“Lankeluosi, have you lost your mind?”
Ever since Rasheal learned two days ago of how Lankeluosi had ended up backstabbed by his own people and gone on a frenzied rampage into the Horning Empire, he was convinced that Lankeluosi’s sanity had been all but eroded away by “Mind Laceration.”
Yet no matter how he looked at him now, Rasheal felt that the man's eyes were as clear as water—clear enough to make Rasheal uneasy.
The black centipede brand on Lankeluosi’s left cheek, something he had never seen before, was also sinister and bizarre beyond Rasheal’s comprehension.
“Not at all.”
Lanqi casually hung the silver-white mask at his waist, his expression calm.
“I am merely stating facts.”
He tilted his chin slightly, meeting the gazes of the four Progenitors without treating them like opponents in the slightest.
“To be honest, I cannot fathom your reckless folly in charging alone into St. Trick City, nor do I understand where your confidence comes from. I can clearly sense that your mana intensity has plummeted to a level below mine.”
Marquis Bernhard, the Ninth Progenitor, paced back and forth as he offered his earnest analysis.
“So do you truly believe putting on a brave face is of any use now, Lankeluosi?”
As a scholar of the Blood Clan, he seemed the most keen on having a heart-to-heart with the Pope.
“You are always the most welcoming toward me,” Lanqi replied, not minding hearing what Marquis Bernhard had to say. After all, he still hadn't figured out what the marquis's advice was supposed to be.
“In my view, you should either wage total war and plunge the subjects of the Horning Empire back into the fires of devastation, or continue to tread cautiously, letting your life peacefully fade away in an era of prosperity. Both paths have their merits and flaws, yet either would have been far better than what you are doing now…”
He spoke eloquently, like a witty advisor laying out Lanqi's predicament with grand eloquence.
“Then what, pray tell, is your suggestion?” Lanqi asked in amused curiosity.
“Heh heh heh.”
Marquis Bernhard, the Ninth Progenitor, shook his head with a chuckle, a playful glint flashing in his eyes.
“As for my advice… why don't you simply remain here, Your Holiness!”
Before his words even finished fading, an eerie crimson light flared around Marquis Bernhard. Mana boiled and surged within him, turning volatile in the blink of an eye.
Countless scarlet eyeballs surfaced from beneath his flesh, covering his entire body, staring hungrily and hideously at the Pope before him.
The unique talents of those gifted, wretched souls had all been stripped away by Marquis Bernhard, transformed into ghastly weapons that elevated his prowess to a higher realm.
His once handsome visage warped and contorted as his facial features were utterly eclipsed by the swarm of eyeballs. Baring his fangs, he charged madly toward the Pope.
Each pair of eyes gleamed with a ravenous red light, poised to devour everything in sight.
The other Progenitors knew all too well that the Ninth Progenitor had long coveted the Pope.
This would serve as the perfect opportunity to see just how weak the Pope had become.
However.
Contrary to the expectations of every Progenitor, the white-robed Pope remained completely unmoved, as still as a mountain.
A flicker of disappointment touched the Pope’s eyes, as though Marquis Bernhard's suggestion had failed to satisfy him.
Marquis Bernhard's hulking frame now made it impossible to see his face without tilting one's head upward.
But the Pope would not look up.
“You hold your head too high.”
The Pope's finger, aimed toward the Progenitors, shifted lightly to the right.
A dead silence fell, broken only by the wind rustling across the Blood King Palace square.
In a flash, the dust motes across the plaza seemed cleanly divided, creating a jagged dislocation in space!
Before the Blood King Palace, a vivid crimson line stained the stone ground.
In the distance, the pupils of the three remaining Progenitors contracted violently, eyes filled with disbelief.
They watched with their own eyes as Marquis Bernhard’s body tore apart in midair.
Marquis Heriteer, the Seventh Progenitor, instinctively divined the danger and ducked, losing only a few strands of hair.
Duke Rasheal, the Third Progenitor, had likewise reacted first and dodged.
Marquis Somerset, the Eighth Progenitor standing the farthest away, was cleanly severed at the waist, blood gushing uncontrollably from his bisected torso.
“Lan… Lankeluosi…”
Bernhard’s severed head shuddered faintly on the ground, his expression frozen before he could even comprehend what had happened.
Before his flesh could regenerate, stone chains shot out with a snap, binding the scattered remains and sealing them into a mosaic pillar.
The Ninth Progenitor had fallen early.
Talia had guessed that the Progenitor who ran his mouth the most would be the first to be sealed.
