Chapter 253: Astral Church
Gabriel looked around the crowded laboratory, taking in the researchers still moving between tables. "There are things I’m about to say that shouldn’t spread through the city."
Mayor Ko nodded immediately, already turning to the room. "Everyone but essential personnel, please step out."
The researchers filed out reluctantly, a few glancing back over their shoulders at the golden-robed visitors before the door closed behind them. What remained was a smaller circle: Kai, Sera, Lily, Elden, Mira, Raze, and Mayor Ko himself.
The room settled into quiet, nothing left but relics, blueprints, and half-finished prototypes scattered across every surface.
Gabriel’s eyes swept the tables. "You’ve already accomplished far more than I expected to find here."
Lily smiled, unable to help the pride in it. "We’ve been busy."
Gabriel chuckled softly. "I can see that."
Her expression settled into something more serious. "The System has appeared before."
Silence.
Kai answered first. "We know."
Every head in the room turned toward him.
Gabriel’s eyebrows lifted slightly. "You do?"
Gabriel’s eyebrows lifted slightly. "You already know?"
Kai nodded.
"We’ve known for a while."
Gabriel looked genuinely surprised now. "How?"
Kai answered simply. "The Candidate."
The room remained calm.
Nobody reacted.
Instead, Mayor Ko nodded. "Everything we’ve built over the past several weeks started because of him."
Lily smiled. "The Forgotten Capital and the relics all of it traces back to the Candidate."
Sera folded her arms. "He’s also the reason we even know what Tiamat looks like."
Gabriel blinked. "You’ve seen Tiamat?"
Kai nodded. "Many times."
Gabriel frowned slightly. "Many times?"
Kai continued. "The Candidate recreated previous civilizations. He allowed us to test every Disaster Plan we could think of and we fought Tiamat over and over inside his simulations."
Silence.
Gabriel simply stared at him. "He did what?"
For the first time since arriving in Mythal... Her calm composure cracked and she slowly lowered herself into the nearest chair. "That’s impossible."
Lily tilted her head.
"Why?"
Gabriel looked between everyone in the room. "Because..." She hesitated. "...the Candidate has never done that before."
Nobody spoke.
Gabriel slowly shook her head. "Our oldest records describe him appearing."
"Watching."
"Guiding and sometimes answering a single question or pointing people toward the Archives." Another pause. "Then disappearing."
She looked directly at them. "Never has he stayed with a civilization. Never has he personally trained one. And certainly never..." Her eyes drifted toward Lily’s tables, covered in relics and Disaster Plans. "helped build an entirely new Disaster strategy."
Raze blinked. "Wait. "So that means we’re special?"
Mira immediately sighed. "That’s your takeaway?"
"I’m just asking."
Elden adjusted his glasses thoughtfully. "Or perhaps the Candidate saw something worth investing in."
The room became quiet.
Gabriel looked at Kai for several long seconds. "Perhaps." She glanced across everyone gathered in the laboratory. "Or maybe this is the first time in countless civilizations that he believes humanity might actually succeed."
Everyone fell silent.
"Still..." Mayor Ko closed his eyes for a moment. "This does confirm humanity really has walked this exact road before."
"Many times," Gabriel said.
Silence held.
Raze scratched the back of his head. "That’s actually terrifying, when you say it like that."
Mayor Ko nodded slowly. "If civilizations more advanced than us still disappeared entirely, what chance did they actually have?"
Nobody had an answer for that one.
Gabriel walked toward one of Lily’s relic prototypes, studying it without touching. "The previous civilizations weren’t primitive people struggling to survive." She glanced back at the room. "They became extraordinary."
As she spoke, Kai found himself pulled back into the Candidate’s display.
Floating cities drifting above the clouds.
Massive barrier networks spanning entire mountain ranges.
Weapons capable of splitting a mountain range in half with a single coordinated strike.
"The System transformed them," Gabriel continued. "It gave humanity power. It accelerated civilization far beyond what should have been possible in that span of time. It rewarded exploration. It rewarded growth." She paused. "It rewarded unity."
Lily whispered, almost to herself, "Exactly like us."
"Exactly," Gabriel said before her gaze drifted around the laboratory. "This surprised me the most... Tell me, who convinced rival guilds to work together?"
Nobody answered.
She already knew.
Her silver eyes settled on Kai. "You."
Mayor Ko looked between them. "What about it?"
Gabriel answered quietly. "Every historical record we possess describes the same thing. The city never united until it was too late."
Silence.
"So are you saying, we are the first?" Mira asked as she pointed to herself.
Gabriel nodded. "Before Disaster has even begun."
Sera blinked. "Does that mean–"
Gabriel smiled. "History has already changed with you guys."
Everyone paused at those words before shivering.
"I can start to see why the Candidate took a liking to you guys." She whispered softly.
"Was working together really that hard?" Kai questioned. "Weren’t there cities that had cleared through their competitors?"
"There has but that wasn’t unity. It looked fine on the surface but there was holes that lead to terrible disaster later on."
"Ahh, I see."
There was no need for more explanation, the implication was obvious.
Gabriel looked around the room slowly. "The System guided every civilization it touched toward greatness." A pause, her expression hardening. "Until it didn’t." Her voice dropped quieter. "Every civilization eventually reached a point where progress alone stopped being enough."
Kai’s mind went straight to Tiamat. "The Three Disasters."
Gabriel nodded. "The beginning. The first great trial every civilization eventually faces."
