With dark circles under her eyes after overtime work, Ham hurried into the outer space of the Observation Station. There was no way she could miss such a disturbance. Besides Belial's actions, there was another familiar signal, likely stirred by the previous solar outburst.
"A troublesome big one may be coming," she said to Bella. "We should move the Observation Station as soon as possible, or it might get wiped out by area damage again."
"Who could it be?" Bella asked, confused. "The End? Or some deeply hidden Crimson God?"
Unless more than thirty Crimson God attacked together, they could watch safely from here. That was a conservative estimate. It was even possible that all remaining Crimson God could be wiped out at once.
"If it is that the Lord," Ham said, "we probably cannot beat it, and we cannot kill it either." "I told you before, the concept of the God of Light is the manifestation of the light side of the soul."
"So now the dark side is here," Bella replied. "Then just kill it, right?"
She quickly realized the situation as distant sensors detected abnormal and rapidly increasing Dark Power activity in the outer Void. This pattern matched only one past experience, during a risky exploration of the Abyss, when they encountered a vortex-like supermassive aggregation of Dark Power. They had only dared to scrape a bit of data from the edge before retreating.
The other side of the God of Light made sense now. "So what do we call it?" Bella asked. "A God of Darkness?"
"It works as a name," Ham replied. "But strictly speaking, it is not a god. It is a phenomenon." She paused before continuing. "The concept used by the God of Light to ascend was the light within the soul, and the result was extreme."
"For a being to become a Crimson God, the soul is critical," she said. "Originally, the soul of the World held light and dark as one, balanced together." "When the God of Light appeared, all light was gathered onto her, and the other side was left behind in the Abyss."
"From then on, light and dark twisted apart. Because the balance was broken, ordinary souls in the World could no longer ascend through the crimson path. That was one of our goals, though we did not expect such trouble." "Light and dark are not separate concepts. They are one, split in half through the method of a Crimson God."
"When all light was taken, all remaining darkness naturally gathered," she continued. "With nothing else left in the World, that darkness merged into the thing outside." "It started without consciousness, just like the God of Light, but the massive resentment mixed into the outer Void seems to have given birth to a dangerous awareness."
"So it gained intelligence?" Bella asked. "Yes. I want to deny it, but that seems to be the case."
Belial raised his head. Through his drowsy vision, he recognized the target. It was a supermassive vortex so huge that even at his current size, he was like an ant before it.
This was the only opponent he had ever faced in the Abyss without a clear victory. It was far larger than before, with darkness filling the sky and forming a vast spiral, packed with unimaginable resentment. Within it, faint crimson eyes slowly opened.
Belial only noticed that someone had arrived just now. It was a strange situation, because even while he lay here sleeping, the energy waves he passively released and his absorption ability should have been enough to weaken the surrounding Dark Power and clear away resentment. Yet he only became aware of the abnormal change a moment ago, like noticing dust piling up in a corner long after it had already gathered.
In a normal Abyss, fluctuations in the concentration of Dark Power were common, like the rise and fall of a sea surface. But when it had piled up around him to a tsunami level without him noticing, that could not be explained by simple carelessness. The massive Dark Power was rotating toward a center point on an unprecedented scale, pouring out countless dense resentments, a phenomenon Belial had only seen once before.
That time was when he fought Dark Vortex, a battle that ended without a clear result. He had judged that opponent to be quite strong, strong enough that he needed to be a bit more awake to fight seriously. Now, another equally spreading wave of energy formed a second tsunami, blocking the vortex-like surge of Dark Power, though Belial could sense a true vortex slowly taking shape, and what he was resisting now was only its weak outer layer.
The more violent undercurrent had not yet fully formed, or perhaps it simply had not arrived, and this was only a sign. With his current ability, Belial could roughly sense the scale of the vortex, and if the outer layer was included, its radius was at least two light-years. That size was frightening, still growing, considering that the radius of the Solar System was only about one light-year.
What truly caught his attention was the vague sense of a sphere at the very center, as deep as a black hole, slowly approaching his direction. Because of the distance, he could only sense it faintly. Was that thing's true body, he wondered, since he could not feel the usual soul presence he sensed when beating up old acquaintances.
A being that could cause such a large-scale Dark Power disturbance made Belial realize that he might have underestimated it last time. What he had seen before was far from the other side's limit. Still, that was fine, because last time had not been his limit either, and now even his lower bound surpassed his former peak.
"Making such a big show is useless. You are not just putting on airs for me, are you?" he said. "Fair is fair. You did this to me last time, so I will return the favor."
His true body, coiled beyond the World, lifted its head slightly. He was still asleep, yet he could act, opening his huge mouth as a storm became his breath. It was a casual and careless basic attack.
The wave of energy spread like a tide, then was shaped by his will into a fan, its nature condensing as its density rose and it gained substance. Its expansion rate jumped by countless times, and with that, its speed rose to an unimaginable level, fast enough to cross astronomical distances in a short time even in the chaotic inner space of Abyss.
In that void, the ultra-high vibration wave formed purely from energy became a visible fan-shaped storm. It was no longer just a physical vibration, but a roar that could stir the Laws of souls themselves. It easily swept away the outer Dark Power inblockbuster, tore apart the raging mid-layer currents into Shard, and pushed forward without resistance toward the center.
"Ugh…!" The sleeping existence at the core faintly sensed this friendly greeting and instinctively manipulated the surging Dark Power to wrap around itself. When it began to use its power consciously rather than unconsciously, the nature of that power changed.
The shockwave was weakened layer by layer, eroded and worn down by countless blacks. That obscure force acted on unclear levels, further reducing the impact. The blue starry sky could not tear open the dark curtain, and the final aftershock, which could have reduced an entire planet to ash, vanished with a soft sound of wings.
Even so, the comparison between the two sides was clear. The enormous dark vortex was torn open by a single roar, leaving a fan-shaped scar that only stopped near the edge of the core domain. The effect was enough, as the nearly formed vortex showed signs of collapse, and the black hole-like sphere at its center stopped moving.
That probing strike had served its purpose. It realized that there was a very troublesome presence here, one that might even knock its head off.
"We could not measure the energy scale of that attack," a voice reported. "Because it was a shockwave type, the Nanomachines that carried the data were destroyed as well, so we could not even determine the affected range."
"I can roughly guess the scale, and it is absurd," the voice continued. "Is Belial really still asleep? Can something like this happen while sleeping?" "But it looks like the effect was achieved. I am no longer detecting the advance of those Dark Power or the energy waves."
"…If the other side backs off like this, that would be best." Ham let out a sigh of relief, never imagining that instead of worrying about combat power, she would be worrying whether Belial might beat the symbolic aggregation of Dark Power to death and cause serious consequences.
In theory, that thing could not be killed. At its root, a dark god or a Dark Power aggregate was part of the World's repair mechanism, similar to an immune System and self-healing process in a body. Because of that instinct to repair and reunite with light as its other half, such an existence should never vanish as long as the World and the division of light and dark remained.
Yes, that was in theory. But Belial did not play by theory, and if he really could erase it completely, that would be a big problem. "So in short, this thing cannot be completely killed, and it is important?"