Although Lankeluosi did not know [Friendly Communication] or [Basic Etiquette], in Lanqi's hands, any spell could become [Friendly Communication] and [Basic Etiquette].
That was precisely why Talia felt that when Lanqi wielded Lankeluosi's spells, there was always a bizarre, twisted flavor to them!
“Since you know I am His Holiness, why do you not bow?” Lanqi asked, gazing toward the three Progenitors crouching on the opposite side of the palace plaza.
“...”
Unconcealed shock surfaced in the eyes of the remaining three Progenitors.
According to the Horning Empire's intelligence and Marquis Heriteer's divination, the Pope should have been weakened to the point of being butchered at will.
Yet at this very moment, the strength Lanqi displayed filled them with nothing but dread.
He was far more terrifying than he had been four years ago when he sealed the wounded Second Progenitor, Prince Salvatore, and Fifth Progenitor, Duke Mordecai!
An aging, mere Tier 8 Pope venturing into Blood Moon City alone should have been an act of suicide.
Lankeluosi should have fought them in despair, only to be sliced to ribbons and humiliated, forced to see that the sacrifices of his insect-like comrades had been utterly meaningless, before ending his wretched, incompetent life in brokenhearted misery.
The faces of the three Progenitors froze solid as though encased in ice.
“How can this be…”
Marquis Heriteer's heart pounded, her chest heaving violently.
The entire astral chart she observed had lost all color.
Or rather, Lankeluosi's current state made it impossible for her to trust the astrological signs she foresaw.
“Heriteer, why could you not see that the moment I stepped into Blood Moon City, smoke would already be rising from your Blood King Palace?”
Lanqi stood before them. His smile was tinged with pity, yet it pierced Heriteer's heart like a razor-sharp blade.
Behind him loomed the darkened palace, the chalk-white stones of the square drenched in the Ninth Progenitor's blood, while the ninth towering stone pillar flickered with dying light.
This was completely different from the future Marquis Heriteer had foreseen!
“But you can rest assured; I have little interest in torturing the weak.”
Lanqi’s tone was relaxed and casual, as if catching up with old friends.
“You…” Hearing Lanqi's words, Talia was about to object, but realized he wasn't wrong—he only tortured the strong. “Fine, Old Sang wouldn't disagree, that's for sure.”
She shuddered to imagine how ruthlessly Lanqi had ambushed Askesan back then.
“Lord Pope, I believe there might be some misunderstanding between us?” Duke Rasheal, the Third Progenitor, turned his gaze to the distant Pope, his youthful voice far more solemn as he addressed him.
He knew full well that this pose of the strong pitying the weak was an utter humiliation to them.
Yet he remained clear-headed enough to know that there was no need to clash head-on with a cornered madman ready to die.
“Really?” the white-robed Pope asked.
“Really,” Rasheal confirmed earnestly.
The Pope’s patronizing tone made Rasheal’s blood boil, but he had no choice but to swallow his temper and maintain his performance to communicate with the Pope.
“Will you repent?” Lanqi asked again.
“Of course. Whatever wrongs I have committed, I will reflect upon them.” Rasheal wondered if there was a chance.
“Then tens of thousands of years from now, why will you repeat the same mistakes in the Creti Empire?” Lanqi asked as if it were the most natural question in the world.
“Tens of thousands of years… Creti Empire?”
A trace of confusion flickered in Marquis Heriteer’s eyes.
This offhand remark, delivered without a hint of humor, along with a kingdom’s name she had never heard of, made it feel as though the Pope was a traveler from another timeline who had already witnessed a future far beyond their own.
“What on earth did you see, Lankeluosi?” Heriteer demanded, having realized a deeply horrifying truth.
“Is this place reality… or the future I observed… But if I came from the past, how could I know the future tens of thousands of years later…” Lanqi murmured softly.
At first, Rasheal did not understand what the Pope meant.
Until he realized:
The words leaving the Pope’s lips were perfectly synchronized with the quiet mutters escaping Heriteer’s mouth, sending Heriteer into a dazed, uncontrollable tremor.
This was clearly not mind reading.
Because Lankeluosi's words were uttered a fraction of a heartbeat before Heriteer’s!
“Pope, you used Immortal Eternal Punishment on yourself?!”
Duke Rasheal finally understood the worst possible answer, his crimson eyes blazing with rage.
Demons.
Demons again!
It was indeed the unknown demon treasure left behind by that wretched wench Caliera that had allowed Lankeluosi to divine the future!
“Don’t worry, it will soon be used on you too,” Lanqi said with calm conviction.
