Chapter 483: The Heavens Shall Fall (XXIV)

I stayed.

Christina kept her hand in mine for the next ten minutes while she told me about something one of the intelligence officers had done that was both clever and completely against protocol.

She was smiling while she said it.

Not the small professional smile she used during meetings, but the real one, where her eyes moved differently, and her whole face changed.

I had not seen it in a while.

“You’re not listening to me, are you?” she suddenly spoke with a smile, letting out a small sigh, as she leaned her cheek into her fist.

“I am.”

“What did I just say?”

I paused.

At my blank reaction, she laughed and playfully leaned closer until her shoulder pressed fully against mine.

“You weren’t listening~” she poked my cheek.

“I was distracted by your beauty,” I smiled back, winking at her lightly.

Her smile got wider, and she tilted her head to rest it briefly against my shoulder.

“That’s cheating. But I’ll allow it because you look so serious when you do it.”

“I am always serious.”

“I know. It’s one of the things I love about you.” She said it casually, but her hand squeezed mine.

“You look at me the same way you look at tactical problems. Like you’re trying to figure out all the variables.”

“You are more complicated than tactical problems.”

She pulled back to look at me, eyebrows raised.

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“It is an observation.”

“You’re terrible at this,” she said, but she was grinning now. “Most people would say something like ’you’re beautiful’ or ’I love spending time with you.’”

“You are beautiful. I do love spending time with you.”

“See? Was that so hard?”

“No.”

“Then why don’t you say it more often?”

I considered this.

“I assume you already know.”

She laughed again and shifted even closer, enough that I could feel the warmth of her against my side.

“I do know. But hearing it is different. It makes me happy.”

“Then I will say it more often.”

“Good.” She reached up with her free hand and brushed something off my shoulder. Probably dust from the arena. Her hand stayed there after, resting lightly.

“Though right now, what would really make me happy is if you stopped looking like you went three rounds with a 9✯ True God.”

“It was only an 8✯.”

“Only,” she repeated, shaking her head. “You know, normal people on dates don’t have conversations about power rankings and divine combat.”

“We are not normal people.”

“No,” she agreed, her smile turning softer.

“We’re really not.”

She stood up suddenly, pulling my hand as she did.

“Come on.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere that isn’t here. We’ve been sitting for half an hour, and I want to walk with you. Hold your arm. Pretend we’re not planning an invasion of one of the most powerful organizations in this realm.”

I stood, and she immediately linked her arm through mine, pressing close to my side as we walked toward the door.

It was more contact than necessary.

Outside, the street was busy with the usual afternoon crowd.

Christina didn’t let go as she guided us down the sidewalk with her arm still looped through mine, staying close enough that our steps had to match.

“There’s a place two blocks from here,” she said.

“What kind of place?”

“The kind where they make good food and don’t ask questions about your face. Also, the kind where I’ve been thinking.”

“About what?”

She glanced up at me, and something shifted in her expression.

“The Primordial Court, actually. The invasion plan. I’ve been running scenarios.”

“During your free time?”

“I don’t really have free time. Neither do you. That’s why this…” she squeezed my arm, “…is important. We take it when we can.”

We walked another block in silence.

“I think I’ve figured out the approach vector.”

That got my full attention.

“Tell me.”

“Later. Right now we’re on a date.”

“You brought it up.”

“I know. I’m terrible at separating work and… this.” She gestured between us. “But you love me anyway.”

“I do.”

She stopped walking for a moment, turning to look at me directly.

“Say that again.”

“I love you.”

Her smile was immediate and brilliant.

“I love you too. Even when you forget our dates and show up looking like you lost a fight.”

“… I won the fight though.”

“I know you did. You always win.” She laughed and started walking again, pulling me along. “That’s actually part of the plan I’ve been thinking about. The fact that you always win.”

“Explain.”

“Not yet. Food first. Strategy after. I need you focused, and you won’t be focused if you’re thinking about counter-resonance frequencies and domain coherence deficits.”

“I am focused.”

“On me?”

“Yes.”

“Liar.”

She pouted as she spoke, but her face quickly broke into a smile.

The place she meant was small.

The kind of restaurant that didn’t advertise and relied on people already knowing it existed. She led me inside and directly to a corner table without asking anyone where to sit.

“…You always find these hidden places, huh? Do you come here often?”

“Hehe, of course! Mhm… I come here sometimes, most often when I need to think about things to improve our organization. Actually, the owner here is one of our intelligence contacts. Former Court operative. Left after a disagreement about methods.”

“You vetted them?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Thoroughly. They’re clean. And they make the best roasted duck in three districts.”

She sat down and immediately pulled her chair closer to mine, closing the space between us until our knees touched under the table.

“There~! Much better.”

Someone came to take our order. Christina ordered for both of us without asking what I wanted, which should have been presumptuous but somehow wasn’t.

When the person left, she shifted her chair even closer, pressing against my side.

“Now we have approximately forty minutes before the food arrives. I want twenty of those minutes to be about us. Just us. No work. Then I’ll tell you about the invasion plan.”

“Twenty minutes seems arbitrary.”

“It’s what I decided. And since you were late, I get to make the rules.”

I laughed lightly.

“Fair.”

She smiled and leaned her head against my shoulder.

“Tell me something.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything. Something you’ve never told me before. Something that has nothing to do with divine energy or weapons development.”

I thought about this for a while.

Oh, I know what to tell her.

“When I first arrived in this realm with you, I spent two weeks learning how to eat properly.”

She lifted her head to look at me.

“What? Why?”

“My body mutated… and gained some different requirements, and because of that, I had to relearn a lot of basic things.”

This was true, as I really couldn’t properly eat because my body would think that the food I ate was polluted or something.

