In a mysterious place, deep within the chaos, far from the rest of the worlds, there stretched a realm shrouded in a strange kind of grandeur and otherworldliness.
Mysterious violet lights pulsed from deep within the earth, casting a faint glow over a colossal palace that stood at the heart of that world—a palace unlike any structure existence had ever known.
The entity that had once destroyed Clark’s heart appeared, then continued toward the palace with calm, unhurried steps.
The palace was completely empty.
There was nothing there except a single entity seated upon its throne.
At the far end of the hall, where the throne rose almost to the ceiling, strands of violet light slipped through the darkness and spilled across his face, revealing his features.
Sharp features, and a cold gaze that seemed to pierce existence itself.
His eyes shimmered like two distant stars scattered across a pitch-black sky, while heavy iron chains coiled around his body, seeming at first glance to bind him to the throne.
He wore a black cloak strewn with endless white and blue stars, as though an entire sky had been woven into its fabric.
Thin white lines stretched above and below his eyes, framing his gaze from both sides and giving his features the appearance of an eagle watching its prey from a tremendous height.
Sung knelt before the Lord seated upon the throne and lowered his head before speaking:
“My Lord…
I have dealt with that Chosen One as you commanded.
Soon, I will finish the other four as well, just as I did with the rest of the Chosen Ones before them.”
The Lord’s voice came from above the throne.
It was strange in a way that was difficult to describe; a metallic, digital voice that echoed faintly throughout the chamber, wrapped in a layer of electronic resonance.
It was calm and relatively slow, yet there was something within that very calmness that made the silence surrounding him all the more terrifying.
Then he said:
“No…”
He paused for a moment before continuing in the same calm tone:
“You did not kill him.
I can still sense his presence at the bottom of the Abyss.”
Sung froze in place.
Terror surged through his body all at once, his limbs trembling as he did not even dare lift his head.
His fear of his master strangled the words in his throat, leaving him with nothing to say.
Silence descended for several moments.
Then the Lord continued:
“You know that I do not tolerate mistakes of any kind.”
He fell silent for a moment, then added in the same tone, which only made it more terrifying:
“You have disappointed me.”
Sung swallowed with difficulty, then spoke in a faint voice:
“My Lord…
O Cosmos, please forgive me.
I will go at once, and this time I guarantee that I will kill him.”
That Lord was known as Cosmos.
No one dared to speak his true name.
For he was the Lord of the Void, and merely uttering his name was enough to make even immortals…
perish.
Cosmos remained still.
He did not move.
He did not even lift a hand.
Then he said calmly:
“It is not that simple…
For every result, there is always a greater consequence.”
In the next instant, before Sung could even comprehend what had happened, his right hand flew from his body, then his left, followed by both of his feet, all within a fraction of a second.
Cosmos had not moved from his place.
Not a single feature on his face had changed.
Sung screamed in agony, his voice reverberating through the surrounding void.
Cosmos looked at him with absolute coldness, then said:
“Consider it mercy…
Next time, I will not leave you alive.
I will make you taste death without granting you the chance to meet your end.”
Sung’s severed limbs began to reform.
His hands and feet slowly returned to existence through his tremendous regenerative ability, while intense heat radiated from his body, as though the regeneration itself were burning away what remained of him from within.
Moments later, Sung stood once more.
His black hair whipped around his face, his crimson eyes gleaming through the darkness, while dense void energy enveloped his body—the very energy his master had bestowed upon him.
Without stopping or hesitating, he moved toward the place where Clark was.
Cosmos slowly raised his hand.
The chains wrapped around his arm were not restraints.
They were his weapon.
A primitive weapon that had existed before the universe in which Cosmos himself sat, before that universe had even taken the form it now possessed.
Cosmos was an entity so ancient that his very existence was equivalent to that of…
the Outer Gods.
Near the Lake of Pure Souls, the four friends slowly made their way through the forest.
Ben led the way, while Guanda followed behind him, occasionally scanning their surroundings before asking:
“I wonder…
how much time has passed in the world by now?”
Ben answered without turning around:
“I don’t know.
But when we were inside the Fallen Gate and then came back out, only fractions of a second had passed.
So I don’t think they even noticed we were gone.”
Guanda thought over his words, then took out her notebook and began writing down her observations as she walked.
A few moments later, White spoke as she gazed at the surrounding scenery:
“This place is beautiful…
in a way that makes it feel strange.”
At the water’s edge, someone appeared.
