278. Invitation to the Origin Domain
“Marie!” Ravenna shouted, lurching forward.
With a final, desperate burst of strength, Ravenna grabbed Marie’s trembling hand. Before the Witch could release her strike, Ravenna slid the heavy, sapphire-encrusted band onto Marie’s finger.
For a heartbeat, there was absolute silence.
Then, the universe seemed to scream.
The moment the Third Odyssey Ring made contact with the Saintess’s skin, it ignited. A pillar of incandescent, sapphire-gold light erupted from Marie, so powerful it tore the violet shadows of the chamber to shreds. It wasn't just light; it was a concussive wave of pure, untainted divine authority.
“THIS!” the Witch screamed, her voice cracking for the first time. She threw her arms up to shield her face as the sapphire radiance slammed into her blackened throne.
Ravenna felt the sensation of being caught in the heart of a supernova. The heat was non-existent, replaced by a terrifying, holy cold that seemed to wash away the exhaustion and the dread. She saw the Great Heart above them convulse, the golden chains vibrating so violently they hummed a deafening, angelic chord.
Ravenna’s world went dark in an instant.
The brilliance that had erupted from Marie’s body, that blinding, sapphire-gold supernova, didn't fade into the background. It was violently ripped away from her perception, as if a cosmic hand had snatched the light and the air from the room, leaving behind nothing but an infinite, hollow void.
She couldn’t hear the screams of the Witch or the thundering beat of the Great Heart. She couldn’t feel the purple grass beneath her knees or the weight of her daggers. Only a low, endless ringing remained in her ears, a high-frequency vibration that felt like the echo of a static strike against her very soul.
Her eyes snapped open, but there was no visual feedback. No stone ceiling. No sprawling cavern. No horizon. There was only a vast, ink-black emptiness that felt both infinitely large and claustrophobically small.
“It’s the same as last time,” Ravenna muttered, her voice sounding thin and alien in the vacuum.
She began to walk. Her steps made no sound, as if the ground were made of shadows. There was no wind, no resistance, no pressure underfoot, just the abstract concept of motion without physical proof. Seconds stretched into minutes, which might have been hours or days. In this space, time had unraveled, its threads floating uselessly in the dark.
She tried to call up the Reputation System.
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[ Cannot be activated … Attempting to retry… ]
“It’s also the same,” Ravenna sighed, watching the flickering blue text struggle to stabilize. “I guess I just have to wait for my consciousness to settle, just like when I gave Marie the second odyssey ring. Maybe this is where the system stores me while it reboots. Or maybe I’m about to enter another one of Ravenna's memories like last time.”
But as she spoke, the blue panel flickered violently, changing from its standard diagnostic display to a notification she had never seen before. It wasn't a reputation notification or a level-up.
[ Notification ]
An Entity seeks permission to enter the origin domain “The Office”, grant permission?
[Y/N]
Ravenna stopped walking, her eyes widening as she stared at the prompt. “Huh... this is different. Very different.”
She stood in the void, her mind instantly shifting into high-gear analysis. The Origin Domain, which she had nicknamed "The Office," was her absolute sanctuary. It was her most private, guarded space.
“It could be the Witch,” Ravenna thought, a chill running through her. “She called me an 'Otherworlder.' She knows about the system... But can she force her way into the system's?”
She bit her lip, debating the risk. “But if it’s not the Witch... then who? Since arriving in this world, I've only known the Gods to be able to interfere with the system's interface. If an entity is asking for permission, it implies a certain level of authority.”
She recalled the Witch’s words about Universal Origin.
“I really should have researched that more when I had the chance,” she lamented. When the system had first mentioned "attuning to Universal Origin," she had treated it as just another high-level buff. But the Witch’s reaction suggested it was something far more ancient.
“The only thing I know about it from the novel’s lore is that it was a legendary magic or perhaps a state of being wielded by Hero Luminous. They said he could alter the very nature of reality.”
The panel pulsed, more insistent now.
[ Notification ]
An Entity seeks permission to enter the origin domain “The Office”, grant permission?
[Y/N]
“I guess I don't have much of a choice,” Ravenna muttered with a weary sigh. “The Witch already said she can’t kill me or Marie yet. She needs the Saintess for her master’s plan. If there’s any place I actually feel safe right now, it’s the Origin Domain. If this entity wants to talk, I’d rather do it on my home turf.”
With a decisive motion, she reached out and tapped [ YES ].
The void didn't just brighten; it shattered. The darkness fell away like broken glass, and the sterile, white-tiled floor of her "Office" manifested beneath her feet. The hum of a high-end white noise and the soft glow of the fluorescent like lights on the ceiling greeted her.
But Ravenna didn't look at the empty room. She looked at the swivel chair sitting in front of a desk.
Her gaze was fixed on the leather swivel chair at the center of the room. It was occupied. A man sat there, draped in a crisp, charcoal-grey suit that belonged in an Earthly boardroom, not a courtroom of this world. As the chair slowly rotated, Ravenna, no rather Joy Cha Kim’s heart stopped. The sharp jawline, the stern yet weary eyes, the precise knot of his silk tie, it was him.
“Dad..?” She blunted out with heavy emotions.
It was her father, looking exactly as he had the day she left his world. In this sanctuary of the domain origin, the ghost of her past which she was longing for was waiting.