Chapter 207: The Cosmic Imbalance
Evelyn looked at Ivan, who understood his wife’s silent signal and spoke. "There is something more you need to know."
Gavriel’s expression remained unreadable as he met Ivan’s eyes.
"Since the most plausible theory is that she possesses a human body while her soul shares your nature, then you must understand the danger. If she does not learn to control her powers, they will inevitably destroy her."
Gavriel’s features darkened immediately. "I will never let that happen," he vowed in a low voice. Inside him, Bellarios stirred with a violent restlessness, tightening Gavriel’s chest at the mere thought of her own powers becoming her doom.
Ivan gave him a slow nod. "I expected you would say that. Because of that danger, there is one solution we believe could work until we find something more concrete."
"Let us hear it," Gavriel replied, a sharp edge of impatience lacing his voice.
Ivan paused for a moment while Evelyn decided it was best to look anywhere else rather than face Gavriel. She already knew what was coming next, and it was something she would much rather leave to her shameless husband to say.
And she was right because Ivan never minced his words.
Keeping his eyes fixed on Gavriel, Ivan replied, "Until you manage to find a better solution, you’ll have to continue sharing your essence with her to keep her stable... after every short interval."
Gavriel narrowed his eyes at Ivan, "My power can destroy even a high-level demon of the underworld. Aliana has only absorbed a minuscule amount of my energy until now, yet you are asking me to risk her life by doing it more frequently?"
"Yes," Ivan replied with a straight face. "Because we saw how greedily her body absorbed your energy, as though her soul had been craving it all along. It was your essence that ultimately caused her to stabilise. You could not see it from your position, but we could. You need to continue doing that if you want to avoid another violent episode."
"That could be dangerous for her," Gavriel countered in a tight voice, his expression anything but pleased.
"It would only be dangerous if her body rejected it," Ivan replied calmly. "She has to be willing to accept it... both physically and emotionally."
"Speak clearly," Gavriel commanded.
Ivan released a heavy sigh. "The most effective way to transfer your power to her is through physical intimacy. The deepest form of intimacy will allow her body to be far more willing to absorb your energy, both physically and emotionally. To put it simply, the more emotionally invested she is in the act, the more receptive her body will be to absorbing the power required to keep her stable. It is the only way to ensure her mortal form does not deteriorate."
That was the exact moment Gavriel understood exactly what Ivan was implying.
He did not need the man to spell out the finer details. When Aliana was fully surrendered to the act of intimacy, her body would readily and safely absorb the larger portions of the essence he fed her, bypassing any mental resistance.
He mulled it over, deciding to think about it later because there was another matter of equal importance he needed to discuss with them.
Looking back up, he asked, "So tell me, how did the two of you end up here in the first place?"
Evelyn and Ivan exchanged quick glances before Ivan replied, "We were living peacefully in our own world when, one day, rifts began to appear out of nowhere."
"What kind of rifts?" Gavriel asked, his focus sharpening.
"Dimensional rifts," Ivan explained. "Think of it as a crack between the walls that separate two alternate universes from each other."
Gavriel studied them, his gaze calculating. "Are you saying the two of you have come from another dimension?"
"Yes," Ivan replied. "We come from a world where magic and mystical beings exist in abundance. It stands in sharp contrast to this universe... which is densely populated by humans while the few remaining supernatural entities live in hiding.
You could call our home a parallel world that thrives on magic, whereas this world possesses barely a trace of it."
Gavriel’s brows knit together at the information.
A crack between the walls that separated the parallel universes didn’t sound good at all.
If anything, it was highly alarming for such a major thing to occur.
What could have possibly caused such a thing to happen was something he could not seem to comprehend.
His expression grew increasingly severe the more he considered the grim implications both worlds could suffer if the dividing walls collapsed.
Looking back up at them, Gavriel questioned, "So did the two of you fall through this rift by accident?"
Ivan met his gaze before slightly shaking his head. "No. We chose to cross over and investigate."
This caused Gavriel’s brows to rise in genuine surprise. "Chose? Why would you two willingly step through a rift and risk becoming trapped in this dimension?"
"The rifts have been appearing in our world for fifty years now," Ivan explained.
"Throughout those years, they have pulled countless numbers of our people into this dimension, while several individuals from this world have tumbled into ours. The situation grew dire enough that we had to study the patterns to predict where the next rift would appear. As the protectors of our realm, Evelyn and I decided to pass through the latest rift to investigate the root cause behind the phenomenon."
This finally explained that particular mythological section in the museum that spoke of the great war between light and dark, along with the portraits of kings and other royalty who had never existed in this world.
Not to mention the nobles who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere and transformed a small village into the futuristic city of Aria.
It all began to make sense in Gavriel’s mind because it seemed that people from another dimension had played a role in establishing such a feat.
Yet, a glaring contradiction in the timeline immediately surfaced in Gavriel’s thoughts.
In this world, five hundred years had passed since those nobles arrived to develop Aria. How could it be that only fifty years had passed in Ivan’s realm?
Fixing his gaze on Ivan, he asked, "The nobles who transformed this city- I am assuming they were from your dimension. But it has been five hundred years since they arrived here. Are you saying there is a significant time difference between our two worlds?"
"Yes, time in our world moves much more slowly than it does here," Ivan replied.
"Ten minutes in your world is equal to only one minute in ours. That 10-to-1 ratio explains why five hundred years have flown by for you, while only fifty years have passed for us."
Gavriel gave a slow nod, absorbing the mathematical anomaly, before pressing further. "Then what kind of pattern did you notice for the rifts to appear?"
"The pattern was locked to the moon cycle," Ivan explained. "A rift appeared on the night of the full moon, exactly every six months of the year. It occurred without fail, twice a year in our realm."
The mention of the full moon caused Gavriel to freeze, his brows drawing together into a tight, hard line.
Every full moon heightened the dark powers of an underworld entity. It was a universal law of blood and magic that pointed toward a chilling conclusion.
Whoever, or whatever, was tearing open the fabric between the two dimensions had to be a demon... and no ordinary one at that.