So, there were a few things to address.First of all, the second Twin Emperor turned out to be quite different from the first one. Rather than carrying around a staff and wearing robes, he had durable metal armor and carried a massive two-handed sword on his back at all times. While Jake avoided the guy, he was confident that this second half of the Twin Emperor was a far more physical fighter.Secondly, this entire war was indeed a plot by the Twinhead Ogre. In traditional Nevermore fashion, information was left out in the open within the main residence of the second Twinhead Emperor, which Jake had managed to successfully sneak into after the boss left the capital—likely to meet up with his other counterpart.In the home of the boss, Jake found written records, as well as some books and even communications from the other Twin Emperor, where they discussed what they were doing. To summarize, the Twinhead Ogre wasn’t native to the Vast Plateau; he had ended up there after his own home

Jake deserved a goddamn award for his performance as the mysterious yet powerful Lord of Hunger. Ah, not those awards given for good acting, but those reserved for extremely shitty performances… because hot damn, had Jake felt embarrassed while saying his lines.He could at least partly excuse how horrible it was by blaming sim-Jake a little. In order to really sell it, Jake had infused his body with curse energy and even sent it out of Eternal Hunger while mixing it with his presence. Shit, he’d gone so far as to summon his Eternal Shadow to overlap with his own body during the entire thing.This did inadvertently result in Jake being affected by his own curse energy. No way around it. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for Jake to feel like he could blame the remnants of cringe on sim-Jake. At least his party members were kind enough to not say anything during or after his speech.Not that they had much to complain about… because their plan had worked. Without them even having to use

From the very first moment Jake laid eyes on the ritual circle, he’d known there was no way the Twinhead Emperor would be capable of absorbing all the energy contained in the bone spheres. Each sphere held the death energy and curse energy of hundreds, if not over a thousand, dead C-grades alone. This wasn’t even mentioning the uncountable D- and E-grades who had also senselessly fallen in the conflict created by the Twin Emperors.Even if the boss had filtered much of the energy out to only absorb the pure Records, there was still a lot left over. This energy had all merged into the semi-intangible ritual circle, which remained mostly untouched despite all the physical destruction.Now, the Twinhead Emperor was going to reclaim this energy as he stood in the center and raised his staff high. In their initial plans, they had expected the Twinhead Emperor to absorb the energy to help heal. This was still part of the boss’s plan, but Jake realized they had once again underestimated thei

Jake and his party were faced with a choice… run away and drag things out until the Twinhead Emperor’s empowered state ended, or try and fight back while buying time. Directly confronting the boss was definitely not advised—something they were all in agreement with. Jake usually wasn’t a fan of just running away, but if his party decided to do just that, he wouldn’t object.“We should retreat for now—fighting directly is too risky,” the Sword Saint quickly said as he received some emergency healing from Dina. She couldn’t restore his resources or cure fatigue, but she could get him back in temporary fighting condition… or at least well enough to launch one more good attack.“I concur,” the Fallen King instantly agreed.“Me too—” Dina tried to say, but she was cut off by the boss.“You wish to flee? To drag things out? You all seem to thoroughly misunderstand something.” The Twinhead Emperor’s staff began to light up. Jake felt the entire environment shift as the mana all around them t

To a C-grade, while fifty years wasn’t considered a very long time, it was definitely still a significant part of their lives, especially for those from the new universe, who were all very young by multiversal standards. For many, it was even a majority of their lives, truly highlighting the pure momentum of the natives in a new universe.For another group who had also been heavily involved in Nevermore, fifty years was but the blink of an eye. The gods who kept an eye on everything that was happening—either inside Nevermore themselves or outside and using messengers they sent in—hardly ever considered fifty-year period to be of any consequence. But when a new universe was integrated, things always got exciting.The Records were flowing freely, as the system was more active than ever, throwing events and special happenings around everywhere—and not just for those in the new universe, even if the majority were for the newly integrated.To the gods, this was a prime opportunity to grasp