Veridian no longer hid.His figure passed through the stained-glass window etched with infernal scenes without making a single sound.The moment he crossed, the glass dissolved into formless dust, as if quietly erased by the passage of time.Inside the cathedral.The blood pool boiled.Thick sin-born power rose like visible black mist, spiraling upward, flooding into the hovering shard of the jet-black “key.”The last trace of impurity upon the shard’s surface was fading. Soon, it would crystallize into pure, unblemished evil.The ritual had reached its end.The “Shadow Demon,” a mass of writhing, twisted darkness, whispered with greedy satisfaction.It was about to obtain a perfect, inexhaustible source of sin.And then—it sensed the intruder.A presence cold, kindred to its own essence, yet more absolute, more elevated—pure void.“Who—?”The whisper turned into a hiss of vigilance.From the cathedral dome’s shadow, Veridian slowly descended, landing at the edge of the blood pool.He

Viridian’s silhouette withdrew from the shadows of Phantom City and, in the next instant, returned to the sealed chamber of the Sanctum Workshop.Outside chaos and bloodshed were cut off completely. Inside, only cold metal and absolute silence remained.He closed his eyes and let his will sink into the deepest place of his soul.There, two key fragments floated in stillness.One was the remnant of the Law of Termination—black, fathomless, exuding the ancient breath that withers all things toward their end.The other had been utterly purified by Lilith’s primordial essence: clear, crystalline, like a gem holding billions of stars, the very root of birth and existence.Viridian’s will, like an invisible hand, nudged the two fragments closer together.The expected surge of additive power did not come. Instead, an unprecedented resonance unfurled.A subtle vibration rolled through his spirit.The aura of Ending, upon touching the Primordial Fragment, did not annihilate it. It was moderate

An answer unfolded in Viridian’s mind, cold and precise like a self-deduced formula.He needed an external, controllable, colossal “reactor.”A vessel capable of bearing and transforming the violent force of the Twinborn Law.His will leapt across vast distance, descending once more upon the city that had just drowned in blood-soaked frenzy—Phantom City.Now, the city lay in a strange silence. Flames still burned, corpses piled in alleys, but the slaughter had ceased. Survivors hid in ruins, numbed and trembling, licking their wounds.At the city’s center, Viridian’s proxy—the shadow puppet he had forged—stood like a silent monarch, maintaining the most basic “quiet.”But Viridian saw neither ruins nor death.What he perceived was fuel.Everywhere, raw and unrefined, lay the finest kind of fuel.The entire city itself was a mine brimming with the concepts of &ld

The endless skies above Silver Sail City were split open by a crimson storm. Thunder rolled like the drums of war, and the very air tasted of iron and ash. The ancient bells within the city rang, their solemn toll warning of an approaching catastrophe.From the depths of the blood-red clouds emerged a figure. He was wrapped in rotting robes, his flesh crawling with festering sores, his skeletal hands clutching a crooked staff fashioned from decayed bone. Where he passed, plagues walked with him.The first of the Apocalypse Knights had arrived.Pestilence.His aura was not mere disease, nor was it corruption in the ordinary sense. It was law itself, the authority of contagion—the rewriting of existence into a state of decay.The moment his presence touched the borders of Silver Sail City, the consequences were immediate.Stone towers groaned as their foundations grew porous, riddled with invisible mold. The proud banners of the city withe

This war was not merely about seizing fragments or fighting over resources. It was far deeper, a struggle waged at the level of source code itself—a battle between existence and nonexistence.Viridian’s will, like that of a sovereign overlooking an endless chessboard, calmly observed the simultaneous wars raging at Silver Sail City and Phantom City. Every movement, every clash, every collision of laws—he had accounted for them all. Everything was under control. Or so he believed.But then, without sound, without warning, a third alarm detonated in the deepest part of his soul.This was no system notification, no network transmission. It was far more primal. It came directly through the core link he shared with Lilith—his most vital tether.Far away, hidden within the folds of dimensional seams, lay a sanctuary. Viridian had built this place for one purpose alone: to safeguard Lilith. It was meant to be an absolute safe zone, untouc