System Activated: Divine Talent Granted

Chapter Eighty-Three

As Oliver passed through the gate, he immediately felt the difference. The air was charged somehow, almost like entering the eye of a storm—the part of the storm where things were still, not where the winds howled and raged. But he perceived that stillness as a kind of cover for all that lay beneath: chaos and power swirling just out of reach, waiting for him.

The voices began to recede. Before, they had clamored within him, a steady whine pressing against the edge of consciousness. Now they were whispers that did not depart from him entirely. A tempest thundered within his soul.

Yet there was something within him that calmed. He had not fought through the gate; he had spoken truthfully and been allowed to pass. That carried weight. But he also knew, in his very bones, that the real trial came next.

He started to look about. The realm beyond the gate was unlike anything he had seen. Day was neither here nor there; it was something in between. Flooding essentially with different glis