The ground cracked beneath his feet as Vastarael Richinaria landed, the force of his descent rippling through the debris-littered wasteland that had once been Central.
The corrupted silence was only broken by the screeches of hundreds upon hundreds of Scavenger-Ranked Krepsunas. They were hulking, grotesque humanoids, three meters tall with exoskeletons. Vastarael stood alone before them. His boots crushed bone dust. His glaive Calimostria, burned with a surreal azure flame.
He exhaled.
"You're in the way."
He bent his knees slightly, the sound of cracking essence rumbling in his veins.
A full, wrath of a god-born being who had seen too many of his soldiers fall, who had felt the tremor of the earth as his daughters ran into his arms weeping, and who had tasted blood thick in his mouth from the wounds of illusions was unleashed.
He channeled all of his nine Pseudo-Cores, flooding his body and weapon. The moment the glaive cut the air, the world convulsed.
A horizontal slash tore across Central not just through space. Reality itself bent and fractured. The air screamed. The clouds were ripped in half.
A crescent arc of blazing, viridian-sapphire destruction surged forward, vaporizing everything in its path. The Krepsunas had no time to scream. Their corrupted divine-level resistance meant nothing. The pressure displacement alone disintegrated those closest to the epicenter.
And when the wave hit the main Krepsuna horde, their exoskeletons shattered like dried leaves. Their internal organs exploded in waves of kinetic inversion. Their minds, corrupted as they were, simply ceased to exist.
Even the land beneath them was not spared.
The ground split, forming a canyon nearly twenty kilometers long and four kilometers wide.
Mountains in the distance tilted. The permafrost of the northern edge of Central melted in seconds and windstorms spiraled outward.
That was the full power of Viridescence.
When the dust settled—if one could call the pressure-cooked debris dust—there was nothing left.
Central was gone. It was now a divine scar in the snow.
Ferris, Chrysanthemum, Arletta and Vienna had fallen to their knees from the sheer pressure of the wave. Not one of them could speak. Even Elyonari, hovering above with Biolumine, stared with her hands over her mouth. Shimmer and Runner had wrapped around Elyonari in shock, overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of what their father had just done.
Vastarael was kneeling, Calimostria buried in the ground, blood dripping from his lips. His left eye was glowing with unstable essence. The tattoos across his collarbone pulsed like a war drum.
Elyonari jumped down and sprinted across the fragmented battlefield toward him, sliding on her knees and grabbing his face.
"Vastarael!"
He coughed more blood.
"I'm… fine…" he wheezed.
"You're NOT!"
She shouted, pressing his head to her chest as his daughters ran to hug him, all three clinging on him.
"You used… all of your nine cores?! You'll shatter your reconstruction—!"
"I had to. They were at the Scavenger level. All of them. If I didn't go all out… we would've died."
"But you'll die now if you keep this up!"
He smiled, blood running down the side of his jaw.
"I'm too stubborn to die."
She pressed her forehead to his, trembling. Shimmer and Runner held onto his arms, tears silently falling.
He slowly rose, pain shooting up his back, but he activated Body and Soul Reconstruction, and even though it shattered his ribcage further for a moment, it rebuilt it just as fast.
He couldn't heal himself after all. Even Omniphage was struggling to use his Soul Energy to reconstruct his body.
He walked toward Ferris, Chrysanthemum, Arletta and Vienna and wordlessly pressed his hands on each of their chests. They shuddered as their internal bleeding stopped, broken bones realigned, and internal organs that had collapsed were remade.
Vienna collapsed into him crying.
"W-we… everyone's gone…"
Chrysanthemum stared at the destruction.
"Six hundred warriors. And it wasn't enough."
Arletta only nodded once. Ferris's fists clenched.
"...We're not going back there," she finally said. "If we were not tethered to the Obsidian Runic Spire, we'd be wiped forever."
"They've returned to the Spire," Vastarael murmured. "That's good."
Elyonari approached him, frowning.
"Why do you keep looking ahead?"
He didn't respond for a moment.
"Because the Fallen Bridge is breaking. I can see it using my Mystic Eyes."
Everyone froze. Chrysanthemum's eyes widened.
"That bridge is forged of Primofrost. It can't be destroyed without—"
"Neverfire. A Primordial Flame."
Elyonari took a shaky breath. "Then who…?"
Vastarael finally looked her in the eyes. His own were dimming again.
"Only one being I know can do this."
"Let me guess," Ferris said. "It's either the Frozen God… or…"
"...Or something worse."
And then he coughed again. This time, chunks of blood came out.
Elyonari caught him.
"VASTARAEL!"
He didn't hear anything else because he passed out. His body was on the brink of death from overexerting a lot of essence in one move.
-------
The party was still in full swing outside the Obsidian Runic Spire,
It was the first morning of the Longest Nightfall and students across the Erna Isles took their one true break from training, missions, and horror.
And then, she coughed.
Adelasta staggered slightly, a hand clutching her chest. The pain had come all at once. She hunched over and coughed again.
This time, she spat blood.
Phaenora was by her side in an instant. Her arms gently supported her from behind as her icy partner fell to one knee. Narisva appeared in a blink, scaring half the guests into silence with her sudden teleportation.
"Tch. Don't tell me he's finally biting it," Narisva muttered, flipping her hair and crossing her arms as her starry eyes narrowed. Her tone was cocky as always, but even she looked rattled when she saw the blood.
Adelasta was an extremely tough woman. Seeing this...
Phaenora's voice sharpened with concern.
"You can't feel him, Adelasta. You said so yourself. The Fallen Bridge blocks all Divine bonds."
Adelasta didn't answer at first.
She gasped, coughing again and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, staining her hand deep red. Her teeth clenched, and her eyes widened in sheer realization.
"Oh no..."
Then came the earthquake. No, it was a continent-shaking tremor. The ground beneath the Obsidian Runic Spire vibrated. Drinks toppled. Students stumbled. Lights flickered. Everyone looked west.
The party stopped cold. A horrified hush spread like a disease.
Far in the distance, above the horizon's edge, stood the Fallen Bridge, the five-thousand-meter-tall primordial wall, said to have been carved during the world's earliest years by gods.
And it was cracking.
From their position, even across impossible distance, the cracks were visible. They were luminous in blue-white light, like a glacier bleeding magic. Debris the size of towers fell from the upper heights.
"No…" Phaenora whispered. "That's—"
"That's the Fallen Bridge breaking."
Narisva finished for her, voice suddenly devoid of sarcasm. Even she could only stare in a cold sweat.
"That's Primofrost... It doesn't shatter unless it's struck by something like Neverfire…"
Adelasta dropped to both knees, coughing violently again, trembling. Her vision swam.
But in her soul, she heard him.
It was a whisper through the fraying bond that should not have been able to pass through the bridge. But Vastarael had forced it through and pushed his essence to deliver a message.
That was why he collapsed. Her eyes widened. She muttered, breathless.
"Veneri…"
Phaenora leaned in close. She could already tell that Vastarael spoke to her.
"What did he say?"
Adelasta clutched her chest,. Her voice was faint but it made the two shiver.
"He said… get ready for war."
Narisva's eyes flickered. Adelasta continued, choking out words between fits of coughing.
"He's alive… but barely."
She coughed again and collapsed forward, caught by Phaenora just in time.
"THE FROZEN GOD. He's… breaking free."
And then, the second quake hit.
It wasn't as loud but it was deeper. The sky above the Erna Isles rippled in cold hues. Even the moonlight seemed… afraid.
The climax of the Epoch Cycle was approaching.
And Adelasta, blood on her lips, whispered the last words before fainting in Phaenora's arms:
"He's coming…"