“Lankeluosi… this isn't fair! This isn't fair at all!!”
The Third Progenitor no longer concealed the savagery in his eyes. His shrill, distorted shriek echoed across the desolate plaza of the Blood King Palace.
Though he still clung to a sliver of wishful thinking, refusing to accept that he could lose, he knew that today would be a fight to the death against the Pope of Holy Polant. Crimson mana surged and climbed higher with every passing second.
“Lankeluosi, you despicable cur!”
Marquis Somerset had barely pieced his upper and lower halves back together. His fists clenched until his knuckles turned white, his body trembling slightly with mingled fury and terror.
“I reckon you want to sneak-attack me again.”
Rings of lightning rippled outward from beneath Lanqi’s feet, carving waves across the flagstones until an eternal radiance illuminated the entirety of Blood Moon City.
Through the brilliant flashes of electricity, his eyes stared down his opponents.
A celestial cascade of thunder roared like a swallowing deluge, an incandescent tempest engulfing all of Blood Moon City.
Before Marquis Somerset could even launch his ambush against the Pope, he was rendered completely immobilized.
“Using lightning magic that you aren't even adept at—don't look down on us too much!”
Of the three Progenitors, only Rasheal could barely move within this composite field of light and lightning, enduring the shock and paralysis.
Crimson mana surged violently around him, and his eyes turned pitch-black, like two bottomless voids.
Countless dark-red tentacles of psionic force whipped out from his body, blanketing the battlefield like a thorny briar forest.
“Lankeluosi, as long as you are still Lankeluosi, it is impossible for you to ignore the Mind Laceration I inflicted on you!” Rasheal sneered, sending the tentacles lashing straight toward Lanqi.
“You know, the power of your attack isn't even worth wasting mana to block.”
The instant the tentacles touched Lanqi, they shattered against an invisible barrier, exploding into motes of crimson light that dispersed into the air.
According to the debrief he and Talia had conducted earlier, this spell dealt no real physical damage; its primary purpose was inflicting debuffs.
With Lankeluosi’s magic resistance, he could face-tank it without issue.
And having taken it head-on, he truly felt nothing.
Their habit of thoroughly reviewing every battle was indeed a good one—ever since they began collaborating on card-making, once they started analyzing and debriefing, they could talk endlessly.
“...?”
Rasheal could not believe that the mental magic he took such pride in had achieved absolutely nothing.
He was ten thousand percent certain that this man was Lankeluosi. The body still bore the Mind Laceration he had carved into it; once triggered, it should have caused unimaginable agony.
Why could he ignore it?
Did his heart possess no scars at all?
“Are you really Lankeluosi?!”
Rasheal finally arrived at a terrifying conclusion that overturned all of his previous assumptions.
“Rasheal, you are even easier to beat than Talia.”
Lanqi's face remained placid, as though nothing had happened.
He raised his right hand. A bolt of lightning bright as daylight erupted from his palm, crashing toward Rasheal with the momentum of a thousand thunders.
Rasheal frantically conjured a crimson barrier to block the lethal blow, but where the lightning passed, the barrier tore like paper. The bolt struck Rasheal squarely in the chest, blasting his slender form backward until he slammed into the palace wall, carving out a massive crater.
“Who… is Talia?!”
Rasheal crawled out from the rubble with difficulty, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth.
He never imagined that the Pope of Holy Polant would possess not only such monstrous strength, but a mindset so fundamentally transformed that he was like an entirely different person.
The Pope’s bizarre words were practically an indirect admission that he wasn't Lankeluosi!
What Rasheal found even harder to swallow was that this “Talia” person sounded weak in the Pope's words—yet the Pope claimed he was inferior even to her!
“The only being capable of affecting me with mental magic,” the white-robed Pope replied.
Only then did Talia, who had been throwing a fit in his mind, finally settle down.
“I reject this! I don't accept it! You are not allowed to mock me like this!”
Rasheal roared, summoning another sky of blood-red tentacles that surged forward like demonic arms. They twisted and coiled, attempting to bind Lanqi's limbs, while a barrage of dark-red psionic strikes rained down in rapid succession.
Yet Lanqi did not dodge.
He walked straight toward Rasheal.
Once taken, that stride was completely unstoppable.
The moment the tentacles made contact with the white-robed Pope, they hissed as if plunged into blazing fire, bursting into nothingness.
“Get away from me!”
Rasheal’s eyes were bloodshot. He could not accept that his spells were utterly futile.
As the white-robed Pope closed the distance, every step caused Rasheal's mind to shudder in phantom agony.
