Within the Netherworld, inside the palace of some death god.
An old man clad in a plain black robe felt the tremors rising from the ground and shook his head slightly.
"The Crystal Barrier… this is the power of the Tablet of Fate… so it fell into the wizards' hands, heh heh… The key to the Crystal Barrier ended up in the hands of the gods' most hated enemies—isn't that the height of irony?"
The old man possessed the most ordinary of human faces, save for a pair of eyes that burned with keen intelligence, brimming with the light of ancient wisdom.
And yet, were anyone to learn his true identity, they would be struck with astonishment beyond measure.
For he was the primordial God of
"Moreover, the appearance of the Nightmare Serpent heralds the arrival of all endings…"
Yeg sighed slowly, and in those pitch-black pupils, a faint glimmer of light stirred.
"When the End rises, the Eternal Radiance shall also emerge…"
……
BOOM—!
The Crystal Barrier—sprawling without limit, honeycomb-like in its structure—shattered in rapid succession, as though a colossal wound had been torn open in the
Both worlds trembled. Both worlds roared. Amidst flashes of golden light, Sivanas descended upon the boundary where the two worlds converged, trailed by the host of mighty gods.
"Wizards! You shall face the judgment of the Supreme God, burned for hundreds of millions of years in the wrath of the gods!"
The Four Elemental Gods thundered in unison. The four elemental planes of the multiverse materialized—terrifying forces of earth, fire, wind, and water rising into towering waves to repel the invasion of the
"The War of the End cannot be avoided!!!"
Under Leilin's lead, the assembled eighth-rank peak wizards launched their counterstrike.
BOOM—!
Original Sin, Darkness, Earth, Life—each of the great Paths, as ancient and vast as the Astral Plane itself, manifested as titanic driving forces. Steadily, implacably, they shoved the Wizard World into the Gods' World, accelerating the fusion of the two.
A wave of terrifying resonance rippled through the entirety of the multiverse. Whether the Material Plane or the Upper and Lower Planes, all were rocked by cataclysmic earthquakes.
Tectonic plates collided in violent upheaval, unleashing enormous kinetic energy that reshaped every plane beyond recognition. Countless beings fled in helpless panic, wailing as though the end of all things had come.
Threads of the Wizard World's rules forced their way in, intertwining and binding with the fabric of the Gods' World. In the unseen depths of reality, a wondrous transformation began to take shape.
These two great worlds had always been the sole inhabitants of the Astral Plane, each possessing qualities that complemented the other.
Now, as the Wizard World merged in, a tremendous gravitational pull formed between them—dictated by the very essence of both worlds, and serving as the dawn from which the Eternal would be born!
The Sea of Primal Force. The Pantheon.
BANG!
Upon the loftiest throne of the Supreme God, the magnificent, radiant crystals of the World shattered one after another. An意志 of staggering power awakened and let out a terrifying roar.
"It's the
The faces of the peak wizards tightened.
BOOM!
In the span of a single instant, they beheld a vague, luminous figure—enveloped in blinding light and seemingly embodying every aspect of the Gods' World—materialize at the convergence point of the two great worlds.
"Supreme God…"
The gods bowed in reverence. "We beseech you—exercise the authority of the entire Pantheon and halt the coming apocalypse!"
For the Will of the Gods, devouring the Wizard World and ascending to a higher plane held equal allure. But that did not mean it was willing to be devoured in return!
There was a vast difference between being the eater and being eaten.
And so, even though it had been slumbering, even though it had suffered a devastating blow not long before, it struck without a shred of hesitation!
Leilin himself was already an eighth-rank peak wizard, a single step away from the ultimate realm of the ninth-rank Grand Wizard. He had long made numerous speculations about the strength that realm commanded.
But only when he truly witnessed the Supreme God—a being with the bearing of the ninth rank—make its move did he realize that, despite having already inflated his estimates of the ninth rank's power, his understanding had been laughably incomplete. A being who truly commanded the forces of space and time wielded might that he, in his current state, could not even begin to fathom.
To bear the laws of space and time upon the foundation of one's own Path—to command the forces of space and time! That was the hallmark of a ninth-rank Grand Wizard!
And the Will of the Gods had already unmistakably ventured into that domain.
At the junction of the two great worlds, all forms of teleportation had been forbidden—yet the enemy had appeared there in the blink of an eye, a testament to its horrifying comprehension of spatial law.
When the Supreme God truly unleashed its power, Leilin finally grasped just how shallow his prior见识 had been, and how absurd it now seemed.
BOOM—! The Sea of Primal Force descended, carrying with it the full might of the Pantheon.
