Chapter 129: Râ’s Visit

Kiyan didn't call her back until late that afternoon. He asked her to meet him in his car, parked in the teachers' lot.

Blanche hurried over. Some time alone with him? Perfect.

Except she quickly realized he was far from alone.

She recognized the man sitting in the back without any difficulty.

The one in the front, however...

Sliding into the rear seat, Blanche found herself facing her history teacher, with her favorite god seated to her right. As for the passenger in front...

The stranger was dressed entirely in bright crimson.

Suit.

Shirt.

Tie.

Blanche briefly wondered what color his shoes and socks were, but she didn't get the chance to check.

"Blanche, I'd like you to meet Ra."

The young woman stared, speechless, overwhelmed by both the man's beauty and his title.

The god Ra?

The Egyptian sun god?!

Meeting him in person was a dream come true. She had always adored Egyptian mythology...

If every stitch of his clothing was red, everything else about him unfolded in shades of brown and gold, as though twilight itself had taken human form. His long coat, woven from luxurious fabrics, draped elegantly over his tall frame, and every movement revealed subtle golden embroidery running along the sleeves and lapels.

His neatly trimmed stubble softened the mature beauty of his features, while his thick, naturally curly brown hair cascaded to his shoulders, catching the light like polished copper. A few unruly locks framed a face whose proportions seemed sculpted with almost divine precision.

His eyes commanded immediate attention.

Large.

Deep.

Outlined with a stroke of golden kohl that made their supernatural radiance shine even brighter.

They were neither intimidating nor stern. Instead, they carried the gentle warmth of a winter sun—soft enough to comfort, yet intense enough that no one could meet his gaze for very long. When he smiled, fine lines appeared at the corners of his eyes, the traces of countless laughs accumulated over millennia.

His skin seemed to defy the laws of the world as well. Sun-kissed without ever appearing dark, it shimmered with faint golden highlights, as though light itself lived beneath his skin. Every movement caused those glimmers to shift, giving the strange impression that he carried a tiny fragment of the sun wherever he went.

Yet what struck Blanche most wasn't his beauty.

Nor even that radiant aura.

It was his presence.

It filled the space around him naturally, without overwhelming it.

He didn't need to raise his voice or straighten his posture to command respect.

He simply embodied the calm confidence of someone who had seen everything.

Lived through everything.

It wasn't the brute strength of a warrior.

Nor the unwavering authority of a king.

It was something far older.

The unshakable serenity of a god who had witnessed civilizations being born, watched them crumble, seen thousands of kingdoms rise and fall, and still retained that playful spark dancing in the depths of his eyes.

Standing before him, one suddenly understood that eternity wasn't merely a measure of time.

It was a way of existing.

"Repeat after me: 'I pay homage to Your Graces,'"

Fenrir whispered into her mind.

Blanche obeyed.

The two men in the front burst into laughter.

Catching the smirk tugging at Fenrir's lips, she jabbed him sharply in the ribs with her elbow.

Had he seriously just pranked her?!

And Kiyan and Ra were laughing?

Was she dreaming?

"Thank you, my child," Ra greeted her warmly. "I haven't laughed like that in quite some time. It's always a pleasure to see you."

Oh.

Right...

"Uh... I'm... happy to see you too."

Blanche couldn't help blushing.

It wasn't the first time she'd met a god.

Nor was it the first time someone had looked at her so intently.

But there was something profoundly disarming about Ra. His smile radiated such quiet warmth that it immediately put people at ease, while simultaneously reminding them that he belonged to a class of beings whose true nature she would probably never fully comprehend.

To avoid holding his gaze for too long, her eyes instinctively wandered around him.

And once again she noticed what had struck her the very first moment she'd seen him.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

No colors.

No threads.

No emotions floating around him.

Every living being was surrounded by an aura—dense or faint, bright or dim.

The god, however, was wrapped in nothingness.

Not an unsettling void.

Not an artificial absence.

Simply... impossibility itself.

As though the world refused to apply its own rules to a creature so ancient.

At last, she understood.

Gods had no aura.

Or rather...

They existed beyond what she was capable of perceiving.

The realization fascinated her far more than it frightened her.

For weeks she'd tried to understand why certain beings escaped her gift.

Now she finally had a reliable marker.

If someone possessed no aura at all...

There was a very good chance she was standing before a deity.

Her gaze then drifted toward Kiyan.

Then toward herself.

Players were just as easy to identify.

Their auras still retained their colors, emotions, and countless nuances, but they were the only ones perfectly enclosed within a luminous circle, as though an invisible boundary separated their very essence from the rest of the world.

A unique signature.

Impossible to mistake for that of an ordinary human, a demon, or any creature from the Otherworld.

A faint smile curved her lips.

Her new power was gradually becoming something more than an overwhelming flood of sensations.

Every day, it revealed a little more of its inner logic.

The world she'd believed she had known her entire life was reorganizing itself before her eyes, like an immense puzzle whose pieces were finally falling into place.

And despite the migraines...

The unbearable smells...

The endless noises that sometimes made her want to crawl beneath a blanket for an entire week...

She had to admit one thing.

It was absolutely fascinating.

"You're probably wondering why I'm here," Ra said at last, his voice calm and gentle.

Blanche shrugged.

Considering everything she'd already been through, very little surprised her anymore.

"As you know," Fenrir finally explained, "Players don't have much freedom to speak. Kiyan can't tell you anything... at least not without his god being present. Just like you need me."

"Oh?"

That was news to her.

As if he'd read her thoughts—which, of course, he had—Fenrir replied,

"If I told you everything at once, where would the fun be?"

Blanche rolled her eyes.

Fun?

Was her life just one giant joke now?

"Erik was killed by Matthew," Kiyan said at last.

"The vampire general who serves Sebastian?" Blanche asked, immediately realizing the time for jokes was over.