His mana crumbled before the man like a castle of paper, collapsing in an instant.
Until the white-robed figure reached out and pressed a fingertip against Rasheal’s forehead.
Blazing white light swirled in his palm, burning like a scorching sun.
“Aaaaargh!!”
Rasheal let out a shrill, agonized scream, feeling as though thousands of needles were piercing his brain while his very soul caught fire.
Seizing the opening, Marquis Somerset, the Eighth Progenitor, dragged his battered body forward.
His muscles swelled, hardening like cast iron.
In the Blood King Palace, he was now the only one left who stood a chance of harming the Pope!
“You are not even a ten-thousandth of Talia.”
Lanqi raised a hand and tapped the air. Razor-sharp air blades manifested out of nothingness, screaming across the square in all directions.
Wherever they passed, the ground shattered, crisscrossing fissures spreading like spiderwebs.
Even though Duke Rasheal frantically conjured layer upon layer of barriers for Marquis Somerset, the edges of those air blades were simply too terrifying. They cleaved Somerset's entire body apart once more, and merely grazing Duke Rasheal's flank sliced his formal coat to shreds, leaving him soaked in blood.
Panicked, Marquis Heriteer knew Somerset could not be allowed to fall. She poured everything into reconstructing his body, working to restore him as if rewinding time itself.
The next moment, invisible mana suddenly locked the surrounding space.
“!”
She realized she had made a terrible move.
Heriteer felt as though she had been plunged into an abyss of ice, an unprecedented terror seizing every bone in her body.
Marquis Somerset had lost all consciousness, standing like an undead puppet.
Without anyone noticing, he had blinked behind her and Rasheal, his hands clamping vice-like around their slender necks.
Somerset held Marquis Heriteer and Duke Rasheal aloft like a pair of helpless chicks.
“Pope… you vile demon…”
Heriteer squeezed out a few words through gritted teeth, clawing futilely at Somerset’s wrists without budging them an inch.
The Pope had anticipated that she would pour all her strength into healing the weakened Somerset; instead of stopping her, he had seized the opening to wrest control of Somerset.
He was always one step ahead, predicting precisely when she would cast a spell and responding with magic completely outside her foresight.
This suffocating oppression drove her to burn her mana wildly, scouring the timeline for any juncture that might turn the battle, yet every single thread led to the exact same outcome: termination.
She collapsed to her knees in despair, the starlight shattering before her eyes, unable to guide her toward a single path forward.
“I spend twenty-four hours a day defending myself against an old hag reading my thoughts in my head. It would be strange if your divination worked on me.”
Pressing his advantage, Lanqi gathered brilliant white light in his palm and slashed it toward the Progenitors.
“Fuck you! You just had to repeat that line, didn’t you?!” Talia finally snapped, bursting into curses.
“How… can he be this strong…”
Heriteer trembled, muttering under her breath.
This was no longer something that could be described by the limits of Tier 9.
If she had to articulate her sensation, it was that she had encountered “God.”
An omniscient, omnipotent—God.
“This is the vicious demon you personally forged in this Blood Moon Ruined World era.” Lanqi extended his hand, and pitch-black, translucent stone pillars erupted from the ground, forming three indestructible sepulchers around them. “Of course, this might not be his strength alone. He simply happened to survive until the very end each time… inheriting everything his companions left behind…”
The three Progenitors struggled to break free, but their bodies were firmly pinned down by an invisible force, unable to budge.
The stone pillars sank slowly into the earth, dragging Seventh Progenitor Marquis Heriteer and Eighth Progenitor Marquis Somerset down into an endless abyss.
Only the strongest among them, Third Progenitor Duke Rasheal, was still resisting.
“Lankeluosi, do you truly think you’ve won?! Do you think we prepared nothing?!” Rasheal roared, coughing blood. “Do you think sealing us ends everything?!”
As his words fell, a chilling burst of manic laughter erupted from him.
The laughter reverberated over the ruins of the Blood King Palace, as if threatening to tear the very fabric of Blood Moon City apart.
“...”
The white-robed Pope remained silent.
“The Horning Empire—”
“The Horning Empire is already doomed. Every citizen in the south has been infected by the Second Progenitor's blood poison, and you are the one suppressing their transformation into demons. Once you are sealed, all the subjects of Horning will turn into demonic beasts, and the Holy Polant Papal Domain in the north will suffer the same fate!”
Lanqi beat him to the punch.
He laid out the answer for Rasheal.
“...”
Rasheal’s laughter choked off instantly, paying no heed to the blood he was coughing up.