She folded her hands together. "If humanity overcame it, the System guided them onward, into something greater than what came before." A pause. "If they failed—"
Silence.
"—everything ended."
Raze frowned. "How did it end?"
Gabriel answered carefully, choosing her words. "Our oldest surviving records all describe the same thing, regardless of which civilization wrote them. The skies changed. The world fell silent. Entire civilizations simply vanished."
Mira’s expression tightened. "Everyone died?"
Gabriel didn’t answer right away. "We don’t know for certain." A pause. "But afterward, the world began again."
The room went completely still.
Lily said quietly, "Reset."
Gabriel nodded once. "That is what the Astral Church believes, based on everything we’ve been able to piece together."
Nobody could stay quiet after that.
Mayor Ko asked immediately, "How many times has this happened?"
Gabriel shook her head. "We don’t know."
Lily leaned forward. "Who created the System in the first place?"
"I don’t know."
Elden asked, "Who actually built the Archives that survived it?"
"We don’t know," Gabriel admitted again.
Raze sighed dramatically, throwing his hands up. "You really don’t know much of anything, do you?"
Gabriel laughed, unbothered. "No." She met his eyes. "We simply know more than most people currently alive."
Even Kai managed a small smile at that.
Kai crossed his arms. "So the Three Disasters. They’re the final test."
Gabriel shook her head slowly. "No."
Silence.
"They’re only the First Filter."
Nobody spoke.
Kai blinked. "First?"
Lily’s eyes went wide. "You’re saying there are more filters after that?"
Gabriel nodded. "There are." A pause, and her expression softened. "But there’s no point worrying about tomorrow’s mountain while you’re still climbing today’s."
Silence held again.
Sera exhaled slowly. "I actually appreciate that answer."
Gabriel smiled. "Most people don’t, when I say it that plainly."
Mayor Ko spoke first once the room settled. "I spent five months believing we were building humanity’s future." A pause, quieter now. "Now I learn we’re repeating someone else’s."
Mira added, "So if we fail, our children lose everything just the same way theirs did."
Raze leaned back in his chair, arms behind his head. "Well. No pressure or anything."
Everyone laughed despite themselves, a needed release after everything that had just been said.
Elden spoke next, more to himself than the room. "The Archives weren’t preserving history at all." He looked up. "They were teaching the next civilization how to try again."
Gabriel nodded. "Exactly."
Kai quietly spoke. "The Candidate never called himself a survivor."
Gabriel looked toward him immediately. "What did he call himself?"
Kai answered without hesitation. "A guide."
Gabriel’s silver eyes widened. "He still remembers."
Nobody understood the meaning behind those words.
But the weight in Gabriel’s voice made everyone realize just how extraordinary the Candidate truly was.
Lily slowly looked around the laboratory.
Her fingers brushed across the relics scattered over every table.
Scrolls.
Ancient cores.
Broken fragments.
Half-finished prototypes.
"Every one of these really" Her voice was barely above a whisper. "was someone’s final hope."
Silence fell in the area.
But it was something they all knew because of what the Candidate had told them in the blue world.
"Yes," Gabriel said simply.
Sera glanced over at Kai. "Then we’ve already started walking their path without even realizing it."
Kai nodded quietly. "We have."
Gabriel finally reached the point she’d clearly been building toward the entire conversation. "We didn’t come here simply to warn you."
She placed one hand over her chest. "We came because we want Mythal to survive."
Mayor Ko’s eyes narrowed slightly. "Why us specifically?"
Gabriel answered honestly, without hesitation. "Because every civilization before yours faced this completely alone." She looked around the room at each of them in turn. "This time, one city doesn’t have to."
Silence.
She smiled, warm and genuine. "The Astral Church will help you overcome the Three Disasters, in whatever way we’re able to."
Nobody spoke for a moment.
Then Raze muttered under his breath, "I like her."
Mira elbowed him hard. "This is serious, Raze."
"I know." He rubbed his side. "I still like her."
Even Gabriel laughed at that, the sound genuine and unguarded.
Kai studied Gabriel for a long moment, weighing everything she’d just laid out in front of them.
Then he slowly extended his hand. "Alright."
"We’ll hear everything you have to share."
Gabriel took his hand and shook it firmly. "We’ll share every record we have. Every relic. Every plan that ever worked, even partially. Every failure too, so you don’t repeat them the way we might have."
Gabriel’s eyes drifted toward the massive strategy table in the center of the room.
Scrolls from the Forgotten Capital.
Relic placement diagrams.
Battlefield routes.
Evacuation plans.
Healing arrays.
Mana relay chains.
Everything Lily and the others had spent weeks building together.
She walked over quietly.
One page.
Then another.
Then another.
Her expression slowly changed. "Wait."
Everyone looked toward her.
Gabriel pointed at the center of the combined strategy. "This isn’t recorded anywhere."
Lily blinked. "You noticed that?"
Gabriel looked around the room. "The Astral Church has preserved hundreds of Disaster Plans."
"Some focused on barriers."
"Others on evacuation."
"Some relied entirely on relics."
"Others placed everything on humanity’s strongest hunters." She looked back at the sprawling strategy. "None of them combined everything like this."
The room fell silent.
Gabriel smiled. "This is the first Disaster Plan I’ve ever seen that wasn’t inherited. It was created."
Kai smiled and said. "Of course, don’t tell me you thought we would be content with waiting for our doom?"
It wasn’t just Gabriel’s eyes that widened.
But all of the robed figures behind her as they all stared at the people before them in awe.