And even until now, if any food doesn’t have divine animal meat, my stomach doesn’t let me eat it.

“You never told me that.”

“It did not seem relevant.”

“It’s very relevant. It’s part of who you are.” Her hand found mine on the table, fingers threading through mine.

“What else?”

What else, huh?

Maybe one of my hobbies?

“I read poetry sometimes.”

Her eyes widened.

“You read poetry?”

“Yes.”

“What kind?”

“Old realm poetry. From the last godly war across the realm… where only Ancient Gods lived. There are fragments in the archives. Most people think they are tactical documents because of the way they are catalogued.”

She was staring at me now.

“You’re telling me that you, the person who forgets to eat when you’re working on weapons development, reads poetry?”

“Yes.”

“That’s…” She shook her head. “That’s actually really attractive.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. It means you’re not just a tactical mind. There’s more to you.”

“I thought you already knew that.”

“I did. But hearing it confirmed is different.” She leaned closer.

“Recite something for me.”

“Now?”

“Right now.”

I paused, then spoke quietly, pulling lines from memory.

“In the space between stars, silence holds court. Authority bends, but truth remains. What was built on fear will return to dust.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“That’s beautiful. And also incredibly ominous.”

“Most old realm poetry is ominous. They knew what was coming.”

“… Was that about the Primordial Court?”

“Yes… They are incredibly related to ancient gods for some reason,” I explained lightly.

And that’s not the only beings they are related to…

She was quiet for another moment, then sighed.

“You know what? I can’t wait twenty minutes. I need to tell you about the plan now.”

“I thought we were not discussing work.”

“This is different. This is our future, and our survival. And I think I’ve actually solved the primary problem.”

I turned to look at her properly.

“Which problem?”

“The approach vector. How we actually get inside the Court’s primary stronghold without triggering every defense array they have, which, according to our intelligence, is approximately four hundred and seventy-three separate defensive systems, layered in a way that makes our barrier arrays look like a child’s toy.”

“That was always going to be the difficult part.”

“Right. Except I think I found the answer.” She shifted closer, her voice dropping. “We don’t go through the defenses.”

Oh?

Her words left me incredibly curious.

“Explain.”

“The Court rotates personnel every three months. Mid-level administrators, clerks, and support staff. About two thousand people move in and out during each rotation. They have to go through security, obviously, but it’s different security. It’s designed to check for external threats, not internal ones.”

“You want to infiltrate during a rotation.”

“Better. I want to replace an entire department. Forty people. We’ve already identified the target department: Records and Historical Archives. They’re scheduled for rotation in six weeks.”

I considered this for a while.

“Forty people are a significant operation.”

After all… an entire department should have a little over one hundred people, if not less, so switching the identities of forty people in one go is quite risky.

“It is. But we have the capability now. The identity arrays the research division developed can hold up to full divine signature scans as long as the template is good enough. And we have templates. Twelve of our intelligence contacts are former Court employees. We can build profiles from their memories.”

“The timing is tight.”

“It is. But the army is ready. That’s what I wanted to tell you.” Her hand tightened around mine.

“The army is actually ready. We have four hundred fully trained personnel, all equipped with the containment arrays, the energy compression devices, and the counter-resonance weapons. We have the defensive infrastructure to hold territory once we take it. We have the medical division to sustain casualties. We have everything we need.”

“Except for the domain interference technology.”

“We don’t need it for the initial insertion. We need it for the later stages, when they start deploying their 7✯ and 8✯ defenders. But by that point, we’ll be inside their infrastructure. We’ll have access to their systems. That changes the tactical landscape entirely.”

I looked at her.

She was focused now, the same way she got during operational briefings, but there was something else there, too.

Excitement.

“Do you think this will work?”

“I think we have a real chance. Better than any scenario I’ve run before.” She paused. “And I’ve been running scenarios every night for three weeks.”

“Every night?”

“I can’t sleep sometimes. I keep thinking about variables. About what happens if we fail. About what happens to you if we fail.”

“I will not fail.”

“I know. But I still think about it.” She leaned her head against my shoulder again.

“That’s why moments like this matter. Because if we’re doing this, if we’re actually invading the Primordial Court in six weeks, then I want to make sure I have these memories. Of you. Of us. Before everything changes.”

I turned my hand to hold hers properly.

“Nothing will change between us.”

“Everything will change. We’ll either succeed or die trying. That changes everything.”

“Then we will succeed.”

She lifted her head to look at me.

“Promise me something.”

“What?”

“Promise me that when we’re inside the Court, when everything is chaos and combat and counter-resonance frequencies, you’ll remember this. This moment. Us. Here.”

“I promise.”

“And promise me that you’ll come back. That we’ll both come back.”

“I cannot promise what I cannot control.”

“Then promise me you’ll try. That you’ll fight like hell to come back to me.”

I looked at her for a long moment.

“I promise I will fight like hell to come back to you.”

She smiled, and it was soft and fierce at the same time.

“Good. Because I love you, and I’m not done with you yet.”

“What are you not done with?”

“Everything. Learning about your poetry reading habits. Watching you forget dates. Helping you build impossible weapons. Invading divine courts. Growing old with you, if we survive long enough.”

“Growing old?”

“It’s a human expression. Means spending a life together.”

“I know that… but as Gods we cannot exactly age.”

“Ahh… I forgot about that fact.”

The food arrived then, and Christina finally released my hand to make room for the plates. But she didn’t move her chair away. She stayed pressed against my side, close and warm and alive.

“Eat. You need your strength. We have an invasion to plan.”

“I thought we were on a date.”

She grinned.

“We are. We’re just very bad at normal dates. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Neither would I.

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