The piercing laughter vanished from the palace plaza.
“No… impossible…”
Frenzied visions and scenes flickered through Rasheal’s trembling pupils.
“You were the prey, I was the hunter… It cannot be… It cannot be inverted like this…”
Gradually, completely, Rasheal seemed to understand.
Why Lankeluosi had made a massive scene in the Holy Polant Theocracy.
Why the one who backstabbed him was Saintess Xigelei, second only to him.
Why he had feigned madness to slaughter provinces across the Horning Empire indiscriminately before coming here.
All of it pointed to a single truth: he, Rasheal, had been played in the palm of Lankeluosi's hand from the very beginning.
“Oh, right, Rasheal.” Lanqi seemed to recall something and turned toward the Third Progenitor.
“Why did your True King abandon you?” Lanqi asked with genuine concern, looking at Rasheal as the stone pillars were about to shut him in.
Last time, at the very end, he had heard Rasheal say that had the First Progenitor, the True King of the Blood Clan, not abandoned them, they would never have been defeated.
“...”
Rasheal’s scarlet eyes gradually turned hollow before descending into utter madness.
“Shut up! Lankeluosi, I will kill you! Aaaaaaargh!!”
Rasheal screamed at the top of his lungs.
Dragged into the interlocked stone pillars, Duke Rasheal fought back with all his might in boundless rage, his eyes bloodshot, veins bulging, froth of blood bubbling at his lips.
“Come on, I was just asking out of concern. Why get so worked up?” Lanqi sighed, resting his hands on his hips in bafflement.
Driven by Lanqi's mana, the interlocking stone pillars let out a heavy groan like dungeon gates closing shut. As the gaps slowly narrowed, the reflections of emerald green and scarlet eyes were swallowed by total darkness.
Rasheal’s voice faded away.
At the same time, Blood Moon City trembled violently, forcing Lanqi to steady his footing and look up.
Above Blood Moon City, across the remnants of the Horning Empire that had not yet fallen, foul miasma billowed as a demonic frenzy erupted.
Though it had been a brilliant twilight not long ago, a sky-blotting miasma now enshrouded the entirety of the Horning Empire.
The cataclysm left behind by the Blood Clan arrived right on schedule.
Lanqi looked up, his gaze piercing far into the distance. The sky was smothered in ash-black and blood-red; a dead-gray sun hung weakly upon the horizon, devoid of heat and light.
“Lanqi, let’s go,” Talia said in his mind. “What comes next may be very long, but I will stay with you.”
She knew the road ahead was another bitter battle.
Yet since Lanqi had chosen to experience it personally, this was his cultivation and trial.
As his ever-diligent and responsible mentor, she would oversee his fight to the very end.
“Time for the final march north.”
The figure of the white-robed Pope vanished from the Blood King Palace.
When he reappeared, he stood above ground in St. Trick, the ruined capital of the Horning Empire.
Lanqi flew into the distance.
He had purged the south as much as possible.
Yet from central Horning northward, the land remained a living hell on earth. Further north, the Holy Polant Empire stood as the last sanctuary untouched by the demonic abyss.
An army of demonic humans was surging toward it, vast and unstoppable.
He had to see Lankeluosi’s final battle through to the end.
...
Several days later.
The northern border of Horning, Herslein Province.
Blood dyed the Oberon Canal crimson.
Tens of thousands of lives withered beneath the trampling of the demonic horde.
Far across the hellish front line, a lone figure remained deep within the Horning Empire, bathed in the blood of countless demonic humans, holding back the brunt of their offensive for the Holy Polant Empire.
By now, all his former grandeur had long since faded.
His once sacred white robes were dyed dark crimson by blood and filth. His arms, still gripping the scepter, were covered in wounds. The silver-white mask had shattered completely, exposing a face that could no longer maintain any disguise.
Blood seeped continually from the corners of his mouth, trickling down his chin to blend with the grim grime upon his body.
Above, the sky remained a murky, lifeless gray; below, the earth was riddled with scars.
Yet the Pope stood resolutely at the mouth of the abyss.
No one knew how long he had struggled in this hell, nor how many demonic humans he had slain.
His lifespan had crossed its expiration long ago, turning him into an undead.
The rules of death were eroding his willpower bit by bit, yet the embers of his sanity told him that he must hold back the demonic army.
His living-corpse body was decaying and disintegrating, flesh torn beneath cracked skin, internal organs nearly shattered. Every breath brought tearing agony, made worse by the curse gnawing at his soul.
Yet each additional spell he cast could save tens of thousands of innocent lives.
