Residents of a distant kingdom had gathered in hiding, their eyes wide with terror as they gazed toward the sky. The colossal figure loomed above. Its very presence sent such fear down their spines that most felt paralyzed and weren't able to move, scream, or anything. All they could do was keep their eyes on the figure made of mist.
Midnight-blue flames suddenly tore across the skies and descended upon their homeland like a divine execution. Screams erupted across the streets as panic surged. Civilians clung to each other in desperation while the kingdom's knights rushed forward, standing between their people and the oncoming inferno.
With grim determination, the knights activated their shields—runes glowing brightly as barriers shimmered into existence.
But it was meaningless in the end due to the flames ignoring the defenses entirely, passing through the shields as if they didn't exist, and devoured everything in their path.
The knights were the first to wither into ash.
Moments later, the kingdom followed—its towers, stone walls, and people vanishing into the all-consuming fire. Dream Flames—midnight-blue fire that bypassed reality, incinerating all things as if they were nothing more than figments in a dream.
And once touched by it, not even memory remained.
—
Zay slowly rose from the back corner of the cave, miraculously left intact despite the Dream Flames consuming the entire world outside. He scanned his surroundings, noticing that the suffocating pressure from the god had vanished—replaced by something else. Something invisible. And somehow, even stronger.
"An invisible pressure… pressing against my chest—no, my entire body… It doesn't feel harmful, it feels… just..." he murmured, pausing mid-thought as he searched for the right word to describe the strange sensation.
It wasn't aura. That much he knew. He had never felt anything like this in any of his lives—an unseen pressure that made even a god's presence feel like it doesn't exist.
He looked down, lifting his hands and staring at them—completely still, steady, and calm. Somehow, all his energy had returned.
"Arbiter: Resonance Lens — Core," Zay muttered.
The Resonance Lens shimmered into existence before his eyes, displaying the intricate details of his cores.
Cores:
Aura Core: 100% | Initiate
Monster Core: 100% | Primordial(Sealed) | Ravager
Fallen Core(Unique): Stabilizing | ???
"How… is it at 100%?" Zay whispered to himself, eyes narrowing as he stared at the information, disbelief etched into his expression. His aura reserves—once critically low—now shimmered back at him in full. A perfect 100%.
It didn't make sense.
He had been dangerously depleted. Ever since leaving the Temple of the Dead Angel, he'd pushed himself relentlessly while using his aura. He hadn't had proper rest in what felt like an eternity. He could feel the strain in his muscles, in his very soul, the kind of exhaustion that couldn't be shaken with willpower alone. And yet now… he felt wide awake. Clear-headed. Recharged.
No fatigue tugged at his limbs. No aching behind his eyes. His aura, which should've taken days—weeks even—to recover, had returned as if nothing had happened.
Nothing made sense. No theory, no logic, no hidden technique he could recall could explain what had just occurred.
"What's the point in thinking about it when I can't even begin to understand it?" he muttered quietly, exhaling sharply as he lowered his hands to his sides. His right hand naturally settled on Evershade's hilt.
A faint, midnight-blue glow pulsed from the blade—quicker than a blink—before vanishing entirely. So brief, so subtle, that Zay didn't even notice.
His boots scraped against the stone floor as he stepped toward the cave's threshold. Outside, the world had shifted again. Thick clouds roiled overhead, forming in unnatural speed as heavy rain began to fall in torrents, slamming against the earth and soaking the horizon in mist and motion.
Zay's amethyst eyes lifted toward the massive figure in the distance—toward the god—its hulking, mist-laced form dominating the sky like a living monument. As his gaze locked onto it, a chime rang out.
A soft, singular bell tone, delicate yet impossibly loud. It echoed through the atmosphere as if the world itself were a cathedral.
"…The hell?" Zay muttered under his breath, instinctively glancing around. The cave's entrance wasn't large, barely giving him a narrow view of the outside world, but he strained to see anything else.
Another chime. Then another.
And another.
The bell rang again and again, each toll resonating like a ripple through reality. Even the god had turned its colossal head, its ethereal body shifting as it scanned the horizon. From what Zay could see, even the deity seemed unable to locate the sound's origin.
Minute after minute passed. The ringing continued, unyielding and precise.
And then, on the 108th chime… silence.
The god's crimson-blue eyes widened the moment the 108th chime rang. The sound echoed like fate itself had spoken—and for the first time in eons, the divine creature hesitated.
A guttural growl rumbled from deep within its chest, not of mere rage, but of something older—something broken. It was the sound of divinity cracking. Darkness laced with fractured light poured out with the sound, like corrupted hymns bleeding through a shattered cathedral.