He was a man with silver eyes, black hair, and a powerful build.
It was Adam.
After his world disappeared, he had found himself in the Chaos, his universe having fallen into one of its fragments after collapsing following the death of every living entity within it.
As for the living beings that had been swallowed into the Chaos along with their universes, something different had happened to them; the physical laws of their original universes had been imposed upon them, granting them immense power with which they resisted the process of digestion.
Adam slowly looked around.
Before him lay an extraordinarily clear freshwater lake, surrounded by green land, while a calm, cloudless sky stretched overhead.
He murmured:
“Where am I now?”
He stared at the place for a few moments, then said:
“Is this the Chaos?”
He raised his hand before his eyes and saw a golden symbol forming upon it, made of intertwined serpents with a massive eye at the center.
He studied the symbol for a moment, then whispered:
“Then that must be the symbol of the Fate Organization.”
He lowered his hand and remained standing for a few moments before speaking to himself:
“I should wait for that Lord’s response…
I’ll sit here and meditate.
I feel as though there are endless memories within me.”
Adam sensed a strange power coursing through the depths of his body.
It was a dark power, heavy with presence, accompanied by an immense awareness of his very own soul.
It was as though something had suddenly awakened within him, granting him the ability to delve into the Soul of Darkness and contemplate its history, layer by layer.
Deep within the Chaos, where dead universes lay…
Monsters charged toward Lord Shams and Clark from every direction.
Lord Shams raised his sword and began cutting them in half with single strikes, never stopping or retreating, while Clark gradually adapted to the energy coursing through his body.
Part of his hand transformed into a beautiful, pure blue, threaded with fine white lines that glowed faintly.
Through that hand, he exercised his authority over space.
From a distance, the bodies of the entities began separating from one another, as though space itself had torn open around them and divided them into pieces.
The monsters resembled distorted humans; their bodies were completely black, some possessing two arms while others had four, all of them moving erratically as they rushed toward the two without end.
Clark said immediately as he continued fending off their attacks:
“They never end.”
Lord Shams answered calmly, continuing to swing his sword:
“Don’t worry.
Just hold out a little longer.
In a few moments, they’ll disappear once the disturbance in the black fog vanishes.”
In the next instant, one of the entities lunged toward Clark.
Clark’s back was pressed against Lord Shams’s, and as the entity drew near, he did not even need to turn around.
His authority moved instantly.
The entity’s head separated from its body with ease, falling far away without Clark’s hand ever touching it.
A few moments later, the entities were suddenly overcome by fear of something unknown, then began disappearing one after another into the fog until not a trace remained.
Lord Shams stared into the fog, his expression shifting slightly, before saying:
“This is not natural at all.”
At that moment, an entity emerged from the heart of the fog.
It appeared far stronger than all the others.
It possessed six arms, while darkness surrounded its body in a disturbingly orderly fashion, as though it were not merely darkness enveloping it, but something that had taken the shape of a solid, sculpted body—rigid and immovable, like a black wall.
The entity slowly moved toward Clark and Lord Shams.
With every step, a terrifying aura radiated from it, weighing down the space around them until even the fog seemed to recoil from its presence.
Lord Shams clenched his teeth, while Clark stood beside him and asked without taking his eyes off the entity:
“What is that thing?”
Lord Shams answered in a calm voice, though unmistakable tension ran beneath it:
“That is a Lord from the Naming Stage.
When it decayed and became a monster, it became the Lord of those black entities.”
The entity gave them no more time.
In a single instant, it vanished from its position.
It appeared directly before them and drove a massive punch into the center of their chests.
The blow struck their bodies with tremendous force, sending them flying backward.
Clark crashed to the ground, while the entity charged toward Lord Shams once more, raising one of its hands before driving a direct blow toward his neck, as though intending to tear it from his body.
At the last moment, Clark moved with incredible speed.
He used his authority over space, causing space itself to bend around Lord Shams and pull his body away from the path of the strike before it could reach him.
Clark whispered:
“Do you see a solution to this problem, Frost?”
Frost answered immediately, without hesitation:
“My Lord, you currently possess two combat modes.
You can switch to the mode focused on raw power and destructive abilities instead of the dimensional and spatial abilities, which are more suited to large-scale planning.”
Clark did not fully understand what Frost meant, nor did he waste time thinking about it.
He had to act quickly.
He said:
“Give me a way to defeat that entity quickly.
I can’t let Lord Shams fight it alone for long.”
