This was the first time Ji Jue had heard the piercing cries of spirit matter boiling over. The screams, shrieks, and wails sounded like someone was being subjected to the most brutal form of execution.

A blurred face surfaced among the surging spirit entities, convulsing in terror and letting out agonized howls. It tore itself apart again and again, scattering into countless fragments, yet it still could not escape the horrifying gravitational pull coming from the darkness.

Until, finally, it made a desperate decision.

Formless exploded violently. Hundreds, no, thousands of blood-red flashes erupted in all directions. Most of them were instantly swallowed by the darkness and vanished without a trace, leaving only a few scattered fragments that barely escaped the terrifying pull.

And even then, they fled in panic without ever looking back. They passed by a strange, deer-headed phantom that walked in through the blood-soaked path. The eerie creature only paused for a fraction of a second before calmly withdrawing its gaze. Then it slowly stepped into the long-sealed door.

Within the dead silence of the darkness, indistinct silhouettes emerged from the eternal gloom, humming an ancient, fragmented melody in hoarse voices. They were like souls imprisoned in an endless cycle of reincarnation, reminiscing about their homeland in vain.

The departed souls sang from hell.

I think of home, I think of home...♪

My home so lovely...♪

From that song, a bone-chilling aura swept across everything like a waterfall, gradually swallowing the entire rift realm.

In the corner of the central hub, Ji Jue’s vision darkened. He felt an unprecedented wave of terror and trembled, as if an invisible, icy hand was brushing across his soul, inspecting its composition with indifferent scrutiny before slowly withdrawing.

What he felt was an abyss-like gap between them, a kind of terror and helplessness where he was nothing but meat on a chopping board, completely unable to resist. He also recognized the spirit signal from the entity that had screamed earlier. That was exactly why his fear deepened even further.

The Dragonrite Society? What the hell is going on? Are they seriously just getting wiped out like this?

No, Ji Jue had already prepared himself to go head-to-head with a monster beyond normal standards in order to take Pacifier. If it actually came to a fight, he had even planned out his strategy.

He’d use the central hub’s operation, fight while retreating, get its aggro[1], keep pulling back all the way to the outer sea of spirit matter, then go straight in and stab its neck to activate the pulverization device! He didn’t believe for a second that a monster composed entirely of spirit matter could withstand the purification program inside Mercury’s workshop!

In fact, he had even prepared himself to go take on the Shepherd afterward. Now what? It just disappeared so easily?!

No way. That can’t be right. That shouldn’t be possible.

It wasn’t that Ji Jue was itching for a fight or anything. There was a problem. If even the Dragonrite Society’s Shepherd had been taken out this easily, then with his own level of strength, how was he supposed to survive?

Ji Jue turned around and asked hoarsely, “Seer, what exactly was that?”

The Seer’s expression remained blank as she felt the distant, rising dark fluctuations carried by the song. “What else could it be? That was Mercury, Ji Jue. The ashes of Mercury are instinctively gathering toward the remaining unextinguished sparks.”

A dull, heavy thud shook everyone’s soul. It was a heartbeat from the deepest darkness. Within the spirit solution, a dried-up heart gave a violent thump. Then again. And again. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

***

“Fuck. It’s all gone to shit. Everything’s gone to fucking shit.”

Outside the ever-expanding central hub, within the earth-shaking rift realm, scattered spirit light gathered from corpses. Blurred faces surfaced as they devoured the remaining un-dispersed spirit matter, barely reforming faint outlines that trembled in terror and flickered like dying candles in the wind.

Formless turned back toward the slowly rising central hub, unable to conceal his fear and trembling. He let out chaotic curses and incoherent muttering.

“Fuck your so-called sages... They’re all liars... Everyone’s fucking insane... insane!”

“Sorry to interrupt.”

A gentle voice came from the darkness, followed by footsteps. The sound made Formless’s blurred outline tremble violently, almost collapsing. He even forgot to continue devouring the remaining souls and quickly retreated, turning to look with full vigilance.

He saw a face covered in dust and grime. The person looked as if she had just crawled out from some forgotten corner. A heavy backpack hung on her back, and in her hand was a map that had been torn in half out of frustration.

The white-haired elderly woman took off her hat, fanned herself, then lifted a water flask and drained more than half of it in one breath. Only then did she sit down with a sigh of relief.

“Got dropped down there by accident. That damn map led me all over the place. I almost couldn’t climb back up...” She glanced up casually. “Uh, hey, you there. Did you just come out from inside? Could you tell me what’s going on with Mercury?”

The moment that name was spoken, Formless’s outline flickered. He could no longer maintain his form. Killing intent and malice surged uncontrollably as he locked onto the elderly woman.

She had no matrix, no blessing. Nothing that could be identified as an ability at all. Yet her soul was so condensed that not even a trace of aura leaked out. Nothing could be read.

