Homelander's hurried departure left Theresa visibly distressed.
She couldn't help but scold Sebastian, blaming him for dumping everything onto Homelander's shoulders. It was simply irresponsible. After all, when Sebastian himself had been Speaker, it was Homelander who ran around handling affairs day and night.
"Mom, the Superhero Council is a system I spent ten whole years building," Sebastian protested, a hint of grievance in his voice. "Now that John's taken over, there's really only one thing he needs to do."
Naturally, Sebastian didn't say the real part out loud—that Homelander's only real task was to cut people down and slaughter anyone who refused to obey.
"And then why are you so free?" Theresa shot back skeptically. "But little John is busy day and night."
She knew very well that when Sebastian was Speaker, he worked maybe two hours a day at most.
The rest of the time, he was either enjoying himself or vanishing without a trace—nothing like Homelander, who barely had time to let his feet touch the ground.
"That's because I'm strong enough," Sebastian said smugly, raising two fingers in triumph.
He was just about to brag further when—
A familiar, overwhelming fluctuation surged suddenly from the depths of his soul.
Sebastian froze.
It's been ten years… the Da Luo Arena has opened again.
Yet something felt wrong.
This time, the Da Luo Dao Fruit didn't immediately pull him into the arena. Instead, it merely issued a brief warning—then fell silent once more.
"…That's strange."
Sebastian suppressed the unease in his heart and continued chatting with his family as if nothing had happened.
When night fell and all was quiet, Sebastian entered the Da Luo Arena alone.
The moment he arrived, his pupils shrank.
The arena itself had not manifested at all.
Instead, standing within the empty boundary was a gigantic golden gate, dazzling beyond belief. Its surface looked as if it had been forged from pure gold, radiating divine brilliance.
At the center of the gate stood a colossal tree that pierced the heavens, blazing like a miniature sun.
Beneath the tree, countless beings of different races—of all shapes and forms—knelt in dense ranks, bowing and worshiping with utmost reverence.
Sebastian's heart sank.
He scanned the surroundings again and again, only to realize something deeply unsettling—
There was no opponent.
No alternate "self."
And no Dao Fruit fragment.
"What happened to the other me?" Sebastian murmured. "Why has his Dao Fruit fragment vanished? Why is only this Dao Gate left behind?"
Questions flooded his mind.
After a long, suffocating silence, the Da Luo Dao Fruit finally transmitted a fragment of information.
"The 'self' corresponding to Xiao has died in that world.
Her Dao Fruit fragment has fallen into the hands of the native beings.
Only you may retrieve what was lost."
"…Dead?"
Sebastian's eyes widened violently.
Impossible.
As a bearer of the Da Luo Dao Fruit, one's existential weight was beyond imagination. Even a mere fragment was enough to bestow monstrous fortune and destiny-defying luck.
Such an existence should have been born a protagonist no matter the world.
Wherever a "Xiao" appeared, success would follow. Any path he chose would prosper. Any era he entered would bend around him.
Each version of himself should have lived a legend worthy of its own novel.
And yet—
This one died.
Silently. Meaninglessly. Before even participating in a single Da Luo duel.
The conclusion was terrifyingly clear.
This world's power system had reached an absurd height—so high that even a Da Luo fragment failed to guarantee survival.
And worse still, Sebastian had no local identity here.
This time, he would enter the world as a true invader.
Sebastian stopped before the golden gate, his gaze fixed on the divine totem engraved upon it.
"…This feels like Elden Ring."
If that were truly the case, then everything suddenly made sense.
In that world, power was fundamentally distorted.
Runes were crystallized divine authority spilling from the Golden Tree.
Great Runes were fragments of the laws themselves.
The game concealed this reality behind balance mechanics, where late-game soldiers could appear weaker than early bosses.
But reality would not be so forgiving.
In truth, even the weakest soldiers in the Lands Between would be vastly stronger than their "numerical" counterparts.
And every bearer of a Great Rune—
Was a demigod who wielded law.
Any existence touched by the word god would be amplified to an extreme.
Yet even those were not what truly terrified Sebastian.
What frightened him was the being lurking behind everything—
The Greater Will.
The more one understood the history of that world, the more despairing its true nature became.
The Lands Between were not a sacred world at all.
They were a plaything—a treasured artifact cherished by the Greater Will.
A beautiful, intoxicating cage.
A crossroads where countless worlds intersected, drawing in beings from every dimension.
That was why this land bore another name:
The Lands Between.
A convergence point between countless worlds.
A battlefield of laws.
And now—
Sebastian would step into it alone.
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