“Anomalous demonic entity sighted! Rear guard, halt!”
Shouts ordering ranks to form cut through the dead air.
Looking toward the sound, Lanqi saw a host of figures mounted on steeds clad in silver armor.
Glittering silver plate, gleaming spears, fluttering banners.
It was the Holy Polant Temple Knight Legion arriving from the north—the elite forces who had once sworn to follow the Pope into battle until death.
And at the vanguard of the legion—
Hand resting on her hilt, violet eyes showing signs of wavering, pale hair billowed in the harsh wind like a brilliant banner.
Seeing that figure, a flicker of relief rose in Lanqi’s heart.
With Xigelei here, holding off the next few waves of demonic humans would pose no problem.
Yet in the next second, when the Temple Knights got a clear look at the silhouette, they realized who this anomalous demonic entity was.
“Form ranks!!”
“Why has Pope Lankeluosi also turned into a demonic human?!”
Disbelief and horror washed over the knights' faces.
They drew sharp breaths of cold air thick with the stench of blood.
Every ornament adorning the demon pointed to one identity: the Pope of Holy Polant.
Those eyes, once gentle as warm jade, now gleamed with an eerie green light. Sunken sockets resembled two black abysses, ready to swallow the soul whole.
How could this be the Pope they once revered? He was unmistakably a terrifying monster!
Even knowing the Pope's fall was a tragic fate, seeing him reduced to this state brought a tearing ache to their hearts.
“Fall… fall back…!” the commander shouted tremulously, his voice cracking.
The silver-armored knights retreated in formation, their spears and lances leveled at the white-robed Pope.
Berserk demonic mutation would cause one’s original strength to skyrocket. If the Pope had succumbed, he would be unstoppable!
Now, everything depended on whether Her Majesty Xigelei could defeat him once again.
“Xigelei…”
Looking upon it all, the Pope’s eyes filled with a smile of release. The final ounce of strength keeping him upright crumbled and dispersed.
Fighting his dimming vision, he breathed her name.
His sight flickered and swayed.
“...”
He saw Xigelei weeping and crying out, screaming his name as she sprinted toward him.
Yet before she could reach him, the Pope's body reached the end of its long struggle.
The instant his skin cracked away, his flesh rotted, and his organs failed, even that noble head dissolved into black mist under the gnawing curse.
Xigelei lunged into empty air, finding only ornaments scattered across the soil.
“No… no, please…!”
Her mind blank, she collapsed to her knees, tears falling like broken pearls. Her frantic hands tried to gather the scattered remnants of the Pope, but they slipped through her fingers like loose sand.
Xigelei seemed to be repenting, pleading, continuously saying something.
Yet Lanqi could no longer hear.
Lanqi watched as his own body disintegrated bit by bit, turning to dust.
He could only allow his vision to be swallowed by black mist as Xigelei faded from sight.
The curse of Immortal Eternal Punishment granted the soul immortality, yet stripped away all five senses…
...
When Lanqi’s consciousness reassembled, he found himself back in that bizarre space.
To be precise, it could hardly be called a “space.”
There was no light, no sound, not a single trace of physical existence.
He remained tethered to the world, yet could touch nothing, see nothing, and share no sensations with any reality.
He was doomed to drift eternally in a realm beyond death’s reach.
As far as perception extended, there was only boundless darkness, poised to swallow the soul whole.
Lanqi stood within the black mist, completely unfazed this time, yet seemingly deep in thought.
Talia understood what Lanqi was thinking.
“This ending is too cruel to Xigelei.”
Talia could not shake the memory of Xigelei’s final appearance, a dull ache throbbing in her heart.
She knew Lanqi felt the same.
Although this was relatively the best possible outcome one could achieve in the Blood Moon Ruined World, Xigelei would now have to bear the burden of Lankeluosi's pain for the rest of her days.
“Sometimes, living is a punishment, while death is a release,” Lanqi said, shaking his head.
He had actually wanted to hear what Xigelei's final words to Lankeluosi were.
However, the uses of the Mirror of Tiberius had run out, leaving him with no chance to hear what she said.
Unless, after this Shadow World, he could acquire an image-recording treasure like Caliera's Shadow Loom.
“Come on, this is already fixed history from ten thousand years ago. Even if Lankeluosi felt indebted to Xigelei, you can't repay it for him, can you?”
Talia consoled Lanqi, speaking to him.
Unlike Lankeluosi's solitary fate, Lanqi still had her in this dark void.
Even now, she could share perception with him and keep his loneliness at bay.
