The god of calamity stared at the boy’s puzzled expression and could only sigh, resisting the urge to palm his face. At this point, he was actually starting to wish Hexin did know what was going on.

Then, as if something occurred to him, the doctor leaned down and asked, “You’ve started to sense it, haven’t you?”

These past few days, the god of calamity had followed Hexin through all kinds of bizarre dreams, each increasing his favourability score (again). Last night was no different—in that dream, he had become his “past self” and witnessed everything from within the black gate in the sky.

At this rate, even if Hexin hadn’t recovered the dream god’s memories yet, he should at least be able to sense certain things.

Hexin understood what he meant. He considered what a not-yet-awakened dream god might say and replied calmly, “The air feels heavier.”

“Because this planet is being contaminated,” the doctor said. Though he didn’t say the rest: it would soon become a breeding ground for monsters, with life itself turned into bait. He averted his gaze and added, “I’ve prepared a vessel. If you’re lucky, you’ll reach the next planet in four hours.”

“Doctor, um—the captain said no one on standby is allowed to leave the ship without clearance…” someone began awkwardly, trying to remind them.

Only Hexin smiled in response. No one else acknowledged the comment. That poor soul quietly shed two tears on the spot. Compared to Hexin, he thought, this boy was practically a little angel.

“Why should I leave?” Hexin asked—not as a question, but as a calm challenge of ownership. No one caught the undertone.

He continued, “If we find the source of the contamination, we can purify it before anything happens.”

The doctor resisted: “You can’t—not in your current state.”

Hexin smiled. “I can.”

And if a dream god alone couldn’t handle it, well—he could always @ the system and rally some supreme gods into a raid party. What then?

The words held a subtle edge, but the doctor was too distracted to notice. He was more concerned about one thing: what if his brother—still deep within the abyss—used the black gate to come through?

Gods’ premonitions were rarely wrong. Yet strangely, the danger didn’t seem to be to Hexin at all—it felt more like… himself.

No. That had to be a mistake. If a powerless, memory-wiped Hexin ran into a fully awakened god of ferocity, how could he possibly survive?

Unfortunately, the adage “speak of the devil and he appears” seemed to be universal.

Suddenly, Hexin looked up—staring toward something in the distance. A moment later, the doctor followed his gaze, a heartbeat too late, and his face changed.

HUMMM—

A formless sound wave spread across the air without warning. A black vortex appeared inside the ship—just five meters from where they stood.

Shrouded in dark mist, the vortex was quickly spotted by the others. And the moment they looked at it, they recoiled as if struck by an invisible blow—dizzy, nauseous, eyes burning.

Only Hexin and the doctor remained unaffected.

In fact, while the doctor looked visibly troubled, Hexin calmly studied the tendrils of black mist.

“What is that?!”

“Don’t look directly at it! Don’t—ugh!” groaned someone who had turned away too late.

Hexin examined the black gate for a long moment, then gave a noncommittal nod. “Mmm.”

At this moment, more than ninety percent of the ship’s warriors had already been deployed. The few who remained were scattered throughout, and none had realized yet that the enemy had slipped in right under their noses.

The gate hadn’t stabilized yet—far from enough to let a true threat pass through—but it was enough for smaller creatures to crawl out.

One such arm, clearly not human—or anything remotely normal—suddenly reached through. Veins bulging on its blackened skin, grotesquely muscular.

A nurse gasped, too stunned to scream. Then she fainted on the spot.

But the creature had no chance to come through.

The test subjects guarding Hexin instantly surrounded him, wings flaring and tails raised. Several lunged forward in perfect sync, tearing the emerging limb to pieces.

A pair of wings opened behind them, shielding Hexin from the flying blood. Not a single drop touched the floor near him.

The monster behind the gate shrieked and withdrew, snarling, “What the hell… You ran ahead of us—now you want to keep the hunting ground all to yourself?!”

It had mistaken the test subjects for fellow abyssal creatures. Their auras were deceptively familiar. And now, furious from the attack, it howled again.

“Traitors! You think you can hold us off? Just wait until the real monsters arrive—see if you can stop them!”

But no one answered. All focus was on the boy in the centre.