Frost fell silent for a moment, as though searching for the best way to deal with the situation.
In the next instant, Clark lunged toward Lord Shams.
He reached the entity’s side and attempted to sever its neck, but his energy met tremendous resistance.
Something was preventing him from piercing the entity’s body, as though an invisible force stood in his path and nullified his attempt.
Clark pushed with all his strength, and then managed to immobilize the entity for a few moments.
That was all Lord Shams needed.
He seized the opportunity at once, raising his hand and invoking his Arrow of Light ability.
In the next instant, an unparalleled bow took shape, and enormous arrows of light erupted from it, hurtling toward the center of the entity’s chest at terrifying speed.
Clark smiled, believing for a moment that the entity was finished.
But in the next instant, the entity moved with blinding speed and ripped the massive arrow from its chest.
The moment the arrow came free, the wound began regenerating before their eyes.
It gave them no chance to process what had happened.
With a sudden motion, the arrow shot through the air like a projectile, piercing straight through Clark’s abdomen from the front and emerging from the other side.
Clark gasped and collapsed to the ground, gritting his teeth hard.
Blood seeped from between his lips as a sharp pain tore through his body, making his limbs tremble.
Lord Shams rushed toward him at once.
Clark’s body had become unnaturally hot as a result of the arrow that had pierced his abdomen and continued straight through him.
Across from them, the entity stood motionless for a few moments, then the place where the arrow had struck began regenerating once more.
Once its body had fully recovered, it slowly moved toward them.
Lord Shams bent slightly toward Clark and said directly:
“Just stay calm and endure it.
I’ll buy you enough time to recover from that injury.
It won’t kill you.”
But Lord Shams’s expression tightened slightly when he saw the blood pouring heavily from Clark’s abdomen.
The bleeding was severe enough to threaten his life.
He sighed and said:
“I have a way to stop the bleeding…
I hope you’ll forgive me.”
He raised his hand, and brilliant light energy poured from it before being directed straight toward Clark’s wound.
The moment the energy touched the injury, it began cauterizing the wound, forcibly sealing the surrounding tissue.
Clark screamed in pain, struggling against the burning sensation that tore through his body.
But not even a moment later, the entity lunged toward them.
It seized Lord Shams by the leg, lifted him violently, and slammed him into the ground with tremendous force.
The earth shook beneath his body.
Suddenly, Frost’s voice rang inside Clark’s mind:
“My Lord, the mode you are currently in does not allow you to regenerate your body.
You can change that mode simply by willing it.
Just decide to switch your state from Transference to Destruction.”
Clark clenched his teeth hard.
The pain was nearly ripping him apart from within.
He tried.
Again.
Then a third time.
But nothing happened.
At the same time, Lord Shams lay on the ground, having formed a powerful barrier of light around his body as he desperately tried to block the entity’s hand, which was moving directly toward his head to crush it.
Clark thought through the pain:
“I have to resist…
I have to change that mode.”
Then Frost’s voice returned to his mind:
“How does Frost know more about me than I know about myself?”
The barrier of light surrounding Lord Shams cracked.
Fine fractures spread across its surface, then slowly began widening.
It was on the verge of collapse.
And in the next moment…
A blinding golden light exploded from Clark’s body.
The radiance engulfed the entire area in an instant.
Then the bleeding stopped.
And the hole that had torn through his abdomen vanished.
Clark slowly rose to his feet.
Something had changed.
His eyes were different; one was an icy blue, cold as a frozen ocean, while the other burned with a fierce golden fire.
A tremendous aura surged around him, and strange energy spread through the space surrounding his body.
And in the instant the entity was about to crush Lord Shams…
Clark vanished from where he stood.
In a fraction of a second, he appeared directly before the entity.
He clenched his fist and drove it into the center of its chest.
Golden sparks and a razor-sharp gleam erupted from his fist at the moment of impact before the entity’s body was launched far away, crashing down at a considerable distance.
Lord Shams stood beside Clark and looked at him in undisguised astonishment.
Then he said:
“I never expected that…
The soul that merged with you truly is a strange one.”
Clark smiled, then said:
“Then let’s finish that monster.”
A sinister smile spread across his face as he and Lord Shams exchanged a brief glance.
Then they advanced together.
Clark, with his coal-black hair, looked as though he had descended from a sky scattered with stars.
And Lord Shams, with his golden-blond hair, looked like a fragment of the sun itself hanging in the heavens.
The two stood side by side, like an immovable fortress, facing the enigmatic beast.