“That is true,” Lanqi agreed.
“Still, when you think about it, Lankeluosi met two fated women in his life, yet neither ended well, leaving behind eternal regret,” Talia sighed wistfully.
To Lankeluosi, Xigelei was practically the beacon of light in the second half of his life. She gave him the drive to go on when he was at his most lost, understanding his heart at every turn. Over those twelve years, she was the person he trusted most, and the one who trusted him most—virtually another Lankeluosi. When it came to entrusting his very life at the end, she was the only one he could turn to.
Talia couldn’t help but wonder: if there truly was a reincarnation of destiny, an encounter across ten thousand years at first glance, whom would Lankeluosi choose…?
“But that was Lankeluosi's life. Whether it was filled with regrets or peace of mind is something only he can judge. Ending the Blood Moon Ruined World and fulfilling his lifelong wish could be considered a form of rest in its own way,” Lanqi replied, shaking his head.
“Why must a human life be so short?”
Having witnessed Lankeluosi's end, Talia's sorrow found nowhere to vent.
She now felt somewhat reluctant to accept that her little disciple was human.
If he agreed, she would love to transform him into her bonded familiar, sharing her lifespan with him.
“I keep feeling that Lankeluosi’s story isn’t over. If the dream I had back in Palieu, the City of Flowers, was connected to the Blood Moon Ruined World, then after dying and becoming an undead, Lankeluosi will meet another very important woman…” Lanqi murmured thoughtfully.
Yet the memories of that dream were too fragmented, and he could barely recall the details.
If the historical Lankeluosi had activated the Mirror of Tiberius three times and replicated the process and outcome of the third simulation in the real world to end the Blood Moon Ruined World, he would have turned into that black-mist specter, drifting through the world or lingering in places his intuition deemed familiar, waiting for someone to save him.
“I think I remember that.”
Talia recalled that back when Lanqi bought two Samsara Jades with her in Palieu, he had fallen asleep leaning against her on a bench by the Selena River.
Lanqi had had a very long dream.
In that dream, their roles were reversed—Lanqi had become a black-mist specter familiar, silently keeping her company as she sat upon the throne.
Later, when they crafted cards in Palieu using Caliera's Shadow Loom, he had had a similar dream.
He had dreamed of turning into a black-mist undead, lingering in the Headmaster's Office of Purgatory Corridor Academy,
where he met a little gray cat that could see him.
“Though I only have a faint impression of it,” Talia added.
Neither could reach a conclusion.
...
Lanqi and Talia experienced the world Lankeluosi witnessed after casting Immortal Eternal Punishment upon himself.
They chatted occasionally, lapsing into silence at other times.
Who knew how much time had passed.
The simulation inside the Mirror of Tiberius accelerated significantly, time flying by—yet no matter how fast time sped up, eternity remained eternity.
All they could do was wait for Tamisha outside the mirror to unplug the power source and save them.
“I wonder how long we’ll have to wait this time.” Even though a long time had passed, Talia was not panicked. “By the way, have you figured out how you'll put the final period on the Blood Moon Ruined World once we return to the Shadow World?”
As long as there was an end in sight, it was not that frightening.
“I’ve fought it three times already. I could fight the Blood Clan of this era with my eyes closed. In any case, Ninth Progenitor Marquis Bernhard definitely has to go down first,” Lanqi analyzed with complete confidence.
This time, he had instructed Tamisha to disconnect the power in the central power room after two hours. Calculating the time, it should be about due; he and Talia had waited quite a while.
“Wait, you're not planning to go to Demon Capital Naicalis to call in reinforcements, are you?”
Talia suddenly realized that if Lanqi couldn't wield Tier 9 power and couldn't use Immortal Eternal Punishment, the remaining alternative was to enlist the great demons. Naturally, this aligned perfectly with his playstyle as a grand summoner.
After all, once he deployed his sun, he left everything else to others.
“I'll definitely need Melogas to help me. I wonder if looking for her after just one day will make her think I'm being presumptuous,” Lanqi confirmed.
He firmly believed that heroes had a heroic way of fighting.
Even without Tier 9 power of his own, he would make the Blood Clan understand what it meant to have faction backing and connections in this world.
“No, no, no! The Lord of Blasphemy, Melogas… that look in her eyes is bloody repulsive! I don't want to see that woman!”
Just the thought of seeing that scorpion-tailed female demon again gave Talia goosebumps all over.
Just as they were passing the time conversing as usual, a faint sound broke the silence.
It was not telepathy.
It was a long-lost tangible sound, suddenly piercing the dark to awaken his senses.
