The longer Wyn stares at the statues, the more his emotions seem to dissolve. The memories remain – clear as crystal, untouched – but the feelings tied to them are slipping away. A creeping numbness takes hold, spreading through him like a slow, inevitable tide. He isn’t sure if it’s the aftermath of everything he’s been through or if his ascension to godhood is stripping him of what makes him human. Even his worry fades, replaced by a fleeting concern – only for that, too, to wither before he can grasp it. Yet, despite the emptiness creeping in, he can’t bring himself to leave the statues. It’s as if his friends are still holding onto him. At least one thing remains certain – he can still smile. And only they can make it genuine.

  Then, Marcus appears, informing Wyn that Dark Force is asking if he’s ready to check out the new area yet. Wyn sighs and asks Marcus to tell Dark Force to meet him inside the dome. Before Marcus leaves, Cateto stops him.

  “Can I trouble you to bring me a marker?” he asks.

  Wyn sighs, realizing he should have asked Marcus earlier when he requested the nerds. “Sorry about that,” he says.

  Marcus chuckles, waving off Wyn’s concern before heading out. When he returns, Wyn takes the marker and, with a steady hand, draws a bold ‘D’ on Cateto’s belly. Now, the initials of all his former team members are marked on Cateto.

  Wyn turns his attention back to the statues, his expression unreadable, while Cateto lies in his arms, purring in satisfaction as he admires his new initial.

  Soon, Dark Force arrives.

  “You’ve done wonders to this place. It looks great,” Dark Force says.

  Wyn doesn’t respond, only giving a single nod to signal Dark Force to take the lead. Without wasting time, a portal brings them to the new afterlife realm, still unnamed.

  At the center of the floor lies a vast circle where newly collected souls enter the afterlife, just as before. The space is enclosed by towering walls and a high ceiling, mirroring the design of earlier Hell.

  “You and your obsession with walls and white spaces,” Wyn mutters.

  He calls Marcus and, through him, orders the nerds to transform the room. He wants the ceiling to resemble an endless sky, the floor to become shallow water that ripples with every step the souls take, and the walls to be replaced with mirrors.

  Dark Force claps in amusement, watching Wyn’s dedication to redecorating the new realm. Meanwhile, Cateto leaps from Wyn’s shoulder to greet his siblings, Catato and Catito, who now work in tandem to guide the souls.

  “I never understood why souls were judged based on their most recent faith,” Wyn muses. “Not fair for those who spent their whole lives worshipping your former buddy, only to get thrown into Hell because of their last few seconds.”

  “Ah, that’s been changed,” Dark Force replies. “Now, we only judge them based on the crimes they committed.”

  In the past, souls were judged first by their most recent faith in Light Force, followed by an evaluation of their past crimes. With the overwhelming number of souls and the division between Heaven and Hell, the nerds’ AI lacked the capacity to judge each one fairly. The system could only check the most recent faith; any attempt to review a soul’s entire history would overload it.

  “We’ve also captured all the escaped souls and placed them here for reevaluation,” Dark Force explains.

  “Uh-huh. What about reading someone’s past – how do I do that?” Wyn asks.

  To activate this ability, Wyn must place both hands on a soul’s head and visualize a brain between them. Dark Force warns him to be careful, as using it improperly could accidentally unleash an attack on the soul. Alternatively, he can always ask the nerds for a record.

  Previously, due to the division between Heaven and Hell, Dark Force and the nerds could only access records of souls’ past lives and their time in Hell. Now that there is only one realm, all records have been merged, granting access to every soul’s complete history. For privacy reasons, only Dark Force – and now Wyn – can view them, while the nerds oversee system maintenance and security.

  “I used my power to grant the ability to read pasts to a...ummm...device connected to scanners in the empty space where souls are placed after death,” Dark Force explains. “Heaven was also sent the information about the souls, just in case they wanted to raise a dispute.”

  “...You were waging a war against each other, yet Light Force trusted Hell with the scanning process?”

  “Well, both of us needed to keep Earth and our realms running.”

  “You could have kept all souls with abilities to yourself.”

  “That would be breaking the agreement we had with Heaven.”

  “...So honorable.” Even Wyn’s sarcasm falls flat, lacking its usual sharpness. “Those dust particles – some sort of anesthesia, was it? They were the second best thing in the afterlife for me,” he continues.

  “You can always ask Anxiety to produce them for you, but maybe after he’s fully recovered from the injuries,” Dark Force responds.

  Souls are still categorized by the colors of their wristbands – gray and purple – with black bands no longer in use. The purple bands have been grouped together, regardless of their crimes, and are assigned to other areas on this floor, rotating as they serve their time.

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  “Almost forgot, what about the dogs?” Wyn asks.

  Since Light Force summoned all the dogs and other beings in Heaven to distract Dark Force before the end of the war, there are currently no dogs fit enough to help the cats guide and monitor the souls. The new batch, however, has been sent to the cat factory for training. They’ll undergo the same process as the cats, but without the injection to enlarge their bodies, and without a rank system among them yet.

  “So, they’re just normal dogs then,” Wyn remarks. “What do you think about dogs, Cateto?” he asks, glancing at his companion.

  “We don’t mind them, really. They’re smart, but less so than us. That said, I’m excited to see them around,” he answers with a chuckle, clearly amused.

  Their conversation is interrupted as Catato and Catito finish giving an introduction to the purple-banded souls. Without warning, the souls are sucked into the floor through individual portals. However, thanks to Wyn, the nerds have already covered the floor with water per his request, so the portals are no longer visible.

  “The ripple effect as they’re getting sucked in looks good,” Wyn remarks. “Don’t forget the mirrors.”

