Three Divine Wishes: Yes, I'm OP!

[A/N: I want to clarify: they can only see Akashi because, at her rank, such things are controllable.]

After Akashi’s sudden shift in demeanor, it wasn’t just General Salvatore who froze—everyone did.

Most of them had, at some point, witnessed Akasha’s incredible strength, and knowing he could destroy an entire universe with ease made it clear he was operating on a level far beyond their own, perhaps except Melvin.

The Cosmic Union had always been referred to as "the peak of Universal Power," though not in such a literal sense.

At that rank, beings typically could influence a universe on a vast scale, but outright destruction was rare, reserved for those with absurd levels of divinity and other extraordinary means.

Still, if Akasha was that powerful, then his mother had to be an even greater force to reckon with—and hearing her speak only reinforced that thought.

So they all kept their tongues in check, even with burning questions swirling inside them, because most of them were desperate to ask for her help.

"Look," Akashi said, giving her head a light shake.

The black dots faded from her eyes, replaced by purple-and-gray infinity symbols, and her smile returned to something almost ordinary.

"I won’t help you all... but I will at least give you a bit of information."

The tension around the pond eased, and a subtle calm settled over the group, letting everyone breathe a little easier.

Even Liliana managed to pull herself out of the mental spiral she’d been caught in, blinking hard once before drawing in a deep breath that seemed to scrape on its way down.

She turned to her father first.

"I’m okay," she said, though her voice lacked conviction; it was enough to stop him from stepping in again.

"I’m okay."

She turned her gaze to Akashi, the raw, unfiltered hope in her crimson eyes impossible to miss.

Akashi began with Nara, speaking plainly.

"Well, you shouldn’t be so down because... Sunya isn’t dead."

At once, Nara’s green eyes snapped upward. Akashi gestured beyond the oasis, past the floating mountain, to where thick threads stretched upward into the void.

"She’s been in Pantheos—technically—for about five thousand years now."

Nara and Amaterasu’s eyes widened in unison.

"Isn’t... that ridiculous," Amaterasu said, the flames along her pale skin flaring. "A century ago—before everything fell apart—Sunya had only just departed from the Celestial Moon."

"Right... she left Levia not long ago," Nara said, quieter, but no less sharp. "I don’t mean to question you... but how could that be possible?"

Akashi’s smile lingered, knowing they were absolutely right.

The situation with Sunya, as most people knew, resulted from an incursion.

But rather than diving into the details, she chose to wait, knowing it was something Akasha needed to hear too.

"Well," She said as she turned to Liliana, "I’ll explain everything once my Baby boy finishes up."

"And you... snap out of it already," Akashi said to Liliana, noticing that no matter how hard she tried to hide her emotions from her father, nothing could slip past Akashi’s sharp gaze.

Even though she understood that the truth had hurt Liliana, she didn’t see it as entirely bad—after all, Pantheos was remarkable in so many ways.

"Yes, Amber did die... but," she continued, "that doesn’t mean she’s still dead."

She shot a glance at the Empress and gave a playful wink.

The Empress’s illusory form wavered, the pale skin and sleek black hair blurring at the edges for just a heartbeat before snapping back into place.

Even without a physical form, her swallow was obvious.

However, before allowing Akashi to gloss over such news simply, Liliana pulled her attention back to the conversation at hand.

"What’s that supposed to mean?" Liliana asked, leaning forward without realizing it. "If she died—if I—what does that mean?"

Akashi looked back at her and then cast a glance at Harlan as well, knowing that his worries and questions stemmed from similar places.

"Well, let’s just say.... Death is never truly an end. Once someone dies, they have options. Amber chose to be born anew."

What she meant by being born anew wasn’t simple reincarnation.

Pantheos had its own unique system for that—and it also had a place reserved for those who would never return.

But there existed a third path, one far rarer and riskier: a chance to come back to life in an entirely new form, with a different race, an extra star, and, above all, a heightened existence.

It sounded incredible, yet the price of failure was absolute—complete erasure from existence.

Upon hearing this, Liliana fell into utter silence.

’So... this means my Amber survived,’ she thought, relief mingled with apprehension. ’Good... now I just hope she can forgive me for what I’ve done...’

The panic didn’t vanish; it simply shifted focus.

If Amber was alive, then there was a mission—find her, make amends.

The resolve settled deep behind her crimson eyes, heavy and unyielding.

Finally, Akashi turned her gaze toward the Empress and Melvin, who sat next to one another.

Even though both of them had been in Dream Land for the past century, Melvin hadn’t managed to learn much from the woman, largely because she had been effectively sealed away from the moment she arrived there.

Much like Salvatore and his companions, no one could move unless Akasha or his women permitted it.

Back when they first arrived, it happened to be the same time Akasha had reconnected with Akashi, as well as the moment Luna lost control over her desires.

She had remained frozen for quite some time, only regaining her autonomy when Akashi recently granted it.

"What," she asked, her voice calm and still as a pond, "was a pawn of Death doing in my minor existence?"

Melvin and the Empress spoke at the same moment, their voices overlapping as they both reacted with varying degrees of shock.

"Pawn of Death?"

From what they both knew, she wasn’t some mere pawn serving Death—she was Death itself, or at the very least, its living embodiment.

Melvin’s pale eyes remained unchanged, the black, sword-like shapes within them frozen and sharp as glass, yet the chill in the air around him seemed to tighten, growing a bit colder.

The Empress frowned, realizing Akashi had no intention of responding.

"Can... you clarify?" she asked, knowing the reason she was trapped in this Minor Existence had everything to do with how she became Death in the first place.

As far as she knew, she was only stuck without a vessel.