The white light dissipated.
Visad's figure was gone. The Saintess and Antut had faded, settling forever into the quietude of Mei's memories. The world fell into an absolute, suffocating silence.
"..."
"..."
When Wild Hunt finally snapped back to reality, he realized he had been dragged back to the mundane world without even noticing. He looked at Mei, who stood before him, and froze, unable to move a muscle.
Just moments ago, everyone on this planet had borne witness to the entire history of Antut. Naturally, Wild Hunt now knew exactly who stood before him.
The object of Antut's faith!
The Mother God!!
Even the existence of Antut itself, a phenomenon revered as a living miracle, was merely a byproduct of the grace she had once bestowed upon the Saintess Stella. No one could even begin to fathom the true extent of the Mother God's power.
Wild Hunt had pinned all his hopes on Antut, yet Antut had willingly returned to the embrace of the Mother God. This meant Wild Hunt now faced the prospect of standing alone against a deity.
An unfathomable, primordial deity.
"I forfeit!"
There was no need to fight.
Wild Hunt knew the result before it even began.
Without a second's hesitation, he severed the contract.
...
Decussate Star Headquarters.
"The Mother God?!"
The Commander-in-Chief let out an involuntary cry of alarm.
He had thought the emergence of Antut was preposterous enough, but he hadn't expected something even more bizarre to appear. Antut had effectively ceased to exist the moment it laid eyes on her.
They hadn't even clashed; the entity had simply bowed out and gone home.
So it turned out she was just coming to pick up her "child!"
The good news was that the threat of Antut was resolved. The bad news was that something far more powerful had arrived. He couldn't be certain if Julius was a match for the Mother God.
Forget Julius.
Even adding Agal to the fray might not be enough.
The Raitei Legion was in the same boat. Luo Changkong's expression was deadly serious as he glanced toward Chloe's location, a sudden, crushing sense of helplessness washing over him.
"Damn, is this for real?"
He had originally thought that summoning Agal was the result of incredible luck, but he never expected even more outrageous entities to keep appearing one after another.
Luo Changkong felt he needed to rethink his strategy. He intended to get Agal to stand down, but before he could even open his mouth, Agal's face erupted in a look of ecstatic joy.
A colossal slash was crushed effortlessly in Agal's palm. He turned his head toward the horizon, his eyes glowing with a sharp, brilliant light.
"What an unexpected delight!"
With that, he abandoned Julius entirely and bolted toward the horizon.
Julius, too, lost all interest in the fight.
His expression mirrored Agal's, one of sudden, profound joy.
"My Empress!"
He vanished, hot on Agal's heels.
"Wait, Julius!"
The Transcender who had summoned Julius tried to call him back, but Julius ignored him completely, not sparing a glance for his master. He vanished in an instant.
The Transcender was left bewildered, clueless as to what had just transpired.
"Dammit!"
He had no choice but to curse under his breath and follow after them. He was furious and deeply troubled, wondering how the situation was going to spiral now. The descent of the Mother God was, quite frankly, a scenario that defied all logic.
Wasn't this a bit too "broken" for the mission's balance?
Come to think of it, was the Mother God even an entity native to this mission world?
As that thought hit them, Luo Changkong and the Transcender who summoned Julius both stumbled to a halt, filled with sudden, gnawing doubt.
What if the Space interface triggered an Elimination Mission the moment they got close to the Mother God?
The very thought was enough to make their souls flee their bodies.
Could the summoning ritual pull a Grand Traveler into the crosshairs?
They didn't dare say for sure.
Whether Luo Changkong and the others dared to move was a mystery, but Wild Hunt certainly didn't dare to budge. His Space interface had actually popped up an Elimination Mission prompt.
Eliminate Chloe?
Or eliminate the Mother God?
He felt that both tasks were insurmountable mountains.
Mei wasn't even releasing any killing intent, yet there was an indescribable pressure radiating from her. It struck terror into Wild Hunt's heart, paralyzing him and making him terrified to act on impulse.
Fortunately, this nerve-wracking silence didn't last long.
"Empress of Firenze!"
A thunderous, majestic roar shook the horizon, causing Wild Hunt to blink in surprise. Violent waves of air parted the clouds as a King stood tall in the heavens.
Agal, fueled by a torrent of unrestrained exhilaration, threw his entire being into hurling a bronze lance. He was pouring every ounce of his current joy into that single, blistering strike.