  Dark Force leads Wyn to another room. It’s nearly identical to Gluttony’s space before the war ended, the same size, though now it’s just a room instead of occupying an entire floor like before. This batch of purple-banded souls has been assigned to serve their time in Gluttony’s space first. The rules remain largely the same, though now the purple souls must follow the same guidelines as the gray bands – avoid overeating, or a “less intelligent” cat will take them to feed Gluttony should their stomachs burst open.

  “You used to punish the purple bands right away. Why not do the same here?” Wyn wonders, his gaze fixed on Dark Force.

  “We didn’t want what we already had to go to waste.”

  “Figured. I assume the rest is the same, minus Lust and Torture now that they’re gone?” Wyn asks, already anticipating the answer.

  “Not quite. For Lust, yes, her level wasn’t working out anyway. Torture, on the other hand, we decided to keep – but now the souls torture each other. One becomes the torturer, the other, the tortured. If the torturer kills their prey, they’ll never be a torturer again – only a tortured soul, destined to suffer endlessly. Even without the moderator, the cats have everything under control. As for Maya’s space, it’ll be reserved for good souls who want a peaceful rest, whether temporary or eternal.”

  Each soul has a different amount of time to serve before they can return to Earth. Depending on where they start, there’s a set time before they’re pulled into another room. For now, those who’ve served enough time will become gray bands.

  “Are you telling me...?” Wyn begins, his voice trailing off.

  Indeed, Dark Force is not releasing any souls back to Earth just yet. He hopes to let everyone there die out first, make some changes, impose new rules, and then send them back in soul form.

  “Gray bands will be those who haven’t committed any serious crimes to warrant their time here. They can stay on Earth,” Dark Force explains.

  “But where do you keep them now while they wait for rebirth? And what about the children?” Wyn asks.

  Before Dark Force takes Wyn to another room, he offers him the chance to make aesthetic changes to Gluttony’s space. Wyn refuses, reasoning that this room – and others like it – are meant for punishment. They don’t deserve anything nice. With that, they arrive at a lively settlement, structured like a small town but built to accommodate the many souls residing there.

  “This is where the rest are for the time being,” Dark Force says.

  Gray bands, children, and those with severe disabilities are scattered throughout the area, with cats guiding them, providing information on the different sections of the town, and tackling the most daunting task of all – babysitting the children. As Wyn scans the crowd, his eyes land on a familiar face.

  “Rex?” he calls out.

  Rex, startled, fumbles and drops a baby headfirst to the ground after tossing him in the air to play. He hasn’t heard his name in a long time. Despite his shock at seeing Wyn again, he hesitates before cautiously creeping toward Wyn and Dark Force.

  With his paws together and his head lowered, he greets, “Hi, my Lord. Hey, Cateto…And…hi, you.”

  “Are you friends with this low-ranked demon?” Cateto asks, his tone laced with disgust.

  “Now, now, no need for hostility, Cateto,” Wyn says. In response, Cateto immediately apologizes – not to Rex, but to Wyn – by licking his face and acting all cute.

  Though both cats met before while bidding Wyn’s team farewell, Cateto claims not to remember Rex, reasoning that he doesn’t bother remembering demons he doesn’t socialize with much.

  “I’m glad to see you again, Rex,” Wyn says.

  “L…likewise. I don’t dare ask about your friends, but I hope they’re alright,” Rex responds.

  Wyn hesitates, caught off guard by the mention of his friends and by Rex’s use of contractions – something he isn’t used to hearing from him. However, instead of replying, he simply offers Rex a small smile. Feeling awkward, Rex excuses himself.

  “I’ll swing by to tell you about the adventures in Heaven, okay?” Wyn shouts.

  Rex turns around, nods once, then quickly resumes his duty.

  “I haven’t made an official announcement about you yet. I’m waiting until every last human becomes a soul,” Dark Force says.

  “Actually, I don’t want to be known as a god or whatever,” Wyn replies.

  “You have to. The divine intervention, remember?”

  “You can take all the credit, and I’ll stay behind to support. Tell them I’m your assistant or your bellboy for all I care.”

  Dark Force smiles. “It’s always hard bargaining with you, huh? Well, let’s get going. I can’t stand children.”

  “Wait! I need to see Cerberus,” Wyn insists.

  With the help of Rex and the nearby cats, they search for Cerberus. Instead of them walking to the dog, the cats order it to come to them. Cerberus is as healthy as it can be now, though with two of its heads missing, some nerds came up with the idea to stitch yarn-knitted doll heads onto its body – one resembling the pug, the other the chihuahua, both complete with googly doll eyes. Unlike other creatures, each of Cerberus's heads is an independent entity, sharing only the body, which provides essence only when all the heads perish. This is why the two severed heads never regrew. The now technically single-headed dog has been brought here specifically to play with the children, especially now that it has doll heads.

  As any dog would, the husky head immediately recognizes Wyn’s status. It bows its head, waiting for Wyn to pat it.

  “I wanted to pet you so much back then. Too bad Yu and Mira aren’t here to do the same,” Wyn says, his voice faint as he mentions his friends’ names. But something feels off. He knows he’s sad, yet the emotion doesn’t reach him the way it should. His body doesn’t react, and there’s an unsettling emptiness inside him. Even when he was in Gluttony’s space earlier, the sight of food did nothing to him. The aroma had no effect – he didn’t feel hunger, nor did he long for any particular taste.

  While he’s lost in thought, Cateto starts licking his face, sensing the difficult reality Wyn is facing as a newly divine being.

  “I hope you’re ready,” Dark Force says. “We’re discussing Earth next.”