The god's staff responded instantly, extending in height, and conjuring a colossal sphere of True Flames. The orb pulsed with enough power to consume the realm in a single blink of existence. With a flick of its wrist, the god launched the sphere forward—blinding, searing, final.
As the sphere flew through the air, reality bent.
From a place between time and silence, a figure walked.
Cloaked entirely in black, the heavy robes clung to them like shadows desperate not to let go. Not an inch of skin was visible—face veiled, hands gloved, legs hidden beneath the cascading folds of the robe. Yet, with every step forward, glimmers of deep purple shimmered from their boots—polished leather kissed by an unnatural sheen, glinting briefly before the shadows swallowed it again.
The sphere of True Flames surged forward, ready to erase all.
And then, it simply… vanished.
Snuffed out without so much as a whisper. Not destroyed, not dispersed—it chose not to exist anymore. The flames, primal and divine, recoiled from this figure.
The world held its breath.
"I did not want to get involved," the figure spoke.
The words were calm, not loud, yet every living creature—across oceans, under mountains, within cities and wastelands—heard them as if whispered into their ears. The world itself trembled beneath the sound of that voice.
Zay, still in the cave, instinctively scanned the horizon. "That voice… where have I heard it?" he muttered, confusion tightening in his chest. But he felt no new presence—just the same invisible pressure, pressing against him like gravity from beyond.
Outside, the weather convulsed. Winds surged, howling through shattered mountains. A blizzard formed from nothing, only to be immediately obliterated by a sweeping heatwave. It was as if the world feared giving this being the wrong climate and was frantically shifting in desperation, trying to appease.
Then, the figure halted.
A gloved hand lifted slowly, removing the obsidian mask that concealed their eyes.
And what lay beneath was not human.
Eyes that should not exist—violet, blue, white, and pink—swirled in an endless, fluid cycle, each color rotating around the next in a pattern. They were galaxies trapped in a gaze, storms of creation and unmaking that spiraled without pause.
The god, hovering in the skies of the shattered world, looked upon the figure.
And it laughed.
A sound that broke the sky itself. A laugh so steeped in divine resonance that those who heard its true voice fell to their knees—mouths open in silent screams, bones shattering, souls unraveling like strings pulled from a loom of reality. Only Zay, still inside the cave, protected by layers of the invisible pressure remained untouched.
And then, the god spoke:
"So even you crawl out from your hollow... You, who vanished when the stars bled. Has your silence ended? Or have you simply come to mourn what I will destroy?"
The figure responded calmly, yet his voice echoed with authority that pulled on the fabric of the world itself.
"Mailx. The forgotten god of Dream Flames and True Flames. I did not come here simply to speak."
As he prepared to continue, Mailx snarled, interrupting.
"You dare to call me by my true nam—"
But before he could finish, black chains erupted from the void, forged from pure, writhing aura—shadows of an ancient command. They coiled tightly around his jaw, sealing his mouth shut with a snap that echoed like a tomb door closing.
"You do not interrupt me when I am the one speaking," the robed figure said, his voice now colder, firmer, with the authority of laws. "You will learn that. You were sealed away for a reason. And now that you're free, you strut across the skies like you've earned something? Like you're above all?"
Crack.
The chains groaned.
Snap.
In a burst of dark, radiant light, the chains shattered—one after the other—blown apart by a pressure that made the realm itself tremble. The sound was like thunder wrapped in screams.
Mailx exhaled slowly, jaw tensing as smoke drifted from his mouth. He reached up and wiped away the black fragments of the broken chains from his face, brushing them aside like ash.
His crimson-blue eyes narrowed with amusement, his smile dripping arrogance.
"Oh? And here I thought you were here to lecture me like a parent to a child. But no—you're just another fool wearing shadows, throwing chains, pretending you're still relevant."
He floated forward, his staff glowing with unstable energy, raw and divine.
"You speak with borrowed gravity, but your time has long passed. You're nothing."
Mailx opened his arms mockingly. "Come then."
The figure sighed, long and slow, as if disappointed by the inevitability of childish defiance. "If a child's game is what you crave so desperately, then so be it. I'll indulge your tantrum—for the sake of carving this moment into history. Let it be recorded not as a battle… but as a correction."
The god let out a thunderous laugh, then hurled several spheres of True Flames at the figure—a man appearing to be in his mid-twenties, standing at six feet, four inches tall, cloaked in shadows.
But as the blazing spheres reached him, they fizzled into nothing, vanishing before impact. The figure took a single step forward. With each stride, clouds gathered beneath his feet and solidified into a celestial path, lifting him gently into the sky. Around him, the raging True Flames dimmed, then extinguished entirely, as though afraid to exist in his presence.