The sound was so lively, so soft, like a kitten jumping onto a carpet.
“Is Tamisha here?”
Talia seemed to hallucinate a little gray cat leaping in from the empty black mist far away.
In the blink of an eye, it was gone.
“Likely so,” Lanqi answered, scanning the surroundings.
Before he could get another clear glimpse of where the little gray cat’s shadow had gone, the dark space began to flicker between light and gloom.
“Did you see a little gray cat too?” Talia asked in astonishment.
So it hadn’t been her imagination!
Then according to the results of the third simulation… long after turning into an undead, Lankeluosi would see a mysterious little gray cat?
“Yes,” Lanqi confirmed.
“The penalty of Immortal Eternal Punishment was the same as in the second simulation, so why didn't we see the cat the second time, but saw something different now?”
Talia had no time to ponder where the kitten came from, only feeling baffled.
“The ending of the second simulation was likely the annihilation of civilization, where the vast majority of living beings perished. But the ending of the third simulation was likely the world’s rebirth, where most life in the north survived, producing the person of destiny who could save Lankeluosi…” Lanqi offered his conjecture.
Before they could finish discussing it, the world blurred and flickered.
The void seemed unable to sustain itself.
A sliver of silver light pierced through layers of darkness.
In an instant, the endless darkness shattered beneath the dazzling glow.
The shackles and curses upon Lanqi melted away one by one.
He regained control of his body and could move again.
“...”
Lanqi stepped out from the Mirror of Tiberius, returning once more to the deepest underground reaches of Purgatory Corridor Academy, a place long absent from his conscious world.
It was a transparent chamber seemingly cocooned by the eternal night sky. Sparse starlight scattered around, providing just enough illumination to see clearly.
Within this core room, it was a world apart from the academy above.
The hallucinatory walls swallowed most light and echoes, leaving only the sound of a heated pulse.
Feeling the beat of his heart, he was certain he was alive once more.
The trial of the Lord of Inversion required one to cross repeatedly between life and death; only those who transcended death could obtain the future from him.
“Welcome back,” Tamisha said to him, holding the power cable in one hand.
To her, only a brief moment had passed.
Yet the phantom demon wore that expression again.
“It’s you…”
Perhaps the light in the central power room was too glaring, or perhaps standing up had caused his vision to dim, but Lanqi fell into a daze.
He stood blankly before the Mirror of Tiberius, gazing at Tamisha's silhouette, which so resembled a gray cat.
Tamisha’s youthful face gradually began to overlap with the blurry image of the gray-haired demon girl from Lanqi’s dream.
“Tamisha… I’m back.”
Lanqi slowly smiled—a warm, relieved smile.
It was a smile of a heavy burden lifted.
And like a smile of parting, knowing he could finally leave this era in peace.
“Why are you looking at me and smiling?” Tamisha asked the phantom demon.
Her speech was perpetually flat; questions sounded just like statements.
She had noticed that every time the phantom demon emerged from the Mirror of Tiberius, his mental state was exhausted and volatile, which worried her greatly.
She raised both hands, signaling to him that she could give him a hug.
“Tamisha, perhaps in the far future, I will have to rely on you to save me once again,” Lanqi said, stepping forward to embrace her small figure.
“What do you mean?” Tamisha shifted her head and asked Lanqi.
This phantom demon was powerful enough to protect her from Melogas—why would he ask for her protection?
“You will understand in the future.”
Likely a century later, Tamisha would grow into a young demon girl, old enough to attend Purgatory Corridor Academy.
By then, she would no longer remember who this black-mist undead was, and the fragmented spirit would have lost his memories as well.
Yet the halves of life-soul Caliera had left to each of them would eventually tie their destinies together.
This was the dream only Lanqi, from ten thousand years later in the present world, knew.
At this point in history, Lankeluosi would not yet have known who could potentially save him in the future.
Yet Lanqi already understood.
He understood everything.
“Could Lankeluosi have a third fated woman…?” Talia murmured in a daze.
She too was beginning to understand what kind of story would unfold after the end of the Blood Moon Ruined World.
But that was a tale for another time.
“How long from now would that be?” Tamisha asked naively.
She had little concept of time and numbers.
“Perhaps a century,” Lanqi released her, answering with a smile.
“Then that is fine. I will protect you.” Tamisha breathed a sigh of relief, offering the largest number she knew. “My promise is valid for one hundred thousand years. May the Goddess of Fate be our witness.”
She hooked her little finger around the phantom demon’s pinky, making her vow.
Chapter 793