Surrounded and protected, Hexin was checked from head to toe. Only after confirming that not a hair on his head had been harmed did the test subjects relax. Their leader even used his head to nudge Hexin’s robe into place, smoothing out a fold before stepping back with satisfaction.

Ah. So this was what it meant to be the team favourite.

The monster, now ignored, practically vomited blood from sheer indignation.

Meanwhile, the doctor spoke up, eyes fixed ahead. “To destroy a black gate, we have to overload it—push it past its limit until it collapses.”

Hexin looked over. The doctor had given in.

He blocked the man’s hand. “Not you. If you do it, everyone else on this ship will die.”

As a pure abyssal god, the god of calamity’s attacks carried massive mental contamination. Especially considering this one was probably specialized in it. In fact, Hexin suspected that no one on this ship had realized yet that their memories had been tampered with. The “doctor” they knew was just a mental construct he’d planted in their minds.

Hexin had pieced that together from observing over the past few days. The god of calamity hadn’t even bothered to disguise himself properly.

The doctor froze. He met Hexin’s gaze—eyes that seemed to see right through him—and swallowed.

What was he supposed to say now?

“Did you remember?” “How much do you remember?” “Do you know who I am?” “What do you think of me?”

There were too many questions, all tangled together, and none he had the courage to ask.

Just imagining the possibility of disgust in those eyes was enough to make the god of calamity—who had always looked down on everything—feel… genuinely hurt.

What is this feeling? Since when do I feel like this? I’ve never—

Hexin, seeing his hesitation, said nothing. He simply pretended not to notice.

Then, without another word, he stood and walked toward the black gate.

His departure made the test subjects anxious. They pawed at the ground. Those nearby forced their eyes open despite the nausea, stunned by the boy’s boldness.

“It’s dangerous—don’t—!”

The words died in their throats.

Hexin raised his hand, and in his palm appeared… a lamp.

No one had seen where it came from.

Was it magic?

The question was never asked. The moment the lamp appeared, the nausea vanished.

Hands dropped from mouths. Everyone stared, unmoving. That lamp—its beauty was unreal. Within it, they could see the movement of stars, the shifting of galaxies.

And then, they realized—it wasn’t a vision.

Hexin raised his hands slightly. The lamp floated… then shattered.

Its shards hovered in place, and in the next instant, each fragment transformed into a planet.

And the ship’s interior—

Vanished.

In its place was the endless black of space.

Everyone now floated in the void. They watched as vast planets drifted past, glowing rings wrapped around them, and galaxies swirled across the distant dark.

“Ah… this is—?!”

Someone fell to their knees, calling it a miracle. Tears streamed down their face.

in vivid, immersive narrative prose:

Everyone else could barely remain upright. It felt like merely existing in the presence of such divine majesty was enough to make them forget how to breathe.

All the stars slowly returned to their places, beginning to orbit around Hexin. In that moment, the boy stood at the centre of the cosmos—origin of all dreams, the heart of the universe.

This was the second time the god of calamity had witnessed such a breathtaking starfield—such a soul-stirring spectacle.

As a god born of the abyss and specialized in the spiritual realm, he understood all too well: the dream god’s power naturally affected the minds of those around him. Everyone touched by it would see what their consciousness could comprehend. That was why this vision appeared—because their minds shaped it into something they could behold.

Since the dream god’s card still wasn’t fully awakened, Hexin’s “loading bar” had taken a little longer.

At last, it completed.

Hexin raised a hand—and all the stars orbiting him shot forward at once, hurtling straight toward the distant black gate.

The creatures lurking behind it instantly sensed something was wrong. That familiar, dream-soaked power sent a jolt through them. A beautiful figure rose in their memory—along with a terrifying recollection of the two brothers who once rampaged through the abyss.

They gasped.

“Th-this power…! Impossible! Those two? Why would they return all of a sudden?! Why would they ever be on a backwater planet like this?! This can’t be—!”

The little black gate couldn’t contain the oncoming planets. Groaning under the pressure, it began to collapse. The illusion surrounding it shrank, dimmed, and finally dissipated.

But the quiet was not death. It was vast. Immeasurable. So vast, it became silent.

Only those who witnessed it were rendered truly breathless.

And then—suddenly—a hand reached out from the collapsing gate.

