Chapter 60: The Echoes of a Departing God

My realm materialized around me, but the familiar comfort of the cosmos was gone. The silent, swirling galaxies and shimmering starlight offered no solace. I stumbled away from the dissipating amethyst portal, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs. The adrenaline that had fueled my divine rage vanished, leaving behind a chilling, hollow emptiness. My breath came in ragged gasps, not from exertion, but from the dawning, catastrophic horror of my own actions.

"What have I done?" The whisper was swallowed by the infinite silence of my office. "Oh, stars, what did I just do?"

My hands were shaking. I, a goddess who had overseen the end and beginning of countless lives, who had witnessed the birth of stars and the heat death of universes, was trembling like a mortal child. I had lost control. In a fit of petty, childish anger, I had shattered every rule I was sworn to uphold. I hadn't just interfered; I had descended like a natural disaster, laid bare the secrets of the cosmos, and then fled like a coward.

With a trembling finger, I reactivated the main viewing screen. I had to see. I had to witness the full extent of the damage I had caused.

The screen flickered to life, showing the alley. The wind from my kick had died down, and a surreal silence had fallen. The air was thick with dust and the lingering, sharp scent of ozone. Loose papers drifted lazily to the ground, settling on the scattered garbage and debris. It looked like a miniature storm had torn through the narrow space.

And in the middle of it all stood Jin, Echo, and Kael. They hadn't moved. They were frozen statues, their faces pale and etched with a profound shock that went deeper than mere surprise. They were staring at the spot where my portal had vanished, their expressions a mixture of awe, terror, and utter, soul-crushing confusion.

Jin was the first to move. He took a slow, hesitant step forward, his hand outstretched as if reaching for something that was no longer there. His eyes, those intense eyes I had designed to hold the "sadness of the cosmos," were now filled with a genuine, heartbreaking bewilderment. The carefully constructed persona of "Zero," the aloof master of shadows, had been sandblasted away. What was left was a sixteen-year-old boy whose entire reality had been picked up, shaken violently, and then dropped from an impossible height.

"Luna…?" he breathed, his voice cracking. The name sounded fragile, like a glass ornament falling to the floor.

But the other name, the one the dark-haired man had used, echoed in his mind. Aka-chan. Akane.

He slowly lowered his hand, his gaze dropping to the cracked cobblestones at his feet. The swagger was gone. The chuunibyou confidence had evaporated. I had seen him heartbroken over my disappearance as "Luna," and it had been amusing. This was different. This wasn't the pining of a boy with a crush. This was the existential crisis of a man who had just peeked behind the curtain of the universe and realized he was nothing but a bit player on a stage he never even knew existed. Everything he had fought for, everything he had built - his Nocturne Phantoms, his war against the "darkness" - it all seemed so small now, so pathetically insignificant in the face of what he had just witnessed.

Kael let out a low whimper, her ears flat against her head. Her beastly instincts were screaming at her. She had been in the presence of predators her whole life, but what she had just felt from me, and from Isao, was something else entirely. It wasn't the aura of a killer; it was the aura of a fundamental force of nature. It was like feeling the full, crushing weight of the sky.

Echo, ever the pragmatist, was trying to process it. Her mind was racing, trying to fit the impossible events into a logical framework. Luna was not an amnesiac. She was… a being of immense power. A god? A demon? And she was locked in a personal, almost domestic squabble with another, equally powerful being. A squabble that involved dimensional portals and kicks that could level buildings. Their entire mission, their fight against the Umbral Covenant - the conspiracy Jin had invented and my power had made real - seemed like a children's game. What was the point of fighting shadows when gods walked among them?

I watched them, my own heart aching with a strange, foreign emotion. It was guilt. A deep, piercing guilt that felt like swallowing shards of glass. This world was supposed to be my escape, my entertainment. These characters were my toys, my puppets. But watching them now, seeing the genuine pain and fear on their faces, I couldn't deny the truth. They were real. Their feelings, their struggles, their shattered realities - it was all real. And I had caused it.

I had descended into my own story, not as a benevolent creator, but as a careless child stomping through an anthill. The fun was over. My vacation had ended not with a quiet departure, but with a cataclysm that had permanently scarred the psyche of my own protagonist. The lingering afterimage of Jin's lost, broken expression burned itself into my mind.

I couldn't go back. I couldn't explain. Any attempt would only make it worse. The chasm between us was no longer just a matter of dimensional planes; it was a wound I had personally carved into the heart of his world.

With a heavy heart, I switched off the viewing screen, plunging my office back into a soft, starry darkness. The silence that returned was no longer peaceful. It was accusatory. It was the sound of my own profound, divine loneliness.