher beings?
That didn’t make sense. How could a mortal—even one as dangerous as Clyde—manage to turn those arrogant, all-seeing beings into informants?
They were proud, cruel, and self-absorbed. Working with a mortal, would’ve been unthinkable.
"How?" she asked, her voice a mix of suspicion and sheer confusion. "How could you have spies among them?"
Clyde’s expression didn’t change. That calm, unreadable mask of his stayed perfectly in place, like he’d expected the question.
"It’s a long story," he said coolly. "Not worth explaining right now. The point is, I have spies. I’m not worried about the higher beings unexpected plans anymore."
That simple dismissal only made it worse for her.
Agatha fell silent again, her thoughts spinning faster than she could keep up with. She let out a slow, strained sigh and dropped to the ground, her legs folding beneath her as she sat cross-legged on the rooftop.
The cold stone bit through her clothes, but she barely noticed.
All of it was too much for her.
The corruption, the collapse of the divine order, Clyde being chosen by an ancient god, the revelation that the System was never meant to serve the World Masters—and now, this? That he had agents working from the inside?
She wrapped her arms around herself, instinctively trying to hold herself together.
But no matter how hard she tried to find a crack in his story and a reason to doubt him... there was nothing. Not with what she’d seen and what was happening across the realms.
Clyde didn’t need to lie.
And he wouldn’t gain anything by tricking her now. If anything, telling her the truth was more dangerous. It meant he trusted her or at least wanted her to think he did.
She looked up at him again. He hadn’t moved. Just stood there like some unshakable monument to this new world that was being carved out by fire and rot.
"Agatha," he said, his voice lower now. "I want you to work with me. I need someone close to the World Masters. You’re still in their inner circle. I want information from your circle now, you need to feed it to me."
Her mouth felt dry. Her instincts screamed to run, stay neutral, and not get any deeper than she already was.
But there was nowhere left to run anymore.
She gave it a moment. Just enough to consider what little choice she had. Then she slowly nodded.
"...Alright," she whispered. "I’ll work with you."
Clyde’s gaze remained on her, sharp and cold. But after a second, he turned away and looked out at the fractured horizon, where the sky cracked like broken glass and the clouds churned with distant thunder.
"Good," he said. "Then we move forward."
Agatha didn’t reply. She only stared out with him, the wind tugging at her cloak, wondering just how far forward this path would go and whether anything would be left when it ended. But at least, he won’t be the one who experiencing the worse part of it.
The realms were in chaos, and the Bureau had finally realized it. At first, they believed what was happening in Uriel’s domain was just another attack launched by a higher being who despised her. Without thinking much, they struck back immediately, invading her domain.
However, after observing further, they discovered that something else was causing all this chaos.
The World Master Bureau, an interdimensional organization responsible for managing the Selection Stage and sorting followers from the lower realms to serve the higher beings, had received reports from various places saying that a strange corruption was spreading. And they had no idea what or who was behind it.
The leader, Morvius, who appeared as a middle-aged human, sat in his room with his back to the table. His eyes stared out the window of his tower at the white city that made up the Bureau’s domain.
His expression seemed calm, but he couldn’t hide the cold sweat running down his face.
He had no idea what was truly happening beyond what others already knew, and that made him anxious. The Bureau was supposed to oversee everything, which usually meant they knew almost everything going on in the higher realms.
They always knew who launched a sudden attack to gain an advantage over the others. But they chose to remain neutral and used the information they gathered for their own benefit.
Usually, if a higher being was attacked and wanted to find out who the assailant was, they had to pay a high price with powerful artifacts or other forms of aid just to get an answer.
But right now, Morvius only knew what the other higher beings already knew. A mortal, or a man who used to be mortal, had attacked Uriel’s domain, slaughtered her followers, and even defeated her.
This mortal could wield the power of Angels, Demons, and Celestials. And he was believed to be the one behind the corruption.
A long sigh escaped Morvius’s lips. Even his spies scattered across the realms couldn’t gather enough information. This was not good.
A rapid knock on the door snapped Morvius out of his thoughts.
The door opened and his secretary entered, holding a tablet made from a slab of white marble inscribed with runes. She said, "Sir, something has happened again. A sudden attack has devastated Archangel Gabriel’s domain."
Morvius’s eyes narrowed. The cold sweat on his back grew heavier. "Give it to me."
The secretary handed him the tablet. Without wasting time, Morvius swiped across it and watched a recording of the events. It had been taken directly from the memory of a spy embedded among Archangel Gabriel’s followers.
Morvius’s eyes widened at the battle unfolding on the screen. The powers involved looked completely beyond reason.
"Hades... and Gabriel... fighting together?" Morvius said in shock.
But that wasn’t the most surprising thing. Hades and Gabriel were fighting a single individual—and they were being overwhelmed.
Morvius was lost for words.