But this wasn’t like the last creature’s grotesque arm. This hand was long and elegant. Five flawless fingers extended calmly into space, the back of the hand marked with a complex, blood-red symbol that twisted the viewer’s mind. Just seeing it caused one’s vision to blur and thoughts to stutter.

The hand lunged—straight for Hexin.

A flash of violent fire. Smoke bursting. An impact that felt like a star shattering. The air screamed.

That’s—!
The god of ferocity?! Why is he here?!

In the space of one second, Hexin received a quiet update from the system.

System: [When using the beauty god card, the host can assign the dream god to auto-mode without consuming any faith points.]

Hexin blinked. “Wait, that’s a thing?!”
A twin god synergy bonus? Amazing. Could they maybe throw in their big brother too?

System: [no. the lonely eldest does not come with a bundle. don’t even think about it.]

Just as Hexin reached for the beauty god’s card, someone else jumped into action.

The doctor—expression unreadable—ripped a fire extinguisher off the wall and shoved it into the hand reaching from the black gate.

The creature instinctively grabbed it… then realized this was not the target it had locked onto.

There was a beat of confusion.
Then the fire extinguisher was crushed in its grip.

At that moment, the being behind the gate seemed to recognize the aura of the person who had interfered. It was an aura he knew intimately.

“You… what are you doing, Eios?!”

Even among gods, using a personal name was rare. It only slipped out when emotions could no longer be restrained.

But the doctor didn’t let him finish. Without hesitation, he delivered a clean kick—sending the last orbiting planet hurtling into the gate.

The timing was perfect. The planet slammed into the hand, crushing it backward.

Boom—
The black gate shattered and vanished.

The world returned to stillness.

The black gate, the starfield, the cosmos—gone.

They were back aboard the familiar ship.

Everyone else was still crumpled on the floor, limbs trembling too badly to stand. Which meant that only two people remained upright: Hexin and the doctor.

Hexin, who had been about to switch cards, gave the doctor a complicated look. The man looked back calmly, unbothered—his nonchalance almost awe-inspiring.

Hexin thought, “Different as our sides may be, we’re both younger brothers… his big brother is probably tearing holes in the abyss right now.”

The doctor thought, “Can I cower in front of my brother with you watching? absolutely not.”

Meanwhile, outside the ship, the Red Wing forces still scouring for black gates received a frantic report.

“Captain! Bad news! A black gate’s appeared!”

Everyone on comms went silent.

“…Where?” the captain asked.

The voice came back, wheezing: “On our ship!!!”

“…???”
The captain needed three full seconds before swearing out loud. “Any others?”

“…All of them. All the black gates. They’re all… on our ship.”

“??????????”

The soldiers scattered around the port lifted their heads slowly.

And sure enough—in the air surrounding their massive warship—dozens upon dozens of black gates now floated ominously in the sky.

Everyone: bro… what is this? is our ship wearing a “please attack me” sign?? who did we piss off?!

“Evacuate the port!” the captain barked. “No civilians near the ship. In fact… let’s try to avoid telling them anything.”

“…That might be too late, sir,” came the reply, utterly despairing. “The black gates are too obvious. They’re already gathering to look.”

Sure enough, when Hexin finished cleaning up the remnants of the earlier gate and followed a new ripple of sensation to the window, what he saw outside—

Was a sky filled with black gates encircling the ship… and a sea of curious onlookers below.

“Hey, what’s that up there?”

The civilians, unaware, continued pointing and marveling. It wasn’t until they’d stared for a while that unease began to creep in.

It was loud. Crowded. Chaotic.

Hexin: …oh no?

Looking at the sheer number of gates, there was no way they had opened naturally. No—it had to be the god of ferocity’s doing. Either that, or the guy was here for a rematch… or to beat up his little brother. (Don’t say that.)

Hexin exhaled deeply, half amused, half touched. Originally I was going to travel all over to find these gates. Now they’ve all come to me. That’s… really considerate, actually.

The doctor, following behind, clearly didn’t share his sentiment. His brows knit tightly. “It’s not just him,” he said. “They could come out of any of these gates. They could also retreat through any of them. If you don’t hit them with a single blow, you might never get another chance.”

Hexin nodded thoughtfully.

“…You’re talking about whack-a-mole?”