So strange, and yet so tempting. Hunger and instinct screamed at him to devour her. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat.

With a piercing howl, Formless lunged forward. In the next moment, he stopped dead in his tracks, caught by a clenched fist.

“So after all these years, the Dragonrite Society is still this pathetic?” The woman sighed softly, holding him like a dead dog as she casually shook him. “I even dismantled my matrix just to get in here. Could you at least be polite? Don’t start fighting the moment someone asks a question.”

She tilted her head slightly. “But since you were rude first...”

In the flickering light, her face sank into shadow and changed. A ferocious bird-like silhouette faintly emerged, and a bloodstained, eerie mask slowly surfaced over her gentle smile. Illusory red blood dripped from her long beak as she looked down with brutal indifference.

“Then I guess I don’t need to pretend to be a decent person anymore.” White Owl bared her teeth in a silent, savage grin.

Boom!

With a deafening explosion, the earth collapsed and shattered as thunder echoed across the entire rift realm.

The ground was finally torn apart.

The central hub bloomed open like a lotus, splitting the earth and the heavens apart. Bathed in an eternal, dim yellow light, countless intricate structures unfolded from within, thread after thread. They were drifting and indistinct, like thousands upon thousands of invisible hands reaching toward the sky and land, grasping everything within their control.

From the very highest point, a pair of semi-transparent wings unfurled. They reflected the fading light of the sunset, looking dazzling and brilliant. Then came a second pair, and a third, and a fourth, until at last, countless wings covered the sky. Eyes opened from those wings one by one, looking down upon everything, especially at the scarred and broken earth below.

Blood-red tears fell like rain, and no screams could be heard. Yet a wave of sorrow and dread swept through everything, causing the fractured land to tremble once more, swallowing all existence.

Within those countless wings, faint outlines of hands emerged. They were layered upon one another, intertwined and stretching outward. Hundreds upon thousands of palms unfolded from the center, weaving together into a grotesque circular formation.

A scream made of endless overlapping voices echoed across the entire rift realm.

“■——”

Snap!

The final remnant of the former Shepherd dissolved completely from White Owl’s hand, not even given time to cry out. She raised her head and looked toward the countless wings covering the sky and the tangled mass of hands twisting within them, and couldn’t help but draw a sharp breath.

White Owl yanked at the map in her hand, shouting, “Hey, old man, what the hell is that?! You only told me I was here to pick up a package. You didn’t say there’d be something this insane inside the rift realm!”

On the map, distant words slowly appeared. “That is Mercury. Aren’t you already looking at it? This sorrow and hatred, this despair and suffering are the sins and consequences that Mercury bears on behalf of all Onyxists.”

“The corruption of the sage?” White Owl asked hoarsely, no longer able to deny reality. “So the backlash from the collapse of Origin was this extreme? When those Onyxists severed the Tower of Origin, didn’t they ever anticipate the consequences?”

Words flowed across the map like running water.

“The collapse of the Tower of Origin was the worst possible outcome. But even the worst possible outcome was still better than watching the Tower of Origin be completed. There is no place for gods in the human world, nor should there be eternal rulers or emperors. If an emperor intends to render the world meaningless, then even if the world must be destroyed, that emperor cannot be allowed to live.

“The fall of the Eternal Empire was, in essence, a counterstrike by the other Supreme Benevolences against Origin’s attempt to dominate everything. It could not possibly have been caused by a few Onyx Celestial Beings alone. Likewise, severing the Tower of Origin was not Mercury’s sole responsibility...

“When they broke through the Empire’s encirclement and reached the Tower of Origin, only half of the forty-one Celestial Beings remained. Among the survivors, Titan was gravely wounded and on the verge of death. Only Mercury’s blood could awaken the Edge of Revolution. If it were you, what would you choose?”

White Owl fell silent, staring at the massive silhouette that wailed in silence. She no longer knew what to say.

This was the world’s final chance. It was the accumulated sacrifices and legacy of all Onyxists for over a thousand years, the fate and duty passed down through generations.

And yet, when the path finally reached its end, the world was still dark and unstable. The promised utopia remained distant, dreamlike, unreal. At the final moment, the most cruel choice was placed before them. Turn back into the eternal dream promised by the Emperor and sleep like an infant within an iron cradle, or ignite oneself, sacrifice everything, and pursue a future that might never be reached.

As lightning roared across the sky, the shattered illusion of the Tower of Origin appeared once more.

This time, she finally saw it clearly, the brilliant light rising from the darkness. That was the first sword struck by Mercury against the Eternal Empire over four hundred years ago.

And what fell to the ground in its wake was only the sorrowful light of tears.

1. In gaming, aggro (short for aggression or aggravation) refers to the attention, threat level, or targeting focus an enemy NPC (non-player character) places on a player. “Getting aggro” means an enemy has targeted you for attack. ☜