The figure began to walk forward, his steps were slow, each one resonating with the weight of eternity. Beneath his feet, the void itself stirred, coalescing into clouds of shimmering stardust that solidified into obsidian platforms. These platforms formed a stairway ascending toward Mailx, defying gravity and logic. With every step, the True Flames surrounding him—Mailx's proudest creations—dimmed and vanished, their divine fire snuffed out like candles in a storm. The realm itself seemed to bow to the figure's presence.
Mailx's sneer twisted into a scowl. He thrust his staff forward, its form morphing into a colossal blade of divine gold, its edge sharp enough to cleave through the very concept of existence. Divinity erupted around him in a blinding cascade of golden light, a cataclysmic wave that shattered the world below.
Mountain ranges crumbled to dust, oceans boiled into steam, and the sky itself fractured like glass under the weight of his power. Mailx shifted his stance, his foot cloaked in black mist sliding backward. The motion alone unleashed a shockwave that obliterated distant peaks, setting the horizon ablaze with Dream Flames that consumed all they touched.
With a roar, Mailx swung his blade downward, the strike a golden arc that tore through reality, aiming to erase the figure from existence. His eyes fixed upon Mailx with an intensity that made the god falter for the briefest moment. Then, in a voice that was both a whisper and a cosmic decree, the figure spoke: "Nova Eclipse. Appear."
The words were not merely sound but a command that resonated across every dimension, timeline, and plane of existence. The sky above shattered like a mirror, a jagged fracture splitting the heavens to reveal a realm of absolute darkness—a void so profound it swallowed all light, sound, and hope. From this abyss, a single object descended, its presence heralded by a low, resonant hum that shook the realm to its core. It was Nova Eclipse, the cosmic artifact forged from the hearts of supernovae and the essence of a black hole, a weapon that defied all laws of creation.
As Nova Eclipse descended, its form became clear, a vision of apocalyptic beauty. The blade was a masterpiece of cosmic craftsmanship, its edge a shimmering crescent of starlight that seemed to cut through the very fabric of reality. At its core, encased in a translucent orb no larger than a marble, swirled a miniature black hole, its event horizon a roiling maelstrom of devoured light, tendrils of darkness spiraling outward like living shadows.
Golden locks, inscribed with runes older than time itself, encircled the orb, pulsating with an otherworldly glow that held the singularity's infinite power in check. The hilt was a constellation of molten starfire, its surface shifting with patterns of nebulae and galaxies, as if the weapon contained an entire universe within its frame.
The guard was adorned with living constellations, stars that flickered and danced, orbiting the blade in silent reverence. The weapon's weight was unimaginable, equivalent to a neutron star, its presence warping gravity and causing the shattered remnants of the realm to collapse inward.
The figure extended his hand, and Nova Eclipse responded, drawn to its master. The moment his grip tightened, a shockwave of cosmic energy erupted, a radiant void that extinguished Mailx's golden light and silenced his divine flames.
The black hole at the blade's core pulsed, its hum rising to a crescendo that reverberated across dimensions, a sound that was both the birth cry of a universe and the death knell of all things. The golden locks glowed brighter, their runes flaring with an intensity that burned away the last vestiges of Mailx's divinity in the vicinity. The blade shifted in his hand, its form fluid, adapting to his will—now a longsword of unparalleled elegance, its edge sharper than the boundaries between realities.
"You are no god," the figure said, his voice a harmonic resonance that echoed across the world—each word a hammer blow to Mailx's pride. "You are nothing but an irrelevant ant attempting to play a role of which you do not deserve."
With a single swing of Nova Eclipse, a wave of cosmic energy surged outward, born from the very fabric of space itself. It rippled through distant galaxies, swallowed Mailx's blade, and shattered it into fragments. A crack split open in the void of reality.
"Disgusting creature, claiming the title of a God. You are nothing but a forgotten spark from a past that no longer exists," the figure declared as chains erupted from the rift, wrapping tightly around Mailx.
Yet Mailx did not scream. He didn't flinch. His crimson-blue eyes remained fixed on the figure, unblinking.
"I will kill you," was all he managed to utter before he was violently dragged into a realm known only as the Abyssal Expanse—a void where nothing exists. No life. No death. No animals. No plants. No light. Just silence, and the infinite stretch of nothingness.
—
Zay's eyes widened as he watched the scene unfold before him—until the sun slammed into the horizon, signaling the end of the Blood-Moon night. The Resonance Lens appeared before him with a soft chime.
[Infernal Ruins: Completed]
The world around him faded into nothingness.
He jolted awake—much faster than he had compared to the previous Sequences—and looked around. He was still aboard the True Wind, lying on the floor near the stone table, with books scattered all around him. A small nod followed—a quiet sign of relief. But that relief was short-lived.
He had far too many questions.