Chapter 63: Battle of Divine Gazes

The silence left by the assembly still hung, like an invisible trail in the fabric of worlds there were no sounds, no shouts, not even rustling; just a strange, fragile void, too vast to be reassuring, too tense to be ignored in the secret corridors that connected the narrative genres, the realms quivered the Manga world, wounded in its pride and mutilated in its pages, angrily restitched its speed lines. It bandaged its dramatic effects like open wounds. It didn't shout, it didn't laugh; it silently flexed the muscles of its heroes, waiting for the page to turn or to burn. The Comics world, for its part, displayed straight silhouettes, clenched jaws, defiant stances capes flapped in an internal wind, a current of colorful anger they could not tolerate the humiliation of a suspended confrontation, nor the idea that another style could impose silence on their volume the Novel world, haughty, tightened its plots paragraphs smoothed themselves out, narrators reformatted their prologues like one straightens a crown there was no shouting, there was writing, but between each line, a tension made of unwritten words oozed the Cartoons, finally, laughed of course they laughed; they had always laughed but their lines trembled, and beneath the hastily drawn gags, the ink betrayed anxious outlines the multiverses did not speak to each other, not with words they measured each other, genre against genre, style against structure, pride against silence then an eye opened that of the Manga god, still crouching in the heart of his disfigured world, still fuming from the confrontation he had seen his universe bent, his laws defied, and now, he saw the lightning gods, standing on the horizon of reality, forming a line that did not threaten but forbade. "You struck our leader, but you did not defeat us." his voice was no longer a declaration of war. It was a challenge, muffled, bitter. Destiny turned his head towards him one eye, only one, neither anger nor pride only a glance, and under that glance, an entire galaxy of ink discolored. Where the manga were regenerating, the frames diluted, the outlines began to bleed the text bubbles emptied themselves a single eye, and an entire genre shivered but the silence was broken by the rustling of fluid ink a Light Novel king stepped forward he was clad in living words, phrases swirling around him, some from sagas a thousand chapters long his cloak formed continuous quotes his voice was as precise as an exposition paragraph "Stop acting tough, you bubble-heads novel characters recreate realities with a single finger." Behind him, an Isekai hero, with empty eyes and a sword too bright to be real, spun a planet in the palm of his hand, like a juggling ball he smiled. he didn't understand he was going too far. Saphira took a step forward she had no cape, no lightning, no light effects she had only her voice. "I am a chapter and a tale all on my own." her sentence floated, then sank into the foundations of the world, and somewhere, no one knew where, a volume of reality began to weep paragraphs collapsed narrative arcs imploded even adverbs gave way an entire saga died of shame as the Novel world trembled, it was the Comics' turn to step forward a masked god, clad in bold lines and cast shadows, slowly descended from an oblique panel his presence seemed to be drawn in outline "We're watching you do you have a problem?" he spoke like an editorial threat he wasn't attacking yet, but he wasn't alone. Kael, sword on his back, raised his head "I have six, and all are lightning." behind him, a silent presence rose. Kaela she said nothing; she had never needed words her wings, vast and cosmic, opened like a galactic fan, and time… stopped for three pages three blank pages in every ongoing comic series, three frozen pages in all upcoming publications and by Kael's side, an imposing, stable silhouette, as if sculpted from the very matter of possibilities, appeared. It was Pink, the world-forger she held a cosmic forging hammer in her hand she didn't need to lift it, because in her posture alone, there was a truth. she could make the laws of narrative yield; she was the one who, with a single word, could reshape reality the masked Comics god recoiled half a step and at that moment, no one spoke, no one moved, but the gazes were barely contained meteors each gaze was a suspended spell, each held breath, a fragile pact and each name pronounced could have triggered a total war between genres and far, far beyond the panels, beyond the borders between bubbles and margins, The Primordial Mother observed she did not intervene she didn't need to she simply murmured to herself."They are not ready for what I dreamed next."

End of Chapter 63 — Battle of Divine Gazes.