"This is the return for that blow you struck me a thousand years ago!"
BOOM!
The lance tore through the firmament.
It crossed the distance in a blink, instantaneous and lethal.
The Empress of Firenze?
In that heartbeat, every soul watching the battlefield froze, their minds racing as the realization dawned on them.
"The Mother God... is the legendary Empress of Firenze?!!"
The identity of the Firenze Empress had always been an impenetrable mystery. She had never led a campaign, never shown her face, yet she had forged the most powerful and magnificent empire in the history of myth.
No one could have guessed that the Empress of Firenze was, in truth, the Mother God revered by Antut. Once that connection was made, everything suddenly fell into place.
Legend held that Agal had died from the wounds inflicted by Julius, but the truth was clearly far more complex. He had indeed been gravely wounded by Julius, but it seemed his ultimate end had come at the hands of the Firenze Empress herself.
However...
Miles away, the Raitei Legion's Commander-in-Chief watched the scene unfold with an eagle eye. A horrifying realization chilled his blood.
"I remember... among those who answered the call, there was one of the Twelve Knights..."
The strongest one, at that.
Facing Agal's retaliatory strike, a debt of vengeance thousands of years in the making, Mei remained unmoved. Just as the lance pierced the sky, a sword light flashed, moving faster than the spear itself.
A biting, brilliant glow swept through the air. In an instant, the very galaxy seemed sliced in two.
A figure, swift as a lightning strike, arrived. Julius stood resolute, guarding Mei. With a single swing, he shattered the bronze lance. The residual force of their collision detonated, pulverizing the earth beneath their feet and scattering the clouds in the sky.
The knight's eyes were sharp as blades.
Unmoving as a mountain.
With his sword gripped tightly, he stood with his back to Mei, locked in an intense standoff with Agal.
"My Empress, Julius has arrived to attend to you!"
This scene.
It was burned into the eyes of everyone watching the battle.
Mei had not lifted a finger, yet even so, she remained the absolute epicenter of the conflict. The crushing, indescribable sense of oppression she radiated was enough to make anyone tremble.
This pressure did not stem merely from raw power, but from the immense weight of myth, legend, and the ages; the sheer gravity of Antut and the Firenze Empire.
She did not need to act.
Her mere existence here was enough to make the soul feel suffocated by an invincible, insurmountable majesty.
In this battle, Agal stood no chance.
A faint smile touched Mei's lips. She looked at Agal and said, "You are likely to be disappointed. I have no interest in playing games with you."
With that, she turned and walked away.
Chloe fell into step behind her.
"Julius, I grant you permission to use your full strength."
"As you command."
Thousands of years ago, when Agal had reached the foot of the Firenze throne, this King—who had always been arrogant, reckless, and accustomed to looking down on the world—had looked up for the very first time.
On that day, a heart that had never known reverence finally understood what it meant to behold the Empress of Firenze. That gaze, looking down from above, was identical to the one she cast upon him today; indifferent, disdainful.
"Play games? Interest?"
At her words, a fire of rage surged within Agal's chest.
The proud King was arrogant precisely because he had never believed anyone could surpass him. He had convinced himself he was the supreme sovereign of the stars and the earth.
His glorious deeds should have been etched upon the stars.
His greatness should have been sung for eternity.
That day.
He had fulfilled his wish to confront the Empress of Firenze, and with supreme hubris, he had challenged her.
But.
That pride, that arrogance which had reached the point of delusion, was shattered into nothingness the moment he faced the Empress. Agal hadn't even been afforded the dignity of choosing his own death.
Even after he had ascended to Tier 5, the Empress of Firenze had crushed him with nothing more than a single glance. In those eyes upon the throne, he was less than an ant.
That was precisely why Agal reacted so violently to Mei's arrival; even knowing full well that they were worlds apart in power, he felt compelled to return that single blow.
While he knew in his heart that the Empress of Firenze held him in no regard, hearing those words—"playing games" and "interest"—with his own ears, Agal could not help but seethe with unbridled fury.
In an instant.
The world convulsed.
The stars shifted their paths.
"Empress of Firenze! The grievances between us have yet to be settled!"
A vast, overwhelming aura surged to the heavens, shaking the very constellations. Agal roared in a frenzied, maddened rage. Behind him, a massive bronze tree materialized. He gripped a razor-sharp blade in his hand, channeling his infinite wrath into a colossal strike capable of cleaving the firmament.