CRACK! CRACK!
Only the power of their respective Paths still allowed them a semblance of thought, preventing even their True Spirits from being frozen solid.
"Is this the power of the ninth rank? Below the eighth-rank peak… one cannot even resist—no, cannot even think…"
Leilin's eyes were heavy with gravity, and the Chip's light flickered frantically.
[Ding! Partial spatial laws detected. Simulation in progress…]
The Chip recorded everything at breakneck speed, collecting data on the ninth-rank being's spatial forces and charting a course for Leilin's future.
But the Supreme God's most terrifying aspect had only just been revealed.
After freezing space, the Wizard World's invasion had been halted as well. The enemy's spatial power had sealed off an entire colossal world!
Then, something even more horrifying occurred.
"What's happening?"
Leilin stared in disbelief as the Wizard World's invasion began to recede. Even the laws of fusion were unraveling—as though the entire world were a bizarre silent film running in reverse.
"Just now… the Will of the Gods appeared, but why is there a gap in my memory? Could it be…"
Leilin's gaze sharpened as he turned his attention to the Chip.
[Spatial law deduction… interrupted by unknown interference. Deduction failed…]
[Partial temporal laws captured. Proceed with deduction?]
……
A handful of unfamiliar messages flickered across the Chip's display, and Leilin felt cold sweat bead upon his forehead.
"
A violent chill surged through Leilin's heart.
"If this law were applied to an eighth-rank peak wizard, it could potentially rewind his body's temporal coordinates by tens of thousands of years—to a point before he had even condensed his Path… This is power sufficient to slay a peak wizard!!!"
The terrifying Temporal Law hung over peak wizards like the Sword of Damocles, always suspended above their heads!
"What peak wizards proudest of is that their True Spirit's coordinates along the River of Time have fused with their Path, granting them infinite lifespans… but the power of Temporal Law could send them back to their most vulnerable state…"
Leilin was beginning to understand why the Will of the Gods and the Will of the Wizards each commanded a great world, and why so many eighth-rank peak wizards bowed before them.
To command the forces of space and time—if not outright dominion over life and death for other peak wizards, it was close enough.
"Probably… none of the other peak wizards have reacted yet, because their time has been rolled back and they're missing a segment of memory…"
Leilin sighed inwardly.
Only he—who walked the Path of Original Sin and had already brushed the apex of that Path—had sensed that something was wrong. The Chip had confirmed it.
"A ninth-rank Grand Wizard is not something I can deal with right now… Let another ninth-rank handle it…"
Leilin sneered inwardly and silently sent out a signal.
BOOM—!
In the Wizard World, the earth cracked open, revealing the profound seven-layered subterranean world.
And in the deepest, most lightless depths, the Wizard World's consciousness—long dormant—was roused as though provoked, awakening with startling swiftness.
The tremor originating from the very source of space and time finally jolted the eighth-rank peak wizards back to awareness, restoring a measure of their mobility.
"Leilin! Get over here! The Supreme God's power exceeds even our imagination!"
Mother of the Earth's Core screamed. "Quick—activate the Two-World Plan!!!"
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
Leilin, Mother of the Earth's Core, Enosite, and the native wizards of the Wizard World gathered together.
"With our very essences… we summon the Will of the Wizard World!"
The entire Wizard World shuddered. Deep beneath the surface, the Wizard Will's surrounding network of purple threads severed in an instant, unleashing a burst of overwhelming power.
SHOOM!
Possessing an equally profound mastery of spatial law, the Wizard Will shattered the spatial seal in a single move and descended upon the junction of the two worlds.
"WIZARDS!!!!"
"GODS!!!!"
Without a single word or provocation needed, these two supreme world-wills clashed and instantly plunged into a life-or-death struggle.
Light!
Blinding white light!
The forces of space and time shuddered, radiating brilliance of searing intensity. Within that radiance, the two most powerful world-wills collided head-on. Divergent forces of space and time interweaved and scattered—mere aftershocks sufficient to annihilate seventh- and even eighth-rank wizards, grievously wounding those at the peak.
"Fall back! Get out of here—now!"
In that moment, whether the enigmatic and formidable wizards or the glorious and exalted gods, all were reduced to the helplessness of ordinary mortals, scrambling to flee before a catastrophe that shattered heaven and earth.
The sheer brilliance was enough to blind even beings of pure law.
When that radiance reached its zenith, a catastrophic explosion erupted.
A surging torrent instantly engulfed the boundary between the two great worlds, annihilating everything in its path—and yet, seemingly gestating something new within, pulsing with an enigmatic resonance and emitting an eerie, mysterious radiation.