Deep within the boundless expanse of the starry realm, an endless stretch of tranquil darkness lay thick with moonflowers, night lavender, and other blooms.
Within that darkness, a woman rose to her feet — draped in layered but unadorned robes of deep black, studded with countless points of brilliance, as if she'd dressed herself in the night sky's own stars.
She glanced sideways in one direction, the corner of her mouth curling into a smile.
Suddenly, her form began expanding rapidly. From between her ribs, from her waist, two more arms sprouted on each side, their surface covered in short, deep-black fur.
In moments, she had become a giant with six arms.
She took a single step forward, her massive body seeming to erase itself, like chalk wiped from a slate. When she reappeared, she stood in another realm within the starry expanse — a place suspended somewhere between chaos and stillness.
Throughout this realm, an ominous fog hung heavy in the air.
"Finally found you, Chike."
The words had barely left her mouth when a woman, easily ten-some meters tall, stepped out of the fog.
She wore a gown that seemed woven from bone, her black hair like venomous serpents, thick, long, and slick, some ending in serpent heads of their own, others simply rolling with sharp, black-and-white eyes — her face more beautiful than anything else in the world.
Compared to the Sequence 1 "Goddess of Beauty," the Sequence 0 Primordial Witch was true beauty made concept.
"Why?"
Chike genuinely couldn't understand.
Shouldn't Amenisis's priority right now be absorbing the Death Pathway as quickly as possible, then finding an opening to go to war with the War God? Why had she inexplicably come after her first, out of nowhere?
Surely this wasn't about some old grudge left over from the Fourth Epoch?
From what Chike knew of Amenisis, that wasn't the kind of person she was.
So then, why?
Wasn't she afraid of getting hurt in a fight like this, only to hand the War God an opening?
"Aren't you worried this will leave the barrier undefended?"
The Goddess of the Evernight, of course, understood exactly what confused Chike, but she only smiled faintly. "Someone once told me a saying, a long time ago — before resisting outside threats, first settle matters within."
"I'd rather not have you suddenly leap out of the mirror world someday, while we're all pouring everything we have into fighting off the outer gods, and catch us completely off guard."
"Don't you agree? First one in the mirror?"
"..."
Chike froze, a flicker of realization crossing her stunningly beautiful eyes. "So that's it. No wonder — during the Pale Calamity, everyone else backed off once Salinger was dead, but you kept coming after me with everything you had. You already knew about this back then?"
Her tone shifted. "Is this because of that man again?"
The smile faded from the Evernight Goddess's lips. She said nothing more, simply advancing with heavy steps. Of her six hands, two drew out a massive, heavy black scythe; two more cradled a crimson "moon"; one of the remaining hands gripped an unadorned ancient sword, while the last clutched what looked like a golden, ancient ornament.
That ornament was shaped like a slender bird, wings formed from pale flame surrounding it, its bronze eyes layered with light that seemed to form door after illusory door.
Chike's face changed. "You... you'd already secretly claimed the Death Pathway's Authority. I should have known — you're the one who's kept the deepest, most cunning secrets all along."
Her own form swelled outward just as suddenly, growing to match the Evernight Goddess's size, her head full of venomous-serpent hair whipping wildly as she laughed. "Hahahaha, honestly, I can't understand it — someone like you, actually willing to bear a child for someone else?"
BOOM!
The divine war had begun.
...
Red Rose Manor.
A woman in a black gown, dotted with stars, appeared before the house hidden within the mirror world, as if sketched into existence with rapid strokes of chalk.
She held a notebook in one hand, an unremarkable quill in the other, and wrote a few brief lines in the notebook without much apparent thought.
Half a minute later —
The Sequence 3 demigod suddenly launched a ferocious attack. After Clarisse dodged it, he slammed hard into the massive mirror instead, the impact ringing out with a deep boom.
Creak. Creak.
Instantly, cracks spread across the mirror's surface like a spiderweb, rapidly branching further, until finally, with a sharp crack, the mirror shattered completely.
At almost the exact same moment, the Hunter who'd shattered the mirror seemed to take massive damage himself — his own body suddenly cracking apart just like the glass had, on the verge of shattering too.
Facing the threat of death, the Hunter's expression twisted violently. With a furious roar, his body began expanding rapidly, sprouting flame-wreathed flesh, transforming into a towering giant of fire.
This was the Hunter Pathway's Mythical Creature Form.
The Mythical Creature Form's extraordinary regenerative power canceled out the damage he'd just taken, restoring his cracked body, pulling him back from the brink of death, and he lunged straight at Clarisse.
At equal Sequence, the best answer to a Mythical Creature Form was to become one yourself — and so Clarisse's black hair rapidly transformed into a mass of venomous serpents, their eyes flashing with a petrifying light.
While the two Sequence 3s fought to the death, the woman in the black dress strolled calmly into the mirror world. By now, under the shockwaves of divine presence, the whole space had begun tilting, buckling, nearly collapsing — only the room where Klein sat remained intact.
The ring of witches around the altar had been stripped of their lives the instant the god descended, their corpses twisted afterward by the divine presence's contamination into a handful of misshapen monsters.
Klein sat cross-legged at the center of the altar, head tilted back as if gazing up at the sky, his eyes utterly without light — as though he were dead.
His features hadn't changed further, but compared to his own natural look, he now appeared far more alluring, far more strikingly beautiful. His hair, which had briefly turned to venomous serpents, had returned to normal — though it remained long.
In other words, Klein, without using the Faceless ability at all, now looked, unmistakably, like a beautiful, long-haired woman.
"Oh, you're here?"
Amon turned to look at the woman in the black dress as she stepped into the room, a teasing smile crossing his face. "I knew it. After all the trouble Amenisis went to, there's no way she'd just leave him here unattended."
The woman in black looked at Klein quietly for a moment, then turned to Amon. "Let's make a deal."
"Oh? Go on, I'm listening."
"I'll give you the Source Fortress. In exchange, you'll do something for me in the future."
"Pfft."
Amon looked like he was struggling not to laugh outright. "If I wanted the Source Fortress, do you really think I'd need you to 'give' it to me?" He paused. "And besides — this kid's Amenisis's chosen candidate, isn't he? Does she even know you're handing the Source Fortress over to me?"
The woman in black shook her head. "She probably won't have time to worry about that right now. By the time everything's settled, she'll have no choice but to accept it."
"Ooh, a mother-daughter feud — I do love a good one!"
"No. I just think — rather than backing a complete stranger to become the future Lord of Mysteries, it'd be better for it to be you. At least I understand you, to some degree."
"Hahahaha."
Amon laughed. "Dear niece, after all that sweet talk, isn't this really just about getting me to help you find your father?"
He instinctively brushed a finger against the monocle over his right eye. "After all, if I want to reach that far myself, the first step is finding him — and taking back the half of the Uniqueness he's holding."
To be continued…
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