Space-time itself twisted in agony.
Mei did not even look back.
The one to answer Agal's strike was Julius. The very moment Agal moved, a terrifying aura erupted from Julius's body.
His power climbed, layer upon layer.
In a heartbeat, he surged into a higher plane of existence.
With the Incantation of Lore, a ceaseless torrent of power converged from countless parallel timelines. A strength that transcended the mortal realm swept out, shattering Agal's attack with the force of a landslide.
Tier 6!
Tier 7!
This was Julius at his absolute zenith.
The planet's gravity warped under the pressure of Julius's overflowing energy. Mountains groaned, the earth erupted, and an invisible force locked down the land and the stars alike.
The mere emission of his aura was enough to disintegrate Agal's massive strike. Julius stood like a Demon God descended from the furthest reaches of space-time.
Majestic.
Invincible.
Agal's face twisted in sheer astonishment.
"This is...?"
He could not comprehend what was unfolding before him. He could not grasp how Julius's power had suddenly skyrocketed to such a terrifying height. Julius offered no explanation.
He simply swung his sword down.
In a blink, Agal was swallowed whole by the light of the blade.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The blade's glow carved a path deep into the cosmos, bisecting a galaxy before vanishing into the infinite deep, obliterating countless stars and planets in its wake.
Two thousand years ago, Julius had possessed no such power. The secret lay in the strength of the Firenze Empire's Twelve Knights, which was, to a great extent, derived from the manifestation of legends.
The tipping point had been the day the Spacetime Demon God and the Eternal Demon God appeared.
On that day, to warn the other seventy-two Demon Gods against marching on Firenze to their deaths, Pedro and Cassis had broadcast the legend of Firenze throughout countless parallel worlds.
As time fermented, the legend grew, ultimately forging this very power for Julius.
After all, this was a legend spread across infinite realities; a myth that even Demon Gods feared. For it to manifest a strength reaching the Tier 7 level was perfectly logical.
"..."
"..."
"..."
As the dust settled, everything fell into a suffocating stillness.
Wild Hunt's face was bloodless.
Gulp.
He swallowed hard. His primal, beast-like instincts betrayed him, sending his entire body into a fit of uncontrollable shivering, even though Julius harbored no hostility toward him.
What level of power was this?
Tier 5?
Tier 6?
He couldn't tell.
Wild Hunt only knew that the legendary King of Agal had been utterly powerless against such strength. And yet, a powerhouse of such terrifying magnitude was content to serve beneath the throne of the Empress of Firenze.
He could not begin to imagine the truly monstrous power held by the Empress herself.
Everyone who had witnessed this scene was frozen in utter terror.
Long minutes passed in silence.
When they finally snapped back to reality, every Void Wanderer and Transcender on the Tier 3 battlefield received the same notification: their Main Mission had been officially completed.
"Completed?"
Luo Changkong stood there, dazed.
The Transcender who had summoned Julius felt just as bewildered. According to the contract, he had secured the final victory of this war.
"Me?"
What kind of joke was this!
He couldn't bring himself to believe it.
But the facts were set in stone. Because of an unknown factor, the Mother God and Chloe had departed the Tier 3 battlefield, and Julius's victory over Agal had tipped the scales of the contract.
Since this was a conflict that integrated the will and power of nearly every Grand Traveler on the Tier 3 battlefield, the winner of the Contract War was effectively the sovereign of the Tier 3 theater.
And so.
The Tier 3 Main Mission was complete.
At that moment,
Luo Changkong was practically on the verge of tears. What the hell kind of battlefield was this? Was this really supposed to be a Tier 3 mission?!
Tier 4? Fine, he could manage.
Tier 5? He could grit his teeth and endure it.
But Julius and that Empress of Firenze? They were so far beyond the pay grade that Luo Changkong had nearly pissed himself just being in the same hemisphere. He simply couldn't accept it!
"Damn it! This is absolute Tier 6 bullshit! Nobody can fight that!!"
Luo Changkong retreated back into Hyperdimensional Space, grumbling curses every step of the way.
"Hahahaha! I'm alive! I'm actually alive!"
The Grand Travelers were a chaotic mess of emotions: some were gripped by lingering terror, others were delirious with joy, and many were screaming obscenities into the void.
"Hahahaha, I survived!"
"Screw this! If you didn't know better, you'd think this was a total interstellar war, not some planetary skirmish. What kind of broken system is this? Who designed this balancing?!"
"Oh, sweet mercy... it's finally over..."
The Contract War had reached its end.
Julius turned his head, but Mei's figure was nowhere to be found. Then, bound by the limitations of the contractual concept, his form slowly dissolved, returning once more to the depths of history and legend.
Tzzz!
One by one, the figures flickered and vanished into nothingness. The supernatural energy across the planet gradually faded, settling back to a dormant, baseline level, leaving behind only a small remnant of this world's own native supernaturals.
The Grand Travelers of the Tier 3 theater returned to their respective Spaces, though those who had transcended the bounds of that battlefield now awaited the judgment of the higher-tier theaters.
Mei paid the Tier 3 war no further mind. She and Chloe had slipped into a specific parallel world, and as a result, the Space now officially classified them as having entered the Tier 7 battlefield.
Only when the Tier 7 Main Mission was accomplished could they return to the Space, though neither Mei nor Chloe felt a shred of urgency regarding that matter.
Without a ripple in the void, two figures appeared amidst the starry expanse. Mei stood atop a drifting asteroid, her gaze fixed ahead.
A colossal, scorching star blocked everything from view.
Then.
A single slash tore through the heavens, cleaving the massive star in two. Violent energy fluctuations rolled through the vacuum of space, washing away the conceptual forces that surged with a ROAR OF PRIMORDIAL FURY.
"Kid, don't you dare push me too far!!"
A conceptual force, far exceeding the scale of anything mundane, swept across the entire universe. Where it passed, stars flickered out and planets crumbled; the boiling energy swelled in a violent surge before suddenly imploding into a singular point.
A magnificent, vast figure emerged from the depths of space. Countless galaxies orbited its body; with every gesture, the entire universe trembled, weighted by boundless, god-like power.
"Just because you've managed to hoard a few extra concepts, don't think I fear you. If you have the guts, kill me—kid, you are not necessarily my match!"
The vast figure stirred the cosmos, clenching its hand to focus the infinite energy into a single point, before unleashing it into the deepest dark of the universe.
BOOM!
The violent energy extinguished vast swaths of starlight in an instant. From individual stars to entire superclusters, everything was reduced to nothing more than dust before such an entity.
Tier 7.
A Tier 7 powerhouse wielding true conceptual force.
The sharp edge of a blade tore through the spatial rift. The magnificent figure's strike failed to cause even a scratch. Starry stepped out from the rift.
His talent was blinding.
His power, overwhelmingly dominant.
"My peer, if we are to change our fated end of despair, I must become the First Demon God. The Root of the Perception Concept you bear is indispensable. Even if you surrender the Root to me, you will merely enter a state of slumber; it is not equivalent to death. Once I reverse the finality of the seventy-two Demon Gods, I will release the Roots of the other Demon Gods. You will be free to awaken once more."
The process of reclaiming the Roots was far from simple. While the Root of Contract had been ownerless—allowing Starry to absorb it directly—Roots held by existing Demon Gods were a different matter entirely.
Some Demon Gods were willing to assist Starry in his ascent to the throne of the First Demon God. Others viewed his ambition with contempt, believing that the very concept of a "First Demon God" was a delusion.
They refused to surrender their Roots. To yield a Root was to place their entire essence into Starry's hands. It was a humiliation they could never tolerate.
As for the Demon God of Perception, possessing many concepts did not equate to absolute dominance. Ultimately, victory depended on the intricate web of counter-restraint between conceptual powers.
Perception was a higher-order concept that transcended memory. The Demon God of Perception held no fear of Starry, even though Starry commanded more than one high-order concept.
"Delusional!"
The Demon God of Perception glared, unmoved.
Throughout the swirling cosmos, the perceptions of every sentient life form were projected into reality. This powerful conceptual perception twisted time and space into a knot of impossible contradictions.
This power was even more potent than mere Fantasy, for perception was inherently a higher-order concept that sat above it. This was why the Demon God of Perception stood his ground against Starry.
With persuasion off the table, Starry was forced to strike. A flash of blade-light flickered, and it seemed as though the entire universe were being bisected. Conceptual forces woven from time and space tore through the projected realities, shredding them into nothingness.
The battle of conceptual forces played out on a fundamental level of reality. The collision of matter and energy at their limits erupted in a display of blinding, dazzling brilliance.
The four fundamental forces of the universe collapsed into chaos.
Stars detonated.
Galaxy after galaxy flickered out.
Countless civilizations and lives were ushered into eternal silence, destroyed in the blink of an eye without a sound.
Long minutes passed.
The battle finally stilled.
Starry and the Demon God of Perception stood locked in a stalemate, their feet resting upon a carpet of endless, drifting galactic debris. It had been a battle of perfectly matched strength. Neither side could claim the upper hand.
Starry cast one final, deep look at the Demon God of Perception. His figure vanished into the ripples of space-time. He retreated decisively, refusing to waste any more time.
"This battle is far from over."
"Your Root... I have already calculated the odds of victory..."
The Demon God of Perception fell into a grim silence.
He knew all too well that if Starry continued to harvest the Roots of other Demon Gods, he would accumulate enough conceptual power to eventually surpass him. It was merely a matter of time.
Whether to sit and await his end, or to seek out other Demon Gods to form an alliance, the Demon God of Perception was plunged into deep contemplation. He even began to suspect that Starry was the true culprit behind the "eternal silence" that had befallen the seventy-two Demon Gods.
Deep in his brooding, he suddenly looked back toward the void. He had expected Starry's return, but instead, he beheld two complete strangers. Within the vast expanse of his perception, there was absolutely no information regarding these two individuals.
The Demon God of Perception's expression tightened.
"Travelers from another world?"
He grew wary, his guard raised to its absolute limit.
"Who are you?"
Mei did not speak.
She merely raised a hand, ever so slightly.
An enemy!
The Demon God of Perception reached this conclusion in a heartbeat. His face drained of color as he projected his conceptual power of perception to bend reality, making the universe shudder, but it was all in vain. There was not the slightest hint of resistance to be found.
An indescribable, magnificent force descended. From a higher plane of existence, it crushed and disintegrated every concept he possessed. The Demon God of Perception was seized by a terror beyond anything he had ever known.
"Who... who on earth are you?!!"
The vast power bore down, stripping the Demon God of Perception of his status, dragging his existence down to a lower plane, and shattering his manifestation until nothing remained but the raw form of the Root.
The Demon God of Perception never received an answer from Mei. He was stripped of his Root, left powerless as it slipped into Mei's palm.
Chloe watched, puzzled.
"My Lady, what is the purpose of this action?"
Mei looked at the Root containing the concept of perception in her palm and said softly, "I am merely collecting a few lingering traces from the past. Only then can the causal loop be closed."
The other Root fragments mattered little, but this fragment containing the concept of perception must never fall into Starry's hands. Seth did not need the memories of two thousand years ago.
With that, Mei clenched her fist.
The Root fragment containing the concept of perception was utterly annihilated.
Chloe did not fully understand. Having lost the Root of the Perception concept, could Starry still ascend to become the First Demon God? Even if he succeeded in restoring himself to become Seth...
In that case.
Would Seth ever be able to step into the realm of All Concepts?
Even though Chloe knew that whether or not Seth ascended to the realm of All Concepts was of no consequence to Lady Mei, she remained puzzled. How was this causal loop to be closed?
After all, two thousand years ago, Seth had indeed stepped into the realm of All Concepts.
Clinging to this uncertainty, Chloe followed Mei as she vanished into the deep reaches of the cosmic void. She knew in her heart that the answer would soon reveal itself. Everything was under the Demon God's absolute control.
...
At the same time.
A primordial aura, ancient as the first dawn, surged from beyond the void. It crashed into this reality with overwhelming force, ultimately manifesting in the cosmic space of a certain parallel universe.
BOOM!
The universe convulsed.
The stars churned in a chaotic frenzy.
Amidst the swirling primordial aura, bathed in a halo of starlight, a faint silhouette emerged. A massive, ancient, and primitive palace, pulsating with a supreme, terrifying majesty.
The fleeting, terrifying magnitude of that power flickered once, and for an instant, the timeline of the entire Void World shuddered to a halt.
Beyond the void.
On a battlefield of an even higher order.
A supreme existence opened their eyes. In a heartbeat, they pierced through the infinite void, their gaze locking onto a specific universe. With nothing more than a mere shift in thought, countless dimensions were sent into turmoil.
"Dacth..."
"!!!"
Starry suddenly whipped his head around, staring into the deepest, darkest reaches of the cosmos.
He couldn't say why.
But he felt